New evidence: Kentucky’s education system improving very slowly, at best
The Kentucky Department of Education released the 2013-14 school term results from the ACT, Inc.’s EXPLORE and PLAN readiness tests. These tests, which are given to eighth and tenth graders, respectively, near the beginning of each school year are aligned to the ACT college entrance test to give students a good idea if they are on track for success in college and careers.
It doesn’t look like enough of our students are on track and the rate of improvement is awfully slow.
Here is the summary of the percentage of eighth grade students who scored at or above the “Benchmark Scores” that show they are on track. As a note, the 2013 Kentucky data is scored against the old EXPORE Benchmark cut scores – not the new ones ACT, Inc. developed in 2013 – so trends shown in the table are in fact valid.
EXPLORE Benchmarks to 2013
Notice that Kentucky’s performance dropped slightly in English and somewhat more dramatically in science. There were small improvements in math and reading, but nothing exciting.
Also, be aware that the national norms from 2010 are getting dated. They may not provide fair comparisons for the state’s more recent 2013 results. Comparing Kentucky’s 2010 data to the 2010 national norms reveals the state was well behind in English and reading and was several points behind in math and science, as well. For the more recent Kentucky data, we simply don’t know what is going on compared to the rest of the nation.
Clearly, since Common Core based programs entered our schools in the fall of 2011, there really hasn’t been a notable improvement in performance in most of the EXPLORE tested areas. In fact, the rate of improvement between 2011 and 2013 isn’t notably different from the rate of improvement between 2008 and 2010, before Common Core came along. In some cases like reading, the rate of improvement was faster before Common Core.
To see more, click the “Read more” link.
The 10th grade PLAN results are also uninspiring.
PLAN Benchmarks to 2013
There were two areas of score drops between 2012 and 2013 and only one area of improvement. English did improve a bit faster after Common Core arrived, but math improvement in the Common Core period from 2011 to 2013 lagged the rate between 2008 and 2010.I need to point out that the somewhat higher percentages of readiness shown on PLAN are probably explained by students dropping out of high school prior to the PLAN being administered.
I think it is worth noting that the Kentucky Department of Education News Release 14-021 (not on line at this time) that contains the new EXPLORE and PLAN information also has comments from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday:
“Holliday said it will take three to five years for Kentucky to see the impact of new Kentucky Core Academic Standards on grade 8-12 assessments since teachers need training on the most effective ways to teach the standards and students need support to fill in learning gaps and meet the more rigorous college/career-ready standards.”
Well, this is year three of EXPLORE and PLAN data since Kentucky adopted the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics in 2010. That makes the slow changes in reading, English and math in the new EXPLORE and PLAN data troubling.
Technical Note:
Benchmark data came from the news release mentioned above. It is also on line now in summary form in these locations:
Detailed Excel spreadsheets with school and district level EXPLORE and PLAN results can be obtained by clicking here and then clicking on the “Assessment” button.