Readiness Gaps: Important Work Ahead

While we can take pride in the work that has brought Kentucky to a 62.5% overall rate of demonstrated readiness for college and/or career for our 2014 high school graduates, we still have lots of work to do, both to raise the overall readiness rate and to close some major readiness gaps. Here comes a frank look at the basics of those gaps, in the form of two charts and some comments on each.

Here, the painfully low readiness rates for students with disabilities and with limited English proficiency are first to catch the eye, but the rates for students receiving free and reduced price meals are also bad news.

The gap group is pretty much identical to the free/reduced meal group, which is pretty much to be expected. Within the gap group, the free/reduced students hugely outnumber the other groups, including students with disabilities and limited English proficiency, along with African American, Hispanic, and American Indian or Native American students.

One more note: I've estimated the results for four advantaged groups: those without disabilities, without limited English proficiency, without free/reduced meal eligibility, and not included in the gap group. Most data for this post can be found in the state's school report card, but these better-served groups are not shown. Still, with a bit of multiplication and subtraction, it's possible to get quite close to what those results must be. They're marked with asterisks to show they did not come directly from the Department of Education.

Next, these are the 2014 rates by students' ethnic background.

White and Asian students are clearly being better prepared for adult success than the other student groups, showing another challenge we face if we want all students to reach the readiness they need.

A second, uncomfortable thing needs to be said out loud: the results for African-American students are lower than those for the free and reduced-price meals group, showing that something more than the challenge of family low-incomes has been going wrong for those students. There's something we're doing or leaving undone for those students, beyond the main economic challenge. That's a distinctive problem that we need to look at frankly and tackle with vigor.

More broadly, each of these gaps are about student possibilities not yet realized and adult contributions that may be lost as a result, weakening all our communities as well as their individual opportunities. Changing that pattern and ending those losses will be important work we must take on.

Readiness Trends (Added Detail!)

In recent years, Kentucky has expanded the evidence we use to show that Kentucky students are ready for college, career, or both, and this post shows some of the details of how that expansion has worked. First, a graph to show what's changed:

 Next, some background about the parts of the graph:

• For 2010, the graph shows the total percent of public high school graduates who met all three ACT readiness benchmarks (English, mathematics, and reading) set by the Council on Postsecondary Education. It combines the students who met those benchmarks while participating in the statewide required 11th grade administration of the test and those who retook the test and reached the benchmarks at a later date.

• Starting in 2011, students who reached the benchmarks on the 11th grade statewide administration are shown separately from those who reached the benchmarks later on.

• Starting in 2012, student success on Compass and KYOTE placement tests, used by universities and KCTCS to assign students to courses, can also be seen. More exactly, students who have not met all three ACT benchmarks can be counted as college ready based on scores from Compass, KYOTE, a combination of subject scores from both tests, or a combination of scores from those two tests and ACT.  

• Also starting in 2012, career ready students are included. For career readiness, students must reach required scores on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) or ACT WorkKeys to show academic readiness, and they must also meet needed scores on a Kentucky Occupational Skills Standards Assessment (KOSSA) or earn an industrial certificate to show technical readiness.

The newest results, adding up to 62% of 2014 graduates being counted as ready for college and career, provide the most complete information. The 2014 information includes data from all the assessments Kentucky recognizes as showing readiness. 2014 also reflects an culture in which schools encourage students to prepare for and take additional assessments, especially if their early ACT scores show that they need to improve.

In contrast, the 2010 results are clearly incomplete. The 30% shown as ready reflect only the ACT results. We know that some Kentucky students took each of the other assessments in those years, but their results are not included. Plus, schools had less incentive then to encourage students to try the other ways of demonstrating readiness, so some students may have been ready but not taken any test to make that easy to see.

And, of course, none of the results are superb indicators of the full results we really want for our students. The available assessments can't track students' capacity for sustained work, like using reading skills to research a problem and writing skills to explain a possible solution or taking on a real-world challenge and applying their mathematics skills to wrestle their way to a sound response. They also give very little indication of students' perseverance, teamwork, and other capacities that we know matter deeply for college and career success.

Still, the available information clearly shows Kentucky students as increasingly able to show their readiness as measured by the available assessments, and the same information makes it clear that we have plenty more work to do to make sure every student is equipped for adult success.

Source note: the graph above combines several slides from a December presentation given by the Office of Education Accountability.  See below for the way OEA displayed the same results.

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Maker Space: Already Live in Northern Kentucky!

When a recent PrichBlog post explained the maker space concept, it missed a pretty important fact: Northern Kentucky already has one!  Last fall, students in Boone County convinced the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Leadership Northern Kentucky Class of 2015 that a maker space was worthy of their support as an approach to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) learning.  In April, the space opened in Burlington, complete with website, Facebook conversation, and Twitter connections. (Thanks to Julia Pile, GCIPL Fellow, for sharing news of this exciting development!)

Maker Spaces: A Rising Idea for Deeper Learning?

"Maker space" is a term for our decade, proposing flexible access to up-to-date technology, including the chance to explore 3-D printers and other tools and to work with others who are also figuring out what those new technologies can do.

Can school libraries become maker spaces? EdWeek is reporting on school libraries working to promote "education through tinkering and creating" through maker spaces for student use.

For example, a Missouri elementary school has stocked its space with "craft supplies, sewing machines, snap circuits, Lego sets," as well as a 3-D printer for student use.  A Michigan effort is developing after-school opportunities for students to develop technology skills and finding, according to a faculty coordinator, that "there is a real hunger; there is a sense that there's something about this that's powerful for them."

On a first read, this looks like a savvy new approach to familiar challenges. To use these tools, students will have  to apply and develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills.  To complete their projects, they'll need to use math and science skills in systematic, productive ways. And if we want to see students engage with their full energy, these kinds of resources certainly seem likely to draw them in.

On a second read, it's clear that the approach is in its early days. So far, there's not much formal research to confirm or disconfirm learning results.  Still, that's how engineering is supposed to work. A sound design process identifies a need, proposes solutions, and tests them out, check to see which ones best meet the criteria for meeting the need and revising many times to find an approach that fully succeeds. 

Here, there are two clear needs: developing students' STEM understanding and developing those capacities to participate effectively that we often call "21st century skills."  Maker spaces look credible as possible solutions to both needs, and definitely worth multiple, vigorous trials.

Science and Tech Integration at Jeffersontown High (and in Forbes magazine, too)

Forbes Magazine has a great new article on next-generation learning at Jeffersontown High School, integrating science, technology, engineering and mathematics in collaboration with the Ford Motor Company and the United Auto Workers.

It's a great snapshot of active students and supporting teachers that go with the deepest sort of  engagement:

Working in small groups, boys and girls are on their knees, or sitting cross-legged on the floor, cutting 30 square feet of cardboard sheet into parts they designed on the computer and then placing them at carefully planned angles before taping them into position. Their math, science and engineering teachers are circling the room, helping when needed.

 And it also features:

• Professional development, including "teacher externships, which bring teams of teachers into Ford facilities to gain first-hand workplace experience that they can take back to their classrooms."
• Mathematics in active use: "In the welding classroom, sparks are flying while students assemble a metal security gate for a real customer. But first, they had to use quadratic equations and parabolas to design the gate’s arch."
• And a Prichard Committee voice: Sam Corbett (PC member and former chair) gets the next-to-last word in his role as director of the Jefferson County Public Schools Foundation.

It sounds like the complete picture of a big change underway, and an article not to miss.

Program Reviews as the Newest Accountabilty Element

Program reviews are a new indicator of the quality of student learning opportunities in subjects that Kentucky no longer tests.  For accountability, there are three reviews, focused respectively on writing, arts & humanities, and practical living & career studies.  And, as you can see,when the school scores submitted by all districts are combined into statewide numbers, they average out very high.

It's worth unpacking those results from the statewide briefing packet on the new results a little more.  Individual program review rubrics use a 0 to 12 scale, with 8 being the score for a proficient program.  To get numbers like the ones shown above, the scores on all three reviews are added together and divided by 24 (equivalent to three proficient scores).  Scores above the 100 level are rounded down to the 100 maximum allowed by the state scoring system.

So, the graph above shows that statewide, districts on average are rating their schools proficient or higher on their program reviews.  Individual schools had higher and lower scores, but the averages came out at or above 100 on all three levels.

Below, you can see the results for each subject for the two available years, all using the 0 to 12 scale that applies for individual reviews.  There, too, it's clear that the averages are now at or slightly above the proficient level for all three programs at all three levels.

In 2008, the discussion about program reviews included clarity that the Kentucky Department of Education would need to play a major role in ensuring consistent scoring, along with consistent refusal to estimate the costs.  In 2009, Senate Bill 1 specified "Each local district shall do an annual program review and the Department of Education shall conduct a program review of every school's program within a two (2) year period," again without frank engagement about the price tag.    Since that point, the Department has had no resources to carry out that scale of review, and many discussions have fallen into saying that schools score themselves, even though state law makes the reviews a district obligation. 

Whoever has been leading the process and whoever has been monitoring, I think these results will move us quickly to a serious discussion about what it will really take to ensure that program reviews reflect consistent scoring against high expectations.  That discussion is at least six years overdue.

--Posted by Susan Perkins Weston

Readiness As An Accountability Component

In the 2014 overall scores released today, readiness is an element for middle schools and high schools.  Those results are broken out below, with some explanation below the graph.

For middle schools, readiness means readiness for high schools success, while for high schol, it means readiness means readiness for college, career, or both.

The middle school results use a single measure: the percent of students who reach benchmark scores in English, mathematics, reading, and science on the eighth grade Explore test.  Explore is a test developed by ACT, Inc., and the benchmark scores were also set by the ACT company.

The high school results reflect multiple measures. Students can show college readiness by meeting  ACT benchmarks set by Kentucky's Council on Postsecondary Education or required scores on college placement tests.   One important detail:  there are CPE  benchmarks for ACT English, mathematics, and reading, but not science, so ACT science is not part of the college readiness definition.  Students can also show career readiness in a variety of ways, and students can be counted as ready for college only, ready for career only, or ready for both.

The chart below shows a little more about Kentucky's high school progress in the past year.  We had a small downturn in the number of graduates, but a clear increase of more than 2,500 students who qualified as college ready and a similar jump in those who are career ready, with a total jump of almost 3,500 in the number meeting one or both standards.  Overall, it's quite an impressive improvement!

 

--Posted by Susan Perkins Weston

Study results, adjust instruction: Improving western Kentucky nursing education

Check out a great National Public Radio story: Western Kentucky Community and Technical College figured out that the Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology was a major barrier for many students who want nursing careers--and didn't accept that result.

Instead, WKCTC analyzed the problem and looked for instructional solutions:

"You're not taking this class as just an elective," Dean Karen Hlinka says. "You're taking this class as building the foundation for the rest of your education. So you've got to get it."

Hlinka realized that a lot of her students just weren't ready. They knew how to memorize, but they didn't really know how to think. So the school set up a special class, which teaches just the first six weeks of a whole semester. It began integrating how to read the textbook into class lectures, instead of just what's in the textbook.

With the new approach, WKCTC is reporting passing rates 20 percentage points better than the national average, giving clear evidence of success with an impressive improvement to teaching and learning.  

Added tip: for the fullest excitement, I recommend listening to the broadcast version: I think it's more detailed and energetic than the website text!

--Posted by Susan Perkins Weston

Success in the First Year of College Suggests Likely Degree Completion

Prichard Committee Statement

KY Center for Education and Workforce Statistics Releases

2014 Kentucky Postsecondary Feedback Reports

The postsecondary feedback reports recently released by the Kentucky Center for Education and Workforce Statistics (KCEWS) show employment and earnings for graduates of Kentucky’s eight (8) public four-year universities. They also show similar information for students who start college but leave without completing a degree.

The feedback reports provide data for parents and students to make informed decisions about their courses of study given the likely wage and employment opportunities in Kentucky. The report shows that a full 80 percent of Kentucky’s graduates stay in Kentucky to work and live. For these students, and those who plan to stay in a particular region of the state, this is very helpful information. For example, in general graduates with more education make higher salaries, but a deeper look shows graduates with associate degrees from three Kentucky universities (EKU, KSU, NKU) make significantly more than their peers with bachelor degrees and nearly as much as individuals with graduate degrees. 

The Prichard Committee is especially pleased to see a focus on the data related to students who drop out of college. The feedback reports provide good information about students who start college but choose to leave without finishing a degree. In 2013, roughly 10 percent (8,833) of the total enrollment in Kentucky’s 4-year public universities left college and did not transfer to another institution. One year later, their average salary was less than $15,000 a year. Gender does not seem to be a determinate for “leavers” with males and females leaving about equally. However, the data in the report does suggest that these college students were either ill-equipped academically or lacked the dispositions needed to persist in higher-education. Nearly 70 percent of “leavers” left college with less than 30 credit hours earned (the equivalent of one year of college) and more than half (58%) had a GPA lower than a 2.0. 

As we persist in Kentucky to balance an Unbridled Learning Accountability Model that ensures College- and Career Readiness for ALL, policymakers need to be mindful that readiness implies success at the next level.  As we increase the number of students “ready” we need to also ensure that those students have the skills, dispositions and supports they need to persist in their first year of college and beyond. The data show that students completing their first year of college are much more likely to complete their degree. College and career counseling at the high school level and retention efforts at the postsecondary level are both important strategies to help students achieve their potential.

The 2014 Postsecondary Feedback Reports by Institution can be found at: http://kcews.ky.gov  

Puzzling over Fleming County High School results

On the one hand, the Herald-Leader reports that a state audit has said that that Fleming County high school's principal "should be removed because of a lack of academic progress."

On the other hand, Fleming's school report card says the school's overall score went up nearly five points in one year, putting it in the 87th percentile of schools statewide.  Here's a screenshot:

Puzzled, I went to another level of detail, checking out the five components that make up that overall score:

Here's what I see in these numbers:

• In achievement and in gap, Fleming is clearly behind state average. Those two results come from K-PREP scores.
• On growth, Fleming is just slightly above state average. The growth measure  looks at how individual students' reading and math scores changed from grade 10 to grade 11.
• In graduation, Fleming  has a nice, but not vast, lead over the state.
• It's readiness that soars above the state, based on students qualifying as ready for college and career as measured by ACT and other tests of readiness for college and career.
• Finally, the overall score is an average of the other five elements, treating all five as having equal weight, rather like a grade point average--and Fleming County High comes out ahead of the state average for high schools.

Looking at it all,  I can see an argument for weak results, based on achievement and gap, and I can see an argument for great results, based on readiness and graduation.  From the overall score, it looks like state policy sees the combined results as pretty strong.

So far, I've ended up with a new puzzle: How can a school's readiness results be so different from achievement?  I think the two approaches are supposed to be measuring the same students on roughly the same content and skills--but clearly they're identifying quite different views of this particular school.

Best Practices: College and Career Ready

Check out what Kenton County Schools are doing to engage students

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/engagement_and_reform/2013/08/best_practices_college_and_career_ready_in_kenton_county_schools.html

Common Core Reading: A Full Range of Texts

I've now seen multiple authors claim that the Common Core State Standards mandate that reading and English classes can only have 50% of their texts be literature, with the other 50% a variety of non-literary readings.  For example, there's this new Heritage Foundation publication, and last month there was this (now corrected) New York Times piece.

That claim is untrue, and this post offers a review just how and why it is false.

Lets start with the one place that Common Core uses the number 50%: it's in this table on page 5 of the official standards document:

The document then explains that the Standards "aim to align instruction with" the NAEP reading framework, which does mean 50% literary reading in grade 4 and then smaller shares in grade 8 and grade 12.   

The thing is, that does not mean 50% of an elementary school's reading hour or 30-45% of the one period a day the upper grades devote to language arts and English.  Common Core stakes a claim to the full instructional day and homework time beyond that.  

Here's the key Common Core statement that appears right below that table:

In K–5, the Standards follow NAEP’s lead in balancing the reading of literature with the reading of informational texts, including texts in history/ social studies, science, and technical subjects. In accord with NAEP’s growing emphasis on informational texts in the higher grades, the Standards demand that a significant amount of reading of informational texts take place in and outside the ELA classroom. Fulfilling the Standards for 6–12 ELA requires much greater attention to a specific category of informational text—literary nonfiction—than has been traditional. Because the ELA classroom must focus on literature (stories, drama, and poetry) as well as literary nonfiction, a great deal of informational reading in grades 6–12 must take place in other classes if the NAEP assessment framework is to be matched instructionally.  [emphasis added]

Why does Common Core call for literature and more, studied in English classrooms and many others?

It's because today's students will read widely as tomorrow's adults:

• In their careers and postsecondary education, they'll need to read everything from scientific research and economic analysis to manuals for advanced machinery and guidance on implementing complex legal requirements.
• As citizens and community participants, they'll need to read analysis of current events, speeches, editorials, historical explanations, and on and on. 
• As members and builders of our shared culture, naturally they'll also need to engage literature and richly literary nonfiction. 

For our next generation, reading will be a mix of all those kinds of texts, so Common Core calls on our schools to equip them for that full range of expectations.

In fact, the  document's proper name is "Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects."  The proof that  Common Core aims for high levels of fluency with literature and other reading texts, learned in English and other classrooms, is right there on the cover.

One more thing:  Kentucky science, history, and other teachers are doing fabulous work to build those reading skills.  Even if the Times has to correct its publications and even if Heritage never bothers to check its facts, our educators are engaging Common Core fully and thoughtfully, and our students are already gaining ground as a result.

Holliday: Career-ready belongs in the mix

KSBA has shared a great write-up of thoughts that Commissioner Holliday shared with the Kentucky Board of Education yesterday, arguing for our next accountability system to value indicators of readiness of careers as well as for college.  Here's a sample to lure you into reading the whole article:

“Senate Bill 1 didn’t really say ‘career ready;’ it said ‘college ready.’ So we could leave off the whole column (on a chart of proposed scoring percentages) of career ready,” Holliday said, “but I don’t think we’re going to get a lot of support from high schools. They’ll say, ‘Well, I’ve got 34 percent of my kids who don’t go to college.’ You’ve got a lot of high schools who will push back if you don’t have career measurement.”

And here's another.

“The future of Kentucky is on the line here. This, to me, is the big one,” Holliday said. “I’m not adverse to raising the weighting on this one because this ought to be the No. 1 issue for a superintendent of schools – making sure that my K-12 system creates graduates who move on to improve their quality of life and the quality of life in the Commonwealth.”

Click here to read the entire report and consider the Commissioner's full argument.

Giant Steps: SB 1, Common Core, and RTTT (August edition)

Once again, I've revised my overview of some huge changes underway in Kentucky education.  Click here to download the one-page PDF, or read on:

THREE GIANT STEPS FOR KENTUCKY EDUCATION

AUGUST 2010 OVERVIEW OF KEY DEVELOPMENTS

FROM THE PRICHARD COMMITTEE FOR ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

SENATE BILL 1

Senate Bill 1, passed in 2009, requires Kentucky to upgrade its standards for what students will learn. Our new law says the standards must be shorter, clearer, and better focused on students being ready for college, work, and global competition. To match the new standards, Kentucky will use new tests starting in the spring of 2012. Current teachers will receive specialized training on how to teach the new standards well, and teacher preparation programs will equip future teachers with the same skills.

COMMON CORE STANDARDS SHARED BY MANY STATES

For language arts and mathematics, Kentucky has joined with many other states in adopting the Common Core State Standards. Nationally respected experts drafted the standards, using learning research and information on how each subject is taught in the countries with the world’s highest academic results. Then they gathered comments from state leaders, local educators, and the general public have been gathered, and revised the work several times before issuing the final edition in June.

Similar multi-state work is planned on additional subjects, including science and history.

Because of Senate Bill 1, we expect to be ahead of most states in preparing current and future teachers to implement the standards. In the future, Kentucky and other states will be able to collaborate on developing tests, textbooks, technology, and professional development that match the standards and help students develop the knowledge and skills they will need for college and career success.

THE FEDERAL RACE TO THE TOP COMPETITION

Nearly all states are now competing to win Race to the Top grants from the United States Department of Education. The winning states will share $4 billion in funding to implement their plans to make their school systems among the best in the world. The plans must address:

• Standards, including classroom implementation and good tests to check student progress.
• Data systems to help teachers identify student needs and effective learning strategies.
• Evaluation and support systems to strengthen teachers and school leaders.
• Major changes to schools that repeatedly fail to deliver acceptable student performance.

Since Kentucky is already committed to Senate Bill 1 and the Common Core, the Race to the Top competition is an opportunity to get the funding we need to implement those changes quickly and well. In the first round of the competition, Kentucky was one of the finalists, but did not receive an award. In the second round, we have applied for $175 million to be spent over five years, with half of the funding going to school districts for local work and half being used at the state level, and we are finalists again. The second round winners will be announced in the fall of 2010.

SCOBES board exams: future testing and future high schools?

The State Consortium On Board Examination Systems (SCOBES) is planning working on high school assessments of English, math, science, history and the arts.   Check out a new, clear one-page summary of the SCOBES proposal for federal funding here, similar to the ones on PARCC and Smarter/Balanced that I blogged in July.

Board exams are a strategy for transforming our high schools.   The core idea is that when students succeed on those tests, usually after tenth grade, they will be ready to "move on" by taking one of five paths:

• A community college transfer program designed to start them toward a four year degree at an open enrollment university.
• A community or technical college certificate or degree program.
• High school work preparing for a selective college or university.
• High school work preparing specifically for STEM work at a selective college or university (with STEM meaning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).
• A high school career or technical program with industry certification.

A key insight from the summary:

SCOBES will not develop new assessments, but will review, select and certify a set of existing rigorous Board Examination System providers that member states and high schools can offer to their students. To be eligible, providers must align their systems to the Common Core State Standards.

Because multiple systems will be considered, there will not be a single answer to questions about types of tasks, length of tests, and schedule for testing, but the summary does specify that "most" possible providers "rely heavily on essays and constructed-response questions and some also include coursework and assigned projects" and that "scoring is external, done either by machine or by hired, trained teachers."

Kentucky is a SCOBES member, and this major shift in direction is clearly an approach Kentucky will consider.  It is also a major bid to transform high schools, making the first half about demonstrating competency for the later options, moving a substantial group of students out of high school when that competency is shown, and asking the remaining students to choose a sharply defined direction for their remaining work.

Finally, though these board exams are not billed as "graduation exams," the summary does not show any   paths forward for students who do not succeed on the tests.  For those whose first board exam scores are below the needed level, is the plan to offer them added learning opportunities in preparation to retest?

For shared prosperity, build education and job opportunities for working poor families

The Mountain Association for Community Economic Development recommends systematic attention to families that, even with hard work, are not earning enough to make their families self-sufficient.

Arguing that opportunity for those families is "a path to shared prosperity in the commonwealth,"  MACED provides an overview of their current challenges and policy proposals for education, job creation, and other supports.

Here are the education recommendations:

• Kentucky should overhaul its financial aid programs to prioritize need-based programs like CAP with increased funding, and should restructure financial aid to make it more accessible to adult students, including those attending part-time.
• Kentucky should expand its Career Pathways strategy with dedicated dollars in order to better link education and training to long-term job opportunities with career ladders based on key sectors in particular regions.
• Related to Career Pathways, Kentucky should offer more flexible delivery of edu cation so that working families can more easily access the training and credentials they need.
• Kentucky should move adult education funding to national average levels in order to close the gap in basic literacy and educational attainment and help students reach the first rung of the ladder to good jobs and stronger economic contributions.
• The state and the Council on Postsecondary Education should work to avoid unreasonable tuition increases that put an unfair burden of the cost of higher education on students and families that increasingly cannot afford it.

Two further notes:  First, I had the pleasure of working with MACED on early drafts of this report.  Second, it has wonderful maps showing how Kentucky challenges spread out across regions of the state, and I'm planning to blog several of them in the coming days.

Program reviews taking shape

Yesterday's state board meeting offered some insight into how the new program reviews will work for arts and humanities, practical living/career studies, and portfolio writing. KDE staff reported that for each subject, the reviews will check:

• Curriculum and instruction
• Formative and summative evaluation
• Professional development and teacher support
• Administrative leadership support and monitoring

Practitioner panels will develop up to ten indicators of strength under each standard.

As specified under SB 1, the state will review each school's program every other year, while districts check the programs annually. Pilot reviews will occur over next two years, followed by full implementation in the 2011-12 school year.

Arts, practical, writing programs under SB 1

Senate Bill 1 eliminates state testing of arts and humanities and practical living/vocational studies, and accountability for students' writing portfolio scores. Instead, program reviews and audits have been added to ensure robust learning opportunities. The new approach will begin quickly:

The Kentucky Department of Education shall develop and implement interim program assessments of writing programs, practical living skills and career studies, and arts and humanities in all schools during the transition period. The department shall finalize the process for program assessments for implementation during the 2011-2012 school year as required in Section 2 of this Act.