Kansas math, reading scores likely to drop

Remember a time when four in five Kansas students were considered proficient in math and reading? That may have sounded pretty good, but it all depended on the definition of “proficient.”

Next week Kansas will unveil the results of its new math and reading tests. Parents, students and teachers should brace themselves for a drop in scores, not because students are doing any worse, but because Kansas is asking more of them.

“The bar went up,” deputy education commissioner Brad Neuenswander told a group of reporters Tuesday. “The assessment is a lot more difficult. The questions. The type of test.”

The new tests — and the resulting scores — are so different from those that Kansans saw for more than a decade, that the education department gathered journalists in advance of next week, in hopes of staving off any misunderstandings.

Yes, the department is expecting fewer children will make the grade, so to speak, under the new system. But this is because the state board wants more children ready for college by the time they arrive at college. And it wants families and schools to know when students aren’t on track to meeting that goal.

“We’re going to see the same thing every other state did the first time,” Neuenswander said, referring to New York and other places that shifted to tougher tests in recent years.

When test scores plummeted in those states, it made for big headlines.

Kansas’ new math and reading tests are developed by psychometricians — test experts — at the University of Kansas, and reflect a shift away from multiple choice questions in favor of more complex ones meant to gauge critical thinking skills.

“So when we say, you know, ‘proficient’ on an old test, and ‘college ready’ on a new one,” Neuenswander said, “that bar is set a lot higher than what it was.”

The state education department stands ready to release statewide aggregated math and reading scores on Sept. 8, but only if the Kansas State Board of Education signs off that day on doing so. After that schools will verify that individual test records match students enrolled at their schools, and parents can then expect to receive scores for their children by mail in October at the earliest. In December the education department will, as in past years, publish district-by-district and school-by-school aggregate scores on its website.

Kansas’ new tests are part of a shift away from the test-centric approach to education that has dominated schools since the federal law known as No Child Left Behind took effect in 2002. The main theme of that shift is the idea that schools should better prepare students for life after high school.

For years, state officials have known that nearly a third of Kansas students who go on to college need remedial classes in math or reading before they enroll in credit-bearing college courses in those subjects. Kansas hopes to cut that down with more rigorous standards for math and reading instruction in schools, and more rigorous annual math and reading tests.

At the same time, though, officials want to correct what many educators believe has been an unhealthy focus on math and reading tests to the exclusion of other subjects, and to the point that teachers spend too much class time preparing students for standardized testing.

To that end, the state board is crafting a new long-term vision for schools, which it will unveil in October. Neuenswander said Kansans can expect to hear more details then about how the state will measure the progress and success of students and schools more holistically from now on.

Annual math and reading test scores “shouldn’t be the big story line or conversation,” he said.

“The big story line and conversation ought to be, and the challenge ought to be, are we preparing more kids to be successful post-secondary or in the workforce?” he said. “And this is then just one indicator.”

Here’s what the new math and reading scores will look like, and what education officials say they indicate.

Each student will receive a score of between 1 and 4. Level 1 signals a child isn’t at the academic level that would be expected for his or her grade in order to be prepared for college by high school graduation. Level 2 students are largely learning what is expected of them at school, but they might need remedial math or reading classes after high school before they can handle college-level courses in those subjects.

Level 3 signals a student is on target to handling college-level courses without remediation, and level 4 indicates a student’s progress is above and beyond that.

Kansas students take state math and reading tests each spring in grades 3-8 and in 10th grade. The scores about to be released are from tests students took last spring.

Kansas’ previous scoring system had five performance levels: academic warning, approaches standards, meets standards, exceeds standards and exemplary.

In addition to a greater emphasis on college readiness, Kansas’ new approach to education highlights career preparation. When the state board unveils its vision in October, it is likely to include goals related to career and technical education — such as giving high-schoolers access to courses that lead to certification in various trades — and to teaching soft skills.

The term “soft skills” refers to nonacademic abilities such as teamwork, communication and ethics.