Tuesday, April 13, 1999
Kentucky school testing simplified
State's 14-year shape-up plan called CATS
BY CHARLES WOLFE
The Associated Press
LOUISVILLE — The Kentucky Board of Education is poised to give schools a graphic illustration.
Under a plan that could be approved today, every public school in Kentucky would have a common target to shoot for and the same deadline for hitting it.
A school's progress could be plotted on a graph. There would be a starting point, an ending point and a straight line connecting them. A school's performance, ideally, would follow that “line of expected growth.”
That is the essence of a 14-year measuring rod — a model for tracking school improvement, or lack of it, from 2000 through 2014. The new Commonwealth Accountability Testing System — CATS — was mandated by the 1998 General Assembly.
The board approved its overall form Monday and could finish the work today. The plan still must go through a public hearing and legislative review.
One of the state board's goals was to make the CATS model simpler than its predecessor, KIRIS — Kentucky Instructional Results Information System.
A new performance target was set for each school every two years under KIRIS. A school could not know more than two years in advance how high it had to climb.
Under the proposed system, each school would be assigned a starting point — a baseline accountability index — in 2000. The index would be derived from the school's scores on tests this year and next.
From the starting point, a straight line would be drawn to a goal for all schools in 2014. At any point, a school could see where it stood and how far it had to go. It also could win rewards by reaching or exceeding five milestones along the way.
The state goal is for schools to reach a score of 100 on a scale of 140 by 2014. A 140 score would mean every student in a school was “distinguished” — the highest of four performance categories. The target score of 100 would mean a school's students collectively averaged “proficient,” the second-highest category.
A school could fail to reach its growth line in a biennium yet remain in a safety zone. If its scores fell dramatically, it could be targeted for state assistance.
Schools would have to do more than improve their overall scores. To get reward money, a school would have to steadily reduce the number of students rated novice, the lowest performance category. A school would be ineligible for rewards if more than 5 percent of its students were novices by 2014.
A third of Kentucky's elementary school students and about one in five middle school students were novices in reading six years ago, according to the Department of Education. Today the number is “hovering around 5 or 6 percent,” said Sue Rigney, the department's director of testing.
However, there has been no improvement in math at any level and no improvement in science among middle school students, Ms. Rigney said.
The requirement to reduce novices partly mollified the Kentucky Association of School Councils, Executive Director Susan Perkins Weston said. The council had feared schools would be able to win rewards without it.
Will Newport bell rattle its neighbors?
Seniors score well on Ohio test
CPS improves on 12th-grade test
New Reds stadium could be delayed
Y2K poses monumental problem for cemeteries
Bridge connects Covington, downtown
Experts say contempt ruling hurts Clinton
Hyde appearance raises $100,000 for Chabot
Junior high kids back at home after fire
Proposed hate crime law takes hits from gay-rights opponents
School secretary pleads guilty to thefts
'Daddy Don't' takes tough look at sex abuse
Pokemon having monstrous impact
Tom Petty still young at his art
$56,000 to mail out mayor proposal
Bellevue getting veterans clinic in June
Campbell Co. school debating dress code
Cheyne Kehoe tells Ark. court his brother bragged of killings
Fairfield taking year off from summer festival
Family faces 2nd tragedy
GOP builds strong base in Boone Co.
Group works to buy fire truck
Kentucky school testing simplified
Lebanon making downtown plan
Man, 19, killed in Price Hill
Mason roads getting overhaul
Office manager pocketed funds
Road may be named after commissioner
Roommates charged in Indiana death
Students part of 'blitz build'
TRISTATE DIGEST
