C-J editorial: CATS "a bit inflated," but well-intended

C-J discounts the disagreements among professional educators and pundits regarding the degree to which state CATS scores were boosted under the assessment system's new configuration. Scores were boosted. How much they were boosted seems to be in the 4 to 7 point range. But that also seems to depend on where you are.

• New cut scores were used to determine proficiency.


• The new test is noticably less performance-based than the test KERA originally aspired to construct.


• When the new test was administered for the first time last spring, some teachers claimed it was easier.


• Scores for top performing schools were adjusted downward.


• Scores for lower performing schools were adjusted upward.


• Gaps narrowed.


• The state as a whole moves forward.


• New scores can't really be compared to old scores - but screw that...

Let's party!

C-J is correct to suggest that Kentucky's next governor and the legislature ought to get a handle on this situation. And they like KERA better than NCLB. Me too.

Understanding CATS
Careful media consumers may be confused.

When the latest scores on the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System exams were announced this week, one major newspaper explained on the front page that "Schools across Kentucky see big jumps." Another said, "Kentucky's CATS scores take a small step forward."

Don't be confused. What's important, for the moment, is that we're still making progress toward the Kentucky Education Reform Act's primary goal: all schools reaching proficiency by 2014. We won't get there, just as the naïve aspirations of the federal No Child Left Behind law won't be met. But unlike NCLB, which declares schools failures for missing a single goal, KERA has focused from the beginning, back in 1990, on whether or not schools make progress.

The next governor should lead a joint executive/legislative effort, with broad citizen input, to review how far we've come with KERA, and how far we still have to go.

Despite the praise KERA has received from education experts and advocates, some will argue it should be scrapped in favor of fully embracing NCLB. That would be a disastrous mistake. That version of reform, concocted in Washington by President Bush with crucial help from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., has been condemned in red states and blue states, by Republicans and Democrats, among conservatives and liberals. Complaints vary, but the verdict is the same: Even in its own narrow terms, there's no credible case to be made that NCLB is succeeding.

KERA's original construct was much broader, deeper and richer. It committed schools to helping students:

• use basic communication and mathematics skills for purposes and situations they will encounter throughout their lives;

• apply concepts and principles from mathematics, sciences, arts, humanities, social studies, practical living studies and vocational studies to what they will encounter throughout their lives; • develop their abilities to become self-sufficient individuals;

• become responsible, effective members of a family, work group or community, including in community service;

• think and solve problems in school situations and in a variety of situations they will encounter in life;

• connect and integrate experiences and new knowledge from all subject matter fields with what they have previously learned, and build on past learning experiences to acquire new information.

For technical reasons, this year's KERA scores may be a bit inflated, but those original aspirations were not.