Kentucky’s assessment program and accountability system are about to go through some important changes as a result of House Bill 257, legislation that 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.

Robbie Fletcher

Kentucky Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher

If you’ve followed the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) since our work in this space began in 2021, you already know just how much we have been working with the Kentucky United We Learn Council and countless education stakeholders throughout the Commonwealth on reimagined assessment and accountability. With HB 257, we have started orbiting around the “moonshot” goal we have for education in Kentucky, which is to make assessment and accountability more meaningful and useful to the learners in our Commonwealth.

KDE’s coverage of HB 257 on Kentucky Teacher provides much more information about the details of the legislation and just how exactly it reimagines assessment and accountability. With legislation this significant, the thoughts of leaders in education will be critical as we seek to build it out across the state.

Over the summer, KDE leaders will be meeting with more stakeholder groups as we finalize regulations surrounding assessment and accountability for the Kentucky Board of Education to begin considering in August. Among the topics we plan to discuss are how student attendance will play into the accountability system moving forward, how individual student growth is assessed, and how each indicator is weighted, among many other aspects.

KDE has already created a couple new advisory groups – the English Learner Growth Small Group and Accountability Thought Partners – made up of education stakeholders to receive feedback on these topics. Several other established advisory groups will be consulted to further analyze the new requirements under this legislation. By February 2027, changes are expected to be finalized with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act State Plan and state regulations.

While KDE pledges support to districts with the technical changes involved with HB 257, the most innovative part is the indicators of quality that leaders of each district and community have the opportunity to develop. This includes flexible options for districts, encouraging more collaboration with their communities to set their own local priorities and incorporate them into the accountability model.

The indicators of quality – also known as local accountability systems – must include vibrant learning experiences for students, and thankfully, we have had plenty of school districts in Kentucky that have been piloting work in this space.

KDE presents the Local Accountability Design Guide and Toolkit in collaboration with districts, the University of Kentucky’s Center for Next Generation Leadership and the Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative’s ElevatED Studios. The live document provides several real examples from across the Commonwealth of how communities rallied around what was important to them in terms of their children’s education.

For example, the Russell County school district designed inclusive community teams and held a series of meetings along with a community-wide survey to determine local indicators of quality. The result was deep community ownership with students at the center and a set of indicators that reflects the heart of the district. Russell County is one of many districts to incorporate community voices in their accountability system, which is something that’s important to us at KDE as well.

The guide also includes practical tools to help schools and communities design accountability systems that reflect local priorities and create vibrant learning experiences for every student.

KDE also has highlighted the effort to reimagine assessment and accountability in Kentucky classrooms with an ongoing series of videos, which can all be found on KDE’s YouTube channel, KDE’s How it’s Working in Districts webpage, and our other social media platforms. The videos showcase how districts have developed their own portraits of a learner – an agreed-upon set of aspirations for what every learner will know and be able to do when they graduate – which Kentucky districts have shown is a critical first step in developing a district’s own local measure of quality system.

The videos include Shelby County’s work developing local measures of quality and Rockcastle County’s efforts with its community-based accountability system, detailing how they worked with their communities to focus on what is important to them and their students. This includes how they incorporated defenses of learning into the accountability system, where students present on what they have learned throughout the year and tie it to the indicators of quality established by the district.

KDE has also released a series of animated videos explaining the vision for reimagined assessment and accountability in the classroom on our social media channels, showing how these systems can be changed based on the input and the needs of families and community members. These show even more examples of the innovative work being done with assessment and accountability in Kentucky.

All of this work with assessment and accountability ties back into personalized vibrant learning experiences for our students and launching a system that is meaningful and useful to all our learners. These are the types of experiences that lead to positive outcomes for our children and our communities. When students experience vibrant learning and are engaged with the subject matter, they learn more and end up as more engaged and productive citizens.