Wisconsin's Teachers and Administrators Looking for Ways to Reverse Decline in Academic Progress

Monday, September 12th, 2022 -- 9:00 AM

(Gaby Vinick, Wisconsin Public Radio) -With the beginning of the school year underway, teachers and administrators are looking for ways to reverse a likely decline in academic progress.

But, according to Gaby Vinick fo Wisconsin Public Radio, they're also not putting too much stock in standardized tests. "I think there's a lot of celebration happening just with kids arriving for what we hope, desperately, to be the most normal school year in a long time," said Kate Tesch, the Superior school district's director of continuous improvement and assessment.

Recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress found a steep decline in math and reading test scores for 9-year-olds across the country. The test results show the largest average score decline in reading since 1990 and the first-ever drop in math scores.

The drop in test scores was most pronounced among students who faced the brunt of the pandemic, students of color and those from low-income families. Peggy Wirtz-Olsen is a high school teacher and president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, a public-sector trade union. She said those gaps have only worsened during the pandemic.

"The new scores show everyone really what educators have been shouting from the mountaintops for years stretching far before the pandemic," Wirtz-Olsen said. "Opportunity gaps are expanding. And they've been multiplying not only due to COVID-19, but also to many politicians' commitment to defunding our nation's public schools."

In Madison, it would cost more than $50 million to compensate for lost learning time, according to Edunomics Lab research data. That number more than doubles for the state’s largest district in Milwaukee.

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