“award equal points for all courses regardless of difficulty”
Some high schools, including the Madison school district, use unweighted GPAs, which award equal points for all courses regardless of difficulty. Others, like Middleton-Cross Plains, employ weighted GPAs that give more points for more rigorous classes like AP courses.
Depending on the approach, different challenges arise. With unweighted GPAs, some worry about having to break ties or creating perverse incentives for students to maximize their GPAs. Other school officials doubt weighted GPAs account for differences in students’ access to advanced coursework and feel the approach may discount the value of other experiences like arts or career-focused courses.
Nearly two dozen school districts, including 10 in Dane County, have sought exemptions from the state Department of Public Instruction to use different ranking methods and create tiebreaker policies, according to records obtained by the Cap Times under state transparency laws. Districts secured approval to use a range of tiebreaker criteria, including ACT scores, attendance records, extracurriculars and, as a last resort, randomly drawing names.
While early research indicates the Wisconsin Guarantee isn’t making a significant differencein who applies to and enrolls at UW-Madison — the state’s public flagship university — the patchwork landscape of the law’s implementation underscores the admission promise’s ongoing effects in communities.
“It’s a little bit like the Wild Wild West,” said David Lang, a dean at California State University at Sacramento who’s studied rankings systems. “It’s not just kids and families that are going to game the system … but school districts at large are also trying to kind of game this out and try to figure out how to play within the rules.”
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“They were relieved that American classes are so much easier than those in Taiwan”
Notes and links on the taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI and Jill Underly.
“Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?” she asked.
Madison’s district, despite an elite university pipeline, hypereducated leadership, and a shiny, new strategic plan, suffers the same frailties as Milwaukee’s: basement performance, backbreaking spending. But while Milwaukee is pulling out of its tailspin due to courageouschoices from the top, Madison is ponderously ambling to nowhere. Just ask the locals. “You need the marketing, and you need the product,” as a parent told a reporter. “I’m missing the product.”
2025-2026 Madison 4k-3rd grade Early Literacy Screener report: The bar moves faster than the kids.
Joe Gothard, Becky Kundert and Sonia Spencer Remarks on Madison’s K-12 Literacy Crisis.
2026-2027 Madison K-12 $pending continues to grow, fueled by a 9.7% (!) property tax increase. Total spending will be at least $706,000,000 for 25,003 students, or $28,236 per student.
May 2026 Madison School District Presentation: 7,095 adults for 25,003 students (3.52 students per adult!)
2024-2025 Early Literacy Screener Map.
Map: Foundations of Reading Results: 2015–2024
Where have all the students gone?
3,887 Madison 4 year old to third grade students scored lower than 75% of the students in the national comparison group.
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average k-12 tax & $pending. This despite our long term, disastrous reading results. May, 2026: 7,095 Staff for 25,003 students; $pending > $26k per student!
Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability
The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery…
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
China’s PhD Glut Drives Top Graduates to High School Teaching Jobs
