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A bungling education bureaucracy leaves the state and students behind

By Caleb O. Brown

Education policymakers pledged in 1992 that by 2012 parents would see significant improvements in the academic performance of Kentucky’s students.

Absent a miracle or widespread fudging of numbers, trends indicate that parents can abandon any hope that children in the commonwealth’s public schools might learn at notably higher levels in 2012 or even in 2014 – as mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind program.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress report shows Kentucky making some headway, but the rate of improvement drags, and even shows signs of starting to decline in some areas:

• In 1992, only 23 percent of Kentucky’s public-school fourth graders rated “proficient” in reading.¹ In 1998, this assessment showed Kentucky fourth-grade reading proficiency at 29 percent and, for the first time, tested eighth graders at 30-percent “proficient.”

• By 2005, proficiency rates in both grades stood at only 31 percent.

• Almost all of the gains came prior to 1998. Since then, Kentucky’s reading scores on this respected assessment flatlined in both the fourth and eighth grades.

Curiously, Kentucky’s own CATS assessments showed fourth-grade reading proficiency in 2005 at 68 percent, and 62 percent in seventh grade – the closest grade in which CATS tests reading.²

How can CATS report twice the reading proficiency rates of the national assessment?

In mathematics, NAEP reported in 1992 that 13 percent of Kentucky fourth-grade public schoolchildren rated “proficient.” By 2005, the rate climbed to 26 percent. A similar change occurred in eighth grade.

Doubling the math-proficiency rates might seem impressive, but this amounts to a 1-percent gain per year. Even if this rate of progress continues, it would take more than two decades before half of Kentucky fourth-grade students ranked proficient in math. And as with reading, the rate of progress on NAEP math has slowed at eighth grade. Even reaching 50-percent proficiency likely will take decades.

These incremental rates of educational improvement seem out of whack with the massive new spending that accompanied the Kentucky Education Reform Act. So those expecting reform from within the Kentucky Department of Education best look elsewhere.

Research Report 338 published last year by the Legislative Research Commission found that while educators now devote more money to improving key educational outcomes, “spending for programs linked to specific accountability areas, such as reading and math core content, currently cannot be analyzed” due to misreporting of expenditures. The report stated that such misrepresentation “limits the ability to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of these programs.”³

For several spending categories at some schools, the commission found it impossible to determine where much of the money went, concluding in its report that “there is no way to identify the specific purpose of the expenditures or to evaluate the impact of the spending.” Due to this atrocious accounting, it’s likely that even a competent audit could not track the money.

The challenge remains clear: Lawmakers must find a way to hold Kentucky educators responsible to parents and taxpayers for the education of public-school students.

A few steps lawmakers should consider during next year’s legislative session:

• Place real weight on ACT Inc.-designed tests. ACT is an independent, not-for-profit organization that provides assessment services. In 2006, Kentucky Senate Bill 130 mandated a battery of ACT-designed tests for all Kentucky’s eighth-, 10th- and 11th-grade public school students. Lawmakers should make these high quality tests – the ACT, PLAN and EXPLORE tests – count for something meaningful in the CATS program. For example, the EXPLORE test doesn’t count at all in middle school CATS calculations. The other tests currently make trivial contributions to high-school assessments.

• Fix the auditing problems at the state Department of Education and in school districts. Attach penalties to those who fail to properly account for money spent.

• Follow Tennessee’s lead. The Volunteer State has used a powerful assessment program known as the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System for nearly two decades. It gives everyone a good idea of the value added by each teacher for each student during each school term. Reports show that Tennessee is one of the few states to show improvement on the NAEP.

• Give parents a choice. Parents take the most interest in making careful decisions on behalf of a student’s education. When parents can move students out of a school that loses their trust, it makes it easier to identify schools that need aggressive repair.

Lawmakers and education officials must honestly recognize the inefficiency in our public schools and begin to repair those problems. The changes mentioned here aren’t costly, especially when compared with large increases in education spending since 1990. But fixing Kentucky’s schools only can be done efficiently if accurate spending and performance data is gathered.

-- Caleb O. Brown is a researcher for the Bluegrass Institute. Contact him at caleb.brown@gmail.com.

¹ All NAEP information was assembled using the NAEP Data Explorer in September 2007 at http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde/.

² All CATS data is from the 2006 State Kentucky Performance Report from the KDE at http://apps.kde.state.ky.us/secure_cats_reports_06/index.cfm.

³ Report at http://www.lrc.ky.gov/lrcpubs/RR338.pdf.

The Bluegrass Institute is an independent research and educational institution offering free-market solutions to Kentucky's most pressing problems.

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