By Baylor Spears, Wisconsin Examiner
Wisconsin Republicans in the state Assembly passed a package of education bills Wednesday to implement new standards for standardized test scores, school funding allocations, responding to curriculum inspection requests and for keeping cell phones out of schools.
Republicans argued that the state needs to ensure that schools are meeting certain standards, especially as they’ve provided some state funding increases in recent years and as school enrollments have declined. While Wisconsin schools did receive an increase in the last state budget, many schools continue to struggle to meet costs as funding has failed to match the rate of inflation.
“We need to make sure that, as we are increasing funding for education, we are also doing a better job, ensuring that the standards and the expectations that parents and taxpayers have across the state are being met,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said at a press conference.
Vos called some school districts “disappointing” and named Milwaukee Public Schools as an example. The district, which was an ongoing target of Republican lawmakers throughout the debate, has experienced turmoil over the last few years with turnover in staff, a financial crisis after delays in delivering required documents to DPI and reading and math scores that show continued disparities between Black and white students.
“I’m a huge supporter of local control. There are some districts that are so broken and expect us to have to pay for it as taxpayers, either on the front end through funding the school district or on the back end with the bad decisions that are made where people make bad choices,” Vos said. “Having that statewide standards is good for Wisconsin while still maintaining the flexibility to try to get there.”
Democrats said Republicans’ focus was in the wrong place and that the proposed solutions would not help address the real challenges that schools are facing.
Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) criticized Republicans for rejecting Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal that would invest heavily in Wisconsin K-12 education.
Evers unveiled his complete state budget proposal Tuesday evening, calling for more than $3 billion in additional funding for K-12 schools, including to support operational costs, special education and mental health supports.
“The level of investment from the Legislature is just not enough to provide these essential investments in our schools,” Neubauer said. “Here in the Capitol, the Legislature has failed our students … we just have not kept up our end of the bargain.”
“Instead of bringing legislation to the floor to support our schools, teachers and students, the best the majority party can do is to fast-track a bill that would require cursive instruction,” Neubauer said. That bill — AB 3 — passed 51-46 with Reps. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart), Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) and David Steffen (R-Howard) joining Democrats to vote against it.
Test scores
Another bill focused on reversing changes to standards on state tests that were approved by the DPI last year. GOP lawmakers slammed State Superintendent Jill Underly, who is running for reelection against Republican-backed education consultant Brittany Kinser, for approving the changes in the first place.
“Something is wrong in our communication system. It is not a lack of resources. It’s a lack of willpower to do something about the problems that we know are obvious because it is the fact that we have kids who can’t read,” Vos said. He added that only lawmakers should be allowed to “dumb down” the state’s standards.
Vos said there was only one person — referencing Underly — that “needs to pay a price” and “hopefully she will in April.”
Wisconsin students take standardized tests each year including the Forward Exam for third graders through eighth graders and the ACT and PreACT Secure for high school students.
Underly approved changes to the standards last year that included new terms — “developing,” “approaching,” “meeting” and “advanced” — to describe student achievement. Previously, the terms were “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.” The changes also included new cut scores — which are the test scores cutoffs needed to qualify to be placed in each performance level.
Underly and DPI have defended the changes, saying they were necessary to more accurately measure achievement; that educators and other stakeholders worked together to create the new measures with Underly signing off; and that it’s too late to take the state back to 2019-20 standards.
Republican lawmakers said the changes “lowered” state standards and were an attempt to “cook the books.”
AB 1 directs DPI to use score ranges and qualitative terms used on school report cards for the 2019-2020 school year and to tie the Forward exam score ranges and pupil performance categories to those set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
“There’s no legislative oversight on the scoring and assessment of our kids, so this bill will establish that,” bill coauthor Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) said at a press conference.
“We will be once again allowed to compare ourselves to other states — let us know who’s doing well, are we on pace with them or not,” Wittke said. “Then it provides legislative oversight, so the only time these scores can be adjusted or changed is when we actually legislate.”
Rep. Angelina M. Cruz (D-Racine), who has worked as an educator for the last 20 years, said during floor debate that a variety of student assessments are used to measure students’ learning with each serving a “unique purpose” and reflecting the “expertise of professional educators.” She said that goes for the state tests as well and said the updates to standards weren’t made in a “vacuum,” noting that this isn’t the first time DPI has made changes and it shouldn’t be the last.
“Education is dynamic,” Cruz said. “The disconnect between the reality of classroom teaching and this body and the understanding of assessments has never been more clear… This bill is not about improving education. This bill is about playing political games.”
Cruz said lawmakers would be better served fully funding the state’s public schools.
During floor debate, Wittke said that Democrats were repeating political talking points by talking about increasing funding for public schools.
The bill passed 55-44 along party lines with Republicans for and Democrats against it.
Ban cell phones
Lawmakers also passed a bill that would mandate cell phone bans in schools statewide.
Under AB 2, school boards must require districts to adopt cell phone ban policies in their schools during instructional time. Policies would need to be implemented by July 2026 and would need to include certain exceptions in emergencies, cases involving student’s health care, individualized education program (IEP) or 504 plan and for educational purposes.
Kitchens said it was a “modest” proposal and would help schools enforce policies if they already have them and get other school districts on the same page.
“Part of that is putting them away when it’s time to do work,” Kitchens said, adding that the bill would provide a “unified” approach for the state. During the 40 minutes of debate on the bill, some lawmakers in the Assembly chamber could be seen with their phones out.
Of the 320 school districts that participated in DPI’s 2024-25 State Digital Learning survey approximately 90% of districts reported already having some sort of restrictive cell phone policy in place.
Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwautosa) said she thinks the original intent of the bill was genuine in trying to address challenges posed by phones in classrooms. However, she noted that it wouldn’t apply to the state’s private and charter schools that participate in voucher programs. Vining said the bill was modeled after legislation in Indiana, but Wisconsin Republicans intentionally carved out the voucher schools.
“It’s not fair when the concerns of voucher lobbyists are considered valid by Republicans in the Legislature that while the same concerns are ignored when they come from public schools,” Vining said.
Kitchens said the issue shouldn’t be partisan and noted that Louisiana, a red state, and New York, a blue state, both have strict statewide cell phone ban policies.
The bill passed 53-45 with Rep. Rob Swearingen (R-Rhinelander) joining Democrats against.
Materials inspections within 14 days
AB 5, which would require school districts to comply with requests within 14 days, passed 54-43, also on a party-line vote, with Republicans for and Democrats against.
Parents can already submit open records requests to school districts to receive school materials. The bill adds that entities should respond “as soon as practicable and without delay.”
Rep. Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) said during the press conference that the bill seeks to help parents get information about materials more quickly. She noted that there are no time requirements included in state statute for responding to open records requests.
“I’m old enough to remember a time in our Wisconsin schools where our schools were begging parents to become engaged and then there came a huge fracture when COVID-19 hit,” Dittrich said. Some parents, she said, aren’t having their requests fulfilled before their child is out of the class. “[The bill] works at bridging this gap between schools and families so they can work together for the benefit of our students.”
This is the third time lawmakers have introduced a bill to implement a time frame for complying. In the 2021-23 session, the bill passed the Legislature and Evers vetoed it. Last session, the bill passed the Assembly and never received a vote in the Senate
Other laws in Wisconsin include one that requires a list of textbooks be filed with the school board clerk every year on an annual basis. Another state statute requires school boards to provide the complete human growth and development curriculum and all instructional materials for inspection to parents who request it.
Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) said the bill is unnecessary given the current state laws.
“It’s trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” Hong said.
Requiring 70% of money to go to “classroom” expenses
AB 6 would require school boards in Wisconsin to spend a minimum of 70% of operating money on direct classroom expenditures and limit annual compensation increases for school administrators to the average percent increase provided to teachers in the school district.
An amendment to the bill would clarify that “direct classroom expenditures” would not include costs for administration, food services, transportation, instructional support including media centers, teacher training and student support such as nurses and school counselors. Those costs would need to fall under the other 30% of spending.
Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R-De Pere) said the state has “a system that fails to put the money in the classroom where the education is happening” and said the bill would implement “guardrails” for school districts to ensure money is going to classrooms and teachers.
Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) said she was voting against the bill — and others on the calendar — because they appeared to be written without “meaningful input” from teachers, administrators, superintendents, parents, students or community members.
“I’m here to let you know that if you want support in the educational community for any education bill, you should do your homework,” Fitzgerald said, “including having conversations with the public and reaching across the aisle.”
Fitzgerald said Franklin’s bill would take away local control from school districts and school boards and criticized the bill for including “vague” wording and “undefined terms,” saying the bills are unserious.
“What about all the additional staff needed to meet the special needs of my students — people like speech pathologists, nurses, counselors? People I could not have done my job without,” Fitzgerald said. “That definition does include athletic programs…. Does it include bus transportation to get to games because I’ve heard that actual bus transportation is not included as a direct class transmission? Although I’ll admit I’m incredibly confused about that one, since I would not have had kids in my classroom in my rural district without bus transportation.”
Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) called the proposal an “arbitrary, one size fits all budget crackdown that limits our ability to meet moral and constitutional obligations.”
The bill passed 53-44 with only Republican support.
The Assembly also passed AB 4, which would require civics instruction in K-12 schools, in a 52-46 vote. Sortwell and Goeben voted against the bill with Democrats.
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Another article that sheds some light on this is by WisPolitics and can be read here.