A look at Milwaukee’s School Report Cards in 2023

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction released 2022–23 School and District Report Cards this week. These data, which also include Spring 2022 state assessment results, give us a clear — and sobering — picture of the performance of Milwaukee’s students and schools.

This year’s Report Cards are the first to not include any pre-COVID data, and last year’s state testing results are the first to not be impacted by pandemic-era school disruptions: no widespread closures and quarantines, no waivers from federal and state testing requirements, and participation rates for all schools returned to near pre-pandemic levels.

We’ve provided a summary of the data and the CFC team’s takeaways from our initial analysis of the results, and we are sharing a link to a sortable spreadsheet with proficiency and Report Card results for all Milwaukee schools. Please reach out to us with any questions or comments, and be on the lookout for additional policy and data resources from CFC in the coming weeks.

The Numbers

Citywide Proficiency:

Report Card Results:

Find school-by-school results for all Milwaukee schools here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M_iXaB26ROXILwpqKelQgxExxrBfPB2I-0-xbXfvTJg/edit#gid=1908407585

Find School & District Report Cards on DPI’s website here: https://apps2.dpi.wi.gov/reportcards/

NOTE: It’s important to remember that Report Cards reflect student performance from last school year (2022–23). They do not reflect the current year work of schools, nor as of yet do they show the impact of the increased funding secured during this past spring’s Equal Funding Campaign.

CFC’s Key Takeaways

1. Milwaukee’s students remain in an academic crisis.

• Across the board, student proficiency rates in remain below pre-pandemic levels. Fewer than one in five Milwaukee students are meeting grade level expectations in ELA and Math — including fewer than 1 in 7 Hispanic students, and fewer than 1 in 10 Black students.
• More than one in three Milwaukee students continues to attend a school that is not Meeting Expectations (1–2 stars). Just 11 Milwaukee schools (2 MPS-operated, 1 charter, and 8 private schools) earned the highest, 5-star rating (Significantly Exceeds Expectations) — this is 6 fewer schools than a year earlier.

2. Report Cards continue to paint a distorted picture of student outcomes in Milwaukee — in particular, because of how Achievement and Growth scores are weighted.

• Citywide, 62% of students are enrolled in schools that earned Report Card ratings of Meets Expectations (3 stars) or higher — despite fewer than 20% of students meeting grade-level proficiency expectations.
• This is because for schools with high percentages of low-income students — including most all Milwaukee schools — growth is weighted to be 9x as important as proficiency in the state Report Cards. Meanwhile, for most other Wisconsin schools, growth and proficiency are more evenly balanced in calculating Report Card results.
• As just one example of how the Report Card’s weighting masks student outcomes in Milwaukee schools, this year: A school with ELA proficiency of 1.9% and Math proficiency of 0.6% earned an Exceeds Expectations (4-star) rating, while another school with ELA proficiency of 33.5% and Math proficiency of 27.8% only earned a Meets Expectations (3-star) rating

3. While the overall picture for Milwaukee students is sobering, there were bright spots.

• Citywide, we saw a 6 percentage point reduction in the number of students enrolled in our lowest-performing, 1-star schools, (Fail to Meet Expectations).
• In every school sector, a majority of students now attend schools rated Meets Expectations or higher (3–5 stars): 51.9% of students in MPS-operated schools, 74.3% of students attending public charter schools, and 80.6% of students enrolled in private schools through the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
• Across almost all subgroups, we saw either stable or increasing numbers of students enrolled in schools rated 3+ stars — with the notable exception of Black students, who experienced a 2.5% decline in students in schools that Meet or Exceed Expectations.

4. There are two critical improvements that state policymakers should make to the Report Card, to improve the usefulness of this information for families and for schools.

1. Assessment results and Report Card ratings should be published before September 1st, the start of the next school year. WI is among the last states in the nation to release its Report Card results — peer states make this data available as early as July. Providing last year’s performance results more than one-quarter of the way through the next school year doesn’t give schools or families the timely information they need to inform their planning and decision-making.
2. Report Cards should reflect a more balanced approach to weighting proficiency and growth — and one that is consistent across all schools. Report cards should fairly value BOTH how much a student learns in a school year (growth), AND whether that student is on track to meet grade-level expectations (proficiency). CFC has been a long-standing advocate for this change, including in policy briefs, op-eds, and public testimony before the state Legislature.