Last week, we got the annual good news that Wisconsin “scores near top on ACT once again,” as a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel headline declared. Aping her predecessors, state Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster hailed the results as proof of how dandy we’re doing in Badgerland. The “composite score speaks well of our students’ academic achievement and the support they receive from their parents and teachers,” she declared.
But are we really doing that well? A close look at the ACT test data offers some reason for caution. Yes, Wisconsin’s average score of 22.3 was high compared to the national average of 21.2 (with scores ranging from 18.9 for Mississippi to 23.5 for Massachusetts), but the percentage of students taking the test here is lower than in 15 states. While 70 percent of Wisconsin students take the test, the percentage is 100 in Illinois and Colorado, 96 in Tennessee and Mississippi, and ranges from 71 to 82 percent for another 11 states.
Why does this matter? As the percentage of students taking the test increases, you are likely to include more low-attendance and low-performance students in the mix, pushing the average score lower.
Burmaster brags that Wisconsin has maintained its high ACT score even as the percentage of students taking the test rose. But the increase was minimal, rising from 68 percent in 2002 to 70 percent last year. That includes a steady rise in the number of African-American and Hispanic students taking the test, but they still remain underrepresented.
“We allow people in this state to pound their chest while ignoring the fact that Milwaukee has significantly fewer kids taking (the ACT),” Milwaukee School Board member Terry Falk declared in the JS story. (Falk, a former contributor to Milwaukee Magazine, sure knows how to give good quotes.)
As a reality check, I looked at state scores combined with the percentage of students taking the test to estimate which states we might actually trail. A state like Mississippi, for instance, can be quickly rejected: Yes, 96 percent of students took the test, but the average score of 18.9 was abysmally low, worst among all 50 states. Even if Wisconsin tested 96 percent of students, its average score would never drop that low.
Vice versa, while Massachusetts has a higher score (23.5) than us, only 15 percent of students take the ACT, which makes the result meaningless. (Most students in Massachusetts take the SAT.)
All told, I’d estimate we may trail as many as 6 states on the ACT: Minnesota (22.5 score, 70 percent tested), Nebraska (22.1, 77 percent), North Dakota (21.6; 82 percent), Tennessee (20.7, 96 percent), Illinois (20.5, 100 percent) and Colorado (20.4, 100 percent). And we’re probably close to tied with Iowa, Kansas and South Dakota. Still, all the differences would probably be small, leaving Wisconsin within striking range of all these states.
On the other hand, there’s another 20 or more states to which Wisconsin can’t compare itself because they mostly use the SAT. That leaves further doubt as to how high we rank.
Falk has launched a proposal to require all Milwaukee Public Schools 11th-graders to take the ACT test, arguing it may result in more students ultimately going to college. That’s a good idea. He also argues it would give us a truer picture of our performance compared to other districts. I’m not so sure. The reality is that rating school districts (or states) based on one test score is generally a simplistic exercise that barely begins to tell the whole story.
Why Secession from MATC Won’t Happen
Talk about an overblown crisis. The Journal Sentinel has done six news stories and two editorials, not to mention various columns, all addressing the question of whether minor players like Germantown and Cedarburg should withdraw from the Milwaukee Area Technical College and become members of a smaller nearby district like the Moraine Park Technical College District. Let me cut to the chase: It’s not going to happen.
For starters, all the noise from Germantown and Cedarburg has been generated by village government officials. But it is the public school district in both localities that would have to decide to withdraw. And school officials there have made no decision and offered little or no comment.
Even if school officials decided to withdraw from MATC, the decision would have to be approved by the Wisconsin Technical College System board, and that’s simply not going to happen. The board currently has 12 members, 8 of whom were appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle. In addition, the board includes Roberta Gassman, who runs the Department of Workforce Development for Doyle, and Burmaster, a Doyle ally. Finally, one board holdover from before Doyle’s administration, Phil Neuenfeldt, is secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO and leans Democratic.
Doyle, in short, has a stranglehold over this board. Are his appointees likely to approve a plan that allows Republican districts like Germantown and Cedarburg to stop paying taxes to a Democratic district like Milwaukee and instead pay to a more Republican one like Moraine Park? Fat chance.
In the meantime, the controversy has exposed several interesting issues that may change MATC long-term. First, the rate of increase in the MATC property tax levy (an estimated 25 percent over the last four years) cannot be continued long-term without more communities in the district raising holy hell. Second, those officials in Germantown and elsewhere who claim this is “taxation without representation” might want to get in the game and submit their candidates for board membership. True, the MATC board is an insider’s game, but one that any activist in the district can play. Third, the question of whether MATC should have an elected board deserves and is likely to get more discussion. (But all you need do is look at many local school boards to know it’s no guarantee they will hold the line on taxes).
Fourth – and most surprising to me – was the fact that students in a district like Germantown might attend several different area vo-tech schools, yet Germantown is a property-tax-paying member of only one of those districts – Milwaukee.
Arguably, they should contribute proportionately (based on student attendance) to all three technical college districts, but that could get pretty messy.
Years ago, this issue didn’t matter much because the lion’s share of funding for vo-tech colleges came from the state. But over the last decade or more, the percentage of vo-tech college funding coming from the property tax has gone up considerably as the state share has dropped.
Does it even make sense to use property taxes to fund vo-tech colleges? Should a completely state-funded system be created to end the bizarre situation of localities like Germantown that are split between several districts? Should the entire state vo-tech system be combined with the UW system to end possible overlap, save money, and better connect schools like MATC and UW-Milwaukee?
If ever there was an issue that needed creative leadership from the governor and legislators to consider these questions, this would be it.
The Buzz
-So Tommy Thompson, in the words of one Iowa politico, was viewed as too “old-fashioned” by the voters of mostly small-town and rural Iowa? Wow, that’s about as old hat as you can get.
-Mayor Tom Barrett’s media representative, Eileen Force, has sent me an email to argue that foundation president Dan Bader is fully qualified to be appointed board chair of the Private Industry Council. That would seem to confirm my column of last week predicting his appointment.
-Last week’s column by JS commentator Patrick McIlheran had this to say: “The conventional, liberal prescription is that people are swine for living in suburbs: They’re just trying to escape paying for public goods via taxes.” Since it’s the “conventional” liberal view, I would guess there must be countless examples of liberal commentators calling suburbanites swine or something akin to this. I rather doubt this, for many reasons, including the fact that many liberal commentators live in the suburbs. Is McIlheran ever asked to provide proof of his assertions?
And don’t miss critic Ann Christenson’s Dish on Dining.
