Oct 5

Written by: Greater Louisville Project
10/5/2009 8:35 PM

State test scores released recently showed little or no improvement for Jefferson County Public Schools and prompted some to question the push for new teaching approaches and programs underway in the school system.

But it’s important to remember that change in education takes time – and initiatives just getting underway haven’t had time to show any impact.  Test scores are notoriously fickle, too, a fact that’s almost always lost in the media and public discourse over education reform.  Needed focus in one area can cause another area to decline – an unintended consequence of work to improve overall performance in schools.

It’s also challenging to draw conclusions from year-to-year comparisons, although the traditional media always do.  Considering that JCPS tested nearly 7,000 more students with special needs or limited English than a year earlier, stable test scores may actually be a sign of improvement – that’s the conundrum of tracking test scores.  They’re just one piece of data that we need to know to track progress on Louisville’s civic agenda to raise education attainment.

Digging into the factors that impact education achievement is what led The Greater Louisville Project to add more information to the Education Pipeline published last year to produce a composite picture of what happens to the 10,000 children born each year in our community.   Check it out. 
 

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