State Report Cards 2024-25

This week, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) released the School and District Report Cards for 2023-24. DPI is required by state statute (Wis. Stat. 115.385) to generate a school report card and district report card for every publicly funded school and district in the state. The report cards are intended to help schools and districts use performance data to celebrate successes and improve their efforts to prepare students for their futures. These public report cards can be found online, see: Report Cards Home.

Background - Assessment vs. Report Cards

Report cards are different from assessments.

• Report cards are provided annually and give information to parents and communities about how their school or school district are performing by presenting data on different topics.

• Report cards include data on multiple indicators for multiple years across four Priority Areas (Achievement, Growth, Target Group Outcomes, and On-track to Graduation), as well as course and program participation information for grades 9-12.

• Though assessment data are a component of report cards, report cards are scored using multiple additional non-assessment-based measures, including attendance, chronic absenteeism, and graduation.

• Assessment-based measures of Achievement and Growth are scored using a weighted average of three years of data — not just the most recent year.

• By state law, the Achievement and Growth priority areas of report cards are weighted based on the percentage of economically-disadvantaged students within a school/district. Some schools and districts have these priority areas weighted differently than others, reflecting each district’s student population

Achievement Scoring Updates for 2023-24 Report Cards

Assessments underwent a necessary update in 2023-24 – including updates in performance level cut scores – to align with recent updates in Wisconsin Academic Standards in ELA and mathematics. This process takes place whenever there are updates to academic standards.

• Updated cut scores better reflect the performance of Wisconsin students on assessments. More information on updates to the Forward Exam are available in the 2024 Wisconsin Forward Exam Performance Level Standard Setting resource. More information on updates to the ACT and Pre-ACT Secure are available in the 2024 Wisconsin ACT Performance Level Standard Setting resource.

• Due to these assessment updates, scoring for student achievement on 2023-24 school and district report cards was modified to allow for system stability and for schools and districts to compare this year’s report cards to report cards from 2022-23. 2023-24 School and District Report Cards – Communicating with Your Community 2

o The DPI “scale adjusted” 2023-24 achievement scores to align with the 2022-23 achievement distribution to allow for comparability, which, in effect, lowers achievement scores. More information on this adjustment is available in the What’s New for the 2023-24 School and District Report Cards resource.

o If a school/district's scale-adjusted achievement subject area score was lower than the subject area score on the 2022-23 report card, the 2022-23 achievement subject area score was used instead. Therefore, all schools and districts will have 2023-24 achievement scores that are equal to or greater than 2022-23 scores.

• This one-year scoring change applies only to 2023-24 report cards.

o Over the next year, the DPI will convene a group of educators to help align report card cut scores to accurately communicate the success of schools and districts in the future.

Growth Priority Area

• The Growth priority area measures changes in student performance over time using a value-added methodology, as required under state law.

• The scoring of Growth is normative, meaning scores are calculated by comparing how students performed relative to similar students across the state.

o Students are compared using the following variables: prior test scores, economic status, race/ethnicity, disability status, gender, and English learner status.

o This differs from how Achievement is measured, where a school’s or district’s score can increase or decrease regardless of the performance of other schools and districts.

• Growth scores are calculated by reviewing the change in students’ actual test scores and comparing their results to “average growth” for similar students across the state.

o For example, if a student has a higher test score increase from the previous year as compared with similar students across the state, that student will have a high growth score.

• Because scoring is based on performance relative to similar students, an increase in assessment scores from one year to the next does not necessarily mean that Growth scores will also increase.

o For example, if a school’s assessment scores have increased, but student test scores have increased to a lesser degree than similar students across the state, that school’s Growth score may be lower.

• Updates to 2023-24 assessment performance level cut scores do not impact Growth scores.

• Schools with high achievement scores are not penalized – their students are compared to similar students across the state (including similar high-achieving students) using the variables listed above.