The Kentucky Department of Education has released their new School Report Card platform. This platform allows users to view assessments conducted by the KDE of every public school in the state for the 2023 through 2024 school year. These assessments are meant to promote accountability and transparency. They are conducted annually, though Kentucky launched a new platform to host these assessment reports starting with the latest findings.
This year’s report card was initially released last October in spreadsheet format and the Adair County Community Voice reported on the Department’s findings for Adair County. Then, it was found that Adair County in the 2023 through 2024 year was subjected to several trends seen across the region and the Commonwealth.
“The data shows that we are continuing to make progress in several different measures, but we still have room for improvement. I really feel like that’s the data in a nutshell,” Sarah Hatton, Secondary Instructional Supervisor and District Assessment Coordinator at Adair County Schools, said at the time.
Last year saw Adair County Elementary School raise from last place in an eleven-county area in 2023 to fourth place in 2024. 49% of its students tested at proficient or distinguished in reading and 40% achieved similar marks in mathematics.
Much like may schools in the state, though, Adair County underperformed in science. ACES tested at 35% proficient or distinguished in science. At the Middle School level, only 13% were proficient or distinguished in the area. To correct the science area in particular, the middle school is piloting a new curriculum that is more rigorous. Upon release of the 2023-2024 assessment and accountability data, Kentucky Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher highlighted science as an area in need of improvement.
“Science performance is concerning. We need to analyze science assessment, instruction and student performance with the goal of developing actionable steps to improve science education and performance for Kentucky’s students,” he said.
With the new platform, many of these areas of growth (or declines) are more apparent and no longer requiring sifting through spreadsheets. As a whole, according to the website, the Adair County Elementary School, the Middle School, and the High School were scored as “Yellow.” Yellow is the midpoint between five colors: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue with blue being the best performance and red being the worst.
The School Report Card platform can be found at https://reportcard.kyschools.us/.
“Improvement is the slow and steady race,” Hatton said when the data was first released. “We talk a lot about how we are never happy where we are. We always want to be continually improving what we do for all students.”
