Some Important Information Regarding this Year's State Assessments
Education in Kansas, and throughout our nation, is currently undergoing significant change. We have talked about many of these changes in prior messages. One of the significant changes that impacts our students is the switch to the Common Core State Standards. Forty-five states have adopted these Standards.
In Kansas, the Common Core Standards are known as the Kansas College and Career Readiness Standards (KCCRS) and these standards have now replaced the previous state standards in areas of Mathematics and English Language Arts and Literacy. The new standards include rigorous academic content as well as 21st century skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.
The 2012-13 school year has been the first in a two-year transition to the KCCRS. This year our teaching staff focused on implementing the English Language Arts and portions of the Math KCCRS. In the 2013-14 school year, we will begin full implementation of the Math standards and the new state assessment system. In order to best prepare themselves and our students, our Math and English Language Arts teachers this year have focused almost exclusively on teaching the KCCRS. We are proud of the energy, enthusiasm, and ideas they have brought to this significant effort.
This spring, our students took the Kansas Assessments, just as they have in the past. These assessments are still tied to the 2003 retired standards and do not match the KCCRS. The 2003 standards and the KCCRS are like apples and oranges when it comes to what we expect students to know and how they demonstrate their knowledge. In addition, the current assessment system is a basic skills assessment whereas the KCCRS is designed to focus on higher college and career ready level skills that both colleges and employers are looking for.
In the coming weeks, if this has not already occurred, parents will begin to receive information from this year's state assessments. I have not looked much at the results but what you might find is that your child's results may differ from years past. These results may be improved or they may be worse. There are two things that are critically important for parents and our community to understand as you review your child's results.
1. What this year's assessments seek to measure and what the KCCRS teach are different. Does it make sense then that we spent time administering this assessment this year? No. However, we are required to administer annual assessments and we are required to implement KCCRS, even though they conflict in their purpose. Welcome to our world.
2. Because the future assessments, which will involve how schools are to be measured, are based on the KCCRS, my instructions to our staff were to teach our curriculum, which is the KCCRS. I knew when giving this instruction that this may result in assessment scores different from what they have been in the past. I take full responsibility for this decision and I applaud our staff for keeping their focus on our curriculum, the KCCRS.
Please know that we understand that a Child's assessment score may differ this year from prior years. Our teachers will be talking with students to help them understand why this might occur. Our goal is to make sure that students do not feel bad about their results if their score is lower than in past years. But we need your help to have similar conversations with your child should this be the case. Focus on growth. Focus on effort. Talk about all of the things your child has learned this year. If they are of an age to understand what I have shared with you then talk about this as well. Collectively, our goal should be to encourage and to support our children.
So, as you review your child's results and our district information is shared within our community, please understand the circumstances that Kansas schools, and USD 417, find ourselves in during this transition period. The best interests of our students was to focus on what we expect our students to know and to be able to do rather than on an assessment that is being phased out. I truly hope that you understand this decision and also understand the changes that are impacting our teachers.
If you would like more information concerning these changes, I would encourage you to visit the KSDE website and spend some time with the information provided specifically for parents regarding these changes. Here are the directions to get to this information:
1. Go to www.ksde.org
2. Access the ESEA Flexibility Waiver icon located on the right-hand side of the page
3. Scroll down to the section titled "Video Clips" then find "Videos for Parents/Community Members"
4. The first video in this section should be titled, "A New Accountability System for Schools"
5. Take time to explore the other videos as well so you can learn more regarding the changes schools are undergoing.