What state testing tells us

There has been a lot of controversy over state testing in the last year. 

Fortunately, Kentucky has not seen much of this controversy thanks to the leadership of our General Assembly. In 2009, the Kentucky General Assembly passed Senate Bill 1 which required Kentucky to develop college- and career-ready standards, assessments based on these more rigorous standards and an accountability system aligned to both the standards and assessments. 

What has happened in other states?

While most other states adopted college- and career-ready standards in 2010-11 time frame, the adoption of the standards was voluntary. Major push back on college- and career-ready standards occurred after President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan supported adoption and implementation of the standards through the Race to the Top grants and No Child Left Behind Waivers. 

Most states moved slowly to implement the standards and relied on the Race to the Top (RTTT) assessment consortia – the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) or Smarter Balanced – to develop new assessments. The first administration of these consortia-developed state assessments took place during the 2014-15 school year, and only now states are beginning to report the results.

Major push back on the state assessments happened within the last 12 months primarily due to opposition to the college- and career-ready standards; opposition from teachers who were concerned about being evaluated based on student test scores (a Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind waiver requirement); and opposition from parent organizations who were concerned about over testing of students and narrowing of curriculum due to an emphasis on tested subjects.

At one time, almost 40 states belonged to one or more of the assessment consortia. Very early in 2010, Kentucky belong to both. However, it became apparent to us that the consortia would not be able to provide an assessment that met our budget or timeline. 

Kentucky worked with classroom teachers and assessment experts to develop a Kentucky-specific assessment that was aligned from 3-8 through high school with the college-readiness expectations based on the ACT. Kentucky parents and teachers are able to determine as early as 3rd grade if a student is on track to reach the ACT college-readiness benchmark in the 11th grade. Since the ACT is a state-required assessment and is widely recognized by parents and colleges, this alignment seems to have given Kentucky an advantage with helping parents understand the importance of annual testing.

As I reflect on events since Senate Bill 1 in 2009, the key reasons that Kentucky has successfully navigated the rough political waters that have sunk other states are:
     1) General Assembly support and action on a comprehensive college- and career-ready agenda
     2) Overwhelming support and buy in from educators and parents for the college- and career-ready agenda.

Moving forward, I believe that we will continue to see other states struggle with state assessments. 

I predict the RTTT assessment consortia will have difficulty providing an assessment of college- and career-readiness that is comparable to accepted measures such as ACT. The consortia also will struggle to provide an assessment that is cost effective for states. Due to the political environment, we will continue to see more states drop out of the assessment consortia (currently the majority of states do not belong to an assessment consortium).

I am very proud of the leadership of the General Assembly and the work of Kentucky educators to make a smooth transition to a college- and career-ready agenda. I predict that the Kentucky economy will continue to improve due to the education focus on college- and career-readiness. 

Just this week, I reviewed data for the Class of 2013 that revealed students who graduated from high school, met the Kentucky college-readiness benchmarks and attend postsecondary out performed students who were not college ready. According to the data, in their first year of postsecondary, college-ready students 
     • have a much higher GPA (2.6 vs 1.7)
     • complete nearly double the number of college credit hours (21.9 vs 11.1) and 
     • return for a second year of postsecondary at a higher rate (85 percent versus 65 percent) 

This is great validation that our assessments and college-readiness benchmarks are strong predictors of postsecondary success.

College and Career Readiness – Part II

Over the last few weeks, I have been spending a significant amount of time meeting with other states and presenting at national conferences on issues related to accountability and career and technical education. 

In the past year, several very important reports have focused on career and technical education. The Council of Chief State School Officers published a report titled Opportunities and Options: Making Career Preparation Work for Students and the Southern Regional Education Board recently released Credentials for All: An Imperative for SREB States. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has published a report addressing the talent management pipeline and the National Governor’s Association has a major initiative with states that tackles the same issue. 

A common theme among all the reports is that we must change the national conversation concerning career and technical education and one of the strategies that can help is to elevate and integrate career and technical education within a state accountability system.

With the passage of Senate Bill 1 in 2009, Kentucky had a clear mission to develop an accountability system that focused on the academic preparedness of high school graduates for entry-level courses at the postsecondary level. As we were developing the accountability model in late 2009 and 2010, every stakeholder group asked us also to address career readiness. One of our first steps was to come up with a clear definition of what that meant.

Career Ready:  the level of preparation (core academic skills, employability skills and technical, job-specific skills) a high school graduate needs in order to proceed to the next step in a chosen career, whether that is postsecondary coursework, industry certification, or entry into the military or workforce.

Once we came to a consensus on how to define career readiness, it was critical that we have measures to gauge how well our students were doing in the areas that it encompasses – core academic skills, employability skills and technical, job-specific skills. 

With the ACT already in place, we had a measure of core academic skills. It is clear that most jobs that pay a living wage will require reading and math skills that are commensurate with college-ready academic preparedness. A national organization has completed Lexile studies that show the reading level for jobs in most career-related areas require similar reading levels to college freshmen textbooks.

While the ACT provided the basic screen for academic readiness, Kentucky higher education provided tremendous support for Compass and other college placement tests (KYOTE), so that students had an opportunity to become academically ready during their senior year if they failed to do so on the ACT during their junior year. 

Additionally, working closely with the business community, Kentucky was able to determine that the WorkKeys silver, gold and platinum levels were excellent predictors of academic readiness and some employability skills.

Kentucky worked with the military community to identify the appropriate level on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) that clearly established a potential military candidate had the academic skills needed to enter a military career path, which equated to a private career path and a job that pays a living wage. 

The technical and job-specific skills are more wide ranging than the academic readiness. These skills require career pathway-specific measures. Students in Kentucky can gain technical readiness through the completion of a set of career and technical courses that are aligned to career pathways. Additionally, students are required to exhibit an appropriate level of employability and technical skills through either the Kentucky occupational assessments (KOSSA) and/or an approved industry-recognized certificate.

What we were able to do in Kentucky is to incentivize career and technical education by awarding accountability points for both college readiness and career readiness. In doing so, we elevated career and technical education to an equal status. The key for the future will be that we no longer talk about college- and career-readiness as separate issues. Educators should talk about students becoming “life ready.” 

Educators also should focus on the concept that there are no dead ends in education. A student may choose a career pathway and enter the workforce after gaining a one year technical certification and industry certification or a student may choose to enter the work force after a two-year or four-year degree. Either way, students should always be encouraged to return to education to gain additional and stackable credentials. 

Countries like Switzerland, Germany and Singapore have recognized the need to elevate and integrate career and technical education and their economies show the wisdom of this national focus. Kentucky has been at the forefront of this work in the U.S. and I anticipate that in the next 3-5 years we will see many more states move in a similar direction. 

Creating the workforce of the future should be one of our primary goals of education. This does not run counter to the goal of creating an adult with a passion and commitment to lifelong learning. College- and career-readiness are two concepts go hand in hand since both ensure success for children and our nation.

Operation Preparation

This week, Kentucky was host to the annual release of ACT results. The annual data release is usually held in Washington, D.C. This year, ACT, Inc. wanted to highlight the national focus on college and career readiness.

When ACT staff called to ask me if they could coordinate the national release with our state release, they said Kentucky was one of the leading states in implementing the college and career readiness agenda in the nation. We chose the Jessamine County Career and Technical Center to highlight the work of Superintendent Lu Young and her community in implementing the Commonwealth Commitment for College and Career Readiness. While we did have to choose one location for the announcement, the location represented the tremendous work that all schools and districts in the Commonwealth are doing to implement the Commonwealth Commitment.

ACT President Jon Erickson highlighted the areas where the nation and Kentucky have improved and also offered several suggestions for improvement at the state and national levels. We were informed that, of the four states who have made significant progress on ACT results, Kentucky ranks second.

Rep. Carl Rollins and Sen. Ken Winters made remarks about the importance of Senate Bill 1 and Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS) legislation. Council on Postsecondary Education President Bob King also highlighted the legislative history and the tremendous partnership between P-12 and higher education in Kentucky.

As we celebrate the national-level attention that Kentucky is receiving due to Senate Bill 1 and the subsequent implementation of our Unbridled Learning strategic plan, I wanted to focus on why this is important to all Kentucky citizens. Senate Bill 1, while focused on education, was also the most important economic development legislation passed in recent history.

Why? Education equals employment, which in turn equals an improved economy. The research is very clear. A more-educated populace will mean improved opportunities for Kentucky citizens with health care, jobs that pay higher wages, less dependency on social programs, improved tax receipts and a safer community.

Senate Bill 1 also raised the expectations for ALL Kentucky children and improved the chances that ALL Kentucky children would receive an education that prepares them for their future. With our focus on administering the ACT to 100 percent of Kentucky public high school juniors, we have seen a dip in our overall scores. This was to be expected, as evidenced by the 11 other states that have more than 90 percent of students taking the ACT.

However, we are seeing slow and steady trends of improvement. The key number for me is the number of test takers in Kentucky. In 2008, we had 31,728 students take the ACT. In 2011, we had 46,428 students take the ACT. This is an increase of more than 14,000 students.

In 2008, slightly more than 6,000 students in Kentucky met all ACT college-ready benchmarks. In 2011, over 7,400 Kentucky graduates met ACT college-ready benchmarks. By assessing all students, we have discovered more than 1,400 students who are college- and career-ready and that normally would not have taken the ACT. As we continue to focus our college and career ready agenda on all children, we will continue to find more children who did not believe they had the capacity to attend college.

As we find more and more children who have the ability, we will need to find ways to support them academically and financially. A key support for these students is college and career advising. We announced a statewide project, Operation Preparation, this week. This is an effort to provide advising to all 8th and 10th graders in Kentucky during the week of March 12-16, 2012.

Our school counselors have a student-to-counselor ratio of one to over 500. It is impossible for our counselors to individualize college/career advising, so we are asking our many partners across the state to assist. We are asking PTAs, chambers of commerce, Workforce Investment Boards, higher education and business to assist in Operation Preparation.

While there are many details to work out with regard to volunteer screening and training, we are announcing the initiative now so volunteers can start planning their schedules. The Kentucky Department of Education will coordinate this project and provide a toolkit for implementation of Operation Preparation. Look for many more details in the near future.

It is our hope that volunteers across the state will dedicate an hour or two next spring to improve the future of the Commonwealth and the future of a child.

College- and Career-Ready Students: More Work to Do

Last week, I highlighted projections for the Class of 2010. This week, I want to do a follow-up concerning the results of the ACT for the Class of 2010.

I know many of you heard reports this week that fewer than one in four high school graduates across the nation met benchmarks for college readiness. Through this blog, I hope to explain what those benchmarks measure.

Kentucky is one of a few states that require all 8th, 10th and 11th graders to take the components of ACT, Inc.’s Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS). In 8th grade, students take the EXPLORE assessment ,and then in 10th grade they take the PLAN assessment. At 11th grade, students actually take the ACT. EPAS reports results at each grade level showing whether or not students are scoring at the college-ready level for the specific grade. The reports are based on assessments of English, mathematics, reading and science.

At the 11th grade, the benchmark scores predict that a student has a 75 percent chance of making a C or better in a college entry-level course such as English 101, College Algebra, College Social Science and/or College Biology. Each subject-level component of the ACT has a separate benchmark score. ACT also reports on the percentage of students who score college-ready for all four areas. This is what is often reported in the media. Nationwide, 24 percent of students met benchmarks for all four areas. In Kentucky, 14 percent did.

Readers need to know a couple of things as they interpret the scores. Kentucky’s scores include all public school 11th-grade students. Most states do NOT assess all students, and the percentage assessed can range from 100 percent to less than 4 percent, depending on the state. In 2006, only 24,930 Kentucky 11th graders took the ACT, compared to 41,227 in 2010. So, comparing results from 2006 to 2010 is not appropriate, and comparing Kentucky results to other states who have significantly smaller numbers of students taking the ACT is inappropriate.

However, as Commissioner of Education, I am extremely concerned for our state and our nation. As I reported last week, our state’s and nation’s futures are tied to our level of education due to the increasing demands for higher levels of skills by employers. From 1970, when more than 80 percent of jobs in our state and nation only required a high school degree or less, we are now moving toward an economy that will have 80 percent of jobs that require training beyond high school, and 63 percent of those jobs will require a postsecondary degree. The ACT demonstrates one measure that reveals we have a large gap in our high school graduates’ readiness for college and career.

Another component of the ACT results that is worrisome to me is the HUGE gap between white students and African American students in our public schools.
* In English, 56 percent of white students met the benchmark, and only 30 percent of African American students met the benchmark.
* In math, 27 percent of white students met the benchmark, and only 9 percent of African American students met the benchmark.
* In reading, 41 percent of white students met the benchmark, compared to 18 percent of African American students.
* In science, 21 percent of white students and 6 percent of African American students met the benchmark.
* For all four benchmarks, 15 percent of white students, compared to 4 percent of African American students, met all four benchmarks.

In 2009, the Kentucky General Assembly passed and Governor Steve Beshear signed Senate Bill 1, which focuses the state on improving the college and career readiness of our high school graduates. Governor Beshear has followed up with the Transforming Education in Kentucky (TEK) Task Force, which will recommend specific strategies to improve the outcomes of our public school graduates. The Kentucky Board of Education, Council on Postsecondary Education and the Education Professional Standards Board are all working closely together to improve the student learning outcomes. Many partners in the business community and private foundation community have joined in the call to action.

This week, the TEK Talk community forums held across Kentucky sought the input of citizens for this important work. The eyes of the nation were on Kentucky in 1990, when we were the first state to implement major finance and school reform. The eyes of the nation are once again upon Kentucky as we lead the way in improving the college and career readiness of our public school graduates. No one in the Commonwealth should sit on the sidelines for this major initiative. Thank you in advance for what you will do to support the children and the future of Kentucky.