The progress is real: Kansas City Public Schools within reach of full accreditation
Success stories in urban education can be slow, arduous affairs. There are no silver bullets or easy victories. It takes years of hard work and consistent progress to change a big city school system, and to start seeing those changes reflected in student outcome data.
Just look at Kansas City Public Schools.
When officials at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education recently asked the Council of the Great City Schools to share data on the performance and progress of Kansas City’s schools, we were eager to do so. The Council collects, analyzes and maintains a wealth of academic data on its members, and the purpose of asking for this analysis was to put Kansas City in a broader national context by comparing the school district not only to others in Missouri, but to urban school systems across the country with similar challenges and demographics.
In our examination of KCPS data and trends, as well as trend data for districts nationwide, we found that the district has not only raised academic achievement and improved student outcomes, but it has also demonstrated stability and leadership within the region and nation, strengthened its financial health and implemented a comprehensive districtwide improvement plan — all achievements worthy of a fully-accredited school district.
Again, these achievements did not happen overnight. Kansas City Public Schools has spent years elevating its expectations for student achievement, strengthening its curriculum and boosting its overall efficacy, quality and alignment with state standards. It improved instructional content and foundational skills in the early grades, increased the number of reading and math coaches, stepped up the quality of its professional development, adopted a way to identify needed interventions, created instructional walk-through and monitoring procedures, consolidated accountability documents to provide clearer expectations, enhanced academic department coordination, reoriented the work of principal supervisors around instruction and increased the numbers of Advanced Placement courses and certified teachers.
Outside of its instructional work, the district has partnered with the local business community, foundations and community organizations to rebuild trust and collaboration.
In addition, the district has made important strides in strengthening its accountability structure. Superintendent Mark Bedell agreed at the outset of his tenure to be evaluated annually on a series of metrics that track district progress on the goals that it had set under the strategic plan. In a recent set of case studies the Council conducted on urban school districts that had made significant gains in student outcomes, the organization found that this seemingly simple step, and a school board’s willingness to monitor progress on those outcomes and support the work, were critical components in their improvement.
This work can now be seen in the performance of students. We examined several indicators of performance and experiences, and across the board, the data show that Kansas City has made substantial progress in both absolute and relative terms. From student pass rates, decreases in failure rates, assessment data, grade-level performance, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate course participation, attendance and suspension rates, Algebra I completion rates in ninth grade and reducing the academic gap with other large city school systems, KCPS has made substantial progress and has only gained momentum over the past several years.
In fact, Kansas City Public Schools improved faster in both reading and math than the state and most other major city school systems.
This pattern of accelerating growth and narrowing achievement gaps with the state and the nation can be seen across all of the academic performance indicators the Council collects. Of course, KCPS still has considerable work to do to continue raising performance and address the diverse learning needs of its students. These are challenges Kansas City shares with school districts throughout the state and the country. But the district is making a measurable, positive impact on the lives of students, and is poised to continue this steady growth.
In the experience of the Council of the Great City Schools, trends like these do not happen by accident. They are the result of deliberate, sustained action. The district’s long-term commitment and consistent improvement on behalf of students has earned the district the confidence of its community.
The Council has provided this data and context to the state. As KCPS continues its journey to regain their full accreditation status, the Council stands with the district in support of their success and continued work.
Michael Casserly is executive director of The Council of the Great City Schools. CGCS brings together 76 of nation’s largest urban public-school systems in a coalition dedicated to the improvement of education for children in the inner cities. The Council and its member school districts work to help our schoolchildren meet the highest standards and become successful and productive members of society.