Thanks for posting this, Jim.

I note that Eau Claire and Milwaukee have made this commitment and joined this network, but Madison has not. I hope Superintendent Cheatham, Mayor Soglin and our BOE change that soon.

Just released (more rigorously scored) WKCE reading results indicate that only 36% of Madison's third graders are reading at a proficient or advanced level. And the figure doesn't change much for higher grades:

2012-13 results: % proficient or advanced:

Third grade --- 36%
Fourth grade --- 36%
Fifth grade --- 38%
Sixth grade --- 34%
Seventh grade --- 40%
Eighth grade ---39%
Tenth grade ---46% (increase due to poorer readers having dropped out?)

A couple of disaggregated results worth noting: only 9% of African American sixth graders and only 2% of sixth grade English language learners are reading at a proficient or advanced level.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/higher-bar-for-wkce-results-paints-different-picture-of-student/article_c13de4c5-0211-53bd-ba56-1b894a42fd06.html

The actual distribution of scores on the WKCE did not change, only the cut-scores. Useful information, which we'll never see since it would be USEFUL, is the score distributions in addition to disaggregation by ethnicity, age in months, SES, ELL.

Of course, we don't have solid SES data, only the stand-in of free and reduced lunch. (Unlike the European countries which have actual SES data).

Looking at the score distributions in relation to cut-score values, both older and newer cut-score values will give information on where kids are near to each category cut-point, how slight changes to cut-score will effect the percentages, the general reliability of these category percentages. If you can see longitudinal data for the same kids (of course) then we can see the level of progress being made by students, if any.

But, of course, none of this will happen. What would we do without fairly useless information needed to continue useless conversation and manufactured outrage to fill pages of new books, laws, educational research and educational innovations that never work.

Why do anything right when there is money to be made doing wrong? Of course, to be useful the WKCE scores need to be published mid-fall rather than late in last semester. That is been requested for years. Of course, WKCE is on the way out soon, to be replaced by another test, so any idea that we will be able to evaluate progress will be put off for another 10 years.

So very tiresome.