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Lawmakers promise to deal with testing omission

(BOWLING GREEN, Kentucky) – Students throughout Kentucky have just put down their pencils from taking the 2007 CATS school assessments. But state lawmakers already know the results won’t show parents how their children compare with others in the state and across the nation.

That’s because the CATS school assessment in 2007 completely dropped – in both elementary and middle schools – uniform statewide testing and accountability with national “norm-referenced” tests.

Norm-referenced tests, called NRTs, are the only part of the CATS assessment that give parents individually valid and reliable information about how their students compared with others throughout Kentucky and the rest of the nation. That’s why state law required these tests at all school levels.

But the state Department of Education and Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) dropped the NRTs from the CATS in 2007, and in doing so, ignored warnings that it was illegal and disregarded the best interests of students and parents. The department and KBE even failed to take a common-sense approach by not getting the Attorney General’s Office to rule on the legality of making the change.

To learn more about the management of the state’s testing program, check out the Bluegrass Institute’s new report, “Legislators give failing grade to changes in testing policy.” The report explains what happened to the CATS test this year, why it’s bad news for parents and why legislators should follow through on their promise to fix the problem.

Lawmakers discovered the switch in late March when the Legislature’s Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee reviewed the CATS change.

The committee expressed strong displeasure and unanimously voted to send a letter to the board directing it to comply with the law and put norm-referenced testing right back into CATS in 2008. At the time the committee met in March, it was too late to do anything about the 2007 test.

In addition, legislators said they would begin hearings on the issue as soon as they have time to organize their inter-session meeting agendas. If the law was in any way unclear, legislators promised quick remedies, starting with seeking an opinion from the Attorney General, they said.

– For interview information, contact Jim Waters, director of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute. He can be reached at (270) 782-2140 or jwaters@bipps.org.

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