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Honest take: what's the hardest part about being a student at South Milwaukee High?
Community prompt from u/allk12. Replies below.
English Language Arts
N/A
State avg 53.1%
District avg 41.6%
County avg 40.0%
District avg 41.6%
County avg 40.0%
Test scores
See how it ranks: all Wisconsin schools by score · Milwaukee County schools by score
Forward Exam, SY 2024-25
All grades, all students. % Meeting or Advanced.Mathematics
N/A
State avg 54.8%
District avg 35.9%
County avg 38.4%
District avg 35.9%
County avg 38.4%
Science
N/A
State avg 50.8%
District avg 43.1%
County avg 35.3%
District avg 43.1%
County avg 35.3%
Social Studies
33.0%
State avg 57.0%
District avg 45.1%
County avg 42.6%
+13.9pp since 2023-24
District avg 45.1%
County avg 42.6%
+13.9pp since 2023-24
What this means: On the Forward Exam, Wisconsin's statewide test, about 33 of every 100 students at this school are at grade level in social studies. The Wisconsin average is about 57 of 100. Social studies scores are up about 14 points since 2023.
Rank: South Milwaukee High places #365 of 402 Wisconsin high schools, and #17 of 40 in Milwaukee County for state test proficiency.
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
UNDERPERFORMING
Bottom 10% of WI schools after controlling for student poverty
Actual proficiency
26.1%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
49.0%
based on WI schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-22.9pp
below demographic expectation
What this means: About 26% of students here test proficient in math and reading, below the roughly 49% typical for Wisconsin schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations compares each school with others at the same poverty level, not by raw scores, so a school lands here when its results trail those comparable schools, which is not the same as having low scores. A higher-scoring school can still fall in this tier if similar schools score higher still.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →
By grade, SY 2024-25
School score vs state average per tested grade.| Grade | English Language Arts | Mathematics | Science | Social Studies | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| School | State | n tested | School | State | n tested | School | State | n tested | School | State | n tested | |
| Grade 10 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 33.0% | 45.6% | 227 |
2-year history
All grades, all students. South Milwaukee Wisconsin avgSocial Studies
| Year | School | District | County | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SY 2024-25 | 33.0% | 45.1% | 42.6% | 57.0% |
| SY 2023-24 | 19.1% | 35.7% | 41.7% | 55.4% |
Recent discussions
From the South Milwaukee High community.How to read these scores
What is Forward Exam?
Forward Exam is the statewide standardized test administered by Wisconsin public schools.
What does "% Meeting or Advanced" mean?
It is the share of students at the school who performed at grade level or above on the test, summed across the top two of four performance levels. A higher number is better.
How should I read a single score?
Each percent represents the share of tested students who performed at grade level or above. Compare the school number against the state, district, and county averages on this page to see whether it is above or below typical.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in Wisconsin, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Wisconsin Forward Exam. School-level All Students subgroup from the WISEdash Download Files. Headline metric is the cumulative "Meeting + Advanced" rate (top 2 of 4 Forward performance levels: Developing / Approaching / Meeting / Advanced).
How often is it updated?
Forward Exam is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.