The Wisconsin State Senate takes up a bill Tuesday that would tie Wisconsin student test scores to standards set by a federal agency President Donald Trump has promised to gut.
Lawmakers introduced the bill — AB 1 and its companion bill SB 18 — in reaction to changes the state Department of Public Instruction made last year to testing standards. Those changes included unlinking the standards from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — also known as the “nation’s report card” — and changing the cut scores and terminology used for achievement levels.
The bill would reverse the changes — requiring testing standards to go back to those used in 2019 and would require standards to be tied to the NAEP. Republican lawmakers have said the changes by DPI “lowered” the state’s academic standards.
“Let’s roll back to the standards that we had prior to the pandemic and move those forward as a way to gauge how our students are doing,” Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) said at a hearing last week.
The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has denied the changes lowered standards, saying the changes align assessment cut scores to Wisconsin academic standards. After the Assembly passed the bill last month, threats to the federal agency that oversees NAEP have increased.
The NAEP is a congressionally mandated, representative assessment administered nationally to measure what students across the United States know and can do. The test assesses students in the fourth, eighth and 12th grade in various subjects, including reading and math, though not every student takes the NAEP.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which was first established in 1867 to collect and report information about education for the nation, is responsible for administering the NAEP. It became part of the Department of Education after the agency was created in 1979.
The agency has been affected by the Trump administration’s moves to gut the Department of Education. First, an upcoming math and reading test for 17 year olds was canceled. Peggy Carr, the federal official in charge of the program, was placed on administrative leave. Last week, as a part of vast layoffs in the Department of Education, the statistics agency’s workforce was cut from about 100 employees to three, according to the Hechinger Report.
During a committee hearing on the bill last week, the status of the federal agency was a point of debate between lawmakers.
Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) asked lawmakers if they heard about the recent news and if the purpose of the bill was to say, “we should not eliminate the nation’s report card.”
“Would you agree that it’s important?” Larson asked.
Wittke said that isn’t what the bill is about and said it’s “about Wisconsin standards.”
“I anticipated this question because I see that in the news everybody’s talking about the education department and what’s being done. They had a $289 billion dollar budget, the things that are being done now are the different administration that’s taking a look at the operation of that,” Wittke said. He said the last standards would be “at least a good starting point for the basis of our standards.”
“The issue is they’re eliminating it,” Larson said. He quoted an ABC News report in which one employee who was fired from the agency said producing the “nation’s report card” without a full staff “would be the equivalent of manning a 13-person sailboat with a 12-month-old” and isn’t possible.
Jagler countered that NAEP would not be affected by the cuts.
“If you look deeper into the cuts, NAEP is not affected. NAEP is not affected by what the administration or the education secretary is doing,” Jagler said. He said the independent National Assessment Governing Board, which is responsible for setting NAEP standards, is separate from the NCES.
“It’s a totally different thing, but I understand what you’re saying, but NAEP will not be affected, which is the heart of this bill,” Jagler said.
While the National Assessment Governing Board is responsible for setting NAEP policy, it does not administer the test as the National Center for Education Statistics does. According to the NAEP website, the NCES also works to “collect and analyze information and statistics in a manner that meets the highest methodological standards” and “maintain data credibility through its assessment design, collection, analysis, release, and dissemination procedures.”
The DPI’s recent written testimony cites the upheaval within the federal government as one of the top reasons the state education agency opposes the bill. During an Assembly hearing in February the DPI focused on the ways that NAEP and state testing don’t align in defending the decision to uncouple state standards from the national rubric.
“Anyone who follows the daily news from Washington knows that this is only the beginning and what comes next is unknown to say the least. It is clear in this time of massive uncertainty, cuts and disruption at NAEP and the USDE that it is not the time to tie Wisconsin statute to anything related to NAEP,” Deputy State Superintendent Tom McCarthy said in written testimony. “These cancellations will have implications for the accuracy of national-level data.”
The DPI has said that the national report card is helpful to compare students’ performance among states, but is not as helpful for understanding whether students have met the state’s academic standards. During hearings on the bill, McCarthy explained that in the 2010s many states were moving towards aligning their standards with NAEP, but since that time some states have moved away from the national report card for similar reasons.
The bill passed the committee on Friday in a 3-2 party line vote, and is on track to pass in the Republican-led Senate Tuesday.
The bill would then go to Gov. Tony Evers, who has been critical of the testing standards changes but has said he will likely veto the legislation because he thinks the DPI should make decisions about state tests.
A teacher and students in a classroom. (Klaus Vedfelt | Getty Images)
An audit announced this week of changes in recent state testing standards is the latest reaction of Republican lawmakers to changes the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) approved last year in the names and cut scores for achievement levels. It also comes as state Superintendent Jill Underly campaigns for reelection facing a challenger criticizing DPI for “lowering” state standards.
Co-Chairs of Wisconsin Legislative Joint Audit Committee Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) and Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) announced the audit Tuesday of DPI’s decision to update terms describing achievement levels and revise the cut scores used to measure student achievement.
Underly and DPI have repeatedly defended the changes as part of the agency’s regular process to ensure standards are kept current. Assembly Republicans passed a bill last week that would reverse the changes, requiring the state to reinstate standards set in the 2019-20 school year and tie changes to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP is a nationwide assessment meant to provide representative data about student achievement.
Wimberger and Wittke noted in a statement that the recent NAEP results found that 31% of fourth grade students were at or above proficient in reading. Under the new state testing standards, Wisconsin had a proficiency rate of 48% in English/Language Arts and 49% in math. The legislators accused Underly of trying to hide the state’s literacy challenges.
The “unilateral changes to cover up DPI’s failing is absolutely unacceptable, and this audit will help us uncover exactly how and why these reporting standards were changed to stop future manipulation,” the lawmakers said.
According to the Legislative Audit Bureau, the audit could look at several topics related to the changes, including DPI’s written policies and procedures for developing the state’s annual school report card and for updating assessment cut scores. Other topics include, whether the current policies comply with statutory and administrative rule requirements, the way the agency gets input from educators and parents when developing changes, and how the process used for the recent changes versus previous years, State Auditor Joe Chrisman wrote in a memo to Wimberger and Wittke.
Deputy Superintendent Tom McCarthy said in a statement that the audit was for political purposes, noting the upcoming state superintendent election.
“Our approach has been transparent. If the Legislature were genuinely interested in this issue, and had listened to our testimony just a few weeks ago, they would understand that updating cut scores is a standard procedure whenever updates are made to our rigorous state standards,” McCarthy said.
During a hearing on the bill to reverse the changes, McCarthy and other DPI representatives laid out the process the agency used, including a survey and consulting education experts to discuss potential changes and come up with recommendations.
In his statement, McCarthy reiterated that the updates were recommended by experts and that NAEP is a “national benchmarking tool” not a state accountability tool. The test is typically taken by only a few thousand students in the state to develop a representative pool.
“It does not measure Wisconsin academic standards, which are used by teachers to deliver instruction. Comparing the two is like trying to use a thermometer to measure the length of a two-by-four — it makes no sense,” McCarthy said. “Especially since it seems NAEP is under attack by the White House, including canceling a major NAEP assessment and firing analytic staff.”
The Trump administration recently put NAEP Chief Peggy Carr on administrative leave. The Department of Education also recently canceled the NAEP Long-Term Trend exam, which measures the math and reading skills for 17-year-olds.
McCarthy said DPI learned about the audit from a press release that “falsely states that the DPI didn’t support literacy reform.”
“Let’s be clear: we supported and still support literacy reform. The legislature, on the other hand, is still holding back nearly all of the $50 million meant to help kids learn to read. Instead of funding the solutions, they’re trying to manufacture controversy,” McCarthy said. “This newly announced ‘audit’ is not a desire to truly learn, but to lay a political hit on a state elected official in the middle of a campaign.”
State testing standards have become a central issue in the April 1 election for state superintendent as Underly’s challenger, Brittany Kinser, who is backed by Republicans, has said she is running on a platform of “restoring high standards.”
State grants audit
Lawmakers also announced that they plan to launch an audit into the administration of state grants, which they say is meant to help examine whether there is waste, fraud and abuse in the state.
According to the LAB, the audit could look into the policies an agency has for administering grants, whether agencies are compliant with state statute and administrative rules in implementing grants, the amount of grants awarded in recent years and outcomes from those awards.
The audit request comes as lawmakers are starting the process of writing the next two-year state budget.
Wimberger and Wittke said that given the budget it is “prudent” to look at how much is being spent on grants.
“In the last budget, the state issued more than $44 billion in grant assistance funding. Evaluating these programs for wasteful, fraudulent, or abusive spending means we can identify and cut the fat of big government, making Wisconsin’s state government more accountable for our hardworking taxpayers,” the lawmakers said.
A public hearing on the proposed audits is scheduled for Tuesday.
Rep. Benjamin Franklin speaks about his bill to require 70% of funding in schools go towards "classroom" expenses. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin Republicans in the state Assembly passed a package of education bills Wednesday to implement new standards for standardized test scores, school funding allocations, responding to curriculum inspection requests and for keeping cell phones out of schools.
Republicans argued that the state needs to ensure that schools are meeting certain standards, especially as they’ve provided some state funding increases in recent years and as school enrollments have declined. While Wisconsin schools did receive an increase in the last state budget, many schools continue to struggle to meet costs as funding has failed to match the rate of inflation.
“We need to make sure that, as we are increasing funding for education, we are also doing a better job, ensuring that the standards and the expectations that parents and taxpayers have across the state are being met,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said at a press conference.
Vos called some school districts “disappointing” and named Milwaukee Public Schools as an example. The district, which was an ongoing target of Republican lawmakers throughout the debate, has experienced turmoil over the last few years with turnover in staff, a financial crisis after delays in delivering required documents to DPI and reading and math scores that show continued disparities between Black and white students.
“I’m a huge supporter of local control. There are some districts that are so broken and expect us to have to pay for it as taxpayers, either on the front end through funding the school district or on the back end with the bad decisions that are made where people make bad choices,” Vos said. “Having that statewide standards is good for Wisconsin while still maintaining the flexibility to try to get there.”
Democrats said Republicans’ focus was in the wrong place and that the proposed solutions would not help address the real challenges that schools are facing.
Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) criticized Republicans for rejecting Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal that would invest heavily in Wisconsin K-12 education.
Evers unveiled his complete state budget proposal Tuesday evening, calling for more than $3 billion in additional funding for K-12 schools, including to support operational costs, special education and mental health supports.
“The level of investment from the Legislature is just not enough to provide these essential investments in our schools,” Neubauer said. “Here in the Capitol, the Legislature has failed our students … we just have not kept up our end of the bargain.”
“Instead of bringing legislation to the floor to support our schools, teachers and students, the best the majority party can do is to fast-track a bill that would require cursive instruction,” Neubauer said. That bill — AB 3 — passed 51-46 with Reps. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart), Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) and David Steffen (R-Howard) joining Democrats to vote against it.
Test scores
Another bill focused on reversing changes to standards on state tests that were approved by the DPI last year. GOP lawmakers slammed State Superintendent Jill Underly, who is running for reelection against Republican-backed education consultant Brittany Kinser, for approving the changes in the first place.
“Something is wrong in our communication system. It is not a lack of resources. It’s a lack of willpower to do something about the problems that we know are obvious because it is the fact that we have kids who can’t read,” Vos said. He added that only lawmakers should be allowed to “dumb down” the state’s standards.
Vos said there was only one person — referencing Underly — that “needs to pay a price” and “hopefully she will in April.”
Wisconsin students take standardized tests each year including the Forward Exam for third graders through eighth graders and the ACT and PreACT Secure for high school students.
Underly approved changes to the standards last year that included new terms — “developing,” “approaching,” “meeting” and “advanced” — to describe student achievement. Previously, the terms were “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.” The changes also included new cut scores — which are the test scores cutoffs needed to qualify to be placed in each performance level.
Underly and DPI have defended the changes, saying they were necessary to more accurately measure achievement; that educators and other stakeholders worked together to create the new measures with Underly signing off; and that it’s too late to take the state back to 2019-20 standards.
Republican lawmakers said the changes “lowered” state standards and were an attempt to “cook the books.”
AB 1 directs DPI to use score ranges and qualitative terms used on school report cards for the 2019-2020 school year and to tie the Forward exam score ranges and pupil performance categories to those set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
“There’s no legislative oversight on the scoring and assessment of our kids, so this bill will establish that,” bill coauthor Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) said at a press conference.
“We will be once again allowed to compare ourselves to other states — let us know who’s doing well, are we on pace with them or not,” Wittke said. “Then it provides legislative oversight, so the only time these scores can be adjusted or changed is when we actually legislate.”
Rep. Angelina M. Cruz (D-Racine), who has worked as an educator for the last 20 years, said during floor debate that a variety of student assessments are used to measure students’ learning with each serving a “unique purpose” and reflecting the “expertise of professional educators.” She said that goes for the state tests as well and said the updates to standards weren’t made in a “vacuum,” noting that this isn’t the first time DPI has made changes and it shouldn’t be the last.
“Education is dynamic,” Cruz said. “The disconnect between the reality of classroom teaching and this body and the understanding of assessments has never been more clear… This bill is not about improving education. This bill is about playing political games.”
Cruz said lawmakers would be better served fully funding the state’s public schools.
During floor debate, Wittke said that Democrats were repeating political talking points by talking about increasing funding for public schools.
The bill passed 55-44 along party lines with Republicans for and Democrats against it.
Ban cell phones
Lawmakers also passed a bill that would mandate cell phone bans in schools statewide.
Under AB 2, school boards must require districts to adopt cell phone ban policies in their schools during instructional time. Policies would need to be implemented by July 2026 and would need to include certain exceptions in emergencies, cases involving student’s health care, individualized education program (IEP) or 504 plan and for educational purposes.
Kitchens said it was a “modest” proposal and would help schools enforce policies if they already have them and get other school districts on the same page.
“Part of that is putting them away when it’s time to do work,” Kitchens said, adding that the bill would provide a “unified” approach for the state. During the 40 minutes of debate on the bill, some lawmakers in the Assembly chamber could be seen with their phones out.
Of the 320 school districts that participated in DPI’s 2024-25 State Digital Learning survey approximately 90% of districts reported already having some sort of restrictive cell phone policy in place.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwautosa) said she thinks the original intent of the bill was genuine in trying to address challenges posed by phones in classrooms. However, she noted that it wouldn’t apply to the state’s private and charter schools that participate in voucher programs. Vining said the bill was modeled after legislation in Indiana, but Wisconsin Republicans intentionally carved out the voucher schools.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwautosa) called attention during floor debate to the fact that the cell phone ban requirement wouldn’t apply to voucher schools. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
“It’s not fair when the concerns of voucher lobbyists are considered valid by Republicans in the Legislature that while the same concerns are ignored when they come from public schools,” Vining said.
Kitchens said the issue shouldn’t be partisan and noted that Louisiana, a red state, and New York, a blue state, both have strict statewide cell phone ban policies.
The bill passed 53-45 with Rep. Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) joining Democrats against.
Materials inspections within 14 days
AB 5, which would require school districts to comply with requests within 14 days, passed 54-43, also on a party-line vote, with Republicans for and Democrats against.
Parents can already submit open records requests to school districts to receive school materials. The bill adds that entities should respond “as soon as practicable and without delay.”
Rep. Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) said during the press conference that the bill seeks to help parents get information about materials more quickly. She noted that there are no time requirements included in state statute for responding to open records requests.
“I’m old enough to remember a time in our Wisconsin schools where our schools were begging parents to become engaged and then there came a huge fracture when COVID-19 hit,” Dittrich said. Some parents, she said, aren’t having their requests fulfilled before their child is out of the class. “[The bill] works at bridging this gap between schools and families so they can work together for the benefit of our students.”
This is the third time lawmakers have introduced a bill to implement a time frame for complying. In the 2021-23 session, the bill passed the Legislature and Evers vetoed it. Last session, the bill passed the Assembly and never received a vote in the Senate
Other laws in Wisconsin include one that requires a list of textbooks be filed with the school board clerk every year on an annual basis. Another state statute requires school boards to provide the complete human growth and development curriculum and all instructional materials for inspection to parents who request it.
Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) said the bill is unnecessary given the current state laws.
“It’s trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” Hong said.
Requiring 70% of money to go to “classroom” expenses
AB 6 would require school boards in Wisconsin to spend a minimum of 70% of operating money on direct classroom expenditures and limit annual compensation increases for school administrators to the average percent increase provided to teachers in the school district.
An amendment to the bill would clarify that “direct classroom expenditures” would not include costs for administration, food services, transportation, instructional support including media centers, teacher training and student support such as nurses and school counselors. Those costs would need to fall under the other 30% of spending.
Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R-De Pere) said the state has “a system that fails to put the money in the classroom where the education is happening” and said the bill would implement “guardrails” for school districts to ensure money is going to classrooms and teachers.
Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) said she was voting against the bill — and others on the calendar — because they appeared to be written without “meaningful input” from teachers, administrators, superintendents, parents, students or community members.
“I’m here to let you know that if you want support in the educational community for any education bill, you should do your homework,” Fitzgerald said, “including having conversations with the public and reaching across the aisle.”
Fitzgerald said Franklin’s bill would take away local control from school districts and school boards and criticized the bill for including “vague” wording and “undefined terms,” saying the bills are unserious.
“What about all the additional staff needed to meet the special needs of my students — people like speech pathologists, nurses, counselors? People I could not have done my job without,” Fitzgerald said. “That definition does include athletic programs…. Does it include bus transportation to get to games because I’ve heard that actual bus transportation is not included as a direct class transmission? Although I’ll admit I’m incredibly confused about that one, since I would not have had kids in my classroom in my rural district without bus transportation.”
Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) called the proposal an “arbitrary, one size fits all budget crackdown that limits our ability to meet moral and constitutional obligations.”
The bill passed 53-44 with only Republican support.
The Assembly also passed AB 4, which would require civics instruction in K-12 schools, in a 52-46 vote. Sortwell and Goeben voted against the bill with Democrats.
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