Senate panel approves school testing reform

(Frankfort, KY) Substantial changes in how Kentucky schoolchildren are tested were approved today by the Senate Education Committee.

Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, would replace the state's CATS testing system with national tests, including the ACT college entrance exam at the high school level. While the CATS tests involve multiple-choice and on-demand writing skills, the new testing scheme would involve only multiple-choice questions.

Multiple-choice testing on the humanities, including art and music, would be eliminated so that teachers in those areas could focus more on student performance rather than art and history. At the high school level, the ACT would be supplemented by other multiple-choice tests because it does not cover all content areas.

Another aspect of SB 1 would eliminate writing portfolios from the state's accountability system, although they would be preserved for students in grades 5-12 so that students could improve their writing skills as they grow older.

The new program would be designed to track students' knowledge from year to year instead of the current focus on schools' performance. That would allow teachers to concentrate on students' needs individually while also tracking schools, Williams said. "We don't have enough knowledge about individual students to allow for remediation," Williams said. "If you know how all the students in a school are doing, that's a pretty good indicator of how the school is doing."

Senate Majority Floor Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, argued that moving to multiple-choice tests would allow for detailed results for individual students. "If it takes longer to grade (open-response questions) and you can only ask fewer questions, that presents a problem," he said.

Some panelists had concerns about the relative test design. "There seems to be some confusion as to what the ACT is and what its strengths are," said Sen. Tim Shaughnessy, D-Louisville. Senators debated whether nationally norm-referenced tests designed to compare students to each other could also be used to measure adequate performance.

Kelly also pointed to savings of millions of dollars and weeks of classroom time for the new plan. "You have to consider the amount of time we're putting into this assessment," he said. "You have to look at a cost-benefit analysis."