Friday, June 02, 2006

Lake Wobegon of Public Education

That's what we have here in Wisconsin:
"'The state is a modern day educational utopia where a large majority of students meet academic standards, high school graduation rates are high, every school is safe and nearly all teachers are highly qualified,' if you believe what the DPI says, the report says."
But we are the Dean of Loopholes:

Wisconsin's accountability system, which has been approved by federal officials, effectively includes broader definitions of what is acceptable than systems used in many other states. As a result, 99% of teachers in the state are considered "highly qualified" and only one of the state's 426 school districts and less than 2% of the state's schools did not meet the yearly progress standards for 2004-'05. The district was Milwaukee, and 38 of the 45 schools were in Milwaukee.
Which,I guess, demonstrates that our bloated administration levels and the work of the strong teacher's union - WEAC - are getting the job done!

In a separate analysis cited:
The two researchers, Paul E. Peterson and Frederick M. Hess, both generally described as conservatives, then gave each state a grade based on how big a difference there was between the state scores and the national scores. The two gave Wisconsin a grade of C-, based on 2005 results. That was better than the D they gave the state for results in 2003.

I'd like to see the report that also shows per student spending factored into this analysis.

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