September 1, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
David Smith, chief of staff,
(913) 279-2242, dasmith@kckps.org
Well, it's official: This week, with support from the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE), the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools (KCKPS) has sent the paperwork in to the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) to seek a waiver from the Kansas Assessment Tests. The district is seeking to replace the Kansas Assessment with Northwest Evaluation Association's (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test for students in grades 3-7, and the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks for students in grades 8, 10 and 11.
"We know that the MAP and ACT tests provide us with the right targets for our students," said Dr. Cynthia Lane, superintendent of schools. "Aligning all of our high-stakes assessments with getting students ready for college and careers is absolutely the right direction for us to move in. The tests will be rigorous, and the results will be meaningful for students, staff and families."
Earlier this summer, KCKPS received a unanimous endorsement from the State Board of Education for its waiver request to become one of only three districts in Kansas, and indeed across the nation, that seeks to replace a state assessment with a more rigorous national assessment.
Lane expressed optimism that the USDOE would respond favorably to the waiver request. "We absolutely know that these targets are right for our students, and this district has a strong history of being able to work collectively to improve academic achievement in order to reach higher targets," she said.
Though there is no timetable for a response from the USDOE, Lane noted that the work of changing to focus on the new assessment has already begun.
"It's like in baseball," she said. "You have no chance of hitting a target that you don't aim for. If we start the year aiming for the lower standards of the Kansas Assessment, we'll never achieve the college and career readiness standards that our students need and deserve to reach."
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