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Department's ACT reporting change makes the grade

Bluegrass Institute education analyst Richard Innes tried for years to get the state Department of Education to release ACT college-entrance exam scores for Kentucky’s public high schools.

Finally, Innes’ efforts – which began even before the institute opened its doors four years ago – and the work of others have born fruit.

The department recently revised the “School Report Card,” released each year for every public school in Kentucky. For the first time, high school report cards for the 2005-06 school year include five years’ worth of ACT scores.

Apparently the department finally got the message that Kentuckians want to know more about students’ academic performance than the paltry amount of information divulged in the past.

The release of these scores represents a win for students, parents, legislators who passed Senate Bill 130 in 2006 – requiring all Kentucky students take the ACT – and the Bluegrass Institute. These constituencies want the scores available to help get schools focus on what they need to teach.

 To look at any report card:

• Logon to http://apps.kde.state.ky.us/report_card/.

• Open the pull-down menu of school districts and click on the district you want.

• Click on the “Search” button to find that district’s data.

• A new window opens. It might appear the same as the previous window, but scroll down. A list of the selected district’s available reports by year and by school appears.

• Select the link for the school, year and report format you want and click on it.

Note: If you select a high school for 2006 (currently only available in PDF format), you can go to Page 2 of the report to get the 2006 graduating seniors’ average scores in that school. The table’s description makes it appear that the scores are for juniors. But the results match the graduate scores in every case we checked. The department needs to fix that description.

Contact the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky's free-market think tank, at (270) 782-2140. Read past Shine the Light articles at www.bipps.org.

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