Policy Update: Kentucky: To a Different Drum

Vital Statistics
176	Public school districts
1,341	Public schools
640,000	K-12 enrollment
11.2%	Minority students
26%	Children in poverty
Not reported	Students with disabilities
$3.2 billion	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

The plan has especially shown its resilience over the past year, when state leaders, who meet biennially, hashed over virtually every aspect of its accountability component. Lawmakers debated, for example, whether to replace KERA's assessment entirely with a national, norm-referenced one and have spent months devising a new rating system to gauge students' and schools' progress.

The back and forth over the reform plan came as a surprise to few in the Bluegrass State. Managerial and technical problems associated with its testing program--known as the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System, or KIRIS--and accountability system had been widespread since statewide testing began in 1992.

There is much hope that the new testing system lawmakers approved at the end of the last legislative session, the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, or CATS, will resolve many of the problems that plagued the original assessment.

The new test, a mixture of multiple-choice questions from national standardized tests and open-ended essays geared to the state's academic standards, will be administered to students for the first time this spring. The state will use test scores to determine schools' academic progress, with cash rewards going to the schools showing improvement.

But unlike the money awarded to schools under KIRIS, which school staff members could elect to give themselves as bonuses, the fate of incentives awarded under the new testing system will be decided by school-based decisionmaking councils.

Experts say the redesigned test addresses many of the problems with KIRIS. "This test is bound to have greater validity," says Ken Jones, an education professor at the University of Louisville.

Greater validity and reliability is exactly the intent of the new testing legislation, Cody says.

"We wanted a new kind of test with new kinds of rules," he says. "There's a lot of history in the U.S. in testing design and development, content validity, and score reliability. There's a background and history and well-understood science to it. Accountability is new. And Kentucky's accountability model, a progress model where schools are rewarded for getting better," is still unusual Cody says.

The state education department offers assistance for schools that perform poorly on the state tests that includes audits, staff support, and, where necessary, cash. Under the 1998 legislation, students at the lowest-performing schools will have the option of transferring to successful ones.

And under the new testing provisions, each school is required to distribute a report card detailing its overall test scores, academics, extracurricular activities, and opportunities for parents to become involved. Individual students' test results will be analyzed by the education department and mailed home.

Lawmakers last year also hammered out an array of education measures not associated with the assessment. Legislation creating a merit-based scholarship program financed by the state lottery passed easily in both chambers and was signed into law by Gov. Paul E. Patton last spring; state resource centers for deaf and blind students were established; a new Center for School Safety will help schools develop safety strategies; funding for teacher training was set aside; and lawmakers approved an alternative-certification process for teachers that will allow teacher- candidates with exceptional work experience or scholarship to teach in public schools.

Neither the reform plan nor last year's legislative session addressed teaching standards in the state, and in November, Commissioner Cody announced a plan to improve recruiting and training for the state's teacher workforce. Included were proposals to lure people into the profession by creating "future teacher" clubs in high schools and establishing loan-forgiveness programs and better base salaries for new teachers; to toughen admissions standards and coursework at teaching colleges and raise minimum passing scores on the state teachers' exam; and to provide professional-development opportunities that would help teachers bone up on the subjects they teach. A legislative panel is looking into these and other proposals.

Nine years after the passage of the landmark school reform law, many in the state consider it a success. "The state has come a long way," says Robert F. Sexton of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, a nonpartisan coalition of citizens and educators based in Lexington. "There's a good feeling about how far we've come and an optimism about the future."

Sexton adds that, despite problems with the state test, "there is evidence that the reform plan has worked to boost student achievement," this despite years of the state's being at or near the bottom in national education rankings. After six years of statewide testing under KIRIS, for example, most schools have shown continued improvement. The latest scores, for the 1997-98 school year, show gains for two-thirds of the state's schools, with gains by high school students particularly noteworthy.

And beyond KIRIS, there are the very tangible changes that the reform push has brought to Kentucky schools: Dropout and retention rates are on the decline; new teaching materials and technology are in use where resources were once scarce or nonexistent; new preschool programs serve 16,000 at-risk children; extended school services are available for low-performing students at many schools; nearly 600 Family Resource Centers counsel families and provide other services; and parents have a voice through school-based decisionmaking councils.

Not all the news is good, however. For two years in a row, Kentucky students have turned in a lackluster performance on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. The test of basic read-ing, language, and mathematics skills was given for the first time statewide in the spring of 1997 and again in the spring of 1998. The poor showings have raised questions about whether the reform plan focuses enough on basic skills.

But state education officials say the CTBS, a national, norm-referenced test, is not a good gauge of achievement. Other KERA proponents say that mediocre test scores are more a reflection of the time it takes to undo the poor achievement and low expectations so ingrained in Kentucky than a signal that the reform strategy is failing to deliver.

"Are schools better off under KERA? Yes. Do we have the data to prove this? Maybe, but not much," says Roger S. Pankratz, an education professor at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. "With KERA, it's the services that everybody loves so much that have been such a great success. Changing attitudes is proving to be much harder."