LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- After two disjointed school years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, students throughout Kentucky who took statewide academic assessments posted lackluster scores in many testing categories in the 2020-21 school year.
“In several areas, we saw students coming in lower than 50% on proficiency or distinguished levels,” Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass said during a virtual news conference. “Again, that’s disappointing but not unexpected as we have seen other states also already come forward with their data.”
The Kentucky Department of Education cautioned against comparing the results, released early Wednesday, with the most recent state assessments for the 2018-19 school year because of disruptions in learning caused by the pandemic, lower participation rates, new state academic standards and new testing methods since the latest round of state tests, Glass said.
About 20,000 fewer students took the Kentucky Summative Assessment, previously known as the Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress, in the 2020-21 school year compared to past years, according to data provided by the state.
Statewide participation rates ranged between 72.4% and 88.9% in 2020-21 compared to between 95.6% and 96.3% in the most recent round of testing in the 2018-19 school year. Kentucky was among states that suspended state assessments for the 2019-20 school year after receiving a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education.
“I do have a concern that this data will be misinterpreted after all the asterisks and caveats and asking and requesting that people don't draw comparisons of this data because it's an unusual year with a different group of kids and it's a different test on different standards,” Glass said. “Somebody is still going to go and draw a conclusion to it based on the previous year's data. I think that's grossly inappropriate.”
The latest state assessments do not trigger federal accountability requirements after Kentucky received a waiver suspending them, and KDE says it will continue supporting schools previously identified as needing comprehensive support and improvement and additional targeted support and improvement this school year.
The 2020-21 school year results provide a glimpse at how many students fared academically during an unprecedented disruption in their learning. School districts throughout the state ceased in-person learning entirely in March 2020 at the behest of Gov. Andy Beshear, and most delayed reopening their classrooms at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year.
Classrooms in Jefferson County Public Schools, the state’s largest school district, remained closed for more than a year before in-person instruction resumed with a mix of traditional and virtual instruction.
JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio called the decision by the U.S. Department of Education to require states administer academic assessments “terrible” and said it was “probably the most disappointed I’ve been in a governmental agency … especially after what kids, faculty, staff and everybody went through for the better part of 15 months prior to that testing.”
JCPS is currently processing results from recent Measures of Academic Progress diagnostic testing, which Pollio believes will give the district a more “accurate picture” of where students stand academically.
Preliminary results show JCPS has “a long way to go with our kids in both reading and math,” Pollio said.
“Many of our kids, we’re going to have to provide intensive support to get back to where they were, but that is the crisis in education,” he said, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on learning.
Participation in KSA testing among JCPS students lagged statewide numbers significantly. Elementary grades posted the highest overall participation rates, hitting a high of 71.8% participation in science testing, followed by middle school grades at around 60 percent participation in every testing category.
Fewer than half of all eligible high school students at JCPS took KSA tests in every category, with the lowest participation rate at 42.6% for on-demand writing.
During the 2018-19 K-PREP tests, the lowest participation rate among JCPS students was 93.2% for elementary science exams.
“If it is used in comparison to prior years, then I think it is not reliable and valid data because when you have in certain grades less than 50 percent of the students that were eligible actually taking the assessment, it is very difficult if not impossible to compare to prior years,” Pollio said.
KSA results show students in tested elementary grades scored “novice” at rates of 34.8 percent, 30.4 percent, 17 percent 15.6 percent in reading, mathematics, science and on-demand writing, respectively, in the previous school year compared to “proficient” or “distinguished” scoring rates of 39.5%, 31.4%, 25.1% and 39.8% in those respective categories.
Middle school students tested “novice” at rates of 31.4%, 30.7%, 34.5% and 16.3% in reading, math, science and on-demand writing and “proficient” or “distinguished” at rates of 44%, 27.8%, 20.9% and 50.9% in those categories, respectively.
High school students “novice” at rates of 34.8%, 35.9%, 30.6% and 12.4% in reading, math, science and writing compared to “proficient” or “distinguished” scoring rates of 37.9%, 30.3%, 26.5% and 57.2%, respectively.
JCPS lagged state scores in nearly every category, according to results released Wednesday.
Elementary students at Kentucky’s largest school district scored “novice” at rates of 44%, 48%, 26.1% and 27.3% in reading, math, science and on-demand writing and scores “proficient” or “distinguished” at rates of 31.9%, 17.5%, 17.2% and 27.3% in those respective categories.
Middle school students at JCPS posted “novice” scores at rates of 39.8%, 44.2%, 41% and 31.3% in reading, math, science and writing and “proficient” or “distinguished” scores at rates of 37.6% , 17.8%, 18.3% and 30.4% in those categories.
At the high school level, district students scored “novice” at rates of 39.7%, 37.9%, 36.3% and 17.4% in reading, math, science and writing and scored “proficient” or “distinguished” in those categories at rates of 34.8%, 29%, 26.6% and 47.6%, respectively.
“I know we're equipped to face this path ahead of us,” Pollio said. “We've gotten the playbook, we're ready to go. It's been a tough, tough 18 months in education, but JCPS has proven time and time again during this pandemic that we’ve got this.”
The state’s largest school district has “significant work” ahead to help students who need academic interventions, which has only been exacerbated by problems associated with the COVID-19 pandemic such as staff shortages and new responsibilities for employees like contact tracing, Pollio said.
“The quicker we get out of this pandemic … the quicker we will get back and make sure that we can provide those supports and interventions that our kids need,” he said.
Kentucky’s four-year graduation rate dropped in 2021 after climbing every year since 2017, when 89.7 percent of students graduated in four years. The 90% four-year graduation rate posted in 2021 is down from 91.1% in 2020.
The state’s five-year graduation rate, however, continued its upward trajectory since 2017, increasing from 92% in 2020 to 92.3% in 2021, according to state data.
Four- and five-year graduation rates at JCPS were also higher than past years at 84.3% and 85.6%, respectively.
Composite ACT scores for 42,078 juniors throughout the state declined by at least one point compared to the previous four years in the 2020-21 school year, when they posted an average composite score of 18.
School climate survey results showed differing opinions on nontraditional instruction by grade level. More than 86% of elementary students agreed or strongly agreed that they felt good about what they learned during remote learning while similar results dropped significantly for students in middle school and high school who shared such sentiments at rates of 62.3% and 44.7%, respectively.
Glass said such data generally mirrors overall trends in school engagement in his experience.
“I'm thinking that it tracks closely with the levels of engagement that we see in middle school and high school declining and should beg some serious questions for all of us about what we can do to make middle school and high school much more engaging,” he said.
View statewide standardized test results on the Kentucky School Report Card by clicking here.
View JCPS standardized test results by clicking here.
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