Sen. John Jagler on Scoring Standardized Tests in Wisconsin

Frederica Freyberg:
In state education news, Republican lawmakers want to change the way the Department of Public Instruction now scores standardized tests for third through eighth graders. That’s because last year, DPI changed the cutoff scores needed to be proficient in reading or math, resulting in scores in 2024 being about ten points higher than the year before. The new Forward Exam scoring also no longer aligns with the more difficult national test, known as the Nation’s Report Card. A bill now before the legislature would require DPI to revert back to the previous scoring model. Chair of the Senate Education Committee, Republican Senator John Jagler, authored the bill. And thanks very much for being here.

John Jagler:
Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So why don’t you like the new scoring methods on the statewide Forward Exam?

John Jagler:
For multiple reasons. I think it gives a false sense of what our kids are doing and where they’re at. But you know, the bigger picture point here is it doesn’t align. We have no way of tracking data from previous years because and the DPI admits this, that the way that they have blown up the scoring system, we can’t go back and look. We can’t see how the kids from the Covid pandemic, those, those kids that were, you know, kindergarten, first grade, are they catching up? The kids, more importantly, that are almost entering the workplace, the seventh graders, who are now high school juniors and seniors, where are they? Have they caught up from that, that lost year? And we can’t track that data anymore. And, you know, as I traveled around the new district, the new 13th Senate district picked up a ton of geographical territory, and that meant a lot of new superintendents, a lot of new school districts. And the first thing I did was meet with law enforcement and meet with my school superintendents. And they were taken aback because they were not consulted. They had no idea this came and here we are. They don’t know if some of the innovation they’re doing with literacy programs are working. They have no way of going back and tracking. And then the easiest point is we should be expecting our kids to do better. We should set high standards, not lower them.

Frederica Freyberg:
So Governor Tony Evers has also been critical of the new scoring, saying just that, that we should have the highest standards possible. But why should legislators decide on learning assessments over educators? And should new directives come with more funding like the $50 million for phonics instruction?

John Jagler:
I don’t think you can conflate the two issues of saying it should come with more funding. I mean, why should we get involved? Well, honestly, I wish we wouldn’t have to. This was done in a closed situation where these — there is a list of just under 100 administrators or school officials or people that they talk to for this process, but they, they did this in a vacuum, and it came out and it came out, you know, let’s be honest, politics is part of everything. Came out in a, in a very weird time to roll back these standards, to make our kids look better, which in effect, it did in an election year for the superintendent. That’s a little odd, but what perked my ear was the — my superintendent saying, we don’t agree with this. We have — we weren’t part of this. We don’t know where this came from. And then when you have the governor first saying flat out, you know, because those were his standards that he set. She, she — they rolled back, the Department of Public Instruction, rolled back the governor’s standards, the education governor. So he caught my interest when he said we shouldn’t be lowering. We should be expecting high standards. And then he kind of pivoted a little bit to criticizing the process. That it was done behind closed doors without any input from stakeholders. And he was right on both counts.

Frederica Freyberg:
Apart from the scoring, why does the bill also call to revert back to how the scores are described? For example, instead of “below basic” as previously to “developing.”

John Jagler:
Just to go back for consistency and one of the things that I had heard in an interview was, well, you know, if you tell a parent that their kid is below basic, that’s, that’s harmful. That’s, that’s hurtful language. That’s — I’m sorry, that’s just weak sauce to me. That’s, that’s, that’s soft. As I said in the in the committee hearing, you know what, you know what hurts a kid’s social, you know, mental health and hurts a kid in the classes when he can’t read. And we should be focusing on that rather than what these labels say. And like I said, it goes back — the reason why we went back is we — it’s almost like just a reset point. And unfortunately, we’re going to lose this year’s data. But I think it’s worth it to go back and create some consistency. And also create it so we can compare ourselves with NAEP, the national standards, and see how we’re doing. How do we possibly know when you’re talking about investing billions of dollars in education, what is the return going? How are our kids doing? How are these educators using those dollars that we commit to make sure our kids can read? And the troubling part about it is this whole issue about rolling back the standards came when the NAEP scores came out this week, and it should be a shock for everybody. It — the numbers in Milwaukee are, you know, we’re talking the worst scoring for fourth graders in the nation for Black kids in Milwaukee. The achievement gap is still the lowest in the country. But the eighth grade, eighth grade kids are also just, just floundering. And it shouldn’t be acceptable to anybody. And you can’t, you know, the old line I was, I was joking it’s Super Bowl week. You can’t, can’t achieve perfection if you don’t strive for excellence. You know, if you strive for, strive for perfection, you reach excellence. That’s what Vince Lombardi always said. And I think it’s right on this count. We should be expecting more.

Frederica Freyberg:
We need to leave it there. Senator John Jagler, thanks very much.

John Jagler:
Appreciate it.