Pandemic-related educating should amplify focus on school accountability | Commentary

Student achievement in the form of state assessment results, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and ACT scores had been ticking downward in Kansas long before COVID reached The Sunflower State.

The trend is likely attributable to the state board’s and KSDE’s deemphasizing student outcome success in terms of assessment results in favor of an increased emphasis on systemwide inputs. In particular, the Kansans Can initiative measures success in terms of non-academic results, e.g., the number of students in pre-school and individualized plans of study. Also, a great deal of stock has been placed in the non-measurable outcomes known as social/emotional development. Those may be important steps in the educational process, but most Kansans agree that we send our children to school to learn to read, write and do math. Incidentally, the very things that academic assessments track.

Now the pandemic has created a new challenge in tracking real student success: a gap in assessment data. There was no state testing given in 2020, and the next NAEP — a national test administered by the feds — has been postponed to 2022.

Studies predict significant learning loss in students across the country due to the inadequacy of distance learning, both in the lack of accountability and lack of accessibility for much of the student population — particularly low-income and minority students. How much of actual “learning loss” has yet to be determined, but you can bet lower state assessment scores from 2021 — which will be released late this year — and similar results in next year’s NAEP will all be attributed to the pandemic by the education establishment.

This schism in vital student achievement information makes it difficult for education reformers like many in the Legislature and private reformers like Kansas Policy Institute to find transparency and accountability in the way school districts conduct themselves and how their performance can be evaluated. Since 2017, KPI has developed and published an A-F report card for all schools, which now includes state-accredited private schools. The schools’ grades are determined by translating state assessment scores into letter grades. It is a single screen summary of each school’s performance, much simpler to access than the multi-screened, non-summarized, non-graded school “report card” published by KSDE. Unfortunately, the absence of state testing scores precludes even this basic accountability for the 2020 school year.

The gap in accountability measures will undoubtedly become a double-edged sword wielded by the traditional public-school community to increase their control over K-12 education. Any reduction in test scores will be blamed on the pandemic, while the lower scores will also be used to convince the state Supreme Court through Gannon to force the Legislature to provide more money to public education.

Thousands of parents made a school choice decision last fall by pulling their children out of traditional schools in response to distance learning restrictions. When the Legislature returns in May, it is incumbent upon them to recognizer this and not only protect but expand school choice.