The "Canada effect" is wearing off here in Wisconsin.

The term refers to the way students in the northern tier of states do better on standardized tests.

It's a common perception that most educational problems belong to Milwaukee Public Schools, but the state's decline goes beyond lower achievement scores in urban areas. In fourth-grade reading, the state's white students - most of whom are educated outside urban school districts - have scored below the national average for students of the same race on all four assessments given since 2003.

"I don't think that most people in other parts of Wisconsin think that their school district is having trouble; I think they clearly can see that MPS has challenges, but they don't think anybody else does," said Governor-elect Scott Walker, adding that even the state's successful school districts have some struggling schools....

Walker supports a statewide evaluation system with multiple measures of performance that would rank teachers in four categories: ineffective, needs improvement, satisfactory or exemplary....

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said people will reject efforts to evaluate teachers if they perceive them as being solely driven by ideology. 

Barrett was the Democratic candidate who lost to Walker last month.