Badger Institute testimony for AB 1 (2025)

The following testimony related to academic standards for Wisconsin schoolchildren was submitted to the Assembly Committee on Education on Feb. 6, 2025.

Feb. 6, 2025
ASSEMBLY BILL 1

Chairman Kitchens and Assembly Education Committee Members,

Thank you for hearing Assembly Bill 1, legislation designed to return Wisconsin’s academic standards to the high levels from which they were lowered by Superintendent Jill Underly and the staff at the Department of Public Instruction. 

Like everyone, we shared the same reaction as Governor Evers when we were surprised by the drastic changes revealed just prior to the required release of the data.

The DPI’s actions lowered cut scores, detached our standards from NAEP proficiency levels, and modified the tests in ways that render comparisons to previous testing data impossible. In short, the changes force Wisconsin to start over with education data after lowering the bar.

An example from the results of the DPI’s Forward exam and from the just-released NAEP tests illustrate the problem. 

In Wisconsin statewide, among 4^th-graders in 2022, 44.8% were found to be proficient at reading. The most recent results show 52.1% proficient, or “meeting,” as the relabeled category is called. That’s a 16% improvement. 

But the NAEP test of Wisconsin 4^th-graders found in 2022 that 33% were proficient in reading in 2022, and 31% are proficient now, a 6% drop. 

Among 4^th-graders in Milwaukee, the DPI in 2022 found that 17.2% were proficient in reading, while in 2024, 22.2% were — a 29% improvement. NAEP, however, found that in 2022, 12% of Milwaukee 4^th-graders were proficient in reading, while in 2024, only 9% were — a 25% drop. 

Which is correct? The DPI’s flawed standard-setting process make its results uselessly unreliable — indeed, the DPI says we can’t even compare the latest figures to previous ones. How are policymakers and parents to judge the results?

While this bill is focused on restoring previous, higher standards, much of the problem with the lowering of our standards was the process used in making the changes. Done entirely within the walls of the DPI by staff and an advisory group whose members were required to sign non-disclosure agreements, dozens of significant policy changes were made without anyone on this committee having a voice in the decisions.

While not all the changes made to Wisconsin’s testing paradigm and statewide report cards are addressed in this bill, we support the goal of realigning our standards with NAEP, of using common sense language for describing the levels of proficiency, and of setting higher expectations for our kids.

We hope this hearing is the beginning of a process that results in changes to both our standards and the process we use to change them.