How Do the Schools Near You Perform?

Plus, a preview to our forthcoming high performing school deserts study

With the enormous disruption resulting from COVID-19 impacting Wisconsin K-12 education, parents need access to information, now more than ever. To meet this need, WILL created a free searchable statewide map so parents can quickly and easily learn about the performance of their child's school - as well as schools nearby.

So what is the quality of the schools near you?

Click here to find out.

The searchable map is also a valuable tool to learn about Wisconsin's K-12 landscape. Here are 5 takeaways from our forthcoming study, “Wisconsin’s High Performing School Deserts" study by Research Director Will Flanders and Policy Associate Jessica Holmberg (Coming in June):

147 Wisconsin zip codes (17%) do not have access to high performing schools within 10 miles. Students living in these zip codes do not have access to schools - public or private - that are considered high performing based on available data. We call these regions high performing school deserts.
Just 28 of the 147 zip codes with no high performing schools currently have private schools participating in the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program (WPCP). These results, part of a forthcoming study from WILL, indicate that families living in the vast majority of zip codes with no high performing public schools don’t have the option to send their child to a private school in the WPCP. There is a lot of opportunity for growth in the WPCP to serve students and provide options to these families.
17 new high performing private schools were added to the parental choice programs – enhancing school choice for more Wisconsin families. Our school maps show the number of high performing private schools participating in the parental choice programs grew from 47 to 64, a 36% increase between 2017 and 2019. This expansion is critical to Wisconsin with WILL data showing that private schools are performing well across the state compared to their public school peers.

Just 10% of the public high schools near Green Bay are considered high performing. Unfortunately, families in this area lack options because there are only two private high schools that participate in the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program.

Wisconsin’s small cities and rural areas are the most lacking for high quality options. For example, within 10 miles of Wausau, only 22% of schools are ranked as high performing schools. There are no high performing middle schools and just 4 of the 21 elementary schools are high performing.