TOPEKA (KSNT) — The Kansas Board of Education is looking into changing the state assessment scoring scale, something they haven’t done in nearly a decade.
Some state officials are saying the current system isn’t entirely accurate. Kansas state assessments divide students into four levels of ability based on their test performance. However, members of the school board say that Kansas teachers believe some students in level two deserve to be at level three.
Levels three and four qualify as the “college ready” levels. In the new proposed system, districts would score Kansas students on a scale of 400 to 700 on state assessments. Students would need a score of at least 540 to qualify as ready for college.
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27 News talked with Kansas Department of Education (KSDE) Communications Director Denise Kahler. She believes the new system would better reflect students’ abilities.
“Where we had our upper level two students so level two on the state assessment, they were really performing and behaving more like students who were scoring at our level three, and so we worked really hard to fix that and to bring that better alignment,” Kahler said.
If approved, the new scores will be applied to spring 2025 exams.
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