Summary:
The Wauwatosa School District in Wisconsin is home to two middle schools: Longfellow Middle and Whitman Middle. Based on the available data, Longfellow Middle appears to be the standout school, consistently outperforming Whitman Middle and the district/state averages across a variety of metrics.
Longfellow Middle is ranked as high as 45th out of 628 Wisconsin middle schools and has a 4-star rating from SchoolDigger, while Whitman Middle has a 2-3 star rating. Longfellow Middle significantly outperforms Whitman Middle on test scores, with proficiency rates often 10-20 percentage points higher. For example, in 8th grade Math, Longfellow Middle had a 73.93% proficiency rate compared to 47.46% at Whitman Middle, and the district and state averages of 63.38% and 53.06%, respectively. Longfellow Middle also has a lower chronic absenteeism rate and a lower percentage of free/reduced lunch recipients compared to Whitman Middle.
Despite Whitman Middle spending slightly more per student ($12,004) than Longfellow Middle ($11,869) and having a lower student-teacher ratio (13:1 vs. 14.5:1), these factors do not appear to translate to better academic outcomes. The significant performance gap between the two schools suggests that factors beyond just funding and class size, such as teaching quality or curriculum, may be contributing to the disparity in academic achievement.
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