Seventeen school districts in Missouri — including Belton, Grandview, Kearney and Park Hill in the Kansas City metro — will move away from the state’s standardized testing system after the state school board granted them waivers on Tuesday.
The 17 districts join 20 other school districts that received waivers last year after they asked to stop relying on the yearly Missouri Assessment Program, which they said doesn’t get them information on where students are struggling until it’s too late to make changes.
Instead, school districts plan to assess student performance throughout the year so teachers can tailor their lessons. Last year’s cohort of school districts plans to share its assessment data with the state education department in September.
“We all know that once a child decides that they own their work, that they are responsible for their learning, there's no stopping them truly,” said Karla Eslinger, the state’s commissioner of education. “But if we always focus on a summative, one time test to find whether or not we're getting the job done, I think we've missed the boat.”
Districts would also need a federal waiver to stop administering standardized tests altogether, so students will continue to take state tests in addition to the more regular tests.
Missouri students’ scores on statewide standardized tests are remaining stable after pandemic-era declines, according to preliminary statewide results released by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education at Tuesday’s state board of education meeting. District-level data is typically released later in the year.
According to state education officials, scores were steady compared to the previous year and some student cohorts made small improvements. Middle school math scores, for example, are nearing pre-pandemic levels.
About 44% of students performed at the proficient or advanced level in English language arts, according to the report. Forty-two percent of students tested advanced or proficient in mathematics, while science is at 40% and social studies is at 43%.
But some student groups saw small declines, including fifth graders in English language arts, eighth graders in science and high schoolers in English 1. Education officials said English 1 is an optional test so the population that takes the test changes year to year, and fifth graders are still scoring above the first test they took after the pandemic began in 2021.
Eslinger said she anticipated declining scores, considering Missouri’s teacher shortage and the number of classrooms filled by educators who are not properly certified.
“We have teachers that are really and truly there for the heart and mind, and they love those children, but they haven't had the preparation that they need,” Eslinger said. “Then you put a new methodology on top of that, around your letters and your math, and then you also look at the fact that some of the kids are just not showing up.”
Other challenges include changes to how educators teach students to read and a drop in attendance rates since the pandemic began.
“We can start to layer growth”
State education leaders hope more improvements are on the horizon.
The report also looked at how specific populations performed, including Black students, Hispanic students, English learners, students participating in the free and reduced lunch program and students with individualized education plans.
State education officials said those student populations are generally recovering academically from the pandemic, but the achievement gap compared to the state’s total number of students is persisting.
Board member Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge said she was grateful scores didn’t decline, but felt deflated there wasn’t more progress.
“We have clearly — I'm hopeful — seen the bottom,” Westbrooks Hodge said. “All of these interventions are working. They're stabilizing our educational system, and now we can start to layer in growth on top of that.”
The state has launched initiatives in recent years aimed at supporting students and teachers, including the Missouri Read, Lead, Exceed initiative which received $25 million in state funding and $35 million in federal relief funding to support student literacy.
But state education leaders said it would take five years to see the results of those measures reflected in state data.
