Published: May 07, 2009 11:24 pm      

Changes in CATS testing: Madison students put to a different test

Madison County students are hard at work this week on CATS (Commonwealth Accountability Testing System) testing, but certain parts of the tests curriculum will no longer be used to determine the school’s academic success rate.

Gov. Steve Beshear signed Senate Bill 1 in March which eliminates the current Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS) system and creates a new assessment standard by 2012.

The bill, Senate Bill 1, was introduced by Sens. Ken Winters of Murray and Dan Kelley of Springfield.

Under the old CATS system, students answered open-response questions as well as some multiple-choice tests that assessed students’ knowledge against statewide standards.

Certain aspects of the current assessment system will be preserved while the new system is developed, said Randy Peffer, assistant superintendent with Madison County schools.

“We’re still required to do them,” Peffer said. “There’s just a little bit of change in the format of the assessment.”

The schools still are graded by the state on reading, math, science, social studies and writing on-demand scores.

However, the tests no longer contain questions related to arts and humanities, practical living, vocational studies and the writing portfolios, Peffer said.

The county’s writing portfolios had already been completed by the students when the school system received word that they were no longer being scored, he said.

Even though the school does not have to report the writing portfolio scores to the state, the school system still is using them as a way to monitor students’ progress in writing skills.

“Since they were finished, we’re going ahead and scoring them as we always have,” he said. “We wanted to validate what the students had already done because many students and teachers worked very hard to put them together. To not score them and put them aside would not send the right signal to the students.”

The school system will continue this form of testing until the new testing assessment is announced in 2012, he said.

When it comes to keeping the students motivated for testing, nothing has changed. There are pep rallies before testing and celebrations afterwards.

“It’s no different than any other year,” Peffer said. “It still counts, there’s just fewer assessments.”



Ronica Shannon can be reached at rshannon@richmondregister.com or 624-6608.