PPT Slide
The 1997/98 Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts
Determining CPI for Elementary School A. In Elementary School A, only 27% of fourth-grade students read at least proficiently. Thus, under Wisconsin’s system, the school must make 3% “CPI.” The school could do so in a number of ways: By increasing the percentage of students tested by 3%; by decreasing the percentage of students testing at minimal by 3%; by increasing the percentage of students at proficient or advanced by 3%; or by some combination of the above totaling 3%.
Low expectations allow too many students to fall through the cracks. Even if the school made all of its CPI solely based on gains in the percentage of students who read proficiently, it would take until about the year 2015 before 80% of fourth-graders could meet the state standards in reading. At that point, if the school made no further gains, it would not trigger Wisconsin’s school improvement system. But Elementary School A would almost certainly not be put into school improvement in Wisconsin even if it failed to make three percent gains through the year 2015. Why? Because School A did not administer the state assessment to 15% of its students. Under Wisconsin’s system, the school could meet its CPI solely by increasing the percentage of students tested by 3% each year while keeping the percentage of students who read proficiently at the same dismal 27%. Presumably, this could go on for five years before the school needed to start making any progress in terms of actually helping more students to read proficiently.