JCPS' lagging test scores show toll of pandemic, poverty, Pollio says

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Students in Jefferson County Public Schools posted standardized test scores below the Kentucky average in core academic subjects during the 2021-2022 school year, according to new statewide data.

In reading and in mathematics, for example, more than six in 10 JCPS students failed to reach the level deemed "proficient" by the state. At each level — elementary, middle and high school — the percentage of JCPS students who reached proficiency in reading and in math ranged from a low of 25% to a high of 37%, according to tests taken last spring.

The results, released Tuesday by the Kentucky Department of Education, represent a new benchmark from which progress will be measured following the disruptions caused by a year of virtual school during the COVID-19 pandemic, JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio said.

"This is our baseline moving forward that we will compare for years to come -- the accountability and how we're growing and recovering out of the pandemic," Pollio told reporters Monday at a briefing in Louisville.

The state also released data measuring the performance of individual schools, including a new color-coded ranking system that places schools and districts into one of five buckets.

Anyone can look up the state "Report Card" on a school or district here: https://www.kyschoolreportcard.com/home?year=2022

Results for Jefferson as well as Bullitt, Oldham, Shelby and Spencer counties are in the following searchable database:

Students who took assessment tests in the school JCPS' elementary, middle and high schools posted overall scores in the "low" category – the second-lowest tier in a rating system that was used widely for the first time. The assessment tests also evaluated science, social studies and writing.

In JCPS, students in grades 3 through 11 who took the tests failed to reach the state average in any of those categories, as well. The gaps were most pronounced in elementary and middle schools.

Just 19% of elementary school students, for example, tested "proficient" or higher in science, compared with 29% among peers in Kentucky. Those students also trailed the state average by at least 10 percentage points in math and writing.

Pollio said the period of remote learning during the pandemic known as non-traditional instruction, or NTI, was most challenging for students in kindergarten through second grade who are now taking the assessment tests for the first time.

"We are going to be talking about this for years: the impact especially on our youngest students in JCPS, and making sure that we recover," he said.

Overall -- under a new system that also rated school districts' safety and climate, college and post-secondary readiness, graduation rates and English language progress for non-native speakers -- JCPS also landed in the "low" category.

State officials cautioned against comparisons with testing data from previous years, saying that methods and other standards have changed. For example, measurements to attain "proficient" status are different than in prior years.

Still, the JCPS scores show a general decline in proficiency from 2018-19, the last academic year before the pandemic.

Pollio on Monday was nonplussed by the fact that 60% of JCPS students did not reach "proficient" status in either reading or math. He called the results "very predictable."

Asked if the results mean most students are not "where they need to be" in those key subjects, Pollio responded:

"Following a pandemic, 'where they need to be' is an arbitrary cut score. You know, people will say 'on grade level,' or 'where they need to be.' Those are arbitrary numbers. And so, yes, it's what we have to measure. And, I'm not opposed to accountability whatsoever. I think there has to be accountability when we talk about schools and districts ... But I also think our accountability system has to be one that says, 'Alright, let's identify where kids are, and let's take steps to move them.'"

Measuring disruptive behavior

The state also released data on school safety that includes disruptive behavior. A WDRB News analysis shows that there were about 74 "behavior events" per 100 students in JCPS schools during the 2021-22 school year. That was the 8^th-highest rate in Kentucky, although it lagged one school district in the region, Nelson County, which had 117 such events per 100 students.

The analysis also shows that JCPS has seen its rate of behavior events decline since before the pandemic. During the 2018-19 school year, for example, there were 114.1 incidents per 100 students, according to an analysis of previous data.

The methodology for those data hasn't changed, state officials said.

The average number of behavior events per 100 students in Kentucky in 2021-22 was 28.9. Besides JCPS, the districts in our area with a higher-than average number of such events were Henry County (52.9), Hardin County (47.5), Bullitt County (34.6) and Elizabethtown Independent (32.9).

Meanwhile, four-year graduation rates have inched up in Jefferson County since the 2017-18 school year to 84.7 percent during 2021-22. Pollio said that the graduation rate is at an "all-time high" and that all schools had a graduation rate above 80 percent for the first time.

He also said the rate of students ready for college and other post-secondary work is the "highest it's ever been," at 72 percent.

"We have some things that we are able to celebrate here, and obviously some things of concern that we will be dealing with for many years to come," Pollio said.

'We know where we are starting from'

For Kentucky as a whole, the results showed that 35% to 45% of students tested at least "proficient" in reading and in math, depending on the grade level.

The percentages were generally higher in 2018-19, the year before the 2020 pandemic, but state officials stressed that year-to-year comparisons are not valid because they changed the assessments, including the thresholds for determining which students are "proficient."

The 2022 data serves as a new "baseline" against which progress will be measured in future years, Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass told reporters on Monday.

Glass acknowledged that, if the 2022 test data were able to be assessed against prior years, it would likely show a deterioration in performance.

"As expected, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on our students and our schools as they continue to recover from the interrupted learning that occurred over the previous two years," Glass said. "… Kentucky's results are consistent with what we have seen with other states and around the country, and there is no quick fix to the challenges that our students endured during the pandemic. It's going to take time and it's going to take resources."

According to a new color-coded system, the state places itself, school districts and individual schools into one of five buckets ranging from red (poor) to blue (excelling). The color-coded system was mandated by the state legislature in its 2020 education reform legislation and replaced a system in which schools were rated using 1-5 stars, officials said.

"We know looking at both the state results as well as looking at other kinds of national data that (the pandemic) has had a profound impact," said Rhonda Sims, associate commissioner in the state Department of Education's Office of Assessment and Accountability. "So now I think we know where we're starting from."