The answer? Pretty well.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction came out with its school report cards on Tuesday, and every South Milwaukee school fell in the “meets or exceeds expectations” category.
Here is where each one ranked …
- E.W. Luther: 75.1
- Rawson: 72.0
- Lakeview: 70.1
- Blakewood: 69.7
- South Milwaukee Middle School: 65.6
- South Milwaukee High School: 65.0
And the overall district received a “meets expectations” grade of 68.4.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has some context in this story.
And these report cards demand context. While I respect the effort in grading schools — and support having objective standards in doing so — there are so many factors driving educational excellence that a true apples to apples comparison is nearly impossible.
I prefer the eye test when it comes to rating schools, and South Milwaukee’s schools pass that with high marks. I am the proud parent of two Rawson Elementary students, and I continue to be impressed with that school and the district as a whole. I see every day the strides my children are making as young learners, the excitement they bring home every day about what they’ve learned. It’s infectious.
And that’s something you can’t measure on DPI report cards.
South Milwaukee Blog 
As long as scores are headed in the right direction, that is a good thing. Though I recently moved from dear old SM, I have a great love for the area and people. I wish them the best and constant improvement. That said, one of the main reasons that we moved was the schools. Luckily we could afford to do so and were concentrating our efforts in places with exceptional schools. Don’t get me wrong, SM has wonderful schools. I am a proud SM high school graduate myself, but I was woefully unprepared for life in college and ended up doing poorly. Yes, it’s ultimately my own fault, but I did exceptionally well in high school (34th in my class, if I remember right). I feel that being able to do this well SHOULD have prepared me well for college and beyond, but it did not. I know my personal case is only anecdotal and I graduated some 14 years ago, so hopefully in the mean time things have improved.
That is some of the reasons SM schools ‘only’ get a 68. If this were a school grading system, that’d be a D+/C- or so.
more to come…
Geoff, I agree with you. I graduated many more years before you, but I agree with the prep for College. The Guidance Office at that time did not provide much guidance (10 minutes). I started at MATC and received an AAS degree. It was my department head at my employer that pushed me on to receive my Bachelos Degree.
As noted in the Journal Sentinel article, achievement highly correlates with income in the districts. I feel that there are many reasons for this. More affluent people are able to put more resources into their children from an earlier age, be it time, paying for schooling from an earlier age, engaging in extracurricular activities and learning activities, etc. People that have higher incomes tend to have more flexible hours and less physically demanding jobs as well. This tends to mean more free time to spend with their children and the time is used to do more educational things instead of something like sitting in front of the TV or playing video games. This also highly correlates to having parents that have graduated from college. This tends to set up expectations that the child will, at least, do the same. College graduates make far above what high school graduates make; typically in the $10-20k+ per year range. This generally equates to something like going from $28k per year to $40k per year or so. For a dual income household, the difference would be double. The difference would generally overtake typical child care costs (from what I’ve seen); meaning that after child care costs, the family would still have higher total income vs. if one parent worked and one stayed home, taking care of the child(ren) instead of both working and paying for child care and associated costs.
A great many factors play into achievement, many measurable, some not. Compared on a state or regional level, SM does a fair job. Compared to the rest of the industrialized world, the US has lots of work to do. In the past, we did lead and were among the best. Now, the rest of the world has caught up and surpassed us in the ‘global learning marketplace’. In the ’70s and ’80, even a bit into the ’90s, the US was doing well and good in scholastic achievement, but over the years since, other countries and systems have taken great leaps in education and scholastic performance. In 2009, the US ranked 25th among 34 countries ranked in math and science (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-07/teens-in-u-s-rank-25th-on-math-test-trail-in-science-reading.html). We need to look at what others have done and are doing, look at trying things and seeing what works or modify to fit our society. That is what some other countries did with us in the past and it seemed to work. Many of those countries use good data and actually listen to researchers as opposed to political pundits and companies/corporations on what to do and how to improve. Those countries that listen to knowledgeable people, follow through, and concentrate their efforts succeed greatly. We need to do that!
Done for now 😉
more info:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/best-education-in-the-wor_n_2199795.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/us-students-still-lag-beh_n_1695516.html
I’d like to know why there isn’t a conversation about the Common Core initiative in our District? Why did Wisconsin adopt the standards before they we’re written? Was it because our struggling state was looking at the Race to the Top Funding? Other parents and teachers in other areas are fighting this initiative. Why have we allowed the Federal Government to dictate what we do at a local level? http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/phase1-applications/wisconsin.pdf There is more to Common Core than we as taxpayers and parents are being told. I feel the district has the opportunity to engage parent and taxpayers in conversation regarding this issue.
more info:
Click to access Wisconsin%20Race%20Smarter%20Brief.pdf
http://stopcommoncoreinwisconsin.com/
http://www.wisconsinwatch.org/2013/09/06/new-report-shows-districts-footing-bill-for-common-core-implementation/
First off, I have to disagree with Geoff. I was an SM high school graduate in ’05 and I felt very prepared when I got to college. We did a lot of things in my high school classes that we were required to do in college, that I saw a lot of my college classmates struggling with.
Secondly, a big chunk of the high school’s report card score being so low is because of attendance. Students skipping classes, students being absent for vacations, doctor’s appointments, and the like are really affecting our score and student achievement. How are students supposed to learn if they’re not there? Even “excused absences” count against the schools. If a student is absent 10 times in a year, that’s considered a habitual truant. So, make sure your kids are getting to school and getting to school on time!
Like I said, my experience was from a bit earlier than yours (’99 vs. ’05). I am glad that you feel that school prepared you for college. I hope that things were improved in that time and continue to head in that direction.
I was really only speaking for myself and from my experience. I felt personally unchallenged in my high school career. Most people are/were challenged academically during high school, I was not. Even many people that I graduated with that went on to college likely felt that high school did prepare them for college. I, however; was able to put in very little effort, especially during the last two years of high school, and still got pretty good grades. After the fact, I felt personally failed by my high school experience. With more and better individual attention, it may have been better recognized that I was putting in little effort and being challenged little. Appropriate challenge would have helped greatly in my future academic life. I did not receive the appropriate attention and thus had a difficult time after high school. I know that a large onus did fall on me to bring this up at the time and I likely did to some extent, but some part of the school experience that recognizes the type of student that I was and gives them appropriate instruction and attention would have been very welcome. I was not a ‘normal’ student, academically speaking. My educational needs were likely different from the ‘normal’ student, likely akin to ‘special needs’ students, just in the academically gifted sense.