With a deadline looming, officials are working out the kinks in a system that would rate Kentucky’s schools from one to five stars for performance on indicators such as proficiency and opportunity access.

Gary Houchens, an associate professor at Western Kentucky University, was among the members of the Kentucky Board of Education considering Wednesday the proposed accountability system.

Although the board has reached a consensus about the plan’s basic framework, Houchens said what remains “is actually figuring out how we’re going to measure each of those indicators.

“There’s just a whole lot of stuff we still don’t know right now,” he said, adding that stakeholders want to see the new system move in a different direction. “I think folks want the opportunity to be able to rate schools on something other than just test scores.”

After a day-long discussion hashing out the system’s details, the board ultimately decided to hold off on further approval until it could meet again in two weeks, Houchens said. The board also held off on considering charter school regulations.

Under the proposed system, schools and districts would earn a star rating and possibly an additional designation based on closing achievement gaps – or performance disparities between disadvantaged students – according to a Kentucky Department of Education news release.

Those indicators include proficiency, growth, transition readiness, achievement gap closure and opportunity and access. Districts and charter schools would also create a local success measure that highlights an area of improvement. The system, which is set to launch in the 2018-19 school year, has been under development for more than a year with feedback from thousands of Kentucky educators and the general public.

Under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which the system would have to comply with, some indicators might be easier to measure than others, Houchens said. For example, indicators have to be capable of being broken down based on race, which could be problematic for the more abstract “opportunity and access” indicator.

“We’re not sure at this point if the federal government is going to allow us to include that component,” Houchens said, adding the board is willing to take a chance on it.

The plan must be submitted to the federal government by Sept. 18, and Gov. Matt Bevin must have 30 days to review it before then, he said. Following federal approval, the plan would be subject to a public comment period and go back to the state school board for another approval before final review by the General Assembly.

Board members are also balancing realistic goals with ambitious goal, Houchens said. Closing achievement gaps by 50 percent over the next 13 years is one of those goals, he said.

“That’s never been done before,” Houchens said. “In fact, no state has ever had that level of educational improvement.”

Although it’s an ambitious goal, it’s still not enough.

“We’d still have less than half of our African-American students proficient in key subject areas,” he said.

Although it’s a complicated process, Superintendent Gary Fields of the Bowling Green Independent School District said it’s been “very open” and board members “aren’t rushing to create an assessment system just to get it done.”

Fields said he doesn’t feel threatened by the potential accountability changes.

“It will allow us as districts to communicate better about what we are doing in our schools,” he said.

– Follow education reporter Aaron Mudd on Twitter @BGDN_edbeat or visit bgdailynews.com.