Making Black Lives Matter in Wisconsin Schools
TLDR: My city and state are home to among the nation’s largest Black-White educational equities. Changing this will require more than yard signs.
I am a Wisconsin native. It was not until I was living in another state, however, that I learned of Wisconsin’s longtime recognition as having one of the largest Black-White achievement gaps in the nation. On the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, aka the Nation’s Report Card), Black grade 4 students in Wisconsin scored 45 points lower than their White peers in reading and 47 points lower in math. Also concerning, Hispanic grade 4 students scored 20 and 26 points lower than White students in math and reading, respectively. These disparities have been quite static for years.
A Long History of Inequities
In Madison, where I live, the differences are yet more profound. State testing data from the 2024/25 school year demonstrate that about 15% of Madison’s Black students met grade-level expectations in reading and writing, compared to 76% of White students. The longstanding racialized contours of educational opportunities and outcomes here in Madison are receiving renewed public attention currently as the school district embarks on a yearlong process of redrawing school attendance boundaries, which last occurred in the early 2000s. Some residents see this moment as an opportunity to begin addressing the extreme racial disparities that have plagued Madison and Dane County for decades.
Addressing Racial Inequities Means Talking About Race
When it comes to understanding and addressing the causes of such stark group differences in educational outcomes, both nationally and in Wisconsin, it is not uncommon to encounter the argument that racial and ethnic inequities in education mostly reflect factors that are not about race. For instance, a recent analysis from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), a conservative libertarian public interest law firm, claims that “poverty, family structure, and early literacy explain much of the disparity.”
It is not inaccurate to observe that a substantial share of Black-White achievement gaps is associated with student and family poverty; by one recent account, somewhere between 34 and 64 percent. Other analyses have found the same. I am wary, however, of arguments that racialized inequities that can be *statistically* accounted for by non-race factors can be *practically* addressed through “race neutral” remedies. Today’s achievement gaps may be bound up with factors such as socioeconomic status. But these factors are rooted in the long shadow of slavery and racism in this country, ranging from denial of the right to literacy among Black Americans, to zoning policies preventing home ownership (an important means of building generational wealth), to systematically inferior medical care.
Centering Racial Equity
What recent research instead demonstrates is that school districts demonstrating consistent progress in addressing racial inequities in both educational inputs and outcomes have centered racial equity in their efforts to close gaps and improve experiences and outcomes for all students.
As the Madison Metropolitan School District moves forward with the process of redrawing attendance boundaries and fully launching its new strategic framework under the guidance of its new superintendent, I’m cautiously optimistic that this could mark a new chapter for the district and the city. The new strategic framework, entitled Excellence Together, includes Leading with Equity as a guiding commitment, and that is a good first step.
In the spirit of excellence together I am also hopeful that, in a city that prides itself on its progressive nature and where is hard to go more than a few city blocks without passing a Black Lives Matter yard sign, that we might finally live up to those words.