When lawmakers meet in January for the legislative session, they’ll take up achievement gaps, charter schools and several other key educational issues facing Kentucky’s schools and students. 

State Rep. Phil Moffett, R-Louisville, plans to push testing transparency during the upcoming General Assembly session. Moffett announced Monday that he’ll pre-file the “Student Performance Transparency Bill,” which would require all public school districts and each public school to “clearly post the percentage of students performing proficient or above on Kentucky’s state standardized test scores,” according to a news release. 

Although he hadn’t yet read the bill as of Thursday, state Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, said it seems to be something he could get behind. 

“I think parents really readily need to see how their school is performing,” he said. 

Under the bill, schools would have to post easy to grasp information in the upper right hand corner of their internet homepage, the release said. The goal is to quickly inform parents how well their schools and school systems are performing over the last five years. 

While teachers and principals understand testing, Moffett said in the release that parents aren’t as familiar. 

“For the average parent, however, it is very difficult to understand what percentage of the students in any particular school or school district are proficient in basic subjects like reading, mathematics and science,” he said, adding that “Clear, concise and understandable information must be available to parents at the click of a mouse. This bill will empower parents and strengthen their relationship with their local schools.” 

Information about school testing performance is already available online, but Wilson said it’s hard for parents to locate it. Thus having it on the first webpage parents see “really makes a lot of sense,” he said. 

State Rep. Wilson Stone, D-Scottsville, agrees that more transparency is always better. He did stress that the information should remain available by contacting the school and not exclusively available online. 

“We need to make sure that the results aren’t only on the internet,” he said. 

U.S. Education Secretary John King also raised the issue of gaps in performance between Kentucky’s white students and racial minorities when he spoke to USA Today reporters earlier last week. The story said that last year 60 percent of white elementary school students scored proficient or distinguished in reading, while only 38 percent of African American students scored that high along with 43 percent of Hispanic students. 

A recent report from Kentucky’s Pritchard Committee for Academic Excellence also revealed that students who are learning English, have low family incomes, have learning differences, or who are African American, Latino or other racial minorities are most likely to face barriers. Nearly 70 percent of Kentucky students fit in one or more of those groups, the report said. 

Early childhood education is seen as one way to give all students a strong start.

Wilson said he does support more state money for early childhood education, but it can be a challenge when balancing other priorities, such as funding K-12 education. Full-day kindergarten isn’t completely paid for by that state, for example. Wilson encouraged parents to prepare their children for school by reading to them. 

“When parents do read to their children they find that they are more prepared for school,” he said. 

Stone described himself as a “proponent of early childhood education,” stressing that lawmakers need to encourage quality day care and programs for 3-year-old and 4-year-old children.

As for preparing high school students for college, both lawmakers praised dual credit as a solution. 

Wilson described dual credit and a new state dual credit scholarship program as an opportunity for low income students. Wilson remembers when his own daughter took dual credit courses in high school and said that course fees were more than $200 per class. 

Stone sees dual credit as a way for students to try out college work and see if it’s something they want to pursue. 

“A lot of times you have young people graduating from high school whose parents did not go to college. The don’t have a model close to them for going to college,” he said. 

Both local lawmakers also see the new Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced the more restrictive No Child Left Behind Act, as a way forward for the state. 

“I think this has been a step in the right direction,” Stone said, adding he likes the idea of returning power to states and school districts. 

“I think it’s good,” he said. “I like more instruction time. I like local input.”

For Wilson, the ESSA presents an opportunity to cleanse state law from outdated federal restrictions. 

“It allows for much more flexibility, much more innovation,” he said. 

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