Wisconsin a National Leader in Teacher Quality, Standards

Education Week report ignores major efforts and advances

A magazine report that gives low grades to Wisconsin's efforts to improve teacher quality and develop standards for students overlooks factors that actually make this state a national leader in these areas, WEAC President Terry Craney said Wednesday (January 10, 2001).

"The bottom line is that our students are performing well, our teachers are excellent and getting better, and our schools are among the best in the nation," Craney said. "This report itself cites National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results in which Wisconsin students consistently score among the best in the nation. That reflects ACT, SAT and other assessments."

Education Week's annual "Quality Counts" report gives Wisconsin poor grades in the categories of "Improving Teacher Quality" and "Standards and Assessments."

However, it virtually ignores the fact that Wisconsin already has adopted and is implementing strong measures that address the teacher professional development issues raised by the report.

With WEAC's direct involvement and support, Wisconsin is in the process of implementing an improved teacher licensing system. Some provisions have already gone into effect, but most, including a three-tier licensure system, go into effect July 1, 2004. Because these major changes have not yet been fully implemented, Education Week apparently chose to completely ignore them. In its 1999 report, the magazine gave the state a B in this category because of these efforts.This year it didn't even take them into account.

In addition, Education Week used arbitrary criteria to measure the quality of academic standards and assessments.

"Quality Counts takes the inexplicable position that standards and assessments are meaningless unless there is a single statewide, high-stakes 'one size fits all' dictum imposed on all local school districts by the state," Craney said. "Wisconsin citizens have wisely chosen not to go that route. In Wisconsin, we have a carefully and thoughtfully developed standards and assessments process that provides guidance at the state level but flexibility at the local level. Under this comprehensive system, local districts determine, within certain bounds, exactly what standards they want in their communities.

"In addition, Wisconsin citizens have wisely chosen not to make high school graduation dependent solely on a single high-stakes graduation test," Craney added. "We have chosen to make such a test one element in determining eligibility for graduation. We have carefully and extensively discussed this issue in this state and come up with an approach that works best for Wisconsin."

In the category of "Adequacy of Resources," Education Week's grade of A for Wisconsin reflects a serious misunderstanding of the school finance situation in Wisconsin, Craney said.

"Just ask the citizens of Waukesha who are struggling to cut $2.4 million from their school district budget right now," Craney said. "They are looking at cutting some 30 staff positions. And this is occurring in large and small districts throughout the state. Education Week may juggle some numbers at an office in Washington, D.C., and determine our schools are adequately funded. But the teachers, support staff, parents, and students in our schools know that is absolutely not the case. Revenue controls are causing serious financial problems for our schools.

"Wisconsin has great schools and great teachers and support staff. We have set up a comprehensive new teacher professional development process and developed a process for raising academic standards to make our schools even greater," Craney said. "But the funding crisis we are facing under revenue controls is threatening to undermine all of our progress."

Education Week Web site