Given time and effort, we can teach every child to be proficient in reading and mathematics. In truth, with time and effort we can teach any child to be proficient in any subject. This is a true and correct statement of teaching and learning.
You can define proficiency as reading and solving math problems at grade level for elementary age children or as achieving a standardized score on reading and math assessments. These are not unreachable goals nor impossible tasks, if ensuring proficient reading and math abilities are as highly valued as we say they are. But they are not that highly valued – if they were, we would achieve them. Children in American schools are not proficient because we accept and even expect lower academic skills from 50% of our children.
The problem is not the students in school who are not meeting our achievement goals. They meet the farcical achievement levels we accept. They repeatedly score below their prescribed proficiency levels and repeatedly are advanced in grade levels. I am not advocating retention of any child, because we can teach students to meet higher learning goals. If we choose to do so.
The problem is not our goal for every child to be college or career ready. This is the banner headline goal for Wisconsin public schools, and it is a solid, high ground goal for public education. We can teach all students to be college and career ready. The problem is that we, the State of Wisconsin, and its hundreds of school districts, say one thing and accept far less. Most Wisconsin students are not proficient by any measure in reading or math. And we accept this. If we did not, the results would be different.
The problem is our hypocrisy.
What do we know?
If reading and math proficiencies are our gold standards for educational quality, we are failing.
A search of data says this – “Based on spring 2025 results, Wisconsin student performance showed slight gains, with 47.7% of students proficient or better in English Language Arts (ELA) and 48.6% in mathematics.” The data has been saying the same things for years. Less than half of all students are proficient in reading and math.
What does this really mean? Student assessment data are grouped into four categories: Developing, Approaching, Meeting, and Advanced. Students in the Meeting and Advanced categories achieved scores at or above the target for proficient skills. Students in the Developing and Approaching categories are not proficient; some are far below the proficient level.
In real terms, 52.3% of students are not proficient in reading and 51.4% of students are not proficient in math. We can use softer words to describe the results, but softer words do not change the true meaning. Today, by our own measures, we do not make Wisconsin or any other state’s graduates’ college and career ready.
What should we know about this?
The word “readiness” is a misnomer. A high school graduate thinks readiness is acceptance by a college or being hired into a career apprenticeship or job. I am accepted = I am ready. Readiness is not the status of entry. Readiness is the ability to succeed in college or in a career. Our children are victims of standardized assessments and intransigent institutional standards. Instead of archaic and uninformative statements of proficiency, we must give children real school achievements targets. Like these –
- College ready means the cognitive and emotional abilities needed for a 75% anticipation of earning a C grade as a minimum in college level courses.
- Career ready means the cognitive and emotional abilities to successfully apply learned skills necessary for an adult career.
To be cognitively ready for success in college, a student must be able to –
- Independently read and understand high-school level and introductory college level texts. These are complex and complicated texts and documents.
- Analyze, evaluate, and synthesize multiple sources into coherent written and oral arguments (papers).
- Use personal, collegiate vocabulary in all subjects.
- As a beginning point, master Algebra 2 problems, quadratic functions, polynomials, basic trigonometry, and an ability to interpret statistics, and
- Make sense of a messy, real-world problem and translate it into a mathematical equation.
To be cognitively ready to apply skills in an adult career, a student must be able to –
- Follow multi-step complex instructions, safety protocols, technical diagrams. Career-based reading in technical careers often is more complex and complicated than general courses in college.
- Navigate digital resources to expediently find specific data.
- Communicate in writing and orally with clarity, as lack of clarity can cause safety and work errors.
- Master applications of ratios, proportions, and spatial reasoning – tolerances matter.
- Accurately interpret charts, spreadsheets, and data and communicate this with others.
- Master fractions, decimals, and basic algebra and geometry.
These are the academic achievements that matter for a high school graduate to predict success in college and a career. Instead of a test score or a grade point average, colleges, universities, and technical colleges should use acceptance tests, like placement tests, to verify an applicant’s likelihood of success. Placement tests are used selectively today – make them universal acceptance tests.
Apprenticeships in skilled trades and should require real-time applied knowledge tests. A highly successful home builder friend tells me, “For example, I hand an applicant a 2 x 4 and pencil and give them an applied math question of measurement, angle, and dimension. They need to make a sketch. Then, I check their assumptions, figures, and diagrams. They need not be 100% correct but demonstrate an understanding of building basics. We will refine their accuracy if they know what they what to do.”
Colleges, universities, technical schools and trades need to define college and career readiness not public schools.
Improve the expectations to improve student achievements.
Many worry that students will fail to meet new requirements, so they are reluctant to make new requirements. Hogwash! Experience tells us that children adapt to new school requirements. School boards have been adding requirements for years and students have adapted to each addition. However, adding new requirements has not improved academic achievement, it only makes schoolwork denser.
The real “new” that is needed to improve student achievement is labeling and teaching to the new descriptors of college and career readiness.
What to do.
- Stop soft selling the lack of proficient achievement. Drop the categories of “developing” and “approaching.” Relabel them as one – “Not proficient.” Then, counsel each non-proficient student on how to achieve proficiency. Today we expect children to self-identify their own remedies. That is more hogwash! We are teachers, so teach them.
- Strengthen “learn to read, read to learn” instruction in PK-4 with mastery teaching techniques. And create a “learn the math, do math to learn” mantra for mathematics.
- Reduce the current number of academic assignments and insist that all students succeed at every assignment. Spend more time teaching children to understand and plan how to successfully complete every assignment. Today “how to” is a mystery to most children.
- Stop accepting holes in student learning. Today, teachers begin the next lesson regardless of students who were not successful in the prior lesson. The 80% Rule leaves holes in student understanding and skills. Use more mastery teaching strategies in PK-4 to ensure every student is at grade level reading in reading and math. Use multi-tiered interventions in regular education to ensure that every student ends each unit of instruction successfully.
- Stop issuing less than proficient grades on student assignments and tests. Use an A, B, I grade system. Stop using C, D, and F grades. Every student whose assignments are less than a B grade is incomplete, and all incomplete grades must be improved to a B grade or better. Stop i
Successful student learning begets more successful student learning. Make these changes in the PK-4 grades and sustain these new practices through subject instruction in grades 5-12. Being below grade level can be habitual for a student. Do not let that habit start. Once students are meeting grade level success, do not let them fall below grade level.
The Big Duh!
No child starts school with the desire to be less than successful. All children look to their teacher with the anticipation of “I can do this.” As soon as we start accepting less than successful from a child, we say to that child “Less than successful is okay for you.” This is wrong. We create a learned habit of unproficiency. When we stop accepting less than successful schoolwork, children will need to be successful every day. We must mean what we say when we say, “Every child will be college and career ready” and begin meaning that in PK.