School Information System
Newsletter Sign Up |

Subscribe to this site via RSS: | Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas

August 20, 2008

Buildings rise, test scores fall
Spate of school expansions is no tonic for student proficiency

Alan Borsuk & Dave Umhoefer:

The $102 million spent on reviving the concept of the neighborhood school in Milwaukee hasn't improved academic success at most of the schools where the money was used, a Journal Sentinel investigation found.

With a few exceptions, student achievement has shown little improvement - and in some cases it has fallen dramatically - at 22 schools that were among the largest beneficiaries of the district's school construction program.

The district's Neighborhood Schools Initiative was conceived as a way to get children off buses and into their local schools - which MPS officials hoped to improve with new classrooms, before-school and after-school services, and such things as state-of-the-art science labs and libraries.

But bricks and mortar have not raised student performance, testing data shows.

In 16 of the 22 schools, the percentage of fourth-graders rated as proficient or better in reading was lower last year than it was in 2002 - the year the school building initiative hit high gear. Nine schools saw their math scores drop.

Overall, combined fourth-grade reading and math scores have declined sharply at a half dozen of the22 schools where more than $1 million was spent on improvements. Only five schools have had major increases in their combined reading and math performance.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 20, 2008 1:58 PM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas