Test scores on new assessments mostly encouraging

While state assessment test scores cannot be compared with previous years’ tests due to a new set of academic standards that Kan­sas State Department of Education officials said are “more rigorous” than those on previous tests, scored for Jack­son County’s schools on the 2015 tests tend to be encouraging for the most part, it was reported.

Tests administered in the spring of 2015 to students across the state are aligned to Kansas College and Career Ready Standards, it was re­ported, and KSDE officials said the tests, in their first year, may be re­garded as “the benchmark by which to measure future growth.”

Jackson County school administrators added that the new tests measure depth of knowledge in specific skills areas.

Scores in the first year of the new tests showed that on a district-wide scale, students in the Holton and Jackson Heights school dis­tricts scored better than the state average in the areas of English lan­guage arts (ELA), math and sci­ence, but that Royal Valley students struggled to keep up with the state average in ELA and science while staying on par with the state aver­age in math.

However, KSDE officials noted at a Web page devoted to state as­sessment scores that state assess­ment tests should not be viewed as the “end all, be all” in determining students’ progress. Instead, they said, the tests “should only be viewed as one piece of the overall picture of a student,” particularly in the first year following the re­vamping of testing standards.

“It is an expected outcome that when the bar is raised, there will be a lower percentage of students reaching that higher standard, ini­tially,” KSDE officials said. “This is not an indication that student performance has declined; it is simply a product of asking them to perform at higher levels. As with any change, there is a period of adjustment as teachers and students get used to the new standards and tests.”

On the ELA and math assess­ments, test results were reported at four levels. Level 1 indicates per­formance below grade-level stan­dards, level 2 indicates perform­ance at grade-level standards but below “the depth or level of rigor to be considered on-track for col­lege success,” level 3 indicates performance at grade-level stan­dards and on-track for college suc­cess and level 4 indicates perform­ance above expectations and at a readiness for college success.

Science tests were given to stu­dents in fourth, seventh and 11th grades in 2015, and in 2016, a new science assessment will be given to students in fifth, eighth and 11th grades. The 2015 test results were reported at five levels, although the definitions of the performance lev­els were not specified, and the 2016 tests will have four performance levels that are fully aligned to  the Kansas College and Career Ready Standards for Science.

English Language Arts Scores

In the ELA assessments, 6.92 percent of students being tested at all grade levels at schools across the state scored at level 4, while 34.1 percent scored at level 3, for a total of 41.02 percent scoring in the two two levels.

In Holton, 8.92 percent of students scored at level 4 and 37.88 percent scored at level 3, for a total of 46.8 percent.

At Jackson Heights, 7.6 percent of students scored at level 4 and 41.84 percent scored at level 3, for a total of 49.44 percent.

At Royal Valley, 3.74 percent of students scored at level 4 and 36.59 percent scored at level 3, for a total of 40.33 percent.

Math Scores

In math, 7.57 percent of students across the state scored at level 4 and 24.67 percent of students scored at level 3, for a total of 32.24 percent scoring in the top two levels.

In Holton, 10.5 percent of students scored at level 4 and 33.15 percent of students scored at level 3, for a total of 43.65 percent.

At Jackson Heights, 11.41 percent scored at level 4 and 27.71 percent scored at level 3, for a total of 39.12 percent.

At Royal Valley, 5.76 percent scored at level 4 and 27.08 percent scored at level 3, for a total of 32.84 percent.

Science Scores

In science, with the top two of the five scoring levels kept in mind, 12.01 percent of students across the state scored at level 5 and 34.16 percent scored at level 4, for a total of 46.17 percent scoring in the top two levels.

In Holton, 23.1 percent of students scored at level 5 and 36.55 percent scored at level 4, for a total of 59.65 percent scoring in the top two levels.

At Jackson Heights, 13.63 percent scored at level 5 and 32.95 percent scored at level 4, for a total of 46.58 percent.

At Royal Valley, 10.15 percent scored at level 5 and 33.59 percent scored at level 4, for a total of 43.74 percent.

In a letter signed by all three Jackson County superintendents — Holton’s Dennis Stones, Jackson Heights’ Adrianne Walsh and Royal Valley’s John Rundle — and published in The Holton Recorder, it was noted that the as­sessments given in the spring of 2015 “represent only one academic measure” of student progress.

“As you know, we use other formal and informal as­sessments in a variety of ways to determine how your student experi­ences not only academic success, but success in general as a student,” the superin­tendents’ letter said.

Full test scores for all schools across the state may be viewed at the KSDE Web site, ksreportcard.ksde.org