With as many as 20-30% of students not taking the 2020-21 end-of-year assessment tests and none taking it in 2019-20, it’s hard for district officials to truly interpret the data that was released today. Still, they know there is no question that there has been learning loss over the last 18 months — particularly at the lower levels — so administrators and teachers alike are doing what they can to get students back on track.
The Kentucky Department of Education released annual School Report Card data (found in full here) on Wednesday. Assessments were administered to Kentucky students during the spring of 2021.
However, students enrolled virtually were not required to take the assessments, leaving large chunks of unknown data, particularly at the high school level.
For example, only high school participation in the four assessments (reading, math, science, and writing) at Owensboro Public Schools ranged from 64.5-70.6%. Middle school and elementary participation were much higher at OPS, ranging from 92.5-94.0% and 93.6-98.6%, respectively.
At Daviess County Public Schools, participation ranges from 71.3-79.5% at the high school level, 80.1-83.2% at the middle school level, and 87.2-88.1% at the elementary level.
“From a pure data analysis standpoint, if you’re missing 20% of your students, how valid is the data?” Jana Beth Francis, DCPS assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, questioned Tuesday.
Francis said other things that are important to remember is that the 2020-21 test was shortened, and it was also the first time the test was completely online.
OPS Superintendent Matthew Constant said of students that didn’t take the test, “we’re frankly even more concerned about (them) because we just don’t know. It’s a question mark. If we’re conjecturing, we’re probably thinking they may not have had as much support as others who did take the test. And so their results may have been even bleaker than what we saw with what we have.”
Constant said they knew the results would look negative, but they were prepared to look at any data they got back as an opportunity.
“What we got back was definitely reflective of what had gone on in the 18 months prior which was in-person learning sometimes, virtual learning sometimes, and the roller coaster of COVID,” Constant said. “We still look at it as an opportunity for growth. We can go back and look at what we did in May and look at where we are now, and we’re already seeing some signs of hope.”
Unable to fully and adequately compare test results to previous years, Francis and Constant said there was one obvious takeaway: there is no substitute for in-person learning and the value of teachers.
“I wish everybody would go home and thank a teacher,” Constant said. “A teacher has a huge task right now, but our teachers are jumping in with both feet and taking on this challenge very well.”
Because kindergarten and 1st grade are the foundational years of education, this year’s 2nd-graders are one of the classes being watched most closely.
“They are getting a lot of attention right now, and deservedly so, because some of them are still learning what it’s like to be in a classroom and be in school and get those basic skills,” Constant said. “Even given all of that, if we had 2nd-graders with us … they still were able to learn their basic sounds and phonemic awareness, and our teachers have just done an amazing job.
Speaking more generally of students at all levels, Constant added that “some of the bright spots that we saw in the data were that even though the kids were (back and forth with in-person instruction), they still could perform at basic levels. So all is not lost.”
While it’s not quite starting over, Francis and Constant said the most recent data almost serves as a new baseline from which to measure future progress.
“I think that this data should represent the bottom of achievement level. Here’s where we are during a global pandemic,” Francis said. “When we get the new assessment results in May of this year, they really represent our starting point moving forward. The data we get from this spring will really tell us where we are as a school district, and we’ll be able to set very clear targets for where we want to go.”
The Daviess County Board of Education previously allocated a total of $2.5 million in federal funding to individual schools within the district’s “learning-focused plans.” Francis said those plans were designed for schools to determine the best way to accelerate learning.
“Our school board focused in on making sure schools had additional supports that were earmarked and good matches for the individual students,” she said. “We have a lot of those things in place right now, and they look different from each and every school, but the schools are making sure those people are supporting the learners that need it most.”
Constant said OPS has also taken measures already this year to foster a quick learning environment using federal funding, including hiring about 120 people for various positions in the district.
“All of those people have been purposed in each building to their needs — in terms of intervention, in terms of small group instruction, in terms of reducing class size — so that we can get at the individual needs of these kids and bring them back up to where they need to be on their grade level,” he said. “There’s no doubt, a lot of work to do in education. I don’t think anybody is surprised by that. The whole world is going through this right now. And so we’re all digging in on what we can do to try to get kids back to where they need to be.”
