New Kentucky school performance reports release tomorrow

The Kentucky Department of Education will be using new formats for the annual school performance reporting that will be released tomorrow. Three separate areas will be included.

The three report sections are:

Achievement

o Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT) Combined Reading and Mathematics Proficient/Distinguished Report

o Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) data

o Iowa Test of Basic Skills data – administered in grades 3-7

Gap

o KCCT Combined Reading and Mathematics Gap-to-Goal Comparison Report

Readiness for College/Career

o Percentage of high school graduates college/career-ready

o 8th-grade EXPLORE, 10th-grade PLAN and 11th-grade ACT data

Another report section, Growth, will focus on student academic growth measures and will be computed beginning in 2012, with data expected to be available in the summer of 2012.

Here at the Institute we are particularly pleased to see the new emphasis on gaps and the re-introduction of a nationally-normed standardized achievement test (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) to the lineup.

Gaps were completely ignored in the state’s own accountability program under the now defunct CATS and KIRIS assessments. We have been highly critical of that deficiency.

And, in an action many considered to be a violation of statute, the nationally-normed tests were dropped for a time in our lower grades. Re-introduction of these tests means parents of young children will now be a bit better informed about how their student performs against peers from around the nation. We were also very critical of that action, which was also quickly criticized by the Kentucky legislature that had no intention of cancelling this program.

I anticipate the new report formats will take a little getting used to, but I will start writing about the results as soon as I can after they are publicly released tomorrow.

If there are some new tricks to reading these reports, I’ll pass that along, as well, as soon as I figure those out.

Source: KDE News Advisory 10-050 - September 14, 2010