How will average Wisconsin residents interpret the results of the latest state standardized test for students in grades 3-8?

The scores are in, and while they are not portrayed by media reports as being particularly good or bad as a whole, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could consider them a hopeful sign for Wisconsin students.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

Only 51.2 percent of test-takers were proficient or advanced in English language arts, while only 43.7 made the grade in math, according the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

According to OxfordDictionaries.com, the definition of “proficient” is “competent or skilled in doing or using something.”

That means that nearly half the students who took the test are not “competent or skilled” in language arts, and more than half miss the mark in math.

The results were from the first and final application of the new Badger Exam, which tests students based on new Common Core national academic standards adopted by the state in 2010.

It might be difficult for average residents to determine how seriously they should take the test results, and how worried they should be about the state of K-12 education in Wisconsin.

One problem is that the test keeps changing every year.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

State officials have decided to dump Badger Exam (which replaced the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam) and replace it with the new Wisconsin Forward Exam, which will be rolled out this spring.

That means Wisconsin students will be taking a different state standardized test for the third time in three years. Comparing the results of the tree different tests might be like comparing apples to oranges to pears.

As WEAU.com put it, “the Badger Exam results won’t be comparable to previous years and won’t be comparable to next year’s either …”

Some might wonder if the new test results should be taken with a grain of salt, because Common Core standards are more challenging than standards previously applied in schools. Does the increased level of difficulty make the test an accurate indicator of student progress?

And there’s another seemingly obvious question – if a high percentage of students are having difficulty catching on to Common Core, and they learning less than they would have under prior standards?

Or is Common Core so superior that learning less under the new system is still more beneficial to students than learning more under the old standards?

If students are learning less, could that be alarming for high school students who are on a learning deadline, simply because graduation is approaching in a few short years?

One clue is that younger students, who have not been subjected to standards other than Common Core, did better on the Badger Exam.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “In the elementary grades, third- and fourth-graders performed significantly better in math than their older counterparts on the Badger Exam. DPI spokesman John Johnson said that may be attributed to the state’s adoption of the Common Core standards.

“What we think is going on is that those students … had been taught pretty much with the new standards from the time they went into school, as opposed to students in the older grades who transitioned to the new standards,” Johnson was quoted as saying.

The test results were clearly bleak for students in Milwaukee Public Schools, the state’s largest district, which competes for students with private schools in the state voucher program and many charter schools.

Only 27 percent of MPS students were proficient or advanced in English language arts, and only 17 percent met the standard in math.