Parental Choice Program Students Have Higher Scores… Again.

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For Immediate Release
September 12, 2019
Contact: Jim Bender

DPI gets an “F” on transparency by withholding crucial data from media

Test results released yesterday by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) show that again this year, students in the Parental Choice Programs are outperforming their full-income, public-school peers on the ACT. As with all test data, a one-year snapshot of raw data has limitations but the trend of higher scores for students on a voucher is great news for both students and taxpayers. New this year were the results of the Aspire Exam as part of the ACT suite. Students in the Parental Choice Programs also scored higher on these exams across the board.

In a troubling maneuver, however, DPI did not release all of the data for the Parental Choice Programs as part of their public release to the media. As required by statute 119.23(11)(d), DPI should have released all the data at the same time. Instead, not only did they not release the choice data broken out by program, enabling a true comparison to peer groups, they refused to release it when members of the media requested that specific data.

“Once again, with lower funding per student, the Parental Choice Programs continue to show better results for the fourth year in a row on the ACT,” Jim Bender said. “Unfortunately, the lack of transparency by DPI meant the media did not have comparable data when writing their stories. Was this by design?”

 

ACT Exam Results for 2018–19 – Average Scores

  MPCP MPS – Low Income MPS – Full Income
Composite Score 16.8 14.9 15.5
ELA 16.5 13.5 14.2
Math 17.6 15.5 15.8
Science 17.6 15.1 15.6

 

  RPCP RUSD — Low Income RUSD – Full Income
Composite Score 17.6 15.3 16.9
ELA 17.0 13.5 15.3
Math 17.0 15.5 16.6
Science 17.7 15.6 17.3

 

  WPCP State – Low Income* State – Full Income*
Composite Score 20.6 16.7 19.6
ELA 19.3 15.1 18.0
Math 19.8 16.9 19.4
Science 21.5 17.2 19.9

 

 


 

Aspire Exam Results for 2018–19

  MPCP MPS – Low Income MPS – Full Income
ELA 21 15 20
Math 14.5 9 13

 

  RPCP RUSD – Low Income RUSD – Full Income
ELA 35.5 13 24
Math 26 8 18

 

  WPCP State – Low Income* State – Full Income*
ELA 46 24.8 44
Math 42.5 21.5 42.1

 

 


 

Forward Exam Results for 2018–19 — % Proficient or Advanced

  MPCP MPS – Low Income MPS – Full Income
ELA 21 14.5 18.9
Math 17 12.7 16.5

 

  RPCP RUSD – Low Income RUSD – Full Income
ELA 25 11.7 21.2
Math 20 12.5 21.2

 

  WPCP State – Low Income* State – Full Income*
ELA 34 24.9 41.4
Math 31 26.1 44

 

 

*State average typically increases .2 average score when Milwaukee and Racine are removed from the state average. The WPCP covers the entire state except Milwaukee and Racine.

We are still computing results for the Forward Exam for Social Studies and Science.

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