For years, Kentucky’s students, parents, community members, legislators and education leaders have been working hard to find ways to make assessment and accountability more meaningful and useful to the learners in our Commonwealth. Anyone who has followed the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) since the pandemic knows the work that has gone into seeking out voices from every corner in the state, working in conjunction with the Kentucky United We Learn Council and other stakeholder groups to develop this “moonshot” goal for the future of public education.

Robbie Fletcher

Kentucky Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher

While we may not have reached the moon this past legislative session, we are definitely orbiting it. House Bill (HB) 257 – sponsored by Rep. J.T. Payne, assistant principal at the Henderson County Career and Technical Center –encourages districts to work more closely with their communities to establish priorities for their schools and help ensure all students have access to vibrant learning experiences. While the final bill ended up with some changes that were different from the recommendations made by KDE and the Kentucky United We Learn Council, it’s still an important step forward and an important milestone in Kentucky’s efforts to reimagine assessment and accountability as systems focused on personalized, vibrant learning.

HB 257 includes locally developed indicators of quality – which some are calling a local accountability system – and a state accountability system that meets federal requirements. Local indicators of quality are flexible, which allows districts to work in collaboration with their communities to identify and measure what matters to them, but they do not factor into the state accountability model.

The state indicators will continue to include math, reading, science and social studies. On-demand writing and editing mechanics will no longer be included in state assessments, which reduces testing time. 

Students developing their writing skills will still be a primary focus for KDE. Under the legislation, KDE is tasked with developing guidelines for writing programs across content areas aligned to the Kentucky Academic Standards and will provide professional learning to help support districts with these programs.

Each district must adopt and publish a writing program policy that promotes discipline-specific writing across the curriculum and incorporates a variety of language resources, technological tools and multiple opportunities for students to develop complex communication skills for a variety of purposes.

We want our students to be effective communicators in our communities and that starts with being able to write well. Under HB 257, our districts will be at the forefront of how we define what makes a good writer and how students develop effective communication skills for academic and life-long success.

Among other changes in the legislation:

  • The school climate and safety survey would remain as an option for districts to include in local indicators of quality, but the survey will not be included in the state accountability model.
  • Chronic absenteeism will replace the school climate and safety survey in the state accountability model.
  • Uses the individual growth of each student in the accountability system instead of change in accountability indicators from year to year, while retaining the ability to compare results.

HB 257 includes a one-time payment to offset costs incurred by local school districts in the development of locally developed indicators of quality of up to $15,000. The actual funding for this incentive was approved in separate legislation this year, Senate Bill 197.

Adopting local indicators of quality will be optional for districts. Language in the original bill that would have triggered statewide adoption once 60% of districts adopted the new system was taken out.

The bill also now requires “targeted quality measures” to be reported on the Kentucky School Report Card, which shall include a measure of the change from the prior school year on the following factors:

  • The percentage of certified teachers within the school and district who have attained Rank II or higher or who are National Board certified;
  • For schools and districts containing students in 8th grade, the percentage of students earning at least one high school credit upon the completion of the student’s 8th-grade school year; and
  • For schools and districts containing 12th-grade students, the percentage of students who have completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) by the student’s graduation date or officially opted out of completing it.

This would last until June 30, 2030. Beginning July 1, 2030, the targeted measures of quality would not only be reported in the Kentucky School Report Card but also would be included as a new indicator in the state accountability system with a cumulative weight of no less than 5%.

I want to once again share my appreciation for the work that resulted in HB 257 and the countless hours of discussion about what your priorities are with education in your community. Families, students, and community members have been at the heart of every consideration, and this will only continue as we build off HB 257 in the years to come.