State assessment results jumped last year after the State Board of Education reduced proficiency standards, but Kansas is now back to modest gains, and outcomes remain far below SBOE’s stated goal of 75% of students proficient in reading and math.
The state average for reading proficiency rose from 45% to 46% over the last year, while Math improved from 39% to41%. While improvement is welcome, it would still take decades to reach the Board’s “mission accomplished” goal.
Reducing proficiency standards is like lowering the score required to earn an “A” from 90% to 80% or lower, making outcomes over the last two years somewhat deceptive.
This table illustrates the roller coaster of proficiency standards in Kansas through 8th grade Reading scores. The State of Education reduced proficiency standards in 2002, prompting proficiency to jump from 34% to 65% in one year. The Board returned to high standards in 2015, and proficiency plummeted from 85% to 30%. All along, and since, proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress hovered in the 30s, and fell to 25% in the last measurement.
ACT results contradict state assessment
For Kansas high school graduates, the ACT composite score of 19.0 is the lowest since at least 1991, despite removing Science from the list of subjects that includes English, Math, and Reading.
This table shows that 46% of Kansas graduates who took the ACT this year are not considered college-ready in any of the three subjects, and only 20% are considered so, based on their scores:
In an editorial for the Kansas Policy Institute, which owns The Sentinel, CEO Dave Trabert writes that the results of the state assessment and ACT call for urgent action in Topeka:
The State Board must act urgently to ensure students get the education they need to succeed after high school, and that starts with scrapping its heavily bureaucratic accreditation and basing accreditation only on reasonable proficiency gains and compliance with all state and federal laws. ‘All’ is underlined because the State Board allows school districts to violate laws and still be accredited.
One law routinely violated concerns targeted funding for academically at-risk students. The law requires districts to spend the roughly $550 million the Legislature provides for “above and beyond” services rather than for general education. Two audits have found that districts have violated that law with impunity since at least 2019. Another law says local school boards “shall conduct” needs assessments in each school, hear directly from teachers about educational barriers, and reallocate resources to overcome them.
Many superintendents don’t want local board members to hear from teachers, so they don’t invite board members to the meetings, and sadly, many local board members allow the law to be ignored.
The State Board and Department of Education believe they found a loophole that allows districts to violate these and other laws. Their accreditation system says districts must comply with all applicable laws, and they don’t believe these laws are applicable to improving schools.
Trabert concluded:
Since the State Board won’t require improved student outcomes, the Legislature must act. It has the legal authority to bypass the education bureaucracy and take these actions. If legislators won’t, future state assessment results will feel like déjà vu all over again.
