Call to Order and Roll Call
The meeting of the Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee was held on Wednesday, March 26, 2014, at 9:00 AM, in Room 125 of the Capitol Annex. Senator Mike Wilson, Co-Chair, called the meeting to order, and the secretary called the roll.
Present were:
Members: Senator Mike Wilson, Co-Chair; Representative Rita Smart, Co-Chair; Senators David P. Givens, and Alice Forgy Kerr, Representatives Mary Lou Marzian.
Legislative Guest: Representative Derrick Graham
Guests: Bridget Stanfield, Kentucky Department of Education; Cindy Greer, Kentucky Department of Education; Kathy Moore, Kentucky Department of Education; John Collett, Kentucky Department of Education.
LRC Staff: Janet Stevens, Ken Warlick, and Daniel Clark.
Review of Administrative Regulations
703 KAR 5:070
703 KAR 5:080 and E
Kevin Brown, Associate Commissioner and General Counsel, Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and Ken Draut, Associate Commissioner, Office of Assessment and Accountability, KDE, explained administrative regulation 703 KAR 5:070, Procedures for the inclusion of special populations in the state-required assessment and accountability programs.
In response to Senator David Givens questions regarding the population that qualifies for accommodations and test scores, Mr. Draut said the population of students that qualify for the accommodations would stay exactly the same along with the trend of test scores.
In response to Chairman Mike Wilson’s question regarding controversial pieces in the regulation, Mr. Draut said besides having a reader to accommodate students during testing, the use of a calculator during testing has also been controversial.
In response to Senator Alice Forgy Kerr’s question regarding readers during testing, Mr. Draut said students can use a physical reader or an electronic reader but the idea is for the student to hear words being read to them.
Mr. Brown and Mr. Draut explained administrative regulation 703 KAR 5:080 and E, Administration Code for Kentucky’s Educational Assessment Program.
In response to Chairman Mike Wilson’s question regarding feedback, Mr. Draut said all feedback for the regulation was mostly positive and some feedback led to small technical changes that were not controversial.
Chairman Mike Wilson stated there needs to be a technical change to the table of contents of the regulation. The page numbers are incorrect for the violation section.
In response to Representative Rita Smart’s question regarding teacher training, Mr. Draut said every school district has a District Assessment Coordinator (DAC) who handles all of the assessments for the district. KDE does training with each of the DACs, and then those DACs are required to train the teachers in their school districts.
Representative Mary Lou Marzian moved to approve administrative regulations 703 KAR 5:070 and 703 KAR 5:080 and E and Senator Alice Forgy Kerr seconded the motion. The motion carried.
With no further business before the committee, the meeting adjourned at 9:44 a.m.