Panic Over Senate Bill 1

Like it or not, Senate Bill 1, which makes extensive revisions to Kentucky’s CATS public school assessment program, is stirring a lot of discussion. It just triggered a mistake over at the Kentucky Department of Education.

Senate Bill 1 is likely to pass in the Senate this week. In a possible attempt to forestall that, the Kentucky Department of Education got a little too “antsy,” issuing a news release today on a position paper calling for a different – and much slower – approach.

(Note: Original Version – May be revised in the Kentucky Department of Education Web Site)

The problem here is the chair of the Kentucky Board of Education, Joe Brothers, confirms the Kentucky Board of Education has yet to vote on this position paper. The earliest the board could do so is tomorrow.

So, the news release’s claim that the board already “released” this paper apparently isn’t correct.

By the way, this position paper offers only very unambitious, stretched out deadlines; meaningful changes to CATS are not promised for years. Meanwhile, Kentucky will continue to experience huge freshman college remediation rates and disastrous unemployment figures for young adults.

Quite possibly, when the board does consider this paper, they will vote differently. And, regardless of what the board does, it seems like, after 19 years of KERA, impatience with CATS has grown so strong that something is going to happen regardless of what the board decides. However, right now, the board apparently hasn’t decided anything despite this news release from the department of education to the contrary.