The KentuckyDepartment of Education is implementing new criteria in measuring schooldistrict testing performances. The District will be educating the public on thechanges, but Fort Thomas Matters got the early scoop and wanted to make ourreaders aware of this issue. In FortThomas, with regard to education, if you’re not first you’re last; these newchanges may make it more difficult for perennial top performing schools toremain at the top of the list.
In the pastresults and rankings were based solely on the student’s achievement on thetest. The changes that are taking placeto calculate the rankings will incorporate the following:
ØAchievement
ØGap
ØGrowth
ØCollegeReadiness
ØCollege/CareerReadiness Rate
ØGraduationRate
The test resultsat all levels, elementary, middle, and high school, will generate a numericvalue for each category listed above. The value for each category is weighted to create a final overallscore. The following table illustratesthe weights.
|
Grade Range |
Achievement |
Gap |
Growth |
College/Career Readiness |
Graduation Rate |
Total |
|
Elementary |
30 |
30 |
40 |
N/A |
N/A |
100 |
|
Middle |
28 |
28 |
28 |
16 |
N/A |
100 |
|
High |
20 |
20 |
20 |
20 |
20 |
100 |
Astandard-setting process will establish the cut scores to classify a school ordistrict as Distinguished, Proficient or Needs Improvement. Cut scores are the numeric values whereschools or districts enter or exit the classifications.
The KentuckyDepartment of Education (KDE) has said that students enrolled for a fullacademic year (100 instructional days) will be included in the calculations forachievement, gap, individual student growth, and readiness for college orcareer. For graduation rate, studentsenrolled and students earning diplomas will be included in the calculations.
Certain issueshave been acknowledged by the KDE like the potential masking of individual gapgroup scores. To address this issue aregulation has been added that requires the KDE to identify all individual gapgroups that perform below the average of all students.
Based on theschool’s scoring they will be placed in categories of either recognition orsupport. The categories are thefollowing:
ØRecognitionCategories
oHighest-Performing
oHigh-Progress
ØSupportCategories
oPrioritySchools and Districts
oFocusSchools and Districts
The schools inFort Thomas pride themselves on their academic achievements. These changes in scoring and calculation mayadd a wrinkle to the overall process, but the expectations for our teachers andstudents are the same. The educators andstudents have gotten these schools to the apex of recognition, where we hopethey remain!
The completepacket referencing these changes can be viewed here . The district willalso be educating the public on these changes in the near future.
