Courier-Journal Is CATSfused

I don’t get it.

First, the Courier-Journal editorializes that the results from the CATS school assessments are “ambiguous.”

Then – in the same very article – the paper says that there has been “enormous progress,” claiming many schools are making their goals, referring to goals set in CATS. How can we confidently know that if CATS is “ambiguous?”

So, which one is it, C-J? Are many schools making goals in a valid test program, or are the scores just ambiguous nonsense?

To help readers avoid the Courier’s “CATSfusion,” keep in mind that after 17 years of KERA, Kentucky’s most recent proficiency rates for math and reading on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress run no higher than 33 percent and were a dismal 26 percent for eighth grade writing.

In fact, despite the fact that one out of five California students in the 2007 administration of that federal writing test was still learning English, and despite the fact that California’s student poverty rate now ties Kentucky’s, California scored a statistical tie with Kentucky for eighth grade writing!!! On a writing test only conducted in English!!!

How can anyone claim Kentucky made “enormous” progress when all we can show today is that maybe one out of four, perhaps at best one of three, students are actually on track in their studies? At Kentucky's current snail's pace of improvement, we are decades away from the point where anyone can claim "enormous" progress has occurred.

(Minor revisions added 17 Sep 08 at 0922)