Each year, the Nebraska Department of Education publishes the academic assessment scores of students in public schools across the state.
The scores are part of what is called the AQuESTT (Accountability for a Quality Education System, Today and Tomorrow) program.
It’s a long title for a program. The report is also long, but we’ll boil it down.
The overall AQuESTT report includes several components. For instance, it includes the education level of the faculty, the career readiness of graduates, the access to education within the district, the ease of students in transitioning to new building and grade levels, and cumulative scores on standardized tests in core subjects – English, math and science.
Those cumulative scores in core subjects are commonly regarded as the most significant measure of a school’s performance.
The scores provide data about how a school and its students are performing.
The testing works like this:
- Students in grades 3-8 are assessed in math and English.
- Students in grades 5 and 8 are tested in science.
- In high school, 11th graders take the American College Testing (ACT) to measure their abilities in reading, writing, English, math and science.
The ACT scoring scale ranges from 1-36, with scores 1-16 below average, 17-24 average, and 25-36 above average.
Based on all criteria, AQuESTT classifies schools in one of four categories — excellent, great, good, or needs improvement.
It stands to reason that many of the academic scores are in the average range, because average scores are the most prevalent among a sizeable group.
Nevertheless, there are significant differences (as much as 20 points) between some schools and scores.
Here are the scores of the four largest school districts in Lincoln County — North Platte, Hershey, Maxwell and Sutherland – in the 2023-24 school year.
Tap on images to enlarge
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Editor George Lauby contributed to the presentation of this report.
This article was first published in the Bulletin’s Feb. 26 print edition.
© 2025 The North Platte Bulletin. All rights reserved!
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When I was in K-6, Junior High (7-9), High school (10-12), and College, the scoring was as follows:
100-93% = A (Excellent)
86-92 = B (Good)
78-85 = C (Average)
71 – 77 = D (Below Average/Needs considerable work/improvement)
70 – 0 =FAIL (repeat class and/or grade level)
No “Sliding scales”
This should tell you how poorly the schools are educating our children…..and yet the school administrator makes nearly $25,000.00 per month (NPPS)
Here is the NPPS District grade scale:
100-90% = A (Exceeds)
80-89 = B (Proficient)
70-79 = C (Developing)
60-69 = D (Beginning)
0-58 = F (Beginning)
Grading system when I was in school K-5, 6-8 & 9-12 was same as Greg’s. The new system just proves what we all know. Kids are getting dumber! They are to distracted in the classroom and life in general. When I was in school we couldn’t even chew gum in class. Now kids are allowed drinks, food and even worse their cell phones in class. Try to take any of those away and it gets blown away out of proportion on all forms of media or you get your ass shot.
It’s sad that if a child fails every class they will still pass them on to the next grade. It’s happening at the elementary, middle and high school in North Platte.
Y’all sound like a bunch of boomers: “Back in my day…… we had it tougher…. yada yada”
Well, Now it is your generation that is in charge; you literally are the ones dictating and making these rules. It’s a sever lack of accountability that you pass on to the next generation instead of breaking the cycle, you are endorsing it.
Alias, you’re applying blame with a broad brush. The comments don’t endorse the situation at all.
The next best step is to see what we can do to make improvements.
Every parent has the option of homeschooling their children. We did it. We raised 10 children and homeschooled all of them. Our oldest is 40 and our youngest is 19. We ran our homeschool as a regular school (with a classroom, individual work stations, and a daily schedule). We used a computerized curriculum with automatic grading. Our grading scale was: 92-100 A, 83-91 B, 74-82 C, 65-73 D, below 65 was an F. However, anything below a C had to be repeated (I insisted upon it). Most of our children were B average in most of their subjects. It did help a lot that I am proficient in math, science, and English grammar (as well as a computer geek). Oh, and I am one of those baby boomers that Alias was talking about (graduated from high school in 1977) except I am not responsible for the academic failures of the public schools.
Wait until I tell you how the big schools manipulate graduation rates to keep the federal dollars rolling. Seriously though, this is almost entirely because of No Child Left Behind and it’s successor Every Student Succeeds Act.
Academic standards didn’t just start tanking in the last 5-10 years. This goes all the way back to Bush in 2001.