Beech Tree News Network

 On September 29^th, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) publically released the state assessment results for the 2016/2017 school year.  According to the KDE press release, “Kentucky is in the process of phasing out its old accountability system, and replacing it with a new accountability system created under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and Kentucky Senate Bill 1 (2017). The new system is expected to be in place by the 2018-19 school year with accountability first reported in the 2019-20 school year.  As a result of the transition, this year’s release does not include overall accountability scores, classifications or rankings for schools and districts, although KDE will continue to support low-performing schools and districts during the transition period. This year’s release includes achievement, gap, growth, college- and career-readiness and graduation rate data. Data from Program Reviews, which Senate Bill 1 eliminated, is reported if a school or district chose to do so.”

Butler County Schools showed mixed results with the latest release of assessment data. Elementary and middle school proficiency scores account for the spring assessments in reading and math for all students, grades 3-8, as well as social studies, writing, and language mechanics scores for select grade levels.  For high schools, this score comes from end-of-course assessments in English II, Algebra II, U.S. History, and Biology, as well as On-Demand Writing scores.  Proficiency allocates 1 point for any student scoring proficient or distinguished and ½ point for any student scoring apprentice.  These points are totaled and divided by the number of students taking the assessment, to derive a score.  Proficiency points and school ranks vs. other grade level schools fell from the 15/16 school year to the 16/17 school year across all four schools.  The total proficiency scores are listed below:

Gap scores are another component of the state accountability system, with an increased focus moving forward within the new accountability system.  Gap scores account for how a school does closing the achievement gap with those students who traditionally do not perform well, including students with disabilities, English language learners, ethnic minority groups, and those students who receive free or reduced lunch.  Schools are scored based on the number of GAP students scoring proficient or distinguished as well as novice reduction efforts in the school.  Most schools improved their GAP scores, with Butler County High School improving to the top 50% among all high schools in the state and North Butler Elementary scoring in the top 25% of elementary schools in Kentucky.  The GAP scores are listed below:

For elementary and middle schools, Kentucky measures the growth of students in reading and math from the previous year to the next, as part of measuring a school’s success.  Butler County Middle School showed improvement in growth.  Growth scores are listed below:

Listed below is academic assessment information for each school level.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Elementary students take assessments in both reading and math in grades 3-5, as well as writing and social studies in 5^th grade and language mechanics in 4^th grade.  North Butler Elementary outpaced Morgantown Elementary in the percentage of students scoring proficient or distinguished and the smallest percentage of students scoring novice in all tested areas except for writing.  Listed below are the assessment percentages for each school:

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS – Proficient/Distinguished

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS – Novice Reduction

BUTLER COUNTY MIDDLE SCHOOL

Middle school students complete reading and math assessments in grades 6-8 as well as language mechanics in 6^th grade and social studies and writing in 8^th grade.  Butler County Middle School saw increases in the percentage of students scoring proficient or distinguished on state assessments in both reading and language mechanics, with slight declines in social studies, writing, and math.  BCMS assessment percentages are listed below with state averages for comparison:

BUTLER COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL

High schools have a more complex system of accountability.  Students take assessments at the completion of four courses:  English II, Algebra II, Biology, and U.S. History.  In addition, 11^th graders take an On-Demand writing assessment.  All juniors also complete the ACT exam and seniors are judged both on the graduation rate and whether or not they were College and/or Career Ready, a status earned through a combination of exams and industry certifications.  BCHS improved the percentage of students scoring proficient or distinguished in English II, U.S. History, and Writing, with slight decreases in math and biology.  Novice reduction occurred on both the English II and writing assessments.  Assessment results are listed below:

 In addition. BCHS students improved the overall composite ACT score from 19.1 to a 19.2.  The graduation rate also improved from 86.1 to 92.5, outpacing the state average.  The percentage of students who were college and/or career ready dropped from 73.8% to 62.3%.  This data is listed in the table below:

 The Courier-Journal attempted to rank all schools in the state of Kentucky based on the previous accountability system.  This is not a perfect methodology, however, this does help give context and the information and explanation of this methodology can be found at this link:  https://interactives.courier-journal.com/projects/kprep-scores-2017/

According to this methodology, out of 1,262 public schools in the state of Kentucky, Butler County Schools were ranked as follows:

(1) Butler County High School                        514                             

(2) North Butler Elementary                          670

(3) Butler County Middle School                    1060                                       

(4) Morgantown Elementary                         1243

 All of the information in this article was pulled from the School Report Cards compiled by the Kentucky Department of Education, which can be accessed at the following link:

http://applications.education.ky.gov/SRC/Default.aspx