Any teachers or do you know the reasoning for this?

stlmomma27

My husband, son and I are planning to move to the Appleton area of Wisconsin. I have been doing a lot of research on elementary school in the area and I am a little confused as to what I am finding.

Wisconsin is usually ranked pretty high for good schools, top 15. When I look at testing scores, I am shocked. I did a screenshot of one of the schools. 

I understand that a lot of schools have adopted the Common Core method, is this the reasoning for the low percentages? How can 36% of the 3rd grade be right at proficiency? The same thing for the math testing, 23%! 

How can they rank 15th for education when the testing scores are so low?


Please give me some insight.

caleys

Hi, I'm a teacher in the Madison School District. Many times, test scores are lower because it's not always an accurate way to represent what students are learning. Standardized tests are unfortunately one of those things that say they measure how a child is doing in reading or math, when in reality, many children don't do well on standardized testing because of the format and other factors. The school districts are probably ranked higher than that because they succeed with flying colors in things that can't be measured by standardized testing. Take a look at the Wisconsin DPI website and look up the specific school you are looking into. That might give you some insight!

racheldelacruz

I teach in the Green Bay school district. I would put very little merit into test scores. I would do school tours and get to know the teachers and the methods. For instance, my school scores incredibly low. Well, that's because up until last year the entire test was in English when 67% of our students are bilingual native Spanish speakers. 2/3 of our school is in bilingual classes. If you know anything about brain development and language, having these kiddos learn 2 languages is way more important than any test. Moral of the story - talk to the insiders. I would send my own kiddo to my school any day regardless of the test because I know what is done there and how HARD the teachers work for success. Good luck!