KSBA eNews Service, Frankfort, Dec. 10, 2015
Commissioner: Science assessment pilot to be used next year; new federal law creating opportunity
by Brad Hughes
A harder-than-expected development process may mean a delay in implementing new tests of students' mastery of Kentucky’s revamped core science standards. Yet an act of Congress may enable Kentucky to turn a short-term disappointment into a major improvement in how school and student progress is measured.
Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt told the Kentucky Board of Education Wednesday that, while Kentucky Department of Education staff and consultants are making headway in crafting the tests that would assess student learning of the science standards, things aren’t going as quickly as desired.
“I am not convinced that we will be able to have an operational assessment for next year, just to be perfectly honest,” Pruitt said. “I believe strongly in a quality assessment with quality accountability, but the key has got to be quality. That’s why there’s been a slowdown. It’s not been because the work’s not been going. It’s been hard work and there have been some hiccups in how people interpret some of those things.”
As a senior executive with Achieve Inc., a standards and assessment development company, Pruitt worked with KDE staff on the state’s new science standards before taking the commissioner's post.
“As everybody knows, when those standards were written, I was at the epicenter of that. We knew that it was going to be really hard to write an assessment because in many ways it changes how the psychometrics have to work in the assessments,” he said. “We are very optimistic. We’ve had some breakthroughs. I believe we are going to have some items that we will be able to use in a pilot phase for next year."
Pruitt’s announcement was met with mixed reactions by some on the state board.
“My real concern is the message to ensure that teachers and districts understand that we are still expecting very high standards to be taught, even though they are not being measured right now,” said KBE member Mary Gwen Wheeler.
But board Vice Chairman William Twyman said, “If a teacher is not using the Kentucky Core Content standards, that’s the law. We have the standards. You must use them in your class plans. If they are not using the standards, they are not doing their job.”
Chairman Roger Marcum acknowledged that crafting an assessment of higher-level learning – “to do science and not just know science” – is tough.
“With the current assessments, we are not fully ensuring that it’s happening in the other content areas as well. So if what we are doing in sciences is applicable to other areas, this work is pretty critical,” he said.
“I understand concerns about not having the assessment yet,” Pruitt said. “I understand the concerns about us going a few years without having an assessment that assesses these standards. But I feel confident that what we are doing in our Kentucky classrooms now is better than what we were doing when we were assessing under the old standards. If we come out with an assessment too soon, that’s not right, it could actually undermine the quality of improved instruction of the past two years.”
Meanwhile, Pruitt believes the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – which finally passed Congress Wednesday night – will actually turn the science assessment delay into a major plus. Since he began work in mid-October, Pruitt has commented many times on the complexity of the Unbridled Learning assessment and accountability system.
“Given the fact that part of what ESSA will allow us to do is to develop a new assessment system, we’re taking it slow because we want to get it right. In education, we don’t always afford ourselves that opportunity,” Pruitt said. “We have the opportunity to do this right on the front end. This is so important, and not because I’m a science guy. The lessons we learn in this process are going to be applicable as we reconsider things around reading, language arts and math and as we look forward to when we assess social studies. There is an applicability across the board. The performance aspect of this assessment is critical not just in science but in all of our areas.
“If we don’t come out with a quality assessment, I don’t think we could guarantee it was rigorous if the assessment isn’t right. What we’re telling teachers is that, if you wait for this assessment to come out, you are doing a huge disservice to your kids. You can’t wait until ‘the year of.’ With the prototype items and the pilots next year, we will be sending a very clear message across the bow of every K-12 science teacher in this state,” the commissioner said. “We’re not talking just about a single test that happens in fourth grade or seventh grade, but a system that gives teachers what they need in terms of being able to progress students and gives information about the quality of that education.”