K-PREP and Unbridled Learning school testing and evaluation are here, but what does this mean? — The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions

STOP PRESS!K-PREP gaps in elementary schools

One of the biggest concerns about the new K-PREP program is a loss of the level of protection afforded to minorities under the now waived No Child Left Behind school accountability program. While the new Unbridled Learning accountability program does include an element that looks at achievement gaps, it does so by lumping all minorities and special students into one overall calculation. That can leave student subgroups behind.

The data shown below for elementary schools indicates that achievement gaps are a problem.

This first graph shows the reading gaps in white to African-American and White to Hispanic proficiency rates (the combined percentage of students scored “Proficient” and “Distinguished”) for the new K-PREP and the now defunct Kentucky Core Content Tests (KCCT) from one year earlier. The data is broken down by grade.

To read this table, the first bar on the left shows the gap in proficiency rates for whites and African-Americans in third grade reading was 24.9 percent on K-PREP. The red bar immediately to the right of the first bar shows that last year the white to African-American reading proficiency gap in the third grade reported by the KCCT was notably lower, at 20.3 percent.

Overall, with the change to K-PREP the achievement gaps grew for every combination shown on the reading graph.

Here is a similar graph for the mathematics achievement gaps.

The racial gap situation is only slightly better for math. The grade 3 white to African-Americans gap stayed nearly constant. The grade 5 white to African-Americans gap showed notable improvement. However, in all the other sets of data shown, the gaps grew with the introduction of K-PREP.

Next week, I’ll check out the gaps for middle and high schools.

For those who like their data in tables, here it is for reading:

And, here is the table for the math scores and gaps:

Data Sources:

K-PREP Proficiency Rates – 2011-2012 “K-PREP Grade” Excel Spreadsheet from KDE. Available by clicking here and selecting the “Grade” link under the Assessment, K-PREP area (Note: This is a very large xlsx file format and cannot be fully opened by older versions of Excel).

CATS KCCT Scores – “2010-2011 Interim Performance Report, State,” Kentucky Department of Education, Frankfort, KY. May no longer be on line.