School District of Tomahawk ‘exceeds expectations’ on annual DPI report card

TOMAHAWK – The School District of Tomahawk received an “exceeds expectations” rating on the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI)’s accountability report card for the 2023-24 school year.

State statute requires DPI to publish the school and district report cards annually.

The 2023-24 report cards were released this week.

The accountability scores are broken down into five overall ratings that a district or school can be placed into: Significantly Exceeds Expectations (five stars), Exceeds Expectations (four stars), Meets Expectations (three stars), Meets Few Expectations (two stars) and Fails to Meet Expectations (one star).

Report cards use up to three years of data, including achievement data from 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24.

DPI said statewide overall ratings distribution on district report cards for 2023-24 was similar to 2022-23.

“Of 377 public school districts receiving report cards for 2023-24, 353 met, exceeded or significantly exceeded expectations (94% of districts),” DPI stated. “Among districts receiving report cards for both 2023-24 and 2022-23, 29 increased by one rating category compared to the prior year, 24 decreased by one rating category, and 324 had no change in rating.”

Report cards are not produced for districts that represent a single school, DPI noted. In these cases, school report cards are produced.

There were 1,939 report cards produced for public schools for 2023-24, according to DPI.

“Of the scored public school report cards, 1,622 met, exceeded or significantly exceeded expectations (84%). Among public schools receiving scored report cards for both 2023-24 and 2022-23, 249 increased in rating at least one category compared to the prior year, 212 decreased in rating at least one category and 1,461 had no change in rating. Among public schools, 153 were unable to be scored and are rated using alternate accountability.”

“This data is broken down by student group and across years, helping to highlight trends and provide a deeper analysis of performance at the group, school and district levels,” DPI stated.

School District of Tomahawk data

The School District of Tomahawk earned an overall score of 72.2, good for a four-star, “exceeds expectations” rating.

Tomahawk earned one of the highest overall scores in the area and was one of few local districts to exceed expectations. Many area districts earned “meets expectations” marks, while several received “meets few expectations” ratings.

According to DPI, report cards include data for multiple school years across four priority areas: Achievement, Growth, Target Group Outcomes and On-Track to Graduation.

DPR said the Achievement and Growth priority areas are weighted based on a district or school percentage of economically disadvantaged pupils, as required by state law.

The Achievement priority area summarizes how a district's students performed on state assessments using a points-based proficiency system that gives partial credit for Approaching performance and extra credit for Advanced performance. The score is a multi-year average of English language arts (ELA) and mathematics component scores.

Tomahawk’s score of 61.3 (62.0 in ELA, 60.6 in mathematics), was the same as or higher than 48.7% of districts in the state, according to DPI.

The Growth priority area measures year-to-year student progress on statewide tests. It uses a value-added model that seeks to control for circumstances beyond the influence of educators.

DPI said a high value-added score means that on average students in the district are progressing more quickly than other, similar students.

“Growth is scored from 0 to 100 to match the other priority areas and is a conversion from the roughly 0 to 6 value-added score,” DPI stated.

In this area, Tomahawk earned a score of 72.7 (73.6 in ELA, 71.7 in mathematics). The score was the same as or higher than 86.3% of Wisconsin districts.

The Target Group Outcomes priority area examines outcomes for students with the lowest test scores – the target group.

“It is designed to promote equity by helping districts focus on learners who need the most support while also improving outcomes for all students,” DPI said. “The priority area score combines component scores for achievement, growth, chronic absenteeism and attendance or graduation rate.”

Tomahawk earned a score of 64.5 in this category, the same as or higher than 75.7% of districts in the state.

The On-Track to Graduation priority area indicates how successfully students are progressing toward completing their K-12 education. The score combines component scores for measures of student engagement and achievement.

Tomahawk’s score of 87.5 was the same as or higher than 67.9% of Badger State districts.

The school and district report cards are available on the DPI’s website at www.apps2.dpi.wi.gov/reportcards/.

DPI said it recommends “careful review of not only the report card front page, but also of the detailed student performance data on the following pages.”

Additional information on report cards can also be found on the DPI’s Office of Educational Accountability webpage at www.dpi.wi.gov/accountability/resources.