Summary:
The Port Edwards School District in Wisconsin has only one middle school, John Edwards Middle, which serves grades 6-8. The school has consistently ranked in the bottom half of Wisconsin middle schools over the past few years, indicating persistent challenges in academic performance.
John Edwards Middle's performance on the Forward Exam, Wisconsin's standardized test, is generally below the state average across various subjects and grade levels. For example, in 2024-2025, the school's proficiency rates in English Language Arts ranged from 40.63% to 48.15%, compared to the state average of 53.59% to 53.97%. In mathematics, the school's proficiency rates ranged from 37.04% to 62.5%, with the 8th-grade proficiency rate being significantly lower than the state average of 53.06%. The school's high percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, a proxy for low-income status, may be contributing to the lower academic performance.
Additionally, John Edwards Middle has a higher-than-average chronic absenteeism rate of 17.7% and a dropout rate of 1.3% for 2023-2024, suggesting potential issues with student engagement and retention that may be impacting academic outcomes. The school's relatively high spending per student and lower student-teacher ratio indicate that resources may not be translating into improved academic performance, and the district may need to examine the effectiveness of resource allocation and instructional practices.
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