Wisconsin’s graduation rate is at a recent high. Damian LaCroix wants to know why public confidence hasn’t kept pace.
Damian LaCroix sees a contradiction in Wisconsin’s public schools.
By many measures, they’re improving. Public confidence hasn’t followed.
He wants to understand why.
Speaking to superintendents at the WASDA Fall Superintendents Conference, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators (WASDA) invited districts to join the AASA x ThoughtExchange Nationwide Research Initiative: Community Conversation on Confidence in Public Education.
In this Article
- Why WASDA joined the Nationwide Research Initiative (video 0:39)
- Outcomes are up. Confidence isn’t. (video 1:53)
Why Did WASDA Join the AASA x ThoughtExchange Nationwide Research Initiative?
WASDA joined because Wisconsin’s school results and public confidence are moving in opposite directions, and LaCroix wants Wisconsin communities to help explain why.
“We feel like it’s part of a larger strategy for getting a voice, both at the state level and the national level, so that we can bend the trend back toward the positive.”
LaCroix framed the initiative as one way Wisconsin can help change the narrative about public education beyond its borders.
He tied it to a lesson from James Clear’s Atomic Habits: small, steady gains add up. For WASDA, that means doing “little things better every single day.”
He was also clear that the association didn’t sign on lightly. “We vetted it. We looked at it,” he said. And the choice to take part belongs to each district: “This is optional. This is free. This is private.”
That leaves the decision where it belongs, with each district’s leadership team.
Outcomes are up. Confidence isn’t.
LaCroix noted that the state superintendent had just told WASDA’s board that Wisconsin’s high school graduation rate is the highest in recent history. Recovery since the pandemic, he added, is on or ahead of schedule.
Yet confidence tells a different story. “Public confidence is as low as it’s been since approximately 2000,” he said.
He described a familiar pattern: “I like my local school, but at the national level, not so much.” Increasingly, he added, that tension is showing up locally too, including in referendum results.
Better results alone haven’t rebuilt confidence. That’s the contradiction the initiative sets out to understand.
Watch Damian LaCroix’s full remarks above to hear more.
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