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New assessment system

Struggling schools to be identified ahead of the state’s new assessment system

Kentucky School Advocate
April 2018

By Matt McCarty
Staff writer

When the Kentucky Department of Education reports data this fall under its new assessment and accountability system, it will not give schools the new star rating. However, the U.S. Department of Education is requiring Kentucky to identify the lowest-performing schools this fall.

KDE will identify schools that need comprehensive support and improvement – those in the bottom 5 percent and schools with a graduation rate below 80 percent. It will also identify schools that need targeted support and improvement, defined as those with low-performing student groups. All schools not identified as targeted or comprehensive will be listed as “other.”

Rhonda Sims, the associate commissioner for KDE’s Office of Assessment and Accountability

“We had sort of hoped we could put that off one more year until the system was fully available and in place in the fall of 2019. In order to be approved (by the U.S. education department), we must do it in the fall of 2018, so we will be using the data that we have available,” said Rhonda Sims (left), the associate commissioner for KDE’s Office of Assessment and Accountability. “We had always planned to identify the bottom and offer services to the bottom. We just didn’t want to turn a list in federally and we didn’t want to put a label on it publicly. But we’re not going to be able to avoid that. If we want the plan approved and the money flowing, we are going to have to do that.”

KDE is still working with the federal education department to receive final approval of the new assessment and accountability system. During a clinic session at KSBA’s annual conference in March, Sims said the federal agency has pushed back on some pieces of the Kentucky system, but is very close to signing off.

The new system, which was mandated by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act and Kentucky’s 2017 Senate Bill 1, will use seven areas to comprise a school’s overall rating.

Five of the areas schools will be graded in – proficiency in reading/writing and math, science and social studies, transition readiness, growth (elementary and middle school only), and graduation rate (high school only) – measure individual student success. Achievement gap closure measures student group performance, and opportunity and access gauges support for student success. Transition readiness will include the progress English language learners make to become proficient in English.

The seven indicators will yield a composite overall rating that will be measured with stars. One star is the lowest and five stars is the highest.

KDE developed a dashboard graphic to make all this easier to grasp. A limited version will be used this fall. “When you have seven things it adds up to be a lot of pieces of information and data so we want to try to build a system where it will be easier to see how you’re doing at a glance,” Sims said. “We are moving to a system with this one where we’re not using a single overall number at the end, and that is a big change for people to get their heads around.”

This spring, elementary and middle school students will use the same assessments as in prior years for reading, math, social studies and on-demand writing. A new science assessment, which was field tested last spring, will be used for fourth- and seventh-grade students.

High school students will take end-of-course field tests this spring, but scores will not be used to measure a student’s performance level. Those tests will be counted beginning in spring of 2019. For this spring, ACT scores in reading and mathematics will be used to measure high school performance.

Once the system has been approved federally, Sims said KDE will provide training to district assessment coordinators. If schools aim for five stars, she said they will need to ensure that all students are moving forward, not just the highest-performing students.

“One of the things I think is different about the system is that reducing the gaps in performance between student groups has more attention in the system,” Sims said. “We’ve always reported this aggregated data to see how different groups of kids are doing. But ultimately when the star system is completely in place in 2019, you need to show some movement with all your student groups to be able to be in those highest ratings of the star system.

Key goals for KDE’s new accountability system

“That can be a challenge because many times students in particular groups that haven’t done as well have more barriers to learning. And so it challenges you to say, ‘How do I help those kids move forward?’ And again, it doesn’t ask that the gap totally close, because it’s a significant gap, but that you’re moving toward closure, moving to reduce it.”

Carroll County Schools interim superintendent Ron Livingood, who led KDE’s assessment work group, said the new system is more comprehensive and he likes the emphasis on growth because schools aren’t measuring up against one another.

“You’re really measuring it against where kids begin and where they should end and it puts the emphasis not on what teachers should teach, but what kids should be learning and demonstrating that learning,” he said.