Listening to Kansas Education Commissioner Randy Watson try to sell state school board members recently on eliminating the state assessment test made me think of my granddaughter, who rarely lost a board game as a little girl because she changed the rules to tilt the game in her favor.
Watson says high school students don’t pay attention to the state assessment because they are thinking about other things (like getting a scholarship), implying that scores are lower because of that lack of interest. The 2024 state assessment shows 46% of 10th-graders are below grade level in math and 35% below grade level in English Language Arts; just 21% are proficient in math, and only 28% in ELA.
He proposes that high school students instead take a test that is directly related to their post-secondary aspirations:
- The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) for those considering a career in the military,
- The ACT for those planning to attend college, or
- The ACT WorkKeys for job and career assessment.
Watson’s rationale falls apart, however, when you examine the ACT results, which students take seriously and are even worse than the state assessment.
Only 18% of the 2024 Kansas graduates who took the ACT were college-ready in English, Reading, Math, and Science. In 2015, 32% were college-ready, and there has been a steady decline since then.
The decline in college readiness doesn’t result from a sudden lack of interest; students voluntarily take the ACT. It’s also unrelated to the Legislature paying the fee to take the test; there was a one-time participation increase that may have had a minor impact, but participation is back to the typical level, and scores continue falling. Unfortunately, plummeting student outcomes are real and are also found on the state assessment in elementary school and on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
The State Board of Education, at Watson’s urging, de-emphasized academic improvement starting in 2015 with the Kansans Can program. Despite being legally required to accredit school districts based on academic improvement, that was shoved aside in favor of social-emotional learning, graduation rates, soft skills, and other things. Watson and the State Board of Education signaled that state assessments don’t matter and many school district administrations passed it along to students. It may be true that some high school students don’t take the state assessment seriously, but how much of the apathy is the fault of administrators who signal (or outright say) that the test doesn’t matter?
Gold and silver awards for being academically prepared go to only two private schools and Fort Leavenworth
Watson made his pitch while recognizing seven districts with the Commissioner’s Award with Highest Distinction, based on having outcomes that exceed expectations. He didn’t mention, however, that only one public school district earned a Gold or Silver award for Academically Prepared for Postsecondary. Two private schools – Branches Academy and Brookridge Day School – received Gold awards, and USD 207, which serves students on the Fort Leavenworth military base, earned a Silver award. By its own admission, public school districts are not academically preparing students to be successful after high school.
Public schools exist to academically prepare students for life after high school. School districts provide many other services, but nothing is more important than improving student outcomes.
The solution to low performance is not making the test go away; it’s identifying and removing the barriers to better proficiency levels.
Watson’s proposal to eliminate the 10th-grade state assessment is a bad idea that the incoming state school board should reject.
