Locke High Charter School – right stuff, not riots

Here’s another You Tube that shows what can happen in a really bad school when a state has really good charter school laws.




This story even got the attention of the US Department of Education.

Western's public radio tackles 'texting'-while-driving proposal

Western's Public Radio reporter Lisa Autry interviewed me for a two-part series on a legislative proposal to ban "texting" while driving. The series begins Tuesday at 5:50 a.m. and 7:50 a.m. (CST). We will be heard in Part 2 of the series on Wednesday at those same times.

Even liberal lawyers tell me this is a bad bill.

Here's my recent "Bluegrass Beacon" column on the issue: "Text message to Jody: R U 4 real?"

If your local newspaper doesn't yet carry my column, please request that they begin doing so.

Education bills get lengthy discussion in House Education Committee

Two key education bills, House Bill 322, which grants school superintendents a more extensive say in the selection of principals, and House Bill 301, which takes a number of actions aimed at improving the state’s inadequate high school graduation rate, received extensive attention today in the House Education Committee meeting.


Herald-Leader reporter Ryan Alessi does a good job covering most of the details at the Bluegrass Politics Blog so I won’t reinvent the wheel here.

However, one of the meeting’s comments from Representative Reginald Meeks (D – Jefferson County) really caught my attention. Meeks was discussing his bill, House Bill 301, to raise the dropout age. Said Representative Meeks:

“Give us an opportunity to build the kind of educational system in our commonwealth that – rather than facilitates young people dropping out – keeps them, makes them want to stay in and be better prepared to, to live a good life after high school.”

Imagine that. After almost 20 years of KERA, we STILL have high schools that don’t engage kids and make them want to stay on board to a diploma. Instead, per Representative Meeks, we still have schools that facilitate dropping out.

That’s just not right.

Whether House Bill 301 is the right answer is open to debate (which will continue in the House Education Committee next week, by the way). Forcing kids to stay in school isn’t engaging them, and it won’t necessarily lead to better educations.

But, what isn’t open to debate is the fact that – after 20 years of our educators telling us how great we've been doing – Kentucky’s high school graduation rate is still too darn low. And, the latest data available from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that Kentucky’s high school graduation rate declined in 2007.

Knox County – Corbin Independent Schools deal just got MUCH bigger

We’ve been covering the loss of parental choice options because of the Knox County Public Schools’ recent cancellation of their long-standing student transfer agreement with the Corbin Independent School District since January.

Initially, it looked like around 160 or so kids would be forced to return to Knox County schools, but a new announcement says that number is in serious error.

The problem is that the Infinite Campus student tracking computer system (which we have raised concerns about before such as here, here and here) had many address errors.

Now, it looks like over 400 students are impacted, which could cause serious repercussions for the Corbin Independent School District if it looses that many students.

According to enrollment data from the Kentucky Department Of Education’s Growth Factor Report, Ethnic Membership By District And Grade, for School Year 2009-2010, the entire enrollment in Corbin Independent was only 2,681 students for that recent school term. If this small district suddenly looses over 400 students, the sudden enrollment drop of 15 percent could be devastating.

If those kids were being forced into a better school system, this might be justified, but as we have pointed out before, when it comes to graduation rates, middle school EXPLORE and high school ACT test scores, No Child Left Behind performance, and increasing performance and participation on the Advanced Placement tests, the facts are that Corbin Independent provides a much better education than Knox County does.

Given the sudden surprise about how many kids are impacted, look for this battle to get even more heated as Knox County’s lust for power faces off against what is best for (a lot more) students.

Link to FreedomKentucky.org!

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UK economist: Address budget process with sound principles, common sense

University of Kentucky economist John Garen suggests reducing state spending by implementing a 'program closing commission' modeled after the federal military base closing commission.

Click here to read the Bluegrass Institute Perspective.

It takes more than money to do technology in the classroom right

Fortunately, this $1.25 million mess didn’t happen in Kentucky, but there are lessons here for us.

The Jennings School District in Missouri purchased thousands of Palm T/Xs to give to every student in the system, grades three to twelve. The plan included spending $200,000 for teacher instruction on how to incorporate these hand-held devices into daily class work.

The high tech gamble never panned out.

Now, the Missouri taxpayer is going to take another hit because another education fad idea lacked real insight and follow-through. The Palms aren’t being used, and most are still in a warehouse. They are going to be sold or given away as this $1.25 million fad chasing plan crumbles.

There are lessons here for Kentucky school systems that are rushing to put computers in kids’ hands – think it through carefully.

Work out a good plan, first, about how the technology is really going to be used. If you don’t already have some teachers on staff who really know what is going on, be especially careful.

Since most of your teachers probably will need training, be sure that training will work for them.

Most importantly, be sure the plan has a high probability that it will work for kids.

Otherwise, you may just become the next school system to waste a big chunk of ever more precious tax dollars.

The only thing being stimulated is taxpayers' anger

So you still think all that stimulus funding was worth it?

Do you think it was worth it to spend $300,000 for a GPS-equipped helicopter to hunt for radioactive rabbit droppings at a nuclear reservation in Washington state? Or, how about the $219,000 dumped at Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen woman? Or how about the $3.4 million for turtles to build a 13-foot tunnel for turtles to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla.? Or, I’m sure you’re thrilled to death about the $2.5 million worth of stimulus checks sent to the deceased.

If you don’t think that was worth it, then you might be smart enough to figure out that the $74,486 in stimulus funding spent on each of the 10,700 jobs the federal government claims the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act created in Kentucky wasn't worth it, either.

Parents the key to making school choice happen

Ultimately, parents will provide the kind of grassroots pressure needed to bring school choice to Kentucky.

Take, for example, the latest research indicating higher -- much-higher -- graduation rates among students in Milwaukee's school-choice program.

The Wall Street Journal took note:

A report released last week by School Choice Wisconsin, an advocacy group, finds that between 2003 and 2008 students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program had a significantly higher graduation rate than students in Milwaukee Public Schools.

"Had MPS graduation rates equalled those for MPCP students in the classes of 2003 through 2008, the number of MPS graduates would have been about 18 percent higher," writes John Robert Warren of the University of Minnesota. "That higher rate would have resulted in 3,352 more MPS graduates during the 2003-2008 years."

The WSJ editorial concludes with this statement about the successful Milwaukee school-choice program: The Milwaukee program has survived for 20 years despite ferocious political opposition, and it would have died long ago if parents didn't believe their children were better off for it.

There's good reason to believe that the more Kentucky parents find out about how school choice works in other places, the more effective they will be in demanding Kentucky legislators follow suit.

Government ownership of GM and Chrysler raises conflict of interest flag on Toyota bashing

The news is full of Toyota recall information. That’s to be expected. But government ownership of two major Toyota competitors has to make one wonder: What’s up with all the government visibility in the matter?

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told Toyota owners to "stop driving" their recalled cars and then "clarified" his bombshell statement.

LaHood also said Transportation Department officials are considering civil penalties against Toyota for its handling of the sudden-acceleration matter. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said he would hold a hearing to consider how quickly and effectively Toyota responded to complaints about sticking pedals and slipping floor mats.

General Motors is offering no-interest loans for as long as 60 months for purchase of a new GM model with a Toyota trade-in. For Toyota lease customers, GM will make as many as three payments, or a maximum value of $1,000. It's your tax dollars at work to corrupt free competition.

These government announcements have had a major impact on Toyota stock, which has plunged about 19 percent since the start of the recall frenzy; the manufacturer has lost tens of billions of dollars in market capital. All that bodes well for the government-auto companies competing with Toyota.

It's no secret that the government and union owned auto companies would like to see Toyota forced into union domination one way or another. The question is how much more can the government hurt Toyota by dragging out hearings, investigations, time taken to clarify government misstatements and double-guessing Toyota's every move. Would the government take the same approach against its own controlled auto companies?

Is the government's aggressiveness indicative of what other auto competitors and their suppliers can expect in the future? Is this an expansion of the government vendetta on the banks and the coal industry? Has the government taken all the steps necessary to separate its auto companies' planning, incentives and strategies from Toyota investigations, research, data, hearings, records, analysis and questioning?

Toyota is a proven, top-quality company. It doesn't need government to beat it into satisfying customers and doing the right thing.

The government-owned auto companies didn't compete well with Toyota in the marketplace. But now they just might have the equalizers they need -- the long arm of government interference and our tax dollars.

Which is more credible: Toyota or the government entities working to bring a great private company down?

It's time for the commonwealth's politicians and citizens to show support for a major free-market Kentucky manufacturer and employer.

One difference between charter schools and regular public schools

It’s a sad tale – one we want to safeguard against when Kentucky sets up charter schools – but it looks like there were a lot of fiscal oversight foul-ups in Ohio prior to the demise of the Harte Crossroads schools in Columbus.

Important records for Harte simply don’t exist, and the possibility of criminal activity over a three-year period is under investigation.

Now, the Harte schools are closed – completely.

Meanwhile, let’s not overlook the fact that our public school fiscal accounting system in Kentucky is no rose, either.

Way back in December, 2006, the Legislative Research Commission issued Research Report No. 338.

It outlined a number of serious problems with the Kentucky’s MUNIS education financial accounting system that prevented accurate accounting in many areas of educational expenditures. Over three years later, the program still has not been fixed. We continue to be plagued with an information black hole when we badly need accurate “bang for the buck” information as our policymakers wrestle with some tough decisions about which education programs may need to be cut.

There have also been some fiscal improprieties in Kentucky’s public schools.

Targeted money has been misdirected.

Federal stimulus money has not been properly tracked.

No one could account for the true costs of our now defunct CATS system.

And, we regularly hear nagging reports of school personnel running off with money that should have been spent on kids.

Often, these scams went undetected for years, as well.

These sorts of things happen when fiscal controls are weak.

But, here’s the big difference. While nagging reports of fiscal impropriety keep surfacing in our schools, I’m not aware of any public school getting shut down for fiscal impropriety since KERA began.

In sharp contrast, the Harte system is gone – completely. A number of other charter schools that didn’t measure up are gone, as well.

So, ultimately, which type of school do you think has a demonstrated history of more accountability – charter or public?