Nation’s eyes again focus on Kentucky’s issues regarding Common Core State Standards

A January 31, 2014 letter from Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and the state’s education leaders is again focusing national attention on the Bluegrass State’s implementation headaches with the Common Core State Standards.

National attention to Beshear’s letter came quickly. Education Week posted an article almost immediately, noting that Kentucky has been on the fence about PARCC for some time and also providing hints that the state is getting ready to look for a new contractor for the Common Core testing program.

The Beshear letter says:

“Kentucky anticipates that it may have to engage in a Request for Proposal (RFP) process as part of the next wave of assessments for the Commonwealth. Kentucky state law requires a fair and equitable RFP process. We want to ensure that PARCC has the opportunity to participate in this process as a potential bidder, if it wishes to do so, without any perception of a conflict of interest or bias being created. Accordingly, it makes practical sense for Kentucky to withdraw from PARCC, before any competitive bid process is initiated.”

The new action raises a number of questions concerning possible manipulation of bidding rules, potential loss of education testing trend lines, on-going testing headaches – especially for Kentucky’s troubled End-of-Course assessments – and a more basic question of whether or not Kentuckians’ patience will wear thin with continuing education system problems and the high attendant costs.

For more details, click the “Read more” link.

Does dropping PARCC really remove a conflict of interest if Kentucky bids out its testing needs again?

Doesn’t the very existence of this letter open the door for other potential bidders to claim favoritism if PARCC were to win such a contract anytime in the near future?

Is Kentucky going to rebid its Common Core testing program after only a few years of operation?

Education Week picked up on this implication. There definitely are reasons why Kentucky could be looking for a new testing contractor or two.

Is Kentucky reacting to troubles with End-of-Course testing?

Kentucky’s serious problems with the high school End-of-Course (EOC) part of its new assessment program, known at the Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (KPREP), are no secret. The open-response questions portion of the EOC tests failed a year ago.

Furthermore, Kentucky’s EOC contractor, ACT, Inc., stumbled badly during online testing for the remaining multiple-choice questions this past spring, as well.

That online disaster created major headaches for state educators, who scrambled to distribute paper and pencil forms of the test in the few remaining school days left before summer break began.

A planned November 2013 trial of upgraded computer systems was cancelled when the ACT, Inc. advised it was not ready for such tests.

So, it looks like EOC testing this spring will again be paper and pencil and again will not include scoreable open-response questions.

Are test results for lower grades inflating?

Though only two years of KPREP data are currently available, concerns about inflated scores for third through eighth grade KPREP testing are surfacing (stay tuned for still more on that).

So, it’s no surprise the state could be looking for new test suppliers. But, that raises another question.

What happens to KPREP testing trend lines if totally new testing contractors come on board, probably with new tests?

Changing the tests only a year or so from now (PARCC tests are supposed to be available for the 2014-15 school year) would mean the current KPREP tests would be set aside after only around three years of use. We would probably have to start totally new testing trend lines. That would leave Kentucky in the dark for an awfully long time regarding solid evidence about Common Core performance. That leads to another question.

Will Kentucky’s patience with its educators finally wear out?

Kentucky has run a series of educational reform efforts ever since the passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, which celebrates its 24th anniversary in April. The state has already seen the rise and demise of two major testing programs (KIRIS and CATS).

During this very long time, filled with many promises about fixing achievement gaps and raising the overall education level of all students – and despite obviously inflated claims that the state supposedly ranks 10th in the nation for education – a careful review of the data shows Kentucky’s serious education deficiencies continue.

For example, recently-released 2013 federal testing results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show only about one-in-three of Kentucky’s eighth grade students were proficient in either mathematics or reading. The NAEP also shows that, as of 2013, white students in Kentucky – the state’s predominant racial group – score almost at the very bottom on mathematics in both fourth and eighth grade compared to whites in other states.

In 2013 Kentucky’s white fourth grade students only outscored whites in two other states on reading, as well.

So, Kentucky has issues, and KPREP and other inflated reporting may not be giving us a good picture about that.

And, more and more, Kentuckians are waking up to these hard facts.