Milwaukee students made modest gains on statewide tests last school year. That’s according to results released late last week by Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction.
But there’s still a lot of room for improvement.
The 2025-26 results show that 25.1% of MPS students in third through eighth grade were proficient in English/Language Arts. That’s up 1.5% from the year before.
In math, 20.1% of students were deemed proficient — an increase of 0.8% over last year.
About half of Wisconsin students overall are proficient in language arts and math. While MPS still ranks far below those averages, the slight improvement was cause for celebration.
“What this data shows us today, even though some of it is modest, what it shows today is that reading is fundamental," MPS Superintendent Dr. Brenda Cassellius said. "Reading is foundational to the learning for children. And how do you know that? Because we not only went up in our literacy scores, but we went up in science, we went up in math and we went up in social studies grades three through eight.”
The results come amid an intense focus on literacy across MPS. The district overhauled its reading curriculum last year and trained more than 1,000 staff members this summer on literacy instruction. Literacy experts say it could take five to six more years to see all the impacts of the changes on student test scores.
Cassellius pointed out that 23 MPS schools made significant gains of five or more percentage points on the state language arts exams.
Gaps between Black and white students persist in statewide test results
Huge gaps in opportunity and achievement exist in Wisconsin.
White students in Wisconsin scored, on average, 40 points higher than their Black peers on the English/Language Arts exams. The gap in math was 45 points.
Those gaps did narrow slightly in the latest test results: The proficiency gap narrowed by 0.4 percentage points in English/Language Arts and by 1.4 percentage points in math.
"Wisconsin students continue to make steady progress, and we should be proud of that progress," State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly said in a news release. "At the same time, we know too many students are still not where they need to be. Every student deserves the opportunity to become a strong reader, a skilled mathematician, and a successful learner."
Students will take the exams again in March and April 2027.
Do you have a question about education or how schools work in our area? Submit it here to WUWM education reporter Katherine Kokal.
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