Nearly two-thirds of Wisconsin students who took the state reading test last fall scored below proficient, and less than half were proficient in math, according to recalibrated results released Tuesday by the Department of Public Instruction. In previous reporting of the same results, about 80 percent of students scored proficient on the reading and math tests. The difference is a change in the yardstick used to measure “proficiency” ? what students in a certain grade level should know and be able to do ? rather than a change in how students performed on the tests.
Still, the new results should be a “smack in the face” for Wisconsin, said Adam Gamoran, director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at UW-Madison. “It?s going to be a wake-up call,” Gamoran said. “It?s a more honest reckoning of where Wisconsin students stand relative to other students across the nation and relative to the goals we want for all of our students.”