KDE releases its 2020-2021 Ky. school report card data

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) - The Kentucky Department of Education has released its 2020-2021 Kentucky school report card data, as required by statute and under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Kentucky administers state tests called the Kentucky Summative Assessment (KSA), previously called K-PREP – the Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress. The tests were developed by Kentucky teachers and align with the Kentucky Academic Standards in each content area. As current standards had been measured in operational state assessments, the KSA name has been applied.

Assessments were administered in Kentucky during the spring of 2021. A release from the Kentucky Department of Education said they’re one of a number of strategies to better understand how students who tested performed academically as part of Kentucky’s COVID-19 academic recovery efforts.

Kentucky’s school report card data is divided into “key topic areas,” which are:

• Academic Performance/Assessment Results
• Student Participation Rate Percentage – Spring 2021
• Spring 2021 Elementary Performance Levels Percentage for All Students
• Spring 2021 Middle School Performance Levels Percentage for All Students
• Spring 2021 High School Performance Levels Percentage for All Students
• ACT Subject Area Scores Kentucky Public School Juniors
• 2021 4-Year Graduation Rate Disaggregated by Student Group
• Opportunity to Learn Survey

Education leaders say context is key to understanding how students scored. Overall, less than 50 percent of students scored proficient or distinguished in most subjects.

The ACT composite score went down by a point.

In Fayette County, Superintendent Demetrus Liggins says, overall, students scored better than average.

Kentucky Department of Education Commissioner Jason Glass says Kentucky’s results can be compared to other states’. He said the KSA is different than previous tests.

In a press conference, he noted fewer students took the test. He also said the environment was different, with students just recently returning to in-person instruction when it was administered after months of remote learning.

“We knew these results would not be what we wanted, but were also not all together surprised,” Glass said. “These are not unexpected given the disruptions we’ve endured over the past two years.”

All assessment result data, including result data broken down by test subject and student demographic, can be viewed below:

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