Standardized tests #2
Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, in his unsuccessful bid last
spring for the state to take over the Milwaukee Public Schools,
focused on Milwaukee's problems with educating all students.
Newly released data, however, show that Wisconsin's other urban
areas have difficulty educating poor and minority children - but
have been more adept at covering up their failures.
In Green Bay, for example, the city's aggregate test scores on
the 10th grade reading test are questionable because 58% of
Hispanic students in Green Bay did not take the test, as opposed
to 15% in Milwaukee. In Madison, 19% of low-income students did
not take the fourth grade math test, as compared to 9% in
Milwaukee. Some 26% of African-American students in Beloit did
not take the eighth grade math test, compared to 12% in
Milwaukee.
Alex Molnar, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor who
compiled the figures, concludes that many other districts
artificially suppress data that makes the districts look bad,
with the effect "of making the performance of other urban
districts appear better than it actually is in relation to MPS
because Milwaukee, for the most part, tests a higher percentage
of its poor and its minority students than the other districts
studied."
The question of educating poor and minority children needs to go
beyond pointing fingers at Milwaukee, Molnar said, and focus on
how the state can help districts throughout Wisconsin "to ensure
that poor and/or minority children succeed in Wisconsin's public
schools."