In 2014, Ohio implemented a new screening tool for all incoming kindergartners. The screener—called the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA)—was intended to provide a broader look at children’s school readiness by considering math, socialization, physical well-being, and motor development in addition to language and literacy, which had been the sole focus of the previous test. More importantly, the new protocol was launched with an emphasis on helping teachers use the results to modify their classroom instruction and meet the academic needs thus revealed. In 2019, researchers at Ohio State University’s Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy examined whether the KRA predicted student success in third grade. Given that state lawmakers are currently considering a proposal to eliminate the KRA, that previous research has renewed importance right now. So here is a timely reminder of their methodology and findings.
Data came from a large, unnamed, urban school district in Ohio. The researchers looked at 2,221 students who 1) took the KRA in the 2014–15 academic year, 2) took the state’s third-grade reading assessment in the fall of 2017, 3) did not have an Individualized Education Program (IEP), and 4) were not identified as having limited English proficiency (LEP). No demographic data were included beyond this. The KRA has three score categories: Emerging Kindergarten Readiness, Approaching Readiness, and Demonstrating Readiness. Twenty-eight percent of children in the sample received a score in the lowest category, compared to 41 percent in the middle tier and 31 percent in the top. These results generally mirrored the state score distributions for that school year, although slightly more sample students earned Emerging Readiness than the state at large.
At the start of their third grade year (fall 2017), each student took the state-mandated English language arts (ELA) test, and the researchers compared the outcomes of these tests versus KRA scores from three years earlier. Scores on the state ELA test spanned from 545 to 863 and students were grouped into one of five category ranges from limited (lowest) to advanced (highest) based on their scores. Any student scoring 700 or higher was deemed “proficient.” However, the state at that time set a cut score below which students were at risk of being held back in third grade. In 2017 that score was 677, slightly below “proficient,” and that cut score was the main focus of the Crane Center’s analysts. Students in the research sample scored between 545 to 833 (mean = 667.65), and exactly 50 percent of them reached the promotion threshold via either their full test score or a substitute measure on a reading-specific subtest allowed by the state.
But the big question was: Did students’ KRA scores predict their third grade performance? Overall, the correlation between KRA scores and third grade ELA scores was 0.49 standard deviation, a modestly strong link. Of the subsections of the KRA, math scores correlated with third grade ELA scores at 0.48 and language and literacy at 0.46. Much further down the predictive scale, social foundation and motor development scores were less correlated (0.31 and 0.28 standard deviation, respectively). And the most important finding in this regard was that 74 percent of children who tested in the lowest category on the KRA went on to score below the promotion cut score on the fall ELA assessment or the reading subtest. Students in the middle KRA category had a 50-50 chance of meeting the promotion cut score come third grade.[1]
As the Crane Center team explained it at the time: The intention of the KRA protocol change in 2014 was to more effectively identify struggling students and boost the instruction and supports they receive in kindergarten and beyond. However, despite clear and obvious signals from the KRA, that intention was not realized to any great degree three years later. If it had been, they reason, fewer low-scoring kindergartners would have ended up as low-scoring third graders.
As noted at the outset, these 2019 findings have new relevance today because legislators in the Ohio House of Representatives are proposing to eliminate the KRA, despite its demonstrated predictive capability. Yes, it’s clear that the KRA didn’t result in an outpouring of supports to boost 2014’s new kindergartners to reading proficiency by the start of third grade. But the assessment itself is not the problem. In fact, policymakers should be looking to bolster screening in the early grades (as Governor DeWine proposed in his budget) with stronger accountability for schools to meet students’ clearly-demonstrated needs. This research from six years ago speaks clearly on these points.
SOURCE: L.M. Justice, A.J. Koury, and J.A.R. Logan, “Ohio’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment: Does It Forecast Third-Grade Reading Success?” Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy and The Ohio State University. (May 2019).
[1] Even with the below-proficiency cutoff, children who earn fourth grade promotion at the start of their third grade year are ahead of the game, strictly speaking. But these 2017 data indicate that low levels of readiness at the start of kindergarten generally led to low levels of readiness for third grade as well. And while most of the initial non-passers likely exceeded the promotion cutoff by the end of third grade, state data from that period indicate that questionable exemptions and use of low-quality alternative tests played a role in a lot of cases.
