DPI Is About to Change the Rules — Again
Starting Tuesday, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) is gathering a committee of educators in Madison to overhaul the star-rating system used to rate schools and districts across Wisconsin. It’ll be the fourth major change in five years.

Why? Because DPI created a mess.
After quietly lowering the bar for test scores, DPI realized nearly every school would now earn 4 or 5 stars — regardless of performance. Our latest report revealed the internal DPI emails where staff admitted it.

Parents are being misled. Schools are angry. And real problems are being hidden behind a wall of inflated stars.

A brief history of the chaos:

• 2020: No report cards.
• 2021: DPI lowers standards in light of the pandemic.
• 2024: DPI quietly changes standards again, with confusing, inconsistent ratings.
• 2025: A brand-new system is being created next week — but we expect the same or worse problems.

Bottom line? These ratings are meaningless — by design. DPI keeps changing the scoreboard to avoid showing the score. These report cards aren’t tools for parents. They’re PR.

We’ve printed the proof, and we’re watching what happens this week.
Read the full report here