By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Many industries are moving towards data. Education is no exception. At Monday's USD 428 Board of Education meeting, Assistant Superintendent John Popp reviewed state assessment scores from across the state. The results come from the Class of 2019, but are from tests administered in 2017 when those students were sophomores in high school. Popp said the chart illustrates how students in the lower half of performance scores are still primed to succeed.
"There are a lot of students that scored level 2, and there are a lot of parents and a lot of students who feel really bad about them scoring at a level 2," he said. "I think what this chart does is shows that scoring at a level 2 on the state assessment is not bad at all. Scoring at level 2 on the state assessment is really indicating you are on track to be successful in college just by a one-day test."
There are four performance levels on the state assessments, and the chart broke each of those levels into a bottom and top half. Much attention tends to go toward the bottom two levels, but Popp said that's not where the dividing line should be.
"We've drawn this arbitrary line - I call it arbitrary because it wasn't there originally - between level 2 and level 3," he said. "Level 2, we have stated, is not proficient on the state assessment, whereas level 3 is proficient on the state assessment."
By the numbers, approximately 68 percent of students who scored at the bottom of level 1 in math or English graduated. Just 13 percent of those students went on to finish at least a year of college or obtain a professional certification in the year after high school, and the average ACT score for those students was 15 out of a possible 36.
Numbers climbed significantly just between the bottom and top halves of level 1. By the top of level 2, graduation rates were about 93 percent, college rates around 60 percent, and ACT scores at 21. Graduation rates improved marginally from there, even through the highest level of assessment scores.
"I think the main story this graph shows is the goal of getting students to move from level 1 into level 2," Popp said. "If we move kids to where they're scoring at a level 2, there's a lot more that graduate and go on to college or some kind of certification. It's like the doors start to open up more for them if they get to level 2."
As a reference point, Popp said a math score of 25 is needed on the ACT to study engineering at Kansas State University. Students in the bottom of level three scored 24 in the math portion of the ACT, and students in the top half of level 3 scored a 26. The highest performers on the state assessment averaged a 32 on the math portion of the ACT.
The board discussed how some of the numbers could be misleading. Many students at the bottom of level 1 may not have taken the ACT, which might skew the average score higher. And the Class of 2019 had to contend with COVID-19 their first year of college, and that may have impacted some of the attendance rates. The board will discuss district-specific test assessment results at its December meeting.