MacIver News Service | April 21, 2015
[Madison, Wisc…] The University of Wisconsin System will soon have to report to the legislature where their students, who require remedial education, went to high school.The State Senate passed a bill requiring that data on Tuesday, and the Assembly passed it on March 18th.
Rep. John Jagler (R-Watertown) introduced the bill after discovering 20 percent of all freshmen in the system require remedial classes and the UW was unable to identify which high schools were responsible. Currently the system only tracks how many freshmen at each campus require remediation. The high school data, although a part of the individual student records, is not included in the compiled remediation report.
“If a high school is producing a comparatively high number of graduates in need of remedial work, some questions need to be asked,” Jagler said in a press release Tuesday. “This information will help empower parents and hopefully push teachers and administrators to make some changes if they are needed.”
Jagler explained to the MacIver News Service in March that a number of factors could be at play. For example, not all schools in the system have the same admissions standards. High schools near those campus’ could see a higher number of unprepared graduates simply due to that proximity.
There is no punitive component to Jagler’s bill. It now heads to the governor’s desk and he is expected to sign it.