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Governor Steve Beshear's Communications Office
Governor Beshear Announces Kentucky to Share Millions in Grant Award for Education
Grants are part of Race to the Top competition
FRANKFORT, Ky.– Governor Steve Beshear joined Education Commissioner Terry Holliday today to announce that Kentucky will benefit from $330 million in grants awarded today from the U.S. Department of Education for efforts to improve education assessments.
Groups of states applied cooperatively for the federal grants, submitting their plans to improve assessment systems to help schools measure if students were on track for post-graduate success. Two state consortia were named winners. The competition is part of the federal Race to the Top program; this contest asked states to work together to design common strategies for enhancing assessment systems.
Kentucky is a member of the two winning consortia and will work with both as they begin development of the assessments. The SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) includes 31 states, which will share a four-year, $160 million award. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) includes 26 states that will share a four-year, $170 million award. These funds will be used by the 44 represented states and the District of Columbia as they work on assessment development through the consortia.
“Our continued commitment to core standards and enhanced, effective assessments in our classrooms is paying off,” said Gov. Beshear. “We are pleased to be part of this significant grant, and we will immediately invest these dollars into education, ensuring that our students are ready for life outside of high school, whether that involves college, vocational or technical school, or a full-time job.”
“Kentucky has been deeply involved in developing a student assessment system that is tied to the Common Core Academic Standards,” said Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday. “These funds will enable Kentucky and the other consortium states to move forward in an efficient, cost-effective manner to help students achieve 21st-century skills and become college- and career-ready.”
The work of these consortia also will help Kentucky meet the mandates of 2009’s Senate Bill 1, which calls for a balanced student assessment system and a focus on college and career readiness.
SBAC will utilize using “open source” technology that will allow all 31 member states to share common, state-of-the-art exams for students. The tests will evaluate how students are progressing and evaluate their readiness for college and career. The online system will track progress on all students, and will make that information available to teachers, who may then use the results to modify their instruction if needed.
PARCC assessments will use multiple tests throughout the year to monitor student progress in reading comprehension, research projects, public speaking and utilization of digital media. These multiple assessments will provide a steady stream of progress updates for teachers.
The assessment systems are closely tied to the Common Core Standards. Kentucky was the first state to adopt these standards in March 2010. These standards are intended to provide a national guideline for K-12 in English language arts and math.
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