Beshear gets in bailout groove

Didn't see a press release from Gov. Steve Beshear touting the bailout request he sent to Washington D.C. for Detroit automakers who have spent decades wooing politicians while Toyota stuck to building quality cars.

The market always wins these battles and the market says out-of-control labor unions add too much to the cost of UAW-dominated auto manufacturers' products. Sure have created an interesting precedent for adding taxpayers to the losing side once again.

No wonder he is asking for more of your money.

Kentucky would do better to skip the bailout begging and lower taxes on businesses across-the-board. That way, when businesses fail there will be more opportunities for displaced workers to keep working.

Boxing Kentucky educrats' ears

Never one to hold his rhetorical punches, Bluegrass Institute policy and communications director Jim Waters thrashes Louisville school officials trying to play duck-and-cover with data on failing schools:

"In responding to the report, Jefferson County Schools’ research director Bob Rodosky claimed the district, which enrolls nearly half of all black public-school students in Kentucky, was “blindsided” by the Bluegrass Institute’s report."
"Forgive me if I don’t offer a hanky, Bob. You have part of it right. You and others have turned a “blind” eye toward implementing real solutions that would go a long way toward improving the education of poor, black kids in your inner city."
"Twenty-three of the 35 “Tier 5” schools in Kentucky — schools failing to meet annual education goals for at least six consecutive years — operate in Jefferson County. Ten Jefferson County middle schools alone fall into the “Tier 5” category."
"And administrators chant “blindsided?”"
"Rodosky accused the Bluegrass Institute of “piling on” and attempting to paint the district “in the worst light possible.”"

Rather that accepting the official whining from Jefferson County Schools, Waters offers these solutions:

"I’ve offered many ideas in this column — more transparency, bringing best practices from good to struggling schools, merit pay for badly needed, high-quality math and science teachers — and more choices for parents."

Too many school officials refuse to stand toe-to-toe with these solutions. They prefer to cry and complain and demand more taxpayer money that we don't have. It's up to taxpayers to deliver a knockout punch to expensive and counterproductive "education" policies. The rest of Waters' column is available here.

CATS Assessment and Accountability Task Force Meeting 6, October 29, 2008

The Kentucky Department of Education’s Assessment and Accountability Task Force Meeting 6 has come and gone with little new to report.

In fact, after six of seven planned meetings, tentative consensus is limited to only one item – a program to assess the arts and humanities more effectively. And, even that consensus seemed to fracture a bit at the end of the meeting.

For meeting details, check out the Bluegrass Institute’s new public policy Wiki.

So far, this task force is on track to accomplish what many suspected from the start – almost nothing.

That’s a shame for our kids, because the group initially did develop a reasonably good list of education issues that needed to be examined. However, with only one meeting remaining, it isn’t likely the group will resolve its unending deadlock on writing portfolios, and time has all but run out for thoughtful development of any really worthwhile proposals for improvement in other areas.

News flash: Kentucky spends too much money

Gov. Steve Beshear set the stage today for tax increases and another shot at casino gambling when he announced projections of $294 million in overspending for the current year:

"Kentucky is expected to have a $294 million shortfall in its state budget this year, Gov. Steve Beshear said Thursday."

"At a Capitol news conference, Beshear said he would develop a plan over the next several weeks to address the shortfall for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. He said the plan will include spending cuts and may include raising new revenue."

Repealing prevailing wage would be a more sound policy for balancing the books than raising taxes and cutting public employee pension benefits and simplifying retirement system investing procedures would be more efficient than trying again to pass a questionable casino scheme.

Now is the time for all good men...

The Bluegrass Institute hosted a viewing of The Call of the Entrepreneur last night at the Kentucky Theater in Lexington. The purpose of the event was to inspire Kentuckians to create opportunities for prosperity where others see only reasons to despair.

Speakers for the event included Jim Waters, Kathy Gornik, Warren Rogers, and Lee Greer.

Kentucky zapped for taxing poor people

A left-leaning Washington D.C. think tank, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities(CBPP), has found that Kentucky has the highest income tax in the nation on a family of four at 125% of the poverty level.

CBPP reports a two-parent family of four in Kentucky with $26,504 in 2007 income would owe state income tax of $923. This is effectively a transfer of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit to Kentucky's general fund.

The report lists Kentucky as one of only eighteen states that hits two-parent families of four with any income tax at all.

Rep. Bill Farmer (R-Lexington) has announced plans to file a bill for the 2009 General Assembly to eliminate Kentucky's income tax and replace it with consumption taxes.

HillaryCare without the pantsuit

Great new video from the CATO Institute explains that Sen. Barack Obama's healthcare plan is more ambitious than HillaryCare in expanding the government's role in personal health decisions.

Here's the money quote from Director of Health Policy Studies Michael Cannon: "He would create a new government program that would essentially double the size of the current Medicare program. And he would exert a lot more control over all sorts of decisions Americans make about their health insurance and their health care."

Kentuckians long ago proved that too much government in healthcare is a bad thing. Massachusetts is currently confirming our findings. It is amazing that we have to continue having this kind of discussion.

Spreading it around some more this winter

One of the more encouraging notes in the discouraging rhetoric from both sides in the 2008 presidential race is the questioning of government redistribution schemes as a means for "spreading the wealth around."

As your heating bills go up this winter, try not to think about how much more you will have to pay because the government wants to take credit for "helping" those who they deem worthy of receiving your money to heat their homes.

LIHEAP eligibility extends upwards to almost $30,000 in annual income for a family of four. Might be interesting to see how many of those recipients have cell phones and satellite dishes.

Of course, only a heartless guttersnipe would begrudge someone a redistributive bureaucracy -- and full funding -- during a cold winter. Even worse to point out that mankind survived a few years before there was automated indoor heating.

Maybe they will introduce a Joy Tax

Some people get awfully excited about college kids chasing each other with a ball. There's nothing wrong with that -- I've even joined them a time or two -- it's just that we all choose different things that engage our imaginations or even inspire us to greater heights.

Hit the link to this blog post from a man who finds the highest joy in the workings of capitalism -- government "assistance" not required.

Of course government does take its cut of the capitalism. Perhaps if they knew someone was getting so worked up about it, they might try to send the tax man after him for deriving a previously untaxed benefit.

And this plays into a plan in Tennessee to tax bird-watching. Yes, I'm serious. The obvious questions for us then are: what if some of the birds being watched are actually across the border in Kentucky while they are being watched? Or if Kentuckians wander into Tennessee to watch some birds, do we tax them if they come home happy?

Lexington Rep. sounds alarm on jobless fund

Rep. Bill Farmer sent a letter to Gov. Steve Beshear last week urging swift action on the state's fast-shrinking unemployment insurance fund.

"Several months ago, I contacted Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary Jonathan Miller regarding this situation. At that time, I proposed the idea of merging our state's unemployment tax returns with the withholding tax returns as one proposal to aid in healing the quickly ailing unemployment fund."

"By merging these tax returns, not only would the state save untold amounts of money on paper, printing, and postage costs, but the unemployment fund would receive a much needed infusion of funds. Furthermore, the money accrued through this merger would be deposited to the unemployment fund earlier, as opposed to waiting until the beginning of May."

"I trust that you share my level of concern for this escalating crisis."

Rep. Farmer has been a tax consultant for twenty one years.

Getting the Problem Right, At Least

“State education finance systems were not designed with student learning in mind, nor have the superintendents and principals who manage educational resources been trained to make the strategic connection between resources and learning one would expect in a learning-oriented system. What’s more, because of the way these systems operate, elected officials, educational leaders, and the public are equally hard pressed to know how resources actually have been deployed or the ways they may (or may not) contribute to learning.”

Funding Student Learning


From the School Finance Redesign Project

This report, funded by the Gates Foundation, looks like an important “read.”

NCLB – More Accurate Grad Rates, Better Parent Information Coming

As expected Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced important new regulatory changes to No Child Left Behind during a South Carolina news conference today. Spellings stated the new rules tighten up widely criticized loopholes and inconsistencies in state reporting of high school graduation rates and also deal with inadequate notification to parents when their child is entitled to supplemental education services.

States will be required to start using consistent graduation rate calculations by the 2010-11 school year, and the new rates will be required for accountability one year later. At the same time, states will have to report graduation rates for all schools and school districts disaggregated by race and poverty level, something Kentucky educators have never done. States will also have to create realistic graduation rate goals that don’t have loopholes such as one currently found in Kentucky where even a 0.01 point improvement each year is considered acceptable.

It is anticipated that once disaggregated graduation rates become NCLB accountable that poor performance for racial groups will be exposed in a number of schools.

Note: See our recent report on graduation rate gaps in Jefferson County schools for one of the very few available examples of this sort of data that has ever been assembled anywhere in Kentucky. If Jefferson County’s current graduation rate situation is replicated elsewhere in Kentucky, then many Kentucky high schools will have to make rapid improvements to say out of trouble with NCLB.

Spellings also said that once the new regulation takes effect parents must receive 14 days advanced notice when their child will be eligible for supplemental tutoring services under NCLB. Currently, our CATS-based NCLB system fails miserably in providing adequate notice in this area, and the new rules could force important changes in score turn-around times. Spellings noted stories of schools actively encouraging parents not to take advantage of tutoring, making it clear that such activity gets a frown in Washington.

Overall, it is clear that Spellings patience has run out with states like Kentucky that have made a mockery of some of NCLB’s requirements. Since the new regulations appear to have bipartisan support, it looks like those days are about to end.

Okay, let's talk about Ted Stevens

Wouldn't it be interesting to talk with some of our nation's Founding Fathers about the size and reach of government in the United States of America? I'm guessing there would be disdain, disgust, and horror at the sight of what we have become.

Enter Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska as Exhibit A.

As Andy Roth of the national Club for Growth points out, despite Stevens' felony convictions for corruption, he gets to keep his $122,000 a year pension.

This points out the need to not only take a hard look at how we compensate our government workers, but to ask ourselves hard questions about why we need career politicians at all.

States look at squeezing lotteries for revenues

The Department of Justice says states can't lease out their lotteries for big cash infusions. So Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels today scrapped plans to privatize the state's lottery.

Kentucky wouldn't seriously discuss anything like that anyway, but we did make a little progress with the idea of cutting spending on lottery advertising in the last General Assembly.

When they come back in looking for places to cut spending, slick advertising might be worth consideration for more slicing.

"A modern-day tea party"

For Massachusetts voters, the most important item on the ballot November 4 won't be the one that asks them to choose between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Low Graduation Rates – Hot Stuff – In New Jersey

In Kentucky – Some Data Is Top Secret

In New Jersey even the governor is getting serious about the critical problem of high public school dropout rates. He is spearheading a new effort to cut the number of kids who don’t graduate from high school.

And, in an interesting twist, because low graduation rates impact a lot more than the school system, the New Jersey effort is being headed by that state’s attorney general’s office! After all, the attorney general’s staff is too often responsible for the “follow-on activity” for kids who don’t make it through high school, and the legal system knows the problems with these kids best, so why shouldn’t they be in charge?

Clearly, New Jersey’s chief executive gets it; kids who drop out of school too often head into a life of crime, which adds huge fiscal and social expenses to the state. And, the New Jersey department of education, after many years of primary responsibility for fixing the problem, needs a replacement as effort leader.

If naysayers in New Jersey want to undermine their governor’s alarm, they certainly could use Kentucky as an example. According to the latest calculations from the federal government, in the 2005-06 school year New Jersey had a public high school graduation rate of 84.8 percent while Kentucky’s rate was notably lower at 77.6 percent. If Kentucky had matched New Jersey’s graduation rate for that school year, we’d have had over 3,500 more high school graduates and that many fewer dropouts. This would have added almost 10 percent to the size of the Kentucky Class of 2006 while significantly reducing the potential burden on our fast-growing penal system. Unfortunately, if history is any guide, instead we must plan for the probable addition of thousands more to our prison roles.

By the way, because the Bluegrass Institute just published our report on white and black graduation rate and academic gaps in Jefferson County, I wanted to see what the new federal report showed for disaggregated rates for racial groups.

I was wasting my time.

Kentucky was one of only four states that decided to keep this data from the feds. Since our overall graduation rate increased from 2002-03 to 2005-06 in the federal report, one has to wonder why our white, Hispanic, and black rates were kept secret. Of course, after looking at our new report’s findings for Louisville, maybe the answer is already obvious.

Maybe it’s time for Governor Beshear to take a lead from New Jersey’s chief executive by setting up a real effort to look at graduation rates, one that will go after accurate and fully transparent data that includes all students, just as Kentucky committed to do in the National Governors’ Association several years ago. And, since the education leaders in Kentucky don’t seem to be delivering for all kids, this effort should also be headed by a group, like the state attorney general’s office, which has to deal with the consequences of what the school system isn’t accomplishing.

Might Frankfort lose big-government religion?

The threat of economic chaos can benefit politicians and policymakers by sharply focusing the mind on what really works. If rumors circulating in Frankfort are to be believed, Gov. Steve Beshear's administration could be gaining an unexpected dose of focus.

Supposedly, the administration is seriously considering working to lower healthcare costs by repealing Kentucky's Certificate of Need regulations in opposition to some powerful political opposition. This move finds data-driven support on the federal and state levels.

And the really big news would come if Beshear turned on his Big Labor constituency and, as has been speculated, works to get rid of Kentucky's prevailing wage mandate.

Casinos not such a sure bet anymore?

Critics of government growth through casino proliferation sometimes claim the surest way to end the debate once and for all is to allow casinos in every state and watch them bankrupt each other in a zero-sum battle.

An article in Monday's Wall Street Journal suggests this may already be happening:

Pie-in-the-sky government funding schemes could have great value for Kentucky if failure elsewhere motivated our politicians to bring more focus to making government smaller instead of continuing the hunt for iffy revenue streams.

Playing much golf in Kentucky this winter?

Kentuckians who don't play golf may not even know about the money they are spending to subsidize the activities of those who do.

And of course this "special deal" doesn't even include municipal courses in the state. Anyone care to take a stab at justifying this use of our public resources?

Illinois confused about its budget mess

A Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University poll shows what happens when a population gets too comfortable with big, expensive government.

The poll showed that Illinois favors a tax increase but only on "the rich," and thinks that spending should be cut, but only for highly-paid government employee salaries.

The poll showed 73% of voters rejected spending cuts on services for the needy and 65% reject cuts for state worker pensions. The Illinois comptroller says the state has a $1.8 billion backlog in current bills.

In their panic, expect massive tax increases for the people in Illinois. It would help if their vast problems served as a canary in the big-government coal mine for Kentuckians.

Thanks to Americans for Tax Reform for passing this along.

A cautious olive branch for Steve Beshear

Jim Waters' column reaches out to Gov. Steve Beshear:

"Liberty Lovers: Governors who lead."

"I’ve been pretty hard on Gov. Steve Beshear lately for his policy follies, but I also believe he’s done some things right."

"I criticized the administration in this column for dragging its feet in getting the state’s checkbook online, Frankfort announced that by January 2009, hardworking Kentucky taxpayers finally will be able to see online financial transactions involving their tax dollars."

"The governor gets credit — and with that higher approval ratings — for providing the needed leadership to make this a government not only “of, by and for the people,” but more accessible to them as well."

It will be interesting to see how revealing and useful Beshear's web site actually is.

Honest Graduation Rates? Maybe, Thanks to Feds

Information in a new AP article indicates the days of Kentucky’s deceptive high school graduation and dropout rate reporting may be about over.

According to the AP, “Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is expected to issue new rules next week that will force states to use the common tracking system (developed by the nation’s governors) and will judge schools not only on graduation rates but on the percentage of black and Hispanic students who graduate, too.”

Tracking minority graduation rates at the school level will be something new for Kentucky. So far, our education crowd has steadfastly refused to do that because they know very unsatisfactory graduation rates – such as the ones we independently calculated and just reported for Louisville – exist statewide. Reporting grad rates for minorities will lead to more high schools failing to make the goals in NCLB.

We may not have to wait long for this to happen. Earlier this year, Spellings proposed rules that would require states to start using an interim calculation called the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate right away for NCLB reporting. Kentucky already collects the data required to compute this formula.

Assuming the announcement earlier this year is not altered substantially in the final rule, by 2013 all states will have to operate high quality student tracking systems to enable using a high accuracy formula adopted several years ago by the National Governors Association.

It will be a nice change. The AP points out, “The U.S. was slow to realize it was facing a dropout crisis.” That’s because educators did everything possible to ignore kids who left high school before the 12th grade. And, educators used all sorts of reporting dodges that, as the AP reports, “clouded the picture.”

Well, it looks like the forecast is for clearing skies over the obscuration of what is really happening in our schools. Of course, those clear skies will leave exposed all the damage from the storm of deceptive graduation and dropout reporting that has been raging across Kentucky and the rest of the country.

How much will this free service cost?

"Tough economy" news stories are everywhere these days. WKYT has this one. Doesn't Pike County have some belt-tightening to do?

Is there anyone left in government who isn't operating on the Karl Marx playbook?

Who decided we need professional politicians?

In a state whose political class has created an unsustainable public employee benefits program, a official tradition of secrecy, and rampant overspending, average Kentuckians can easily tell what is wrong with this New York City voting today to do away with term limits.

Can't imagine that is going to really solve any problems.

Kentuckians might want to take this opportunity to ask themselves why we allow our politicians to gather so much power -- our power -- given the well-established track record for abusing it.

Kids Less Likely to Graduate Than Parents

The Herald-Leader reports that a new Education Trust study shows kids across the country are less likely to graduate from high school today than their parents. In fact, the opening words of Ed Trust’s new study are chilling: “The United States is the only industrialized country in the world in which today’s young people are less likely than their parents to have completed high school.”

Coming close on the heels of our new report on math and reading gaps and graduation rate gaps for whites and blacks in Louisville, it is clear that people around the country are finally waking up to the very serious nature of the public school high school graduation rate problem.

According to the Ed Trust, across the United States blacks only had a 59 percent graduation rate while whites only graduated at a rate of 81 percent in 2006.

Our report uses a different formula and year to report graduation rates, so direct comparison to the Ed Trust figures probably wouldn’t be very accurate; but, the overall message is clear. In too many cases in Louisville high schools, graduation rates for both whites and blacks are actually declining. Now, it appears that trend is a general feature of public schools across the country.

For the sake of our kids futures, and for the future of the nation overall, this simply cannot be allowed to continue.

You can learn about one exciting idea the Bluegrass Institute is partnering in to work this issue by clicking here.

Condi Rice says failing schools terrify her

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed concerns expressed by Louisville citizens and the Bluegrass Institute yesterday about the high price we pay for failing schools.

"As an educator, Rice said it broke her heart to see "kids who might be the next Nobel Prize winner ... trapped in some public school that's just basically warehousing them.""

""But as a secretary of state, it makes me terrified because ... if we cannot do better in educating all of our people, then we are not going to be competitive in a global economy," she said. "We're going to become protectionist, we're going to turn inward, the United States is not going to lead.""

The AP reported Rice called failing schools her greatest national security concern.

Despite the Hype, the ACT Really Matters

There are attempts in some quarters to downplay the importance of the ACT college entrance test. In the process, Kentucky students may be getting the wrong message. The facts are, at least in Kentucky’s public universities, this downplay-the-ACT effort isn’t persuading any college admissions people. In fact, as this article points out, kids will have to do even better on the ACT in the future to avoid non-credit remedial courses.

So, it is a really good idea for kids to take the ‘pre-ACT’ tests called EXPLORE and PLAN in the eighth and tenth grade so they won’t get a nasty surprise when college enrollment comes around.

JCPS responds to Institute’s new report on widening black-white achievement gap

Bluegrass Institute’s Jim Waters calls improving black students’ education 'the civil rights issue of the 21st century.'

See the comments on in a front-page, above-the-fold story in Tuesday’s Courier-Journal.

Institute: Raise expectations for Louisville’s black students

See some of the extensive media coverage of Monday’s press conference announcing the release of a new report by the Bluegrass Institute.

To read the report, click here.

New report: Louisville’s achievement gap bad news for blacks

A new Bluegrass Institute Policy Point shows that the achievement gap between black and white students in reading and math has actually grown wider in more than a third of the 120 schools included in the study.

After-election tax increases back in the news

A national poll of Wal-Mart shoppers shows widespread financial concern that is impacting the timing of food purchases. Meanwhile, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling the California legislature back into special session next month to raise taxes.

Gov. Steve Beshear has allowed speculation to simmer that he is going to do the same thing. How hard do we have to work to convince the average Kentuckian that now is exactly the wrong time to be slapping the taxpayer?

How to confuse employers in Kentucky

Rep. Mary Lou Marzian pre-filed a bill that initially attempts to enforce wage fairness in the workplace but, deep in the bill, there is language that grants some extraordinary powers to the Executive Director of the Office of Workplace Standards:

"The executive director shall promulgate administrative regulations in accordance with KRS Chapter 13 A to specify any other matters necessary or appropriate to carry out the provisions of KRS 337.420 to 337.433 and 337.990(14)."

A somewhat similar bill passed the House of Representatives in the 2008 General Assembly.

"This is the civil rights agenda"

The Bluegrass Institute's emphasis on real education reform is starting to take hold in Louisville. Some local citizens, with the Institute's help, aren't waiting around any more for the bureaucrats to act.

If fed-up citizens can break through the official resistance in the state's largest city by organizing their own after-school tutoring, our children will not fail.

Edu-Lib Heresy – In the San Francisco Chronicle, of All Places!

Here is an article guaranteed to upset universal pre-school fans in Kentucky. The authors cite a number of studies and datasets that indicate universal preschool is far more controversial than we have been hearing in Kentucky. At issue is whether very young children from supportive homes really benefit, or might even be disrupted in development, by preschool versus home nurturing. Considering where this article was published, it certainly needs to be part of the discussion.

More on New Education Choice in Louisville

For those who want more information about The Village Learning Centers in Louisville, which I mentioned yesterday, click here to see the group’s informational flier on FreedomKentucky.org, our new Wiki site for Kentucky policy and information.

Governor Task Farce strikes again

This year alone, Kentucky has had a gubernatorial task force on public employee benefits that did nothing to repair our $27 billion overspending, a government spending transparency task force that has kept public information hidden for several more months than necessary, and a K-12 assessments task force that is about to conclude that our broken, inflated CATS program is just dandy.

It's Tuesday. Must be time for another task force.

This morning Gov. Beshear told the dutiful attendees at his press conference that he has been to the mountaintop and heard the pleas of the people to lower tuition at state colleges and universities.

A quick glance at the list of task force members doesn't necessarily preclude a finding that trying free market principles could cure what ails us in the higher education department, but Gov. Beshear has amassed a pretty uninspiring track record on which to base much hope.

It should go without saying that expanding government's role in making college more affordable will continue to fail just as it has for the last few decades. Last year's big idea was price-fixing. Expect to see that again. And they will try to open up Kentucky's Affordable Pre-paid Tuition program. Grab your checkbooks.

Kentucky persists in creating artificial demand with reduced academic standards and then we throw borrowed taxpayer money at the artificial demand. We will have to stop that before we can hope to see any improvement. Then we need to expand our merit-based scholarship program and shrink our need-based financial aid program, so indifferent students are incentivized to either get serious or get out.

Now isn't best time to tax the poor and stupid

Gov. Steve Beshear's efforts to replace the out-of-state electronic "leeches" with the in-state regulated and taxed variety continues with a new pre-filed bill to set up Kentucky Lottery video lottery terminals across the state.

We are still assuming, however, that the promised revenue will be greater than the added costs of making it easier for desperate people to "double down." And given the laundry list (see the bill summary) of selected beneficiaries, it's hard not to wonder why we aren't just lowering taxes, cutting government, and growing our way out of our spending-induced problems.

One noteworthy line in the actual bill which certainly wasn't intended to be funny promised:

"strictly regulating gaming to promote public confidence in the honesty and integrity of those participating in it."

Covet thy neighbor's governor

The Cato Institute put out Monday their annual report card on the nation's governors. Gov. Steve Beshear didn't get a grade because he is still new, but -- based on what we have seen so far --don't expect him to do very well next year. The following familiar themes for BIPPS readers are what they are looking for now:

"Fiscal policies need to be improved if the states are to meet the huge challenges ahead. Medicaid costs continue to rise, state debt is soaring, and the pension and health care plans of state workers have huge funding gaps. At the same time, rising international tax competition makes it imperative that states cut tax rates to attract jobs and investment. Governors don’t have an easy job, but they do need to pursue more aggressive fiscal reforms to meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive economy."

And this is what they found in West Virginia:

"Joe Manchin of West Virginia has concentrated on cutting business taxes to help boost investment in his state. In 2006, Manchin approved reductions in the business franchise and corporate income taxes. In 2007, he cut the franchise tax further. In 2008, Manchin signed into law a repeal of the business franchise tax and a reduction in the corporate income tax rate. Manchin also has an excellent spending record, and recommends cuts to the overall general fund budget most years."

CATS Task Force Meeting 5 Details

I never provided our readers any details on the fifth meeting of the task force. This oversight gives me a great opportunity to introduce some of you to the new Kentucky policy WiKi where that description can be found.

The general FreedomKentucky WiKi can be accessed here, and a report on Task Force meeting 5 is found by clicking here.

With this new WiKi, citizens around the state can add information about what is happening in their local areas for the benefit of all. With the decline in major press reporting on many critical issues such as education, the Bluegrass Institute believes this new site will make a valuable contribution to the citizens’ rights to know and participate in our governmental systems.

New Chance for Kids – Village Learning Centers in Louisville

Something exciting is happening for low income kids in Louisville. For the first time, many of these kids have a chance to benefit from an alternate learning environment they otherwise could not afford.

A new project of the Value Coalition USA, The Justice Resource Center, The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, School Choice Scholarship, and the American Family Association, “The Village Learning and Development Centers” have already opened or will be opening shortly in a number of Louisville churches to offer kids after school tutoring, homework help, parent support programs, along with a caring and safe environment during those hours when school is closed.

It’s an education choice many Louisville kids never had before, made possible by both government and community investors.

Eventually, as many as 100 churches may be added to the plan, but the following organizations either have at least one functioning learning center now or plan to open one very shortly. Interested students and parents should contact the centers directly for more information.

More Grace Ministries, Pastor Cecil Blye, Jr., 100 West Ormsby Ave., Phone: 502-634-2888, e-mail: pastor@moregrace.net

Dunamis World Outreach Church Int., Pastor Shannon C. Cook, 3212 Hartlage Court, Phone: 502-447-9096, e-mail: shannonccook@aol.com

Newburg Church of Christ, Pastor Kenneth Fleming, 4700 Indian Trail, Phone: 502-966-5171, e-mail: newburgchurch@aol.com

Energized Baptist Church, Pastor Milton Seymore, 3107 Seventh Street Road, Phone: 502-634-0662, e-mail: ceemore1@insightbb.com

Midwest Church of Christ, Pastor Jerry L. Stephenson, 2115 Garland Ave., Phone: 502-774-3986, e-mail: jlscofc@bellsouth.net

New Golden Baptist Church, Pastor James Tennyson, 115 Steedly Drive, Phone: 502-968-0625, e-mail: katreesew@aol.com

Spirit of Love Center, Pastor Derrick Wilson, 4107 West Market Street, Phone: 502-775-5354, e-mail: wilsonandwilson@bellsouth.net

Entrepreneurs of the Commonwealth, unite!

The Bluegrass Institute is heading to Lexington for a Kentucky Theater showing of The Call of the Entrepreneur on October 29. The Kentucky Startup Blog has the story.

Ordinary Kentuckians start businesses every day. What they need is guts, creativity, and faith. What they don't need is bailouts, subsidies, and redistribution schemes.

Past time to 'fess up, Frankfort

One might think Kentucky Retirement Systems officials would have put out a press release this morning defending themselves against the blistering they took in the media over the weekend.

Don't hold your breath.

The latest publicly available investment data from June 30, 2007 shows our team of experts was loading up on mortgage backed securities just as the bubble was bursting. No doubt the $27 billion shortfall in the public employees benefits systems is worse than we think.

In order for the public to better assess our options going forward, we need some current info -- not just shut-up-and-let-the-experts-work gibberish -- and we need it now.

More financial experts for you to bail out

Louisville Courier Journal reporter Stephenie Steitzer did a nice job covering kind of an old news story on the state's public employee benefits mess and coming bailout on Saturday. Poor investment returns with no accountability in the defined-benefit plans have been an well known for years.

A new report charging incompetence cost $5 billion the last five years was the reason for story today and the charge in the report that the retirement systems' portfolio "violates sensible diversification principles" was nice to see.

But catching the Frankfort talking heads flat-footed, as Steitzer did, was priceless. Really, go here and read the story yourself.

It's a shame, though, that Steitzer couldn't find anyone to interview who could speak sensibly about what has to be done. She reported that she tried to talk to Senate President David Williams, who prefers an annuity based DB/DC hybrid plan, but she couldn't reach him.

Someone from the Bluegrass Institute could have told her it is time to cut our losses, get rid of the investment gurus running the show in Frankfort, and put the money in mutual funds.

Someone didn't get the belt-tightening memo

Education blogger Richard Day reported late Friday on a plan by the Kentucky Board of Education to request a bill in the 2009 General Assembly for school construction property tax increases:

Seems like that would be a tough sell while we still spend too much for labor on school construction projects and have such lousy controls on education spending overall.

Like borrowing booze to give a drunk a drink

If you liked the bailout of Wall Street banks, you are going to love what's next: a bailout of state and local governments.

Public finance newspaper The Bond Buyer reports today that an effort is underway to lobby Congress to spread the wealth around to local governments who have overspent their bank accounts:

"Spending by states and municipalities accounts for 12% of gross domestic product, Kanjorski said, adding that a contraction in the governmental sector will lead to a worsening of the economy."

They have to be kidding. The only way out of the mess too many state and local governments are in is to create a "contraction in the government sector." In what alternate universe will borrowed federal money do anything but make it all worse?

Brinkman's two ways to stimulate the economy

Rep. Scott Brinkman sat down for an interview with a Louisville Courier Journal reporter recently in which he praised the wealth redistribution policies of Sen. Barack Obama and the energy policies of President Jimmy Carter.

The answer, Brinkman said, is more taxation and more government spending. Oh, and more borrowing. But I'm sure he meant that to fall under "more taxation."

Amazing passage, in Brinkman's words, below. It's noteworthy, I suppose, that Brinkman is a Republican.

The whole "Lunch with Brinkman" interview is available by clicking here.

Can't imagine my opinion would have been welcomed at lunch that day. But I sure would like to help Rep. Brinkman expand his list of economic stimulants.

Bipartisanship on schools?

Kentucky teachers unions' stranglehold on schools has resulted in the commonwealth being one of the very worst places in the nation for those who value the competition of school choice. That may change regardless of who is elected POTUS on November 4:

"Apparently, both candidates realize the value of competition in schools:
Here are Obama’s exact words: “Charter schools, I doubled the number of charter schools in Illinois despite some reservations from teachers unions. I think it’s important to foster competition inside the public schools.”"

"Of course, Obama wants to limit choice and competition to public schools (which include charters), while McCain wants to include private schools in the mix. But they agree on the big idea: public schools are improved when they have to compete to earn students and the revenue theose students generate."

"Just think. Only twenty years ago school choice and competition was hardly a glimmer in Ronald Reagan’s eye. Now the idea is so widely accepted as reasonable that the leaders of both parties differ only on the mechanism for producing choice and competition. We’ve come a long way, baby."

There's more here. Efforts to utilize vouchers or charter schools routinely die a painful death in Kentucky's House Education Committee.

Looking forward to some change there.

Hey Skippy, can you swim?

The actuarial report on Kentucky's Affordable Prepaid Tuition (KAPT) program will show an additional $35.7 million in red ink when it becomes available sometime in the next few days, sources within state government report.

The program has been a constant money-losing proposition for taxpayers since current Finance and Administration Jonathan "Skippy" Miller promoted the idea of a taxpayer-backed college financing scheme in his 1999 run for Treasurer of Kentucky. The program was created by the 2000 General Assembly.

Further losses were limited somewhat when the program was closed to new recipients in 2005. Obviously, though, lots of red ink remains.

Overpromising to recipients combined with underperforming investments and a guarantee of a taxpayer-financed bailout got us into this mess.

Hmmm... Why does that sound familiar?

Looking forward, a pertinent analogy is present in the case of the state's public employee defined-benefit retirement plans. There is already $27 billion worth of red ink there.

Anybody want to cut our losses on the big bucks?

Judge Wingate? Hello?

Everyone in Judge Thomas Wingate's office appears to be taking a late lunch in a bizarre twist on Gov. Steve Beshear's internet domain seizure case.

It is an odd challenge for Judge Wingate, and might even explain a couple of martini's at the local watering hole on a Thursday afternoon for a staff that was reduced to calling media yesterday and explaining that his ruling couldn't be released on schedule because of a computer glitch.

I don't think I've ever had so much fun being lied to by a public official.

If Judge Wingate goes against the Governor, I guess he may face some kind of retribution. And if he goes against common sense and the Constitution, well, you know.

Stay tuned. I'll update when they call me back after "lunch."

4:20 pm UPDATE: Looks like lunch is over and the judge decided to stick with Gov. Beshear. Appeal is a dead certainty.

CATS Writing Inflation

Over a week ago we said something about the dubious jump in high school on-demand CATS writing scores for 2008.

Now, another education-focused blog is picking up this issue, speculating about the reasons behind the implausibly big rise in high school writing scores from the on-demand tests that are given during CATS testing.

That blog makes some good points, but it misses an even more obvious issue that has nothing to do with changes in scoring for “Novice” and “Apprentice” grades in CATS. The more obvious issue is the huge increase in the number of students getting the top CATS scores of “Proficient” and “Distinguished.” Supposedly, there were no changes to the grading for these top scores, and the impacts from the obvious inflation are much more severe for elementary and middle schools than for the high schools.

Unlike the high schools, the elementary and middle school scoring for on-demand writing changed in 2007, not 2008. Also, the grades tested shifted from fourth to fifth and from seventh to eighth (Let no one say that the CATS is a stable testing program).

In any event, as the figures below show, the jump in the percentages of students graded “Proficient” or “Distinguished” between 2006 and 2007 in both elementary and middle schools is so extraordinary as to be completely unreasonable.

Statewide, Kentucky elementary schools suddenly exploded from having only 4.48 students graded “Proficient” and just 0.83 percent “Distinguished” in 2006 to 43.59 percent “Proficient” and 9.78 percent “Distinguished” in just one year. As you can see from the trends since 2001, this is an unprecedented and totally unreasonable change.



In middle schools, the trends are almost as severely unreasonable. Proficiency spiked from only 13.59 percent to 35.60 percent and the proportion graded “Distinguished” exploded by more than 600 percent (1.03 to 6.33 percent). Nothing in the middle school trends from 2001 to 2006 would predict such a massive, one-year change.



By the way, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tested eighth grade writing in 2002 and 2007. Kentucky’s change in writing proficiency rates on the federal test was statistically flat. The NAEP results indicate that the CATS writing was graded too hard in 2002 and then became grossly over-compensated by grading far too easy in 2007.

As I said earlier, let no one say that the CATS is a stable testing program, or credible, either.

How long will Kentuckians be inundated with such bloated nonsense while our education system struggles to make itself look good instead of moving out to do something that really makes a difference for our kids? Right now, entrenched education interests are defending the writing portfolio program to the hilt while evidence piles up from failures of similar programs elsewhere (like Vermont), and from the NAEP, and from several analyses of teacher opinions that overwhelmingly indicate the portfolios are part of the writing problem here.

And, inflating scores to hide the issue isn't going to make one kid in this state a better writer.

The Next Time Anyone Yells About Senior Executive Compensation in the Private Sector

The costs of good leadership are going up, even in the public sector. Here is the latest from the Oldham County School System.

Finally, we're legal again!

Kentucky law has mandated since 1982 that the executive branch have no more than 33,000 employees. The good news, Mark Hebert reports, is that we have finally gotten down to that number after many years of ignoring the law.

It has been very easy to attack official Frankfort for mostly ignoring the growing $27 billion public employee benefits disaster. As such, it is only fair to give credit where it is due for this step in the right direction.

Nice work, guys.

All eyes on Judge Thomas Wingate

Property rights and free speech activists all over the country are waiting for a ruling from Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate on Gov. Steve Beshear's odd attempt to seize internet domains.

A ruling is expected at any time this afternoon. Stay tuned...

UPDATE: Judge Wingate's office said his ruling will go out Thursday morning.

CATS Assessment and Accountability Task Force – CENSORED!

State Board of Education To Control Findings

Until yesterday, the information provided to the public consistently indicated that findings from this task force would be collected in a report to be provided to the legislature. Well, forget that.

Now – as announced yesterday at meeting five of the task force – the committee’s findings are going to have to be approved by the State Board of Education. Furthermore, instead of an independent and uncensored report, the task force’s findings will simply be buried in the Kentucky Board of Education’s 2009 legislative request.

If the public had known all of this back in April, then we could have created a truly independent study group, which is the way all previous task force efforts to improve our assessment program have operated.

Now, little time remains until the next legislative session, and if yesterday’s task force meeting is any indication, very little, if any, productive work is likely to be accomplished.

But, even if the Assessment and Accountability Task Force does come up with something new, the public and the legislature will only get to see it through the filter of the Kentucky Board of Education.

Libertarian Party to sue Kentucky

The Libertarian Party of Kentucky is going to file suit in federal court against the Commonwealth of Kentucky over a Court of Appeals decision issued last week that removed 3rd district Congressional candidate Ed Martin from the ballot, the party's chairman said.

"Kentucky law doesn't allow us to appeal a Court of Appeals decision," said Ken Moellman, LPKY chairman. "So our only choice is to sue in the state on the federal level. It was a terrible decision. It violates the rights of all third parties."

Martin, a registered Republican, argued in Jefferson Circuit Court in September that he should be allowed on the ballot even though Kentucky election law prohibits members of qualified parties -- Republican or Democratic -- from running for office as independent candidates in partisan races. He said the Libertarian Party is a bona fide party even though it is not considered a qualified party in Kentucky, and that he is not, therefore, an independent candidate.

The Circuit Court agreed with Martin, before the Court of Appeals overturned.

Martin and the Libertarian Party can find a lot to be optimistic about in a 2006 federal court decision in Libertarian Party of Ohio v. Blackwell.

Obama supporters on the issues

Listen to this clip from the Howard Stern Show in which Barack Obama supporters are stopped on the street and asked if they support all of Obama's positions on the issues.

It's G-rated material, so give it a listen by clicking the image below. While the language is clean and there is nothing off-color in this at all, it is shocking.

Beshear should fold and walk away

Rich Muny, the Poker Players Alliance director for Kentucky, leaves Gov. Steve Beshear empty handed after betting the farm on an internet domain-stealing scheme.

At issue is Beshear's ongoing effort to introduce the concept of state censorship of the internet and expand on the old one of illegitimate seizure of private property. In the Lexington Herald Leader:

"The concept that domain names of Internet sites operating legally in their home nations can be seized by other nations for violation of local laws is one that should concern all Americans."

"For example, should CNN's Internet domain name be at risk if CNN posts an article critical of Cuba that Cuba finds unlawful? Should Focus on the Family's domain name be eligible for seizure by Saudi Arabia for articles questioning Muhammad's status as the greatest prophet?"

Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate is expected to issue his ruling on Beshear's seizure action tomorrow, October 15.

Cold comfort

Looks like Europe is still more socialistic than we are:

The shame of it all is that we have done such a poor job of learning the right lessons from economic disasters in history. We should have learned from the Savings and Loan debacle that when government absorbs business risk for private players, the private players act as if there is no downside to their risk-taking. We should have learned from the same from the accounting scandals in the late 1990's. Lo and behold, we should have learned the same thing from the current mortgage-based mess.

But we haven't. We are still on track for a much larger mess in unfunded government entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, and state and local public employee benefits) that no bailout check is going to come close to resolving.

Our only hope is a radical restructuring of what we expect from government and dramatically less spending on new or current programs until we get the old obligations under control.

The handwriting is on the wall.

CATS Estimate – Almost Perfect

Half a year ago, I made a You Tube about how CATS scoring will be inflated after 2008 – yet again – using an estimated 2008 score for the Valley High School in Jefferson County. I had to use an estimate because the real score for Valley High wasn’t available at the time.

It turns out my estimate that Valley’s score would stay flat was almost perfect. The school only increased its accountability index by 0.1 point between 2007 and 2008.

So, if you want to see how the resetting of CATS baselines next year will still further reduce demands on our schools to perform, check out this You Tube. The estimate in this video is almost perfect.



If you want to see the full story on CATS inflation, don’t forget to check out Parts 1, 2 and 4 in this YouTube series, as well.

Careers Await, Kentucky’s Kids Aren’t Ready, Part 2

I just accessed the ACT report mentioned in yesterday’s Kentucky Enquirer about how well Kentucky’s high school students’ interests mesh with projected job openings (not well).

The ACT’s report is certainly interesting.

Figure 2 in the ACT report (shown below) shows the projected major growth job areas for Kentucky against test results for Kentucky’s Class of 2008 who took the ACT and expressed interest in those types of jobs. Notice, for example, that among students who say they want to go into education, only 18 percent, less than one out of five, are adequately prepared to enter a credit bearing college science course. It’s no wonder the state has graduated only one qualified high school physics teacher each year for the past two years.

Among teacher aspirants, just 27 percent, are prepared for college math, and only about one in two (52 percent) are even ready for the demands of college reading.

But, a really interesting thing concerns health care. First, only 11 percent of the kids who want to enter the field are ready for their first college credit course in science. Only a few more, just 16 percent, have the math skills required.

That math situation makes perfect sense.

You see, I know at least one major Kentucky hospital system tests all of its nurses – every year – on math because of the critical need to control dosing mistakes.

All of these nurses survived their postsecondary education programs, so just imagine how many kids were left behind before they even got that far due to deplorable math ability.

ACT – Thinks Business IS Paying Attention

A new tool has just been uploaded in the ACT, Incorporated’s Web site. Here is the description from ACT:

Another new feature on ACT’s website is a tool to compare selected data in various combinations in two states. For instance, a biochemical firm located near a state line could search the data for two states as to the ACT test scores and/or benchmark percentages for Math and Science to see how each state performed compared to each other and the national average. The data could be used to help guide recruitment of the better prepared employees. Subgroups may also be selected as variables including gender and ethnic/racial groups.

Clearly, that same biochem outfit, or any other firm, can use the ACT tool to decide where to locate in the first place, as well.

Thus, while certain elements in Kentucky try to downplay the importance of the ACT as they vainly try to defend our CATS assessments, it appears that ACT's publishers recognize the wide and growing interest in their data and are making it even easier to access and use.

And, since the ACT, Incorporated has a long-standing relationship with business and industry through its Work Keys business employment testing program, it’s a good bet that the ACT didn’t pick its example of a biotech firm wanting to compare scores in two states by accident.

Careers Await, Kentucky’s Kids Aren’t Ready, Excuse Makes No Sense

Think KERA is doing a bang-up job getting kids ready for what comes next in life?

Well, think again.

The Kentucky Enquirer just ran a highly disturbing article about the serious lack of preparation – including such things as academic accomplishment, career planning, and motivation – that plagues far too many Kentucky high school students.

The article draws on a new report from the ACT, Incorporated, the people who operate the ACT college entrance test. ACT compared data they collect during testing and job projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine if enough students are interested and prepared for the anticipated jobs of the future. The nutshell summary – they aren’t.

For example, the Enquirer says the report shows 16 percent of the new jobs in Kentucky will be in the education area, but only 11 percent of our kids want to enter the field. Management will account for 15 percent of the new jobs in the Bluegrass State, but only six percent of our kids want that sort of career.

Even when enough kids are interested in a field, such as health care, their ACT scores indicate woefully inadequate preparation. Only about one out of ten kids in Kentucky has an adequate science background to enter college programs needed for these technically challenging fields.

An alarming two-thirds of Kentucky’s kids score too low to be ready for credit-bearing college math courses.

The excuse from the Kentucky Department of Education spokesperson Lisa Gross also rings hollow. Gross said the problems are being addressed with such things as individual learning plans in the high schools. Besides the fact that the jury is still out on whether the individual learning plans will really work, there is a much bigger problem with Gross’ response. You see, Gross put out a news release in April that says the individual learning plans were zero-funded in the latest budget. How does she plan to fix anything with a program that isn’t even going forward?

Do we really want more cornflation now?

Sen. Joey Pendleton has pre-filed SB 12 for the 2009 General Assembly. It is a bill that would require oil companies to offer ethanol-blended gasoline, fuel ethanol, AND unblended gasoline. The bill has an exception for stations that are already required to carry reformulated gasoline.

How about an exception for people who don't like paying extra for their food so they can run their cars on less efficient fuel?

So why did we do this again?

A couple of very interesting quotes from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Polwatchers Saturday night about political heat he is getting for supporting the bailout bill:

"“It’s not fair to paint this as some kind of fatal vote when you’ve got such a huge bipartisan majority voting for it,” McConnell said in his first detailed discussion with Kentucky reporters of the vote he took 11 days ago."

And this one...

"“If my opponent wants to hit me, he’s hitting Congressman Yarmuth. If he wants to hit me, he’s hitting Barack Obama, he’s hitting (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi,” McConnell said."

Boswell: I support union thuggery

Kentucky Second Congressional District candidate Sen. David Boswell was asked recently his position on Sen. Barack Obama's plan to abolish secret ballot union elections and allow unions to intimidate their way back into domination of not only the political process, but business operations as well.

Watch Boswell as he sides firmly with Obama:

Heating Bill/Re-election Campaign Bailout

Beshear/Abramson/Yarmuth had a press conference this afternoon to announce that you are spending $68 million extra to the government so they can get credit for paying heating bills for Kentuckians who aren't you.

Oh, and they also wanted to remind you to vote for them.


So turn your thermostat down this winter so others won't have to!

Investment advice from Gov. Steve Beshear

This is pegging my irony meter:

Is Steve Beshear seriously giving investment advice? How about "stop spending money you don't have?" Governor? How about "stop paying too much for school construction?" Or maybe "get realistic about funding long-term liabilities?"

Lexington lawyer files major Medicare lawsuit

Lexington, Kentucky attorney Kent Masterson Brown, who helped blow the lid off Sen. Hillary Clinton's secret healthcare planning commission in 1993, was back in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. filing a lawsuit against the Bush Administration for preventing Americans from opting out of the moribund Medicare program.

Brown is attorney for three Medicare-eligible plaintiffs who claim that services available through Medicare are "inferior to those they currently obtain privately," are "effectively rationed because of government budget constraints," and are "provided without concern for patients' privacy."

The lawsuit further states that Medicare was created as an optional program and operated as such until administrative changes created in the Clinton adminstration and strengthened by the Bush administration revoked Social Security benefits from anyone refusing Part A (hospital coverage) Medicare benefits.

The lawsuit's implications could be quite large. As growing stress on the Medicare system causes it to deteriorate, more people with the means to do so will probably seek to escape it. Allowing them to do so could be a money-saver for the federal government:

"Restoring voluntary participation in Medicare not only is the right thing to do, Brown said, but it's good for Medicare as well, which is facing insolvency in a decade or less."

"If just a small percentage of Medicare-eligible retirees were to voluntarily opt out of the program it would save billions of dollars each year, relieving some of the financial pressure on the fiscally ailing program. If just 1 percent of current retirees chose not to participate in Medicare, Medicare expenditures would decrease by about $1.5 billion per year immediately and by approximately $3.4 billion per year by 2017. Program cost savings would continue to increase by greater amounts for
several decades as the "Baby Boomers" retire."

"Why the federal government would penalize somebody for opting out of Medicare, and in the process penalize itself by unnecessarily increasing program costs, is a complete mystery," said Brown. "It is also contrary to the spirit and letter of the law. We hope the Courts will agree and will stop this illegal practice."

The biggest point this lawsuit may make is to underscore the unsoundness of government control of healthcare. Medicare currently presents an $85 trillion unfunded liability to taxpayers.

CATS Inflation So Obvious a Grade School Kid Should See It

The Kentucky Board of Education looked over the new CATS results early this week, but they shouldn’t have wasted their time. With the new scores release, it is now painfully evident that this testing program is hopelessly inflated.

I took a look at the latest scores and compared them to what would have been predicted if what was “Proficient” on state assessments had stayed constant. The results were disappointing, to say the least.

For elementary schools, the latest School Accountability Index is 14.3 points higher than the original scoring scales from the early to mid-1990s would have predicted.

Things were MUCH worse in middle school CATS, however, where the discrepancy was an incredible 29.6 points. Instead of getting the 86.8 Accountability Index in 2008 that was just reported to the board, the middle schools would have only gotten a 57.2 if Kentucky’s scoring scales had not been inflated over the years.

The inflationary trend in middle school Accountability Index results is unmistakable, as this graph shows. Notice that after the fourth year of KIRIS testing in 1994-95 (the dark blue line), middle school progress under KIRIS almost vanished, but it was “resurrected” when the scoring scales were revised (and grossly inflated) when CATS came in (the light blue line), and it got more “bonus points” in 2006-07 when CATS scoring changed again (the red line).

Only the high school scoring has stayed fairly consistent with the original meaning of “Proficiency” as it was defined when KERA got started.

With only small proportions of our eighth graders getting reasonable scores on the ACT’s EXPLORE test, and with the National Assessment of Educational Progress now generally reporting proficiency rates around half those reported in CATS, it is clear that Kentucky isn’t getting an accurate picture of public school performance from its bloated state assessment. Clearly, it is time to move on to something more informative before the Chinese and the Indians academically eat our kids alive.

To see an Excel spreadsheet with the data I examined, click here.

Kentucky first quarter revenues higher

More evidence that Kentucky's fiscal problems represent overspending rather than too-low taxes comes from Budget Director Mary Lassiter's office this morning.

Revenues for the first quarter of the 2009-10 fiscal year were $17,798,488 higher than they were a year ago. Even if you include the $15 million drop in the Road Fund, increased revenues point yet again to the need to get spending under control rather than hitting taxpayers any harder.

Another "eureka!" moment for brain-dead Left

Couldn't help thinking of the following clip from Star Wars when I saw the latest mortality calculator from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. They claim to have found a way to keep people from dying -- and to be able to show you on a snazzy internet calculator.

The RWJ people -- and their hapless followers in the media -- have determined after minutes and minutes of deep thought, that simply raising taxes will set their great plans into action. Funny how their mandate for getting more people some education sounds so much like the federal plan to print more dollar bills so everyone will have running around money.

Oh, here is a link to their life-saving calculator. Too bad there is nothing in there about raising educational standards, making assessments more useful, or controlling wasteful spending by the bureaucracy.

High Tech Hijacking – Web Site Domain Names Seized

Internet Freedom Threatened

For a nice summary from Derek Hunter of the Media Freedom Project on the problems with Kentucky’s ill-advised attempt to seize the Web Domain Names of more than 100 Internet poker sites, check out this video.

Debasing the currency faster

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is out with her latest great idea: another $150 billion "stimulus" check. Good grief. If that worked, wouldn't we already be out of the woods?

It's not just about internet poker

Solid quote from Jim Waters in Poker News Daily about shining light on Gov. Steve Beshear's stealth seizure of internet domains:

"Jim Waters, who is the Director of Policy and Communications for the Bluegrass Institute, commented, “The Governor tried to slip this upon the Kentucky people, but failed when our coalition stood up in Frankfort and openly opposed using the force of government to trample on the rights and liberties of the people.”"

Read more about it here.

Kentucky's credit card still works; Gov excited

Going deeper into debt during a financial crisis and credit crunch -- let alone in the midst of a pension mess, structural deficits, and runaway entitlement spending -- wouldn't generally be considered good news for a poor state unable to get its spending and growth-restraining policies under control.

Welcome to Kentucky:

Life, liberty, and stable home prices?

I don't know why I'm watching this stupid presidential debate. In the first fifteen minutes, both candidates, supposedly from different parties, have each repeatedly touted the importance of introducing "stability" into the pricing of homes.

Why does anyone even think that is a good goal?

CATSflation

I thought the Kentucky Department of Education made all the big score-inflating changes to the CATS school assessment program last year.

I was wrong.

It was announced in today’s State Board of Education meeting that yet another score-inflating item had been added to the high schools in 2008. The department changed the way the On-Demand Writing assessment is scored.

The impact is dramatic. Last year, the high schools got an Academic Index score for On-Demand Writing of 55.7913. This year, thanks to the change, the On-Demand writing score skyrocketed up over 16 points to 71.9879.

To put this in perspective, the Academic Index for high school Reading, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Arts & Humanities all declined from 2007 to 2008. Only Writing Portfolios and Practical Living/Vocational Studies showed small improvements of only a few points at best.

But, On-Demand Writing went up so much that it pretty much cancelled out the overall trend of decline in the majority of the CATS subjects.

This just adds more evidence that the CATS is going to get inflated as much as it takes to make the school system look good. If schools don’t perform – no problem; just inflate the scores to cover up the unpleasant facts.

The following table, derived from page 16 of the 2008 CATS Briefing Packet, shows the Academic Index scores across all high school subjects for 2007 and 2008. Check the inflation for yourself.

New York Putting More Than Your Financial Future at Risk

There seems to be a fair degree of sentiment that New York City is an epicenter of the current financial situation. But, New York’s dubious impacts on Kentuckians may stretch well beyond our wallets. Now, New Yorkers may be gaining undue control over the local news you are getting.

On September 26, 2008 I blogged about the Lexington Herald-Leader’s firing of both education reporters. That firing puts a great demand on remaining news sources to keep us informed.

Yesterday, however, I had a chance to talk to a Frankfort-based reporter for one of the major news services. I asked about that service’s recent obvious reduction in education coverage. The reply I got gave me considerable pause.

The news service controls its Frankfort bureau from locations outside Kentucky, most particularly New York. If out-of-state editors don’t have an interest, it doesn’t get coverage.

And, those out of state editors apparently are not interested in the serious issues confronting Kentucky education.

Thus, a major education news source often cited in many local papers in Kentucky has just about dried up. Added to the total failure of the Kentucky Post last year and the stripping out of both experienced education reporters at the Herald-Leader, it looks like bloggers are going to have to take up some (though we certainly can’t handle all) of the education reporting slack. And, with major issues such as funding, the troubled CATS assessment and Kentucky’s generally uninspiring progress on education sure to come up in the next legislative session, this lack of coverage is going to make it that much harder for all of us to stay informed. It will even make it harder for our elected leaders to get the word out about the things they are doing.

In the early days of this country, almost all were poor. But, newspapers thrived and the news was a hot topic. Informed citizens helped make this country what it became over the next two hundred years. If the citizens lose that ability to be “in the loop,” a crisis much larger than a considerable hit on your wallet – namely your very freedom as an American – may not be far off. And, the epicenter of that problem, once again, might be found along the northeastern coast of the United States.

Will Obama give healthcare a Fannie Mae?

I don't watch enough television to have seen the ad more than twice, but I have been struck by the fact that it is possible to find all of Sen. Barack Obama's television ads on YouTube except for one. It's the one in which he casts his health plan as a common sense compromise between Right and Left.

It's a ridiculous claim, but you may not know that if you don't know your Kentucky history circa 1994, when we enacted his plan. Or you could listen to Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. He was on the Cato Daily Podcast this morning after seeing the ad. He testified:

"The Obama campaign has cast John McCain's health plan as extreme and their own health plan as moderate. There is even an ad the Obama campaign has put on the air that shows two different extremes and the Obama plan in the middle. On one extreme is government run healthcare; the other extreme is insurance companies denying people coverage but Obama is going to avoid both of those extremes. The Obama ad is misleading in every particular. It's misleading because he does support a government run health care system with higher taxes for everybody. He would have health insurance companies denying coverage to people. The fact that he has proposed to require health insurance companies to charge the same premiums to everyone means that those insurance companies are going to avoid sick people. If you can only charge a sick person the average premium then you know they are a liabilty for you and you are going to try to get rid of them any you can and only sign up healthy people. So Barack Obama proposes to have health insurance companies deny care to people and skimp on care for those who need it. It's a pretty misleading ad and, unfortunately, the media have really given him pass on this."

In essence, once all the health insurance companies in America are offering the same plans at the same premiums, the only way to get coverage for the people who can't get coverage is to expand government coverage. Then the private premiums will be so high, more people will clamor for government coverage. It's no stretch to imagine some kind of public-private GSE monster emerging from the wreckage to lead polticians around by the nose like the once-powerful mortgage giants did not so long ago.

Kentucky's next meltdown

Another problem Kentucky is not addressing is its underfunded unemployment insurance reserve.

When the well runs dry, Gov. Steve Beshear can run to the federal government, again, but he will have to stand in line if the situation worsens much more.

And I don't think playing another "hide the pension underfunding" game will work on this one. Nor will a tax increase. Of course, we may be able to do something about the kind of unemployed people we encourage to live in the state.

Franklin County kills tax increase

Gov. Steve Beshear won Franklin County in last year's election 13,878 to 5,022 over former Gov. Ernie Fletcher. He did so campaigning against tax increases, a stance he has since changed.

So it was significant last night when Franklin County's School Board reversed course and unanimously voted to back down from a 4.7 cent property tax increase rather than face certain voter wrath.

Does anyone know if Franklin County voters understand that cigarette tax increases, Beshear's next move, help fund terrorism?

Beshear kicks internet tar baby

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear was elected last year on the promise of what casino gambling revenues could buy for the state. His grand plan died in the legislature, though, when big spenders clashed with "save horse racing with casinos" interests and they could not reconcile their differences.

Plan B for Beshear, it appears, is to clamp down on the scourge of foreign-based internet gambling which he says costs Kentucky tens of millions of dollars a year, competes unfairly with the horse industry, and, presumably, would damage Kentucky's future casino operations.

His arguments for state seizure of 141 domain names get a hearing Tuesday in Franklin Circuit Court and include some nonsense about protecting children and fighting organized crime. He doesn't, of course, explain how the same protections will work for his brick-and-mortar casinos. One thing is crystal clear: this is all about revenue enhancement.

Beshear's problems really begin when jurisdictional issues come up. When that happens, it looks a lot like a successful effort here could set off a string of efforts by governments across the globe to seize domains of web sites they don't like for one reason or another.

That's why the Bluegrass Institute and Americans for Tax Reform teamed up with five other interested parties for an emergency summit in Frankfort, Kentucky to draw attention to the First Amendment downside of Beshear's actions.

This exchange between Bluegrass Institute's Jim Waters and ATR's Patrick Gleason gets to the heart of the matter:
(click here for video)