A new state task force will try to figure out why Wisconsin has one of the nation’s largest performance gaps between white and minority school students.
It’s been a problem for years. In the recent National Assessment of Education Progress, the gap between black and white youngsters in the Milwaukee region was the largest in the country in every testing category. The same gap occurred between whites and Hispanics in fourth-grade math.
State Superintendent Tony Evers has named Mequon-Thiensville administrator Demond Means to head the task force, and come up with possible solutions. He and 16 other educators from all types of schools will look for successful practices to reduce the performance gap.
Evers says “the work of this task force is extremely important to me because it is directly connected to Agenda 2017, my vision for all of Wisconsin’s students to graduate college and career ready.”
The panel will hold its first meeting April 9 in Madison.