During the 2006 session of the Kentucky General Assembly, House Bill 197 was passed to establish a pilot program to develop end-of-course assessments for Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry. KDE is involved in two projects to provide pilot assessments for each of these three courses in May 2008.
The purpose of end-of-course assessments is to ensure that districts and schools provide consistent and rigorous experiences in these vital courses. Teachers and students will one day be able to judge how their performance on common assessment items compare to state standards and to the performance of other students across the Commonwealth.
Project I: Algebra II Multi-State Consortium
State department staff, high school teachers and university faculty members from Kentucky and other states have been involved in defining the content and test design of the American Diploma Project Algebra II End-of-Course Assessment. Pearson NCS and Achieve, Inc. are collaborating to develop these assessments that will be used by all consortium member states. An initial field test was conducted among these states in October 2007; another round of testing is planned for May 2008.
Project II: Algebra I and Geometry
KDE is working with the University of Louisville Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Teacher Development, teachers and university faculty across Kentucky to create assessment items for the end-of-course assessments for Algebra I and Geometry. These assessments will be aligned with Kentucky's Program of Studies and Core Content for Assessment, as well as Achieve's American Diploma Project Benchmarks, ACT mathematics benchmarks and 12th grade National Assessment Educational Progress (NAEP) objectives.