GUEST COLUMN, Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute
The 2024 state assessment indicates that more than 150,000 Kansas students suffer from what is officially described as having a “limited ability to understand and use English language arts skills and knowledge to be academically successful for postsecondary success.” This closely aligns with what is commonly referred to as being ‘functionally illiterate,’ which Dictionary.com defines as “falling short of a minimum standard of literacy or whose reading and writing skills are inadequate to everyday needs.” While not a clinical or official term used by KSDE, ‘functionally illiterate’ captures the real-world implications of students being unable to read at a level necessary for everyday success.
This is not a criticism of teachers or students but of top leadership, as explained below.
The map above shows the number of students in each county with a limited ability to read, color-coded to reflect the percentage of total enrollment, based on the percentage of students scoring in Level 1 of the state assessment in each district.The state assessment is given to students in grades 3-8 and 10, and the data indicate it’s reasonable to believe that if reflective of students in all other grades.
Counties shaded the lightest – Smith, Wallace, Gove, Lane, Hodgeman, and Kiowa – have between 10 percent and 19 percent of students with limited ability to read. Every county in Kansas has at least 10 percent of students who may be considered functionally illiterate based on their assessment scores. Ten counties – Atchison, Wyandotte, Sedgwick, Barton, Ford, Finney, Grant, Kearney, Seward, and Sherman – have more than 40 percent of students with a limited ability to read.
The raw numbers are equally stunning. More than 19,000 in Johnson County, over 14,000 in Wyandotte County, more than 9,000 in Shawnee County, roughly 4,000 in Douglas, Leavenworth, and Ford counties, and a whopping 32,000 in Sedgwick County have less than a basic ability to read.
Some people may attempt to dismiss this dismal situation as “just being one indicator,” but similar outcomes exist on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), with 40 percent of Kansas fourth-graders and 34 percent of eighth-graders being Below Basic.
Fifty percent increase in functionally illiterate students since 2015
This is dramatically worse than in 2015, when ‘only’ 98,000 students scored in the lowest level of the state assessment and were functionally illiterate. One might expect the Kansas Department of Education (KSDE), the State Board of Education (SBOE), and the Kansas Legislature would have taken decisive action in response, but that has not been the case. Some actions by education officials appear more focused on managing perceptions than addressing the root causes of literacy decline, even going so far as to attempt multiple cover-ups.
KSDE initially defined Level 1 as being below grade level (by virtue of defining Levels 2-4 as being “at or above grade level.” They later scrubbed “grade level” from definitions and now contend that it is improper to say any students are below grade level because “the assessment only measures grade level performance.” Commissioner Randy Watson refuses to say, however, if that means all students are at grade level.
Two state audits found that school districts are not spending At-Risk funding on “above-and-beyond” services for students who are academically at-risk of failing as required by state law, yet neither the SBOE nor the Legislature will compel compliance with the law.
Districts must comply with all “applicable” state laws to be accredited, but KSDE says the At-Risk spending law isn’t ‘applicable’ because it isn’t “connected to school improvement.” The law isn’t intended to improve “schools;” it is designed to improve student outcomes, but that’s how KSDE tries to parse words to avoid accountability.
State law requires SBOE to have an accreditation system based on academic improvement, but it does not require schools to improve outcomes to be accredited.
Some legislators petition their leaders to protect them from voting on education proposals because they don’t want to endanger their re-election chances by angering the education establishment.
Student outcomes won’t improve until adult behaviors change, and the adults in charge have yet to take meaningful action.
The Kansas State Department of Education and others in the education establishment may object to the use of the term “functionally illiterate,” arguing that it’s not part of their official vocabulary. But while the term is subjective, so too is KSDE’s use of the vague and undefined label “limited.” What matters most is not the terminology, but the reality it reflects: more than 150,000 Kansas students lack the basic reading skills needed for success in school, work, and life.
If calling this what it is helps Kansans recognize the scale of the crisis and demand change, then it’s a conversation worth having — and a few feathers worth ruffling.
