BREAKING NEWS: after a decade of underperforming on state assessments, recent results of the Kansas State Assessment show the problem has been solved! KS has seen a 14% increase in proficiency in reading and a 16% jump in math for tenth-grade students in just a year.
But wait.
Ever since the KS State Board of Education altered the grading scale for the KS State Assessment, significantly more students are now considered “proficient” without any real improvement. This massive jump in proficiency actually means nothing.
And the KSDE can’t provide a detailed explanation for these changes.
The previous version of the test was implemented in 2014, and after 10 years of collecting data, the KSDE has decided to change the scoring of the KS State Assessment, magically making more students “proficient.”
From the outside, it seems like the KSDE is dumbing down the standards for students and making it too easy to reach proficiency. And this is exactly where the Board has left the public.
On the outside.
The KSDE had stated that these changes are fixing “misalignments” with student proficiency within the state. According to the KSDE, previously, only a quarter of students were considered proficient on the KS Assessment, while out of those same students, over half went on to succeed post-high school.
The KSDE also stated that the previous KS test scores were “out of step nationally” as other surrounding states had similar ACT scores, yet higher proficiency on standardized tests.
Many students who scored below the proficiency cut-off on the assessment actually should’ve been labeled as proficient, and the new test aims to more accurately reflect student success beyond high school.
So, in theory, the reasoning for this change makes sense — to an extent.
According to the KSDE, there was extensive data collection on test scores and a three-day study with 141 teachers across KS to determine new cut scores for the test. But, with this preparation, the only information easily accessible to the public is a six-paragraph statement released by the KSDE with vague, flowery language.
While it’s incredible that teachers were included to such an extent in this process, why is there no accessible data from this study?
Dr. Dan Gruman, the Director of Assessment Research in the SMSD and the Director of the KS Assessment Advisory Council acknowledges that altering the test is “A huge undertaking that takes a lot of time and involves hundreds of experts, including the best KS educators participating, contributing and providing feedback along the way.”
But the only information about this study can be found five hours into the nine-hour-long Board of Education meeting. No one in their right mind will spend half of their day reviewing board meetings just to understand why the state is lowering cut scores. And even looking at the meeting summaries gives no explanation whatsoever.
When reading the statement, it’s easy to see why many parents and news outlets rushed to attack the decision, saying it’s reducing academic rigor and lowering the standards.
However, there is validity to this change. Only 28% of tenth-grade students were considered proficient in reading in 2024, while 50% scored in the college-ready range on the ACT. And, only 21% of students were proficient in math by the KSA standards, yet 27% were college-ready by the ACT standards in math.
Yet even finding these numbers took an hour-long deep dive into ACT statistics and state assessment success levels.
Rather than being told that the state created a new test after discovering “a long-standing misalignment,” how was this misalignment discovered and when? A 15% error in proficiency levels seems like a big problem and one that should have been identified and fixed earlier than 10 years down the road.
Out of nowhere, students, parents and teachers are being told that for the past decade state assessments were entirely wrong. Now there’s a new test, a new scoring system and entirely new proficiency statistics, all within a week.
Rather than a small statement from the KSDE, a comprehensive review of all research gathered and specific reasoning needs to be readily available to the public.
The next time the KSDE makes a change this serious, they need to take measures to explain it. Accurately representing students’ proficiency is important, but equally important is adequately explaining a change that results in an astronomical jump in statistics.
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I may be wrong, but comparing scores taken by every child in school to those who voluntarily take the ACT doesn't seem valid. ACT scores would surely reflect higher numbers.