Amid KERA hype, key in NAEP scores missed
From Kentucky Citizen Digest, May, 1999

Amid glowing smiles and accolades emanating from seemingly every direction, the release of the National Assessment of Education Progress report (NAEP) by the U.S. Department of Education on March 4 was billed as a vindication of the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) from all the criticisms it has received over the last nine years.  The Lexington Herald-Leader carried the report and embellishments on it for two days running as the lead, front page story.

But the rumors of success that are still echoing throughout the Commonwealth have not had to face the light of the other stark truth that was contained in the same report.  The fact is, Kentucky eliminated two and a half times the number of “students with disabilities” in the 1998 testing versus those eliminated in 1994.  In other words, they cut out many of the students who likely would have lowered the scores.

Factoring out a small number of students isn’t the problem. When evaluating an educational system it is appropriate to drop those few students who are struggling most with their educational progress in order to avoid biasing the overall evaluation.  In Kentucky, for instance, with its self-developed KIRIS test, teachers try to be inclusive, including as many students as possible, even to the extent of reading the questions on the test to students with problems.  This practice is not accepted among national testing firms, so Kentucky teachers are allowed to exclude students who have an “Individual Education Plan” (or who are “SD” — a “student with disabilities”).

Here is the problem:  In 1994 Kentucky dropped only 4 percent of its students as SD; in 1998 it dropped a full 10 percent — 250 percent of its earlier elimination group.  So the Kentucky Department of Education boasts about a 1 percent rise in reading scores of fourth graders and claims vindication of KERA, but, on the other hand, doesn’t mention the more-than-double exclusion rate.

Even if KERA advocates argue that the increase in those dropped had no effect on the overall scores, a more important question arises:  If KERA is succeeding so well, why has the number of students who can’t qualify to take the test more than doubled?

The Family Foundation dispersed a news release to the state’s largest newspapers and the Associated Press on March 9 with data that should have merited further inquiry.  Troubling facts in the release showed that “Only two states had higher rates of exclusion (than Kentucky) — Louisiana at 13 percent and South Carolina at 12 percent,” and “of the six states that increased their exclusion rates to double digit percentages, all raised their state rankings and their raw scores — an average of 6 points.”

Only The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote on the issue and followed up with questions to the NAEP board that oversees the test nationally.  Results of their investigation were reported in their March 12 article in which Mark Musick, chairman of the NAEP board, was quoted, “That [exclusion rate jump] could affect the score.”

Also quoted was Dan Koretz, a Rand Corp. expert on high-stakes testing, who stated unequivocally, “Could it have affected the scores?  Absolutely.”

Kentucky Department of Education officials played down the possibility of any affect.
 

Key Family Foundation Contacts: Kent Ostrander, Executive Director Martin Cothran, Senior Associate Policy Analyst