Many Jefferson County Public Schools families will be mailed their child’s test results under the state’s new Unbridled Learning accountability model later this week.Officials are reminding parents under the new system their student’s achievement indicators may be lower than before, but the report will paint a more comprehensive picture of how prepared a student is for college or career.Click here to see school and district level report cards.A nearly year-long campaign by Kentucky's education and business sectors have braced the Louisville community of the changes, and officials have said under the new system the bar has been raised for students.In JCPS, this meant nearly 40 percent of the district’s elementary students are proficient in reading and math (35 percent in math and 42 percent in reading), according to data released by the Kentucky Department of Education earlier this year.Now individual students in third through eighth grades, and sophomores and juniors will learn where they fit into this equation and the reports will show how each student compares with their peers statewide and in some content areas, nationwide.The Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (K-PREP) test replaced the Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT) last year as part of 2009’s Senate Bill 1, which created the education overhaul and the Unbridled Learning model.Part of this testing includes the Stanford 10, which refers to a norm-referenced test that can be compared to similar students who have taken the same test questions across the nation.(See examples of testing questions above)Further, the reports link parents to online resources providing book recommendations for students at specific reading levels. It’ll also provide parents the areas where their child struggles in math, said JCPS spokesman Ben Jackey.“This is a report that challenges parents to be active in their student’s learning and to improve student achievement,” he said.Traditionally, the state would have these reports in the hands of parents and families much sooner, said Kentucky Department of Education spokeswoman Lisa Gross.KDE, however, was dealing with new vendors and needed to verify its coding with each district under the new accountability system and that took extra time, she said.“The ultimate goal is to get these test scores back before the beginning of school and if not before the beginning of school, within the first few weeks of the school year,” Gross said.The Kentucky Department of Education expects that timeline to be met for this schools year, she said.The first batch of results are expected to be mailed by middle or the end of this week.
