The low test scores and high dropout rates typically associated with southeastern Wisconsin’s largest districts also plague some Milwaukee-area suburban schools and smaller urban districts in Waukesha and Walworth counties, the Public Policy Forum reports in its annual assessment of education in the seven-county area.
Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha continue to skew comparisons between the region and the rest of the state, but the report shows that the achievement gap is increasingly tied to changing student populations in places such as Cudahy, West Allis, Whitewater and Delavan.
“Some of these smaller districts are getting a critical mass of minority or low-income students, and they’re starting to feel some of the same stressors,” said Anneliese Dickman, research director at the Public Policy Forum, a nonpartisan think tank in Milwaukee.
Smaller cities and older suburbs have started seeing a set of trends that have long challenged Kenosha and Racine, the state’s third- and fourth-largest districts, and Milwaukee: declining enrollment, higher concentrations of poverty and less student engagement, according to the report, released this fall.