FRANKFORT — A House bill to revamp Kentucky's controversial CATS student testing system got its first public airing late Thursday before the House Education Committee.
House Bill 508's many provisions include: replacing the CATS system, but not until after the 2010-2011 school year; revising all state academic standards in a phased process starting next year; and aligning core content at all levels, as well as aligning high school academic core content with college requirements.
While the current testing program would continue through 2011, writing portfolios would be removed from accountability this year. Portfolios would be retained, however, as instructional tools from primary through 12th grade.
The measure is the House's response to Senate Bill 1, which would rework CATS by eliminating open-response questions and taking out portfolios. The Senate has already passed SB 1.
Most of the Education Committee session was devoted to a detailed explanation of HB 508 by its lead sponsor, state Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond.
Moberly said he would have preferred to leave CATS unchanged through 2014, when all Kentucky students are supposed to achieve proficiency status. But he said there had been "such a hue and cry" over CATS that he thought change was necessary...
Over at the Prichard blog, Susan has a workup of the bill and opines that HB 508 is a strong step forward. Notice Ben Oldham's argument for a blended assessment in the comments section.
I maintain an almost complete lack of faith in program reviews as an effective solution to the Writing Portfolio + Arts & Humanities problem. I seriously doubt the muscularity of the approach and predict that, if adopted, within five years program reviews will be abandoned as useless.
I hope the House will find some middle ground during negotiations.
4 comments:
Richard,
You write, “I maintain an almost complete lack of faith in program reviews as an effective solution to the Writing Portfolio + Arts & Humanities problem. I seriously doubt the muscularity of the approach and predict that, if adopted, within five years program reviews will be abandoned as useless.”
Well, when the “company is coming to dinner,” most of us clean house. But, that aside, how about this idea?
The NAEP will again test writing in 2011. That gives us two years to try teaching writing without portfolios in CATS. We can put portfolios back in if the NAEP results decay, and I would then support that. On the other hand, if our NAEP results notably improve, then you can be comfortable it is the right choice to keep writing portfolios out of the state assessment.
After all, Kentucky is apparently the only state still using portfolios for accountability, according to discussions during the Assessment and Accountability Task Force. Yet, after 15 years of the writing portfolio program, the NAEP showed nearly every other state taught writing at least as well as, if not notably better than, we did. Doesn’t that tell you it is worth trying something different?
What do you think? What do readers think?
I have taught seventh grade Language Arts for many years. The focus on authentic purposes and forms for writing has been the best part of the portfolio process. However, as the years have gone on, there is less and less support from KDE and my school district. It used to be that new teachers were at least given a copy of the handbook for portfolio development. Not any more. It used to be that the district would supply each school each year the necessary tools that would be needed for the scoring process. Now, you are given one master copy and must dip into your own school budget to produce the massive amounts of scoring materials for your staff (anchor papers, models for recalibration purposes, scoresheets, etc. ) Then, of course, let's not forget the money that each school must pay its staff to score the portfolios in late spring. My school is very ethical and fair and strives for absolute accuracy. But I often wonder if other schools take the process so seriously? If scores aren't artificially inflated in some places? I once had a principal brag that his school was 10% Distinguished on the writing portfolio. The folders I saw were Apprentice level at best. How long has it been since KDE conducted an audit to ensure accuracy? With their staff and spending cuts, I would venture to say it's been a long while.
I agree with Richard. Let's stop using them NOW. The NAEP sounds like a reasonable solution and certainly worth a try.
Thanks for the comments.
Richard: I've been racking my brain but I can't remember a time when the legislature passed a bill that said we would do one thing to see if it worked, and then if not, would do another. I'm not sure that proposal is realistic.
Has any thought been given to the costs associated with a serious portfolio review? (And, yes, I am aware that this may or may not be serious.)
There are 1,250 schools. How many schools can one team review? How many people on a review team? Will they actually read portfolios? Or will we be OK with district reports and spot checks? This portfolio review idea sounds a lot like what the Bluegrass Airport got before Crit Luallen showed up. It looked good enough on the surface.
Anonymous: I'm sorry to hear the process has degraded in recent years. But I can't say I'm too surprised. KDE has been decimated and it is increasingly difficult to provide support for important programs. Another reason to worry about the effectiveness of a portfolio review.
Waiting for NAEP is an argument for doing nothing, right? We get NAEP results in two years anyway.
One more thought, Richard.
If we're looking for a time when Kentucky didn't measure the writing performance of its students, to assess whether such instructional focus mattered, one might point to the years 1837 - 1991 inclusive.
In the late 80's it was all "Thank God for Mississippi."
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