In July 2006, Senate Bill 130 was passed by the Kentucky legislature. The bill amended KRS 158.6453 to include the provision that “no later than the 2007-2008 school year, and each year thereafter” the Commonwealth’s assessment program shall include a high school readiness examination in grade 8, a college readiness examination in grade 10 and the ACT college admissions and placement examination in grade 11. These three examinations — EXPLORE, PLAN and ACT — comprise the Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS).
Because of this requirement, many teachers and administrators have requested an EPAS College Readiness Standards (CRS) alignment with Kentucky’s curriculum standards to help teachers link instruction and assessment standards. This document includes an alignment of standards between Kentucky’s Program of Studies (POS) and the EPAS CRS. For each test area, supplemental information also is included that may help teachers better understand the expectations of EPAS.
Common Core for Every Student: Kentucky’s Program of Studies and the College Readiness Standards
On February 1, 2006, the Kentucky Board of Education defined a detailed and more rigorous minimum high school graduation requirement, beginning with the graduating class of 2012 (704 KAR 3:305). The board and the Kentucky Department of Education know that in order to be prepared for postsecondary education and the workforce, all students need access to rigorous course work.
The Program of Studies is Kentucky’s comprehensive mandated curriculum for all Kentucky schools. In 2006, the POS was revised to include instructional standards that address the more rigorous graduation requirements. Therefore, the CRS is embedded within the Program of Studies. While there has been an effort to align the standards as closely as possible in this document, readers will see that in some cases, there is not an exact standard match for the CRS within the POS. In these cases, KDE has found that the skill or skills identified within the CRS are often a component of a more complex POS standard and that the POS standard to which we have aligned the CRS may include the expectation that students demonstrate a variety of other, related skills.
In each tested area, educators should note the importance of reading and critical thinking skills necessary for students to perform well on the tests. It also is important to note that, from grade to grade, some standards may be the same or very similar. In these cases, teachers are expected to continually refine instruction so that students use increasingly complex skills to achieve the standards for each consecutive grade level.
Click below to download entire PDF File
Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS) College Readiness Standards and Program of Studies Standards Alignment
Click below to download the Individual PDF files
English Test
Mathematics Test
Reading Test
- Text Complexity Reading Samples
Science Test
More information about the EPAS College Readiness Standards and how they link to instruction can be found in the College Readiness Standards guides for the subjects tested. They can found
http://www.act.org/standard/guides/explore
http://www.act.org/standard/guides/plan
http://www.act.org/standard/guides/act