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Committee approves submission of five‑year Achievement Gap Reduction contract renewal to DPI
Summary
The Board Committee on Instruction voted to approve submission of Milwaukee Public Schools' five‑year Achievement Gap Reduction Program contract renewal to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, authorizing the district to seek continued AGR funding for fall 2026–spring 2030.
The Board Committee on Instruction approved the administration's request to submit Milwaukee Public Schools' five‑year Achievement Gap Reduction (AGR) Program contract renewal to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
The action matters because AGR funds are tied to district strategies aimed at narrowing early-grade achievement gaps; approval allows MPS to seek continued AGR funding for the contract period spanning fall 2026 through spring 2030 and obligates the district to report progress twice a year under the contract requirements.
Paulette Chambers, chief of staff, framed the request and introduced Allison Feuer, an early-childhood supervisor, who said the AGR renewal requires each participating school to report the strategies it will use to close gaps between low‑income students and their peers. Feuer summarized the three allowable AGR strategies: 1-on-1 tutoring, instructional coaching for teachers, or maintaining smaller class-size ratios (either 18:1 or 30:2). She also said the district will use assessments such as AIMSweb for literacy and counting collections (K–2) plus the Forward assessment for grade 3 math where a common K–3 math screener is not available.
Feuer described the participating schools: "For the Milwaukee Public Schools District, the following school improvement strategies are implemented within 63 traditional schools and 1 non instrumentality charter school." (Allison Feuer, Early Childhood Supervisor)
Director Ferguson moved to approve submission of the AGR applications to the Department of Public Instruction. The motion carried with recorded ayes from Director Ferguson, Director Fonds, and Chair Benoit; the clerk announced, "The motion passes." The committee noted that, per AGR contract terms, the AGR office must provide progress updates to the board twice a year and that the application must be submitted to DPI by the 06/15/2025 deadline.
The district’s AGR presentation emphasized measurable, specific performance objectives for reading and math, and listed the formative and summative assessments that will be used to monitor growth across the five‑year period. With board approval to submit the renewal, staff said they would forward the completed AGR renewal applications to the Department of Public Instruction by the stated deadline.
