Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/achievement-gap/)
Studies show poverty damages the brains of very poor children. Early interventions and raising the standard of living of poor families could help close Wisconsin’s worst-in-the-nation achievement gap.
Community learning centers in Madison and Milwaukee offer a promising method of shrinking academic achievement gaps.
Students like Demitrius Kigeya thrive in Wisconsin despite the worst black-white achievement gap in the nation. The state ranks the worst in the nation for the difference between how well black and white students perform, the likelihood that black students will be suspended from school and the difference between black and white student graduation rates.
Investigate achievement gaps in your local schools to seek solutions.
In the past year, the Republican-run state Legislature, with the blessing of Gov. Scott Walker, eliminated the state’s race-based integration program and made changes to a class-size reduction program in moves that critics charge will harm the state’s ability to close the achievement gap.
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism reporter Abigail Becker sat down in October with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers, Department of Public Instruction spokesman Tom McCarthy and the agency’s Director of Education Information Services John Johnson.