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Kentucky Is First to Adopt QualityCore Statewide
Kentucky continues to lead the way in education improvement with the adoption of ACT’s QualityCore®.
It is now the first state to offer EXPLORE® for eighth graders, PLAN® for tenth graders, the ACT® for eleventh graders, and QualityCore for ninth through twelfth graders statewide. All of Kentucky’s public high schools will administer QualityCore end-of-course (EOC) assessments for English II, Algebra II, Biology, and U.S. History, starting this school year.
“QualityCore’s link to the PLAN and ACT assessments is an important feature for the state. Kentucky’s definition of college readiness heavily relies on ACT scores, and QualityCore and PLAN support our ultimate goal of preparing all students to be college and career ready,” said Jennifer Stafford, project manager, Kentucky Department of Education.
QualityCore is a research-driven solution used to raise the quality and intensity of high school core courses. Rigorous ACT Course Standards define the essential knowledge and skills students need to be college and career ready. End-of-course assessments help educators evaluate student gains in achievement course by course. Other components include instructional resources, formative item pools, progress monitoring, and professional development.
The QualityCore assessments provide students with meaningful information about their readiness for more rigorous courses and for college and careers. The results give the Kentucky Department of Education essential information about the skills of the student population.
Senate Bill 1, enacted in the 2009 Kentucky General Assembly, required a new public school assessment program beginning in the 2011–12 school year. With the Kentucky Board of Education’s approval, the legislation provided for an EOC assessment program at the high school level.
The use of the QualityCore EOC assessments allows the state to establish common rigor for core courses, said Stafford. Kentucky expects to add more of the current 12 QualityCore subjects as funding becomes available.
“The Kentucky Board of Education wants to help students acquire the skills needed for success in the transition from high school to postsecondary education or the workplace. QualityCore offers Kentucky educators research-based resources to help them develop rigorous content,” she said.
Stafford said the state was drawn to the QualityCore EOC assessments for several reasons:
- Instructional resources—syllabi, model units, formative item banks, benchmark assessments, and professional development—let educators customize instruction to meet their students’ needs.
- Multiple-choice and constructed-response items allow them to evaluate student gains in achievement course by course.
- Immediate computer delivery of student results meets the state’s accountability and grading requirements.
- QualityCore student score reports provide projected score ranges for PLAN and the ACT, allowing educators to use the scores and subscores to better prepare students for college and careers.
“We are excited about our expanded partnership with Kentucky,” said Jim Morris, ACT director for client outreach and state partnerships. “The program rolling out this fall is a good example of ACT and Kentucky collaborating to make modifications to meet state needs.”