BELOIT — Almost every school district or school organization in Rock County earned higher scores from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, according to the annual Wisconsin School Report Cards.
The DPI released the report cards on Tuesday, which covers data collected during the 2024-2025 school year. Unlike last year’s report cards where only three school districts saw overall scores increase from 2022-2023, scores were up in every district and The Lincoln Academy. Only Rock County Christian’s Beloit campus had a lower score.
The Lincoln Academy, a public charter school in Beloit, was given a school score of 73.9 and a four-star designation by the state. The overall score was 6.1 points higher than its 2023-2024 score.
TLA, which opened in August 2021, is now at capacity with 730 students, but its board in October approved exploring expansion plans.
Beloit Turner’s overall scores jumped 3.9 points to 70.5. In past years, that would have earned Turner a four-star ranking, but State Superintendent Jill Underly approved changes to the benchmarks in September that essentially raised the cutoff from three stars to four stars to 71.0.
The annual report card release had good and not so good news for the School District of Beloit. Beloit’s overall score improved for the fourth straight year. The district has rebounded from an overall score of 46.9 in 2020-2021, when it fell to a one-star district, to 48.7 in 2021-2022, 50.6 in 2022-2023, 53.1 in 2023-2024 to 55.8 in 2024-2025.
Still, that overall score ranked 380th out of the 383 district’s in Wisconsin. Only Gillette, Oconto Unified and Merrill Area had a lower score. Beloit also trailed other large urban districts with similar demographics, including Milwaukee (59.5), Racine (57.4), South Milwaukee (56.2) and Manitowoc (56.5).
Beloit maintained its two-star ranking. No school district this year received a one-star rating, which is considered failing to meet expectations.
Rock County Christian’s numbers aren’t exactly apples-to-apples. The state doesn’t give RCC a district score so the Beloit Daily 69 looked at the school score of its Beloit campus, which last year had 125 students in grades six through 12. RCC’s Beloit campus score fell from a 70.6 in 2023-2024 to a still solid 66.0 in 2024-2025.
If you break the rankings down further, across 1,920 public schools, about 85% received three stars or more. That means they met, exceeded or significantly exceeded expectations.
In Rock County, including the schools in Brodhead that aren’t in Rock County, 78% of schools were three stars or better. There were 13 that were one-star or two-star schools, all of those were in Beloit or Janesville schools.
In Beloit, Converse, Merrill and Todd elementary schools and Beloit Memorial High School were two-star schools — meeting few expectations. Hackett Elementary, Robinson Elementary and Beloit Learning Academy were one-star schools — failing to meet expectations. Beloit Learning Academy is an alternative high school for students in grades 6-12 who are at-risk students or have been expelled.
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