EXPLORE and PLAN

– Now we can cover the good news

Now that the department of education’s fabricated-national-scores-that-don’t-exist are under control, we can finally cover some good news about PLAN and EXPLORE in an objective and realistic manner.

These are the corrected scoring tables from the department.


Notice the bogus and non-existent national average data for 2006 through 2008 have been replaced by the one true set of national data, which is for a single national sample taken by the ACT, Incorporated back in 2005.

ACT, Incorporated creates the EXPLORE used by our eighth graders and PLAN taken by our tenth grade students each fall.

Last year we were concerned when the high school PLAN results generally dropped, except for reading. That was unexpected, as normally test scores tend to rise in the second year after a new test is introduced. Were schools refusing to pay attention to PLAN because of the conflicting demands of the CATS assessments?

However, I am happy to report the high school losses on PLAN in 2007 were recouped in 2008, and we even moved ahead of the 2006 PLAN scores in English, Math, Science and the Composite score.

The middle schools continued a general trend of improvement, as well.

This is good news, as it shows our schools are transitioning to teaching the things that kids need to do well in postsecondary education. This small trend is particularly noteworthy because the CATS assessments – as abundant recent testimony in Frankfort has made clear – are not well aligned with college needs. However, schools still had to cope with the CATS distractions during the 2006 to 2008 time frame.

If the pending legislative changes to Kentucky’s assessment stay about the way they looked on Wednesday, the distractions of CATS will shortly be no more. The new assessment is going to retain the EXPLORE and PLAN tests, and the revised program is going to finally become aligned with what postsecondary education requires for all grades, as well. That should help boost our EXPLORE and PLAN performance a lot.

We cannot forget some important facts, however. The only national comparison scores for EXPLORE and PLAN are from 2005. We don’t know how the rest of the nation might have performed since. So, because our kids in 2008 still score behind where the rest of the nation was back in 2005 – especially so in high school – we clearly have a lot of work ahead of us.

So, I look for more advances on the EXPLORE and PLAN in the future. We badly need that if a reasonable proportion of our children are to be adequately prepared for life in an increasingly competitive international economy. But, after the heart-stopper set of scores on PLAN in 2007, it looks like things are now running in the right direction. The key, once the CATS distraction is gone, will be to move out smartly, and faster than education programs elsewhere.