"State education officials have refused comment on the cause of the idea's demise, but speculation has been that it had been difficult to square the idea with reality." —Martin Cothran Senior Policy Analyst

Special to the Herald-Leader
 

Martin Cothran  The Family Foundation

About 700 words  First Serial Rights © The Family Foundation

The belief that all children can learn at high levels has died a quiet death in Frankfort.  It was 11 years old.

The idea was a key part of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA), a sweeping education measure that radically changed Kentucky schools.  It was a close descendent of the idea that humans are perfectible, and that utopia is possible. These beliefs were connected with political liberalism that some say is still in evidence in government bureaucracies, university teaching staffs and newspaper editorial boards.

State education officials have refused to acknowledge the passing of the idea or to comment on the cause of the idea's demise, although speculation was that it had been difficult to square it idea with reality.

The belief that all children could learn at high levels became the basis for KERA's statewide testing system, originally called "KIRIS."  KIRIS was part of a reaction against "standardized" tests, in which students scores were determined by comparing them to the scores of other students taking the tests.

Under KIRIS, the answers of children who took the test were matched against certain pre-determined standards set by test developers.  If students scored poorly, they were given the ranking of Novice; if they scored better but still below expectations, they were given the ranking of Apprentice; if they did well on the tests, they were ranked as Proficient; and if they scored exceptionally well, they were given the rank of Distinguished.

The hopes of KIRIS's creators were that students would improve over time, and schools were expected to attain the rank of Proficient over a period of time. .

As a result of intense criticism of the KIRIS tests in the mid 1990's, however, changes were made to the tests (most of which were cosmetic), and it was given a new name: CATS.

But despite the continuing rise in scores, schools still were not reaching the levels policymakers had set as a goal earlier in the 90's.  Most schools became mired in the Apprentice category--below the Proficient category that was originally hoped for.  This was the beginning of the end of the idea that all children could learn at high levels.  Education officials and many lawmakers began to implicitly aknowledge this fact by changing the way they articulated the idea. They began saying, not that all children could learn at high levels, but that all children could learn, most of them at high levels.

But the final blow came in April of this year, when state officials announced that they were changing the way they graded the tests.  Instead of matching student answers against previously determined standards, state officials decided to grade the tests on a curve.

By grading the tests on a curve, scores could be more evenly distributed across the different rankings. Some students formerly ranked Apprentice were to be recategorized as Novice (a lower score), but many more were to be recast as Proficient and Distinguished (both higher scores), resulting in significant increases in scores for students and schools.

The result was a roughly bell-shaped curve, and those attaining a Distinguished ranking were to be effectively defined, not by meeting a high, predetermined standard, but by the scores of the highest performing students. The new method constituted an abandonment of Standards Based testing and its assumption that all children can learn at high levels.

The belief that all children can learn at high levels is predeceased by the idea that children of different ages and ability levels should be put in the same classrooms (the nongraded primary program).  It is survived by the belief that local schools can be run from Frankfort, and by permissivist teaching methodologies such as inventive spelling, whole language reading instruction and New Math, which are still the only methods taught in the state's teachers' colleges and which are practiced in most of the state's public school classrooms.

Services will be held at the June 5-6 meeting of the State School Board.  Officiating will be State Board Chairman Helen Mountjoy.  Pallbearers will include other members of the State Board and Commissioner of Education Gene Wilhoit. Memorials may be sent to the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.

Family and friends have scheduled no visitation, not wanting to draw attention to the idea's demise.

Martin Cothran is senior policy analyst with The Family Foundation of Kentucky, a nonprofit educational organization dealing with public policy issues affecting families.