Test Dilemma: Revisions Upset Trends in Data

By David J. Hoff

By the time 2012 rolls around, Kentucky's residents will almost certainly have a testing system that describes how well the state's children are learning. What they won't know is how far they've progressed since 1992, the advent of the state's landmark school overhaul.

Because the state switched testing programs in 1998, it will lose the trend lines established in 1992 that many educators and policymakers expected to carry through the 20-year quest to improve student achievement. And when testing programs are reworked, or sometimes just tinkered with, they lose the ability to make direct comparisons with student achievement over time—a situation that every state with a testing and accountability program will likely face if it keeps its programs updated.

"People like me thought it would stay the same for 20 years, but that was naive," said Robert F. Sexton, the executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, a Lexington-based backer of Kentucky's school improvement efforts. "I don't think anybody thought of the nuances and the ins and outs...