Is this year-round school????

Logan County schools are starting up again, BEFORE the first of August! School doors open on July 27, 2016. There will be several multi-week long breaks during this long school year.

This is sure going to put an early crimp on summer fun in this school system.

But, does this work?

I took a quick look at the academic test results in Logan County’s Kentucky School Report Card for 2014-15.Elementary and Middle School Reading proficiency rates are a few points above state average. High School English II scores are about 9 points above state average.

Elementary and Middle School Math proficiency rates run about 10 to 12 points above state average. High School Algebra II, on the other hand, runs about a point below state average.

The KPREP science tests for elementary and middle schools still are not ready, but the high school Biology results are about 8 points above state average.

Elementary Social Studies proficiency runs about state average but the middle school results are 10 points above. High School US History, however, runs about 4 points below state average.

Elementary Writing is slightly above state average, but high school writing is about 10 points above.

ACT scores overall don’t differ much from state average, with some higher and some lower for individual subjects. Overall the district ACT Composite Score for 11th grade testing was only 0.2 point higher than state average.

I also computed the Effective High School Graduation Rate for Logan County’s 2015 graduates. It was 71.3 percent, well above the simple district average rate of 63.4 percent for those Kentucky districts that have high schools.

So, it looks like Logan County is doing better in the lower grades, but the high school kids don’t seem to be doing anything exceptional.

Perhaps other factors besides an exceptionally long school year are involved.