MEP Madison Education Partnership logo.

MEP brings together the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) and the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in a locally based, nationally relevant, research-practice partnership.

MEP joins research and practice by engaging in mutually defined, high-quality, problem-based research that contributes to policy, builds capacity, and strengthens practice. 

Collaborating on MEP are UW Madison researchers and faculty; MMSD administration, teachers and staff; and stakeholders from the broader Madison community. The partnership enables research to be conducted more quickly and results released more efficiently—to advance strategies that benefit Madison students, families, and schools.

Full-day 4K Evaluation: MEP worked with MMSD to measure 4K students’ skills at the start and end of the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school years in both full-day and half-day 4K classes. In 2022–23, we extended this work to 5K. We also looked at the distribution of culturally responsive and inclusive pedagogical practices in 4K classrooms. MEP and MMSD are working together now to use these findings to influence the full-day 4K program in 2023–24.

We are working with MMSD to support improvements in math achievement. This project extends prior work on middle school math achievement (PDF) and focuses on students’ experiences and outcomes in math earlier in their academic careers.

MEP | MMSD | WCER