Publication Date

5-2012

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Dr. Fred Carter (Director), Dr. Kyong Chon, Dr. Lisa Murley, Dr. Jerry Ralston

Degree Program

Educational Leadership Doctoral Program

Degree Type

Doctor of Education

Abstract

While educational testing has been in place since the one room school house, it was not until the 1990s that accountability began to accompany assessment programs. With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001, virtually every public school district in the United States of America that desired to continue to receive Title 1 funding found themselves tied to rigorous assessment and accountability systems. This focus on accountability has impacted every school, district, and state as they have sought to implement and deal with the consequences it has wrought. As the 50 states have sought to deal with federal mandates, other countries are seeking better alternatives for national testing systems as well.

Countless data have been collected and articles written over the past decade concerning the impact and subsequent ramifications of NCLB. This study sought to bring to the discussion a missing factor, that being the voice of practitioners. Amidst the volumes of information, there is a void of hard evidence from the field.

The research sought to answer five questions: (1) What are the perceptions of Kentucky educators concerning the results of the Kentucky Core Content for Assessment (KCCT) as an accurate reflection of student learning of Mathematics and Reading in specific areas (e.g., student learning, content taught, and instructional guidance)?; (2) What are the perceptions of Kentucky educators concerning the difficulty of the KCCT for students of different academic ability levels?; (3) What are the perceptions of Kentucky educators concerning the accuracy of student performance classification for the results of the KCCT?; (4) What are the perceptions of Kentucky educators in regard to the KCCT results being an accurate reflection in relation to student ability for the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) sub-groups of Special Education, Free/Reduced Lunch, and English as a Second Language (ESL)?; and (5) What are the perceptions of Kentucky educators concerning the accuracy of the KCCT, as opposed to other national measures?

Results indicate reservations exist concerning the accuracy of results of the Kentucky assessment system. Further study is warranted to determine the underlying causation of perceptions of Kentucky educators.

Disciplines

Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Other Teacher Education and Professional Development

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