Educators Aim at Own Foot

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that while our CATS assessments are officially dead, a group of die-hard CATS fans are going to publish their own CATS-like rating of our schools.

Let’s talk about how silly that is.

Our legislators took a hard look at things like our high college remediation rates and poor performance on federal writing, math and reading tests.

They then decided the CATS assessment aimed our teachers in the wrong direction.

The legislature unanimously voted for changes.

And, because the CATS’ aim was clearly faulty, legislators decided to relieve our teachers from its burden as much as possible while we develop a better set of education standards and a new test. That way, teachers can start to benefit right away from the latest developments in instructional research.

But, facts never stopped die-hard CATS fans before. Now, those CATS fans would continue the myth and continue aiming our teachers in the wrong direction.

Yup, that seems about par for Kentucky's public school educational experience. Never mind the facts, even if they indicate you are aiming at your own foot. Fire away, anyway. And, if kids continue to get bad instruction as a consequence, well, that’s not really important.