WI School scores are a big-time scam

Or is Hulk Hogan the real deal?

Looks like the next U.S. Education secretary will be the woman who co-founded World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon. You are welcome to believe that pro wrestling is real but it’s got to be more authentic than the school test scores put out by the WI Department of Public Instruction this week.

The numbers for Madison’s public schools resemble Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon where all the children “meet expectations.” The WI State Journal annotates the latest Department of Public Instruction data dump with this noisy asterisk:

Significant changes to the state’s Forward Exam, which lowered the score students must achieve to be considered proficient or advanced, are affecting the new set of district and school report cards, too.

Because graduation rates have fallen, chronic absenteeism is up, and test scores are suffering. “DPI may have gotten tired of being dinged for decades of high spending that has produced low proficiency, but the answer is not to change the standard of judgement,” argues Will Flanders, research director at WI Institute for Law & Liberty.

 Paying the price of progressive pedantry

State education czar Jill Underly is a creature of the state teachers union and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Endorsed by Mark Pocan, Tammy Baldwin, Tony Evers and the rest of the progressive establishment, her election campaign was under-written by Democrats to the tune of $239,000 for this officially non-partisan position. 

When 94% of school districts are graded as “met expectations” or above, there is little to no useful information to be gathered from these. With literacy rates falling, absenteeism rising, and violence in our schools, any rational person would be hard pressed to say 94% of our schools are meeting expectations. Once again, the adults in charge are failing our kids. — State Sen. John Jagler, R-Watertown

 They teach our children

Jill Underly is a sworn enemy of the school choice — competition that might goose public schools to up their game. Her Department of Public Instruction pumps critical race theory into Wisconsin’s K-12 schools. (Read & Weep!) Dr. Jill declared a day of mourning when a Kenosha jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse.  

→ “Jill Underly stresses importance of DEI” — Capital Times 

Doctor Underly is running for re-election, which (by gosh and by golly) is next April. She’s appointed political operative Sachin Chheda as her chief of staff. He helmed the election of two pro-abortion progressives to the WI Supreme Court. We say again, superintendent of public instruction should be converted into a cabinet position appointed by the governor so education can sit side by side with transportation, natural resources, prisons, and economic development.  Would take a constitutional amendment.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Madison voters just rewarded mediocrity by signing over another $607 million in property taxes to our flaccid public schools. So we put our flickering hope for our most challenged kids into a statewide reformer who can do better than “meet expectations.”

Is Stone Cold Steve Austin available?

(because the education establishment needs a disrupter)