Teachers’ Union Leader Dropped from State Board of Education

There have been more than a few eyebrows raised by the Kentucky Senate’s failure (refusal?) to confirm Steve Neal, The executive director of the Jefferson County Teachers Association, as a member of the Kentucky Board of Education. However, maybe that was the legally appropriate thing to do.

There aren’t a large number of restrictions on who can serve as a board member, but one of those, contained in Kentucky Revised Statute 156.040 stipulates that a board member shall:

“Not be directly or indirectly interested in the sale to the Kentucky Board of Education or the Department of Education of books, stationery, or any other property, materials, supplies, equipment, or services for which board or department funds are expended.”

As the executive of the Jefferson County Teachers Association, which represents teachers in discussions about the services they will render for the wages received, it certainly seems like Mr. Neal would have to run afoul of this provision.

Perhaps someone in the Senate agrees.

In any event, the governor isn’t fighting the senate on this development, and a new nominee is promised in the near future. Hopefully, that person won’t pose any problems with statute.

Challenges in marketing to Bailed Out Nation

Just as Walgreens and Ford announced free market solutions for customers facing temporary financial difficulties today, federally controlled General Motors had to come along and spoil the mood.

Walgreens will give unemployed and uninsured customers limited services at no charge in their in-store health clinics. Louisville has eight such clinics. Ford will cover car payments for customers who lose their jobs.

GM is going to follow Ford's lead, but with tax dollars.

It's hardly fair that GM should be able to use federal money to copy Ford's promotion.

And if silly government regulations like certificate of need and federal price-fixing of health services weren't in the way, medical providers like Walgreens could offer more to their customers who are down on their luck because of the economy -- and those who are just victimized by bad government healthcare policies.

Don't Miss -- Great "Commentary" on Taxes

This will warm you up for the Bluegrass Tax Liberation Day on April 18.

See you at:

Applebee’s Ball Park

207 Legends Lane

Lexington, KY 40505

Saturday, April 18, 2009

11am-2pm
rain or shine

Tell the whole world: I believe in free trade

More than a decade ago, Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman wrote in “The Case for Free Trade” that a “fallacy seldom contradicted is that exports are good, imports bad.”

One of those rare opportunities now stares you in the face. Tell the entire world you believe free trade is the best policy by signing a petition here that will be unveiled Wednesday before the G20 economic summit in London.

With the specter of protectionism rising, it’s time for Americans to take Friedman up on his suggestion offered in 1997: “We could say to the rest of the world: We cannot force you to be free. But we believe in freedom and we intend to practice it.”

Health status insurance worth considering

President Barack Obama and Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear seem to be of like mind when it comes to expanding government's role in health insurance. A Cato Institute scholar has a better idea: getting the government to back off and encouraging health insurers to provide better coverage against the risk of getting sick.

From Investor's Business Daily:

"Government does a mediocre and costly job of basic simple services like garbage removal; government-provided health insurance is a certain recipe for expensive, inefficient and ossified health care."

"Government is not the only option. Markets can provide long-term, secure health insurance while enhancing choice and competition. Given the chance, they will."

"The key innovation is "health-status insurance." If a health shock causes your medical-insurance premiums to rise, it pays a lump-sum payment sufficient to pay the higher medical-insurance premiums. (To deter fraud, the payment goes into a special account that can only be used for medical insurance premiums.)"

"You can always purchase medical insurance with no change in out-of-pocket costs, and therefore have complete long-term health security."

"When people have health-status insurance, medical insurers can be turned loose to freely compete, even though they will charge higher premiums to those with long-term illnesses."

"Insurers will compete for the sickest patients, attracting them with better care rather than "cost containing" them, or denying them coverage for pre-existing conditions. Insurers will compete hard for the healthy patients too, giving us all better service at lower cost."

The whole article is worth a read. Getting out of the way and allowing greater consumer choice is the way to enhance freedom and prosperity. We've given the alternate approach too many opportunities to succeed already.

Private Schools Run Away with Northern Kentucky Science Fair Honors

The “North Area Counties of Kentucky Exposition of Science” was held on March 21, 2009, and the list of winners is now posted.

To put it mildly, the winners’ list is dominated by the Northern Kentucky parochial schools. In fact, a Catholic school won the school-level award for both junior (grade 5 to grade 8) and high school levels of the competition.

This actually is a little surprising, because some recent studies have claimed that there are no advantages for private schools.

Anyway, that urban legend has been shot full of holes by this science fair, which was open to all students in the 30 county area of Northern Kentucky.

Overstaffed Public Schools

-- Finally getting the message

From our early days the Bluegrass Institute has pointed out that there is something wrong with the ratio of teachers to other staff in our schools. This graph, which shows Kentucky ranks dead last for this ratio among the 50 states and even Washington, DC, has run ever since the early days of the Bluegrass Institute’s “Ten Great Reasons for School Choice” started publication half a decade ago (See the current "Ten Great Reasons" here).


Historically, not everyone agreed with us.

For example, the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence took some issue with the graph above back in 2005. See their comments and our response in the far right column of page 4 in this document where it talks about Reason No. 8.

But, times are changing. Over at the Prichard Blog, Susan Weston now raises concerns that Kentucky seems to have overstaffing problems in its public schools.

Well, this isn’t a new issue, but it is new for Prichard Committee to revise their position to agree with our long-running analysis and concerns.

So, without a doubt, our “tooth to tail” teacher to staff ratio in Kentucky’s public schools does look problematic. Even Prichard now admits that.

This needs an investigation.

Don't forget prevailing wage reform

In looking for a way to govern Detroit automakers to prosperity, even President Barack Obama seems to realize the influence of union wages has had a negative effect.

"What we are asking is difficult," Obama said today. "It will require hard choices by companies. It will require unions and workers who have already made painful concessions to make even more."

So as Kentucky moves closer to a tax raising special session, wouldn't it make sense for us to look at the excessive costs of mandating union wages for public construction projects in the state?

National Board Certified Teachers

– Are they worth the cost?

Around 74,000 teachers now have been certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and 32,000 teachers have been certified for more than half a decade.

The organization’s directory of teachers indicates that as of March 30, 2009 there are 1,605 active certified teachers in Kentucky, although state data implies somewhat fewer are actually working in positions where they qualify for annual incentive stipends.

Certainly, with so many teachers now certified, there should be some pretty decent data on how NBPTS teachers really perform.

And, given the initial costs of certification (at least $2,565) and the continuing extra $2,000 stipend that each certified teacher gets every year in Kentucky, which cost the state $2,464,000 in the 2007-08 school year, that evidence should conclusively show that nationally certified teachers make a big difference in the classroom.

Sadly, that isn’t the case. In fact, in a recent interview (free subscription may be required to fully access article) in the Phi Delta Kappan education journal, Suzanne M. Wilson was asked about the effects of being certified. She replied, “The effects and consequences of the NBPTS for teachers’ individual and collective work remains unclear.” Ms. Wilson went on to point out that there hasn’t been much exploration of ways to structure the careers of teachers with certification.

What makes Ms. Wilson’s rather unimpressive assessment of the situation more telling is the fact that she helped to write the NBPTS policy document that provided the framework for the organization’s standards. If anything, Ms. Wilson would be expected to paint the rosiest picture possible.

With an up front cost to date of over $4 million to nationally certify Kentucky’s 1,605 NBPTS teachers and with continuing annual costs of almost $2.5 million, it seems time to ask if the taxpayer might deserve a better bang for his bucks.

Senate Bill 1 Action Shifts to Board of Education – Maybe

The legislative session has ended, and Senate Bill 1 (SB-1), which drops the CATS assessments, is now law.

Next, activity to implement the nuts and bolts of the bill shifts to the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) and the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE).

The first chance these two groups will have to work SB-1 will come on April 1 and 2 at the next meeting of the Kentucky Board of Education.

However, if the agenda for the meeting is any indication, there doesn’t seem to be much planned to begin extensive work required by SB-1.

That’s not a good idea, because SB-1 has some fast action requirements that need to be worked right away.

For example, the new legislation requires the KDE to begin a comprehensive process of reviewing academic standards in all the CATS areas within 30 days of the bill’s enactment. That process has to be coordinated with the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. Certainly, the KBE will want to know what is going on in this effort, as the standards are the very heart of any good accountability system.

In addition, the KBE is required to revise the administration code for the assessments to outlaw inappropriate test preparation activities. This revision must include disciplinary actions to be taken for infractions, which are always difficult to develop. SB-1 says this regulatory update must happen within 60 days of the effective date of the bill, which I assume occurred when Gov. Beshear signed it last week.

Anyway, the only item in the KBE agenda that seems related to SB-1 is a generic reference to a review of “2009 Elementary and secondary legislation (attachment under separate cover).” This single event comes on day two of the board meeting, so if board members want to consider anything for later discussion, those discussions would have to come at a later board meeting.

I would suggest that the initial discussion of SB-1 needs to be moved forward to day one of the board’s meeting so an initial follow-up can occur on day two. Setting up anything in this state’s regulatory system in 60 days is difficult, at best, so the test practice rule revision work needs to start ASAP. Furthermore, the board might want to pass on some guidance to the KDE as it starts the standards review process. Having an extra day to work up that guidance would probably be a smart move, as well.

Gov. Beshear, repudiate the raid

It's hard to argue with the idea that the worst thing the Kentucky General Assembly did in the 2009 regular session was tucked into page two of a House Committee Substitute of HB 143. It allowed:

"... the Governor to direct a one-time transfer of up to $50,000,000 from the Public Employee Health Insurance Trust Fund's surplus to the General Fund."

The Health Fund raid comes in addition to the public employee benefits mess whose underfunding was nearly $30 billion last June before the bottom fell out of the stock market.

Senate President David Williams seemed to recognize as recently as last summer that continuing to treat the benefits plans like a bottomless piggy bank was not a good idea. Former Speaker of the House Jody Richards' rambling justification for inaction at the time will only look worse as time goes on.

Gov. Beshear should do the right thing and repudiate the Health Fund raid.

Hiding Policy from the Public with a Private Sector Ploy – Continued

I blogged on an Ohio anti-government transparency trick yesterday.

Already, the fruits of these shenanigans are coming to light.

Today the Cincinnati Enquirer reports Ohio’s special education community is up in arms about the education budget that resulted from conducting the work in a private company immune from Ohio’s open records laws.

Some of the charges from the special-ed folks include using one-time federal stimulus money to fund programs that need long-term, multi-year commitments and possible violation of federal laws.

The Ohio governor’s office reportedly is already backtracking, which just means more time will now be wasted because of this clear violation of the concept of government transparency.

Kentucky legislators – please pay attention. We don’t want this sort of deep secret budget stuff going on down here. With rumors of a special session already flying everywhere, you may face Ohio-like temptations sooner than you think.

Beshear gives himself an A+

Gov. Steve Beshear's video message released Friday discussed the just-completed legislative session.

"When we entered the 2009 General Assembly session, the legislature and I understood that our state's future was truly on the line. All of us knew we were working toward something much larger than ourselves, so we ignored labels like Democrat and Republican, House and Senate, Legislative and Executive."

They also set aside labels like fiscal restraint, discipline, honesty, and transparency.

US Still Has Education Problems Compared to Other Countries

A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics on “Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G-8 Countries: 2009” has just been released. We still need to worry about what our kids are not learning.

Figure 12a in the report, shown here, indicates that for children who come from wealthy households, shown by the light gray bars, the US Science score of 541 only exceeded children of wealthy parents in the Russian Federation and Italy.

For students whose parents come from the least wealthy families, in each country, shown by the blue bars, our kids only beat out Italy.

In addition, I looked at the poor-to-wealthy score gap for each country. Our gap of 96 points (541 minus 445) was only exceeded by France. That raises equity issues, as well.

Hiding Policy from the Public with a Private Sector Ploy

Ohio’s open records laws apparently do not allow that state’s citizens to access work done by private contractors – even if that work is for public organizations.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Ohio’s governor Strickland is currently working this loophole to hide his plans for school funding from both the public and their elected officials.

We don’t know if a similar ploy could work today in Kentucky, but that doesn’t mean it could not be snuck into legislation in the future. Certainly, what is going on in Ohio isn’t what we want for government transparency.

KERA Theories That Just Didn’t Work

The dust is settling from the final signing of Senate Bill 1 (SB-1), which marks the well-deserved end of Kentucky’s second unsuccessful attempt to incorporate Progressive Education Theories into a valid assessment program. The demise of the CATS assessments, which never changed enough from the original KIRIS assessment to be successful, reminds me of other ideas that back in the 1990s we were told the “research shows” work best for kids.

Here is a short list of some of those “research shows” ideas that real experience proved were off the mark.

1) Multi-age Classrooms

Technically, the multi-age classroom law is still on the books, but an intentional legal loophole added in 1998 means no-one bothers to observe it. An interesting back and forth on why multi-age didn’t work out is going on over at the Prichard Blog, with two folks who usually fuss about the Bluegrass Institute challenging each other, instead. It’s an interesting read.

2) Writing Portfolios

SB-1 also marks the demise of the dubious idea that writing portfolios, which are a great writing instructional tool, could be forced down every teacher’s throat by putting them into the state’s accountability system.

3) Math Portfolios

Anyone remember those? Writing about math instead of doing math was such a bad idea that these were gone within four years.

4) Performance Events

These died in part due to extraordinarily horrible management. One of the basic rules of large scale test creation is that you need to do trial runs with the test questions. But our testing contractor got cheap and stopped proofing the performance events. The performance events they foisted on Kentucky the next year were so incredibly hard that the middle school results were totally unusable. This KERA darling crashed around 1996.

5) Multiple Choice Questions

The folks who set up Kentucky’s testing program back in 1992 hated multiple choice questions. They thought these led to overly scripted teaching and that multiple-choice questions could not test students’ higher order thinking skills. Thus, while the old KIRIS initially had multiple-choice questions, they were not counted. In fact, if memory serves, the multiple-choice questions were totally dropped from the test for a time after 1994. That misguided decision didn’t last long, though. By the time CATS came along, multiple-choice was back, and this time they counted.

One point to this reminiscing is that education research doesn’t have a stellar record for accuracy. As we gin up the third attempt to create a good school assessment program in Kentucky, the people who will be doing that will need to keep a wary eye on the things they are told “research shows.” You see, in education, what passes for research often doesn’t show anything.

By the way, how’s your recollection of “research showed” education “stuff” that didn’t work in Kentucky’s reform? Comments welcome.

How about 1-800-NO-WASTE?

When the Kentucky legislature raised cigarette taxes last month, they did it promising to raise nearly $150 million in new tobacco taxes to go toward the old overspending.

Also part of the rationale for the tax hike was that it would incentivize people to quit smoking.

Today, though, we get the first public acknowledgement from Frankfort that it was all a smokescreen on the path to bigger government.

The Kentucky Department for Public Health is setting up a "free" quit smoking counseling service accessible to the public via 1-800-QUIT-NOW.

So, rather than change government's overspending behavior with higher taxes we raised taxes with a promise to change taxpayer behavior while maintaining government's behavior. Now we are spending more to do a "better job" of changing taxpayer behavior.

Any bets on how long it will take for demands of greater smoking cessation funding and "necessary" tax increases to pay for it? We are incentivizing ourselves in circles.

Any more vote changers out there?

Sen. Damon Thayer changed his vote on tax increase bill HB 236 yesterday from yes to no. It's a move that will add to Thayer's already-solid reputation with the Kentucky Club for Growth, though way too few of his fellow Senators came along and Gov. Steve Beshear has already signed the tax increase.

Kentucky taxpayers could have used a few more vote changers.

Did a teleprompter make him say this?

Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo sent out a press release Thursday evening including the following:

"This has been a highly productive time for all of Kentucky, from resolving the current budget crisis to enacting a multi-billion dollar road plan and greatly improving school testing. We have done our work efficiently and transparently."

It's hard to get too excited about the way legislators dealt with "the current budget crisis." It would be more accurate to say that they pushed off the current year's overspending to future years.

And as far as the transparency goes, we should just consider ourselves fortunate that Stumbo's and Senate President David Williams' twin legislative power grab and secrecy bill efforts weren't "highly productive."

Governor Euthanizes Unwanted CATS

– It’s Now Law

Governor Beshear has signed Senate Bill 1, officially ending Kentucky’s second experiment with Progressive Education Philosophy’s ideas about high stakes school assessments.

Now, the focus shifts to how faithfully the Kentucky Department of Education and the Board of Education will move out to implement the new bill.

Check this out about ‘Card Check’

Most people concerned about “Card Check” understand the proposed bill represents an assault on the sacred American tradition of casting secret ballots.

What business owners must know: the law removes the requirement that labor unions tell employers about organizing drives. It also forces businesses to accept decisions by federal-government arbitrators.

According to the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, under the “Card Check” law, arbitrators’ decisions would tell businesses how to operate “for the duration of the contract such as the wages, benefits, ability to use employees most productively, and how many employees would be used for specific tasks.”

Now you know why BIPPS board chair Kathy Gornik went all the way to Washington to expose – and oppose – this blatant attack on our capitalistic freedom.

Superintendents Thumb Noses at Help from Department of Education

Union County Schools superintendent Josh Powell is nothing if not courageous. Installed in this faltering school system for only a few months, he was summoned to Frankfort on February 10, 2009 to tell the Kentucky Board of Education what he was going to do to fix Union County’s very poor rating under No Child Left Behind.

Board members and state educators began holding their breath as Powell made it perfectly clear that his plans didn’t include any “help” from the Kentucky Department of Education’s ASSIST Team “experts.” Powell was quite confident that he knew what to do. He asserted his district would make things better for its students without help from Frankfort, thank you very much.

By the time Powell was done, some of Frankfort’s worthies were near asphyxiation.

Now, the Herald-Leader has a follow-up on what is happening in this small school district. It looks like others are starting to believe Powell really is on to something.

According to the newspaper, the Kentucky Association of School Councils says Union students are “far more engaged than they were before.” Union teachers now demand more of the students, and kids are not sleeping through class any more.

As far as I can tell, the school councils association has no reason – beyond wanting to improve education – to back an upstart district against the powers in Frankfort.

Other’s are taking note, as well. It looks like the Herald-Leader’s article was triggered when the superintendent of the Frankfort Independent Schools recently didn’t head down the street to the Kentucky Department of Education to get help in boosting his kids’ performance. Bypassing his in-town neighbor educators all together, the Frankfort school’s leader headed way out to Western Kentucky to see what’s going on in Union.

It’s really too soon to tell if the Union transformation will be successful, but the early signs are hopeful. Union reports scores from its own longitudinal testing program (a testing model the Bluegrass Institute has pushed for years) show very heartening progress.

Powell is claiming that his schools will do dramatically better when the state’s assessments are given later this year. We’ll be keeping an eye on that, and I guarantee a lot of other people will, too. After all, some in the state’s education establishment still haven’t got their breath back after Powell’s February presentation.

Editors Make Lousy Education Analysts

– Editorial staff at the Courier-Journal continues to provide evidence that they really don’t understand Kentucky education

During last year’s meetings of the Kentucky Department of Education’s Assessment and Accountability Task Force, I found myself agreeing with the Kentucky Education Association (KEA) on a number of points.

One is the fact that federal writing test results strongly support what Kentucky teachers tell us – writing portfolios lose their effectiveness and actually become counter-productive when they are used in the CATS accountability program. In fact, CATS writing portfolios tie teachers’ hands.

I even joked with Sharron Oxendine, the president of the KEA, that when the Bluegrass Institute and the union agree, it is significant enough for the governor to call a special session to enact the required legislation right away.

Of course, the Courier-Journal had no direct way of knowing this – I never saw a Courier reporter at any of the task force meetings, and others present noted this absence, as well.

Still, after going “missing in action,” the editors at the Courier somehow think they have the inside track on problems with the assessment. The editors, who probably don’t spend much time in classrooms or talking to teachers, either, somehow think they can pontificate about how lazy our teachers are.

Well, when the Courier gets off its own lazy backside and starts showing up at important education meetings again, maybe they will learn enough to make some positive inputs to the discussion.

Right now, though, the Courier has mortgaged its credibility on this issue. They just stayed home.

Meanwhile people like Oxendine and me were out there interacting to see what we might collectively be able to do so our kids don’t score near the bottom on the federal writing tests again like we did in 2007.

Gov. Beshear, your web site stinks!

Here is the latest data on Gov. Steve Beshear's phoney baloney "eTransparency" web site he put up with much fanfare in January and to the delight of the Lexington Herald Leader:

House Democrats killed off an effort to mandate meaningful government spending transparency again this session. Senate Republicans didn't do much better, though there is some hope for next year thanks to Sen. Damon Thayer.

Can't imagine why they are so opposed to letting us know what they are doing with our money, can you?

'Enough'

In his recent letter published by LEO Weekly, Louisville’s alternative publication, St. Matthews’ resident Paul L. Whiteley Sr. makes a weak, but deceptively empty, case against a free-market economic system.

Whiteley suggests "combin(ing) the best ideas" from socialism and capitalism to "forge a system in which compassion is abundant and greed is rare." He adds: "Capitalism is not all good, and socialism is not all bad."

Mr. Whiteley doesn't bother to honor us free-market underlings with specifics of what is "good" about capitalism or "bad" about socialism, other than offering the worn-out mantra: "Greed is bad."

Those who think that sounds reasonable should consider Whiteley's concluding statement: "'Enough is a feast' is a good economic philosophy to live by."

Whoops! Not only does Whiteley misquote 16th century English writer John Heywood, he also fails to tell us who determines what is "enough.”

Apparently, he thinks government determining what’s “enough” is one of the “good” things about socialism. He’s as wrong as his quote.

Just another brick in the wall

The protectors of Kentucky's education status quo aren't finished gnashing their teeth over one victory for school accountability in the current General Assembly with the passage of Senate Bill 1.

But they can take solace in the fact that your children probably won't get a chance to go to anything like The Gatton Academy of Math and Science at Western Kentucky University, because another legislative session is going to end with charter schools remaining illegal for almost everyone else.

But as the good folks at The Gatton Academy know, these things take time.

A Pause in CATS Accountability May be a Good Idea

Kentucky endured an excess of editorial hand-wringing recently over the demise of the state’s CATS school assessments. Those one-sided rants fuss about newly enacted plans for a three-year pause from CATS school accountability. Instead of even considering that there might be a bright side to temporarily halting high stakes accountability, these editors just whine that education reform is dead (it isn’t).

Since you apparently aren’t going hear it from the press, we look here at the other side of the coin – how dropping the high stakes accountability for CATS for a few years could allow our teachers to start making needed curriculum improvements right away while we go through the three year process of creating a much better and up-to-date assessment program.

If you are interested in seeing what Paul Harvey liked to call, “the rest of the story,” read on.

Two wolves and a sheep vote on dinner, again

Having absorbed billions of dollars in losses in cozy bailout deals between big business and the federal government, taxpayers can't be surprised they now face getting squeezed in a handshake between the insurance industry and socialized medicine advocates in the Obama Administration.

Here it comes:

First, charging higher premiums for more expensive customers is about as controversial as a doctor charging more for removing a brain tumor than he does for removing a mole. Second, charging all policyholders the same premium means healthy insureds will subsidize the unhealthy. Offering that in exchange for a requirement that everyone purchase health insurance (and that taxpayers must subsidize many of them) ensures that the only losers in the transaction are those who were left out of the negotiations.

With accomplishments like these...

House Speaker Greg Stumbo said this evening "I am proud of the important work accomplished by the legislature, as shown by the following partial list of new laws."

His list of "accomplishments" includes:

HB 143, the pension raid bill
HB 144, the tax increase bill
HB 117, the pension payment deferral bill
HB 153, the milk regulation bill

The best thing about the milk regulation bill is that price-fixing was removed from the final version of the bill. For now.

On the other hand, SB 1, which killed the discredited CATS testing program, was an accomplishment.

Bluegrass Institute’s Board Chair Testifies in Washington

Kathy Gornik, the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions board chair, testified today before a Senate Republican Conference on the potential adverse impacts of the proposed “Card Check” legislation.

You can find the full testimony from Kathy and the other speakers by going to this link and then clicking on the item “Senate Hearings on Unions” which I highlight with an arrow in the picture below.

Check this out to learn how Card Check is one of the most undemocratic pieces of legislation to come down the pike in a very long time.

What to do next

The Kentucky Tea Party this past weekend seemed to inspire many of those in attendance. In fact, the most common question heard afterwards was "what's next?"

One good answer is Bluegrass Tax Liberation Day, the April 18 follow-up event to the Tea Party. Everyone is invited to Applebee's Park from 11 am to 2 pm.

Another is to sign up on the Bluegrass Institute's new wiki site and add content to existing pages or even create your own about issues important to you.

It's called FreedomKentucky.org. Click here to get started.

Government transparency takes another hit

Fresh of breaking his campaign promise about making Congressional bills publicly available for five days before a vote, President Barack Obama's blue-ribbon economic committee is now meeting in secrecy.

This sentiment is firmly entrenched in Kentucky as well, where Gov. Steve Beshear repeatedly promised more spending transparency and an efficiency study of state government without any follow-through. And we can't forget the failed effort by House Speaker Greg Stumbo and Senate President David Williams to set up a new secretive legislative bureaucracy.

Now, There’s a Tea Party Song!

Check it out.




You can find the lyrics here if you want to sing along.

Kentucky Tea Party

– Great Success for Leland Conway and WLAP Radio!

Congratulations to host Leland Conway and WLAP Radio for a super anti-tax tea party in Lexington on Saturday.

Check it out here.




And, don’t forget to join us for the BIPPS Tea Party on April 18th. Get details at www.bipps.org.

First step is admitting you have a problem

All the fiscal malfeasance coming from our government representatives is really starting to wake people up in Kentucky.

Saturday in Lexington is just a first step.

Other events across the state on April 15 are starting to pop up. We'll be back in Lexington on April 18 for another big event.

And calls have come in today about events being planned for Prestonsburg and Paducah. Stay tuned for details...

Cover them with what?!?!

Gov. Steve Beshear is calling next week '"Cover the uninsured week" with Passport Health Plan.'

Passport Health Plan is a Medicaid plan for over 140,000 Kentuckians.

Might we suggest instead "Cover the uninsured with less expensive regulations week?"

Repealing certificate of need regulations would be a much better approach than signing more people up for a government program we already can't afford.

College Performance Points to Problems in Kentucky’s P to 12 Schools

Over at the Prichard Committee’s Blog, Susan Weston recently pointed at a really interesting “Bang for the Buck” graph that depicts the efficiency of turning out college degrees in Kentucky’s postsecondary institutions. This graph comes from a Kentucky Chamber of Commerce report that discusses a number of ways that the state’s public college system could improve its efficiency. The graph shows that college degree production in Kentucky is very inefficient compared to the programs in other states.

While her discussion touches on some things that the colleges can directly control to improve their efficiency, Ms. Weston omits any mention of the possibility that Kentucky’s relatively high college costs and comparatively low college degree output may be due in significant measure to the poorly educated product coming from our public school system.

This is an important issue, so the Bluegrass Institute decided to dig a bit deeper. To see what we found, read on.

Herald-Leader: Testing changes may confuse schools, parents over next three years

— But, CATS has confused people since 1999

Hand-wringing continues in the media about pending changes to the CATS school assessments. These changes will soon take place as a result of the recently passed Senate Bill 1.

Sadly, in a ruffled feathers reaction to the bill, some of its critics are now going too far. The latest examples of these excesses appeared yesterday in this Herald-Leader article.

For example, even though the article correctly points out that tests in writing, science and social studies will continue to be given over the next three years, Dr. Robert Sexton of the Prichard Committee opines that, “parents and the public will know nothing ... about whether a school is making progress or not vis-à-vis other schools and compared to the year before."

Well, if the scores are provided, why can’t parents and others like the Bluegrass Institute – and even the Prichard Committee – look at them to see trends? Does Dr. Sexton really think Kentuckians are incapable of doing that? Can it be that scores for math, reading, science, social studies and writing first have to be simplified down to one final number before anyone in this state can understand the data?

The article next goes on to say, “The chief goal of CATS was having all Kentucky children scoring in the "proficient" range by 2014.”

That is incorrect. In fact, this is one of the biggest misrepresentations in CATS. The Bluegrass Institute discusses this issue in great detail in our four-part You Tube series on how the CATS accountability index really works (Find links to those You Tubes here under Item 13).

We also discuss this erroneous assertion in our paper, “Planning for failure: Is the road to 2014 leading toward proficiency for all Kentucky students?”

The truth is that under CATS schools could escape all accountability – even in 2014 – with proficiency rates as low as 39 percent in math and zero – yes, ZERO – percent proficiency in on-demand writing. We provide real world examples to back up that claim.

In truth, the only real guarantee in CATS’ is something much less than its supporters are willing to admit.

Finally, the Herald-Leader article includes a disturbing example of why I recently put out a caution about what needs to happen next. This involves the detailed steps still required to create the actual assessments from the more general directions found in SB-1. The Herald-Leader says that Kentucky Department of Education key spokesperson Lisa Gross told their reporter, “Under CATS, the state annually published ‘non-academic data,’ including items like schools' dropout rates, attendance rates and other measures. SB 1 doesn't mention that.”

That is absolutely incorrect. In fact, SB-1 basically continues intact the requirements to publish nonacademic data as stipulated in the original CATS legislation. One place you can find mention of nonacademic requirements without even reading very much is on pages 1 and 2 of the Enrolled version of SB-1 (this is the version that goes to the governor for signature).

Additional language specifically stating that nonacademic data is still required in the annual school report cards, also still required, is found on page 22 of the Enrolled SB-1.

SB-1 leaves no doubt that graduation rates, dropout rates, and the proportion of students who make successful transitions after high school are still required reporting items for the Kentucky Department of Education.

So, the fact that the education department’s key spokesperson told the Herald-Leader that SB-1 ignores reporting of nonacademic data does not engender confidence that the department is going to give this bill a good faith implementation effort. I hope legislators understand that.

Anyway, instead of grousing about whatever evils they think this bill contains or overlooks, it would be better if everyone first reads it with an open mind. Then, the people who will be putting the nuts on the bolts to make SB-1 work should take a positive attitude as they work out the process details.

Make no mistake – if these folks want SB-1 to fail, it probably will. On the other hand, if these folks want to take advantage of a great opportunity to make Kentucky’s school assessments work better for parents and students, they can make that happen instead.

It sadly seems that ruffled feathers over the demise of CATS are getting in the way of the great opportunity SB-1 presents to do a thorough rework and modernization of Kentucky’s education standards. The bill offers a chance to develop a really superior assessment and accountability program around those standards, but only if people are willing to give it a fair chance. But, putting out the wrong information will indeed lead to a lot of confusion instead of action, and that would be a very sad thing for Kentucky’s students and the commonwealth in general.

A little help for Gov. Steve Beshear

Gov. Steve Beshear's "Kentucky's Open Door" web site remains closed to the public in terms of providing much useful information about where the state is spending our money.

Perhaps we should encourage Beshear to post the salaries of all state government employees to help get him started on the way to the transparency he has promised us so many times.

Do the right thing, Governor

Pensions & Investments reported Wednesday afternoon that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has requested again to use part of the federal "stimulus" money to pay down his state's public employee benefits debt.

Rather than use this one-time money to make government bigger -- and thus, more unaffordable in the future -- Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear would be very well advised to make the same request.

Kentucky's benefits plans were $29 billion underfunded last June, before the stock market tanked.

Numbers and politics

State mandated union wages for school construction projects are costing Kentucky children just over $341 million based on current building needs, the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition reported Thursday evening.

That number is based on $3.1 billion in requests from the Kentucky Department of Education and a conservative estimate of 10.7% added to construction costs by the prevailing wage mandate.

Senate Bill 145 would eliminate the prevailing wage mandate for school construction projects. The Kentucky Opportunity Coalition posted a chart of available savings by school district.

Stimulating photo ops

Tuesday night in Frankfort, the State Journal newspaper reports, state Rep. Derrick Graham and Franklin County Judge Executive Ted Collins appeared at a public library to discuss borrowed federal money coming their way.

On April 13, state Sen. Julian Carroll and Congressman Ben Chandler will be in to discuss the same thing.

Another interesting tidbit from the story is the claim, unattributed to anyone, that the spendulus will "create or save about 8,000 jobs in the sixth Congressional district."

No word on how they are going to count those jobs.

Choosing Obama's $700 million poison

So, let's try to get this straight. If South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford refuses $700 million in one-time money from the federal government, he would risk causing the loss of 4000 teachers' jobs and 700 prison guards.

At least that is what this news story says:

But if that is true, whose fault will it be next year without another $700 million gift plus $35 million in interest payments for this year's $700 million?

Some Comments on the Demise of CATS

Readers are probably surprised that I didn’t jump out right away this past weekend with some sort of gloating Blog item about the passage of Senate Bill 1 last Friday. This bill will significantly revise and improve Kentucky’s public school assessment program, something I have recommended doing for some time.

Actually, I figured most of you know that the Bluegrass Institute did play a roll in this legislation. In fact, while not by name, we’ve basically been accused of that in several different liberal newspapers as David Adams points out in “These things always happen in threes” over at the Kentucky Progress Blog.

And, we did play a role, providing a huge amount of research and commentary on the CATS’ major failings, both by itself as the state assessment (find some links to some of that research here) and as the testing input to Kentucky’s NCLB program.

In any event, my focus isn’t on some prideful patting myself on the back, despite accusations of that elsewhere.

The important issue is to translate some pretty good provisions in SB-1 into really positive changes for Kentucky’s students. And, that may not be so easy to do.

We need to insure the new assessments are more resistant to the sort of inflation-to-make-educators-look-good problems that ultimately undermined CATS’ credibility.

That may be possible with a continuous comparison to other tests like the National Assessment of Educational Progress and nationally normed tests such as the ACT. SB-1 does not call for that safety check, but it does not prevent the Kentucky Board of Education from establishing an inflation watch program by regulation, either.

There are also potential pitfalls to avoid in some provisions in SB-1 such as the one to consider international benchmarks. Not all international tests are suitable.

This means some really smart and properly motivated people – including some of our very best teachers along with key college professors, parents and business leaders – now need to volunteer for the various committees that will be formed to review and revamp our “mile wide, inch deep” education standards. These people will need to look at the latest research with a careful eye, as education research in general isn’t in very good shape, as experts like Arthur Levine have pointed out.

It’s going to take some sharp people to separate the research wheat from the chaff.

The proper focus going forward also means that the legislature needs to keep a careful eye on the department of education as SB-1 is translated into actual policy. We found out in the past that the department is capable of going off on its own despite the provisions in law. The department dramatically proved that when it illegally dropped norm reference testing in elementary schools and when it consistently ignored a provision to create a longitudinal assessment to track student performance over time. That provision was in the 1998 legislation that created CATS, by the way. It’s a decade later, and it never happened.

Hopefully, with a new commissioner of education coming on board sometime in the next few months and with many other entrenched personnel now retired or moved on from the education department, this issue will not be as large a problem as in the past, but history tells me we can’t assume that will happen.

So, am I pleased that CATS is being replaced? Absolutely! But, am I keeping my eyes wide open so that we don’t wind up, as we did when CATS replaced KIRIS after 1998, with an assessment program that still doesn’t do the job? You bet!

Kentucky's multibillion dollar unfunded secret

A post on this blog from the weekend about the coming pension disaster is currently the most popular page for readers of this site. It has been widely read primarily because it was picked up by a national pension site called PensionTsunami.com.

Otherwise, the issue has generated barely a trickle of interest inside Kentucky.

Most conversation I've heard about the 2009 General Assembly centers on the tax increases. They have received a lot of media coverage also.

But separate Health Fund and local pension raids have gone virtually unnoticed, though they will impact us much more than the smallish tax increases or any of the social issues recently debated in Frankfort.

I wonder why that is.

Tea time in Lexington

Leland Conway of 630 WLAP in Lexington's pork rind protest fame is spearheading the Kentucky Tea Party on Saturday, March 21 at the Fayette County Courthouse.

The Bluegrass Institute is proud to join him and supports the effort as a sponsor.

What we hope to accomplish is to show our elected officials in Lexington, Frankfort, and Washington D.C. that the American fighting spirit will burn longer than their cockamamie programs and backroom political deals. They need us more than we need them and we say enough is enough. Our battle will not be won until government of, by, and for the people is run openly, honestly, and affordably.

Please join us.

42% of Kentuckians from another planet

Amid all the mess in the 2009 General Assembly, from tax increases and the raid of the Health Fund to the failure of prevailing wage reform and government transparency bills (here and here), a recent Kentucky survey suggests widespread awareness of Frankfort's shenanigans.

Americans for Prosperity surveyed 600 Kentuckians and found 58 percent were dissatisfied with the legislature's handling of tax and budget issues. The survey was taken January 22-27, before the tax hikes and the $50 million health fund raid.

The survey also found 49% of respondents viewed wasteful spending on programs that don't work to be the most important issue in state budgeting, according to an AFP press release.

Repealing CATS testing, of course, helps some on that front.

More on the survey here.

Kentucky's biggest mess hiding under a rock

If we had greater transparency in Kentucky, we would see something like this:

Kentucky's latest retirement plan data was dated June 30, came out at the end of 2008, and showed nearly a $30 billion underfunding. After the stock market crash, it's obviously much worse than that. The market may well bounce back at some point, but too many people in Frankfort don't want you paying much attention to how much pain Kentucky taxpayers will face as these bills come due.

Thanks to Jack Dean at pensiontsunami.com for passing along the Texas story.

No, it's the taxpayers

More Kentuckians would understand the damage to taxpayers coming our way as a result of public employee fringe benefits underfunding if the media did even a halfway decent job of covering the issue.

Alas, they don't:

The pension plans are not in peril because the state can't get out of making payments. Lower benefits for future employees will help some, but the key is pouring a lot more money into the plans as soon as possible to start dealing with the $30 billion underfunding of the plans.

A special session bill would have merely slowed the rate of underfunding growth, contrary to the assertion repeated by the Herald Leader that there was a commitment to "fully fund" the plans in 20 years.

Senate President David Williams and House Speaker Greg Stumbo spoke Friday about backing off from their already insufficient funding commitment.

And that puts taxpayers in peril.

CJ attacks Bluegrass Institute, again

The editors at the Louisville Courier Journal get pretty verbose when they are upset. Friday, they got upset at the Bluegrass Institute to helping discredit the dishonest and thoroughly manipulated Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, which was repealed by the legislature today.

Here is what they said about us:

"It's understandable why the conservative, educationally revanchist Republicans and their right-wing think-tank friends want to discredit Kentucky's public education reform, as part of a long-term strategy to abase the public sector, mollycoddle middle-class striver-parents with outmoded, ineffective nationally normed testing and pave the way toward private school vouchers."

Private school vouchers wouldn't be such a strong idea if education bureaucrats did their jobs instead of focusing on wrapping themselves up in politically powerful fortresses.

Truth is, Frankfort Republicans and The Bluegrass Institute couldn't have done it without the overreaching efforts of the school bureaucracy, their friends at The Prichard Committee, and the editorial board of the Louisville Courier Journal.

Putting something together that better serves students actually won't be that difficult at all.

EXPLORE and PLAN

– Now we can cover the good news

Now that the department of education’s fabricated-national-scores-that-don’t-exist are under control, we can finally cover some good news about PLAN and EXPLORE in an objective and realistic manner.

These are the corrected scoring tables from the department.


Notice the bogus and non-existent national average data for 2006 through 2008 have been replaced by the one true set of national data, which is for a single national sample taken by the ACT, Incorporated back in 2005.

ACT, Incorporated creates the EXPLORE used by our eighth graders and PLAN taken by our tenth grade students each fall.

Last year we were concerned when the high school PLAN results generally dropped, except for reading. That was unexpected, as normally test scores tend to rise in the second year after a new test is introduced. Were schools refusing to pay attention to PLAN because of the conflicting demands of the CATS assessments?

However, I am happy to report the high school losses on PLAN in 2007 were recouped in 2008, and we even moved ahead of the 2006 PLAN scores in English, Math, Science and the Composite score.

The middle schools continued a general trend of improvement, as well.

This is good news, as it shows our schools are transitioning to teaching the things that kids need to do well in postsecondary education. This small trend is particularly noteworthy because the CATS assessments – as abundant recent testimony in Frankfort has made clear – are not well aligned with college needs. However, schools still had to cope with the CATS distractions during the 2006 to 2008 time frame.

If the pending legislative changes to Kentucky’s assessment stay about the way they looked on Wednesday, the distractions of CATS will shortly be no more. The new assessment is going to retain the EXPLORE and PLAN tests, and the revised program is going to finally become aligned with what postsecondary education requires for all grades, as well. That should help boost our EXPLORE and PLAN performance a lot.

We cannot forget some important facts, however. The only national comparison scores for EXPLORE and PLAN are from 2005. We don’t know how the rest of the nation might have performed since. So, because our kids in 2008 still score behind where the rest of the nation was back in 2005 – especially so in high school – we clearly have a lot of work ahead of us.

So, I look for more advances on the EXPLORE and PLAN in the future. We badly need that if a reasonable proportion of our children are to be adequately prepared for life in an increasingly competitive international economy. But, after the heart-stopper set of scores on PLAN in 2007, it looks like things are now running in the right direction. The key, once the CATS distraction is gone, will be to move out smartly, and faster than education programs elsewhere.

Department of Education Corrects Erroneous Scores

It took two blog items here, and here, plus several phone calls, but the Kentucky Department of Education finally e-mailed corrected national scores for its new release of EXPLORE and PLAN readiness test data for Kentucky yesterday afternoon.

Unfortunately, the department didn’t own up in time to stop at least one news report from making reference to the non-existent scores, which shows that it is important to get this sort of material right in initial news releases – especially when the problem had already been pointed out last year.

Anyway, who says bloggers don’t matter?

Now, on to the good news in the next post just above.

Good old boys win again in General Assembly

Two dead bills in the 2009 General Assembly, SB 145 and SB 146, would have cut costs in state government by trimming back the heavy burden prevailing wages put on public construction projects.

The Bluegrass Institute has endorsed dropping policies and programs that require expenditures of public money with little or no discernible public benefit. Prevailing wage is a big one. At a time in which healthcare spending in a front-burner issue, certificate of need repeal is another. And after dragging the circus into Frankfort last summer to "reform" public employee fringe benefits and its $30 billion and growing disaster in the making, House Speaker Greg Stumbo and Senate President David Williams are now making noises about reneging on the improved funding schedule of which they were once so proud.

Rep. Bill Farmer warned last June that this would happen:

"But Rep. Bill Farmer, R-Lexington, said future General Assemblies will be free to ignore what really amounts to a funding suggestion. Farmer sees an ulterior motive in the hesitancy to address exploding health-care spending for government employees.
"If they decide not to make those payments in a future General Assembly, they just won’t make them and there is nothing anyone can do about it," Farmer said."

Kind of makes you wonder why Gov. Steve Beshear, Williams, and Stumbo are now slapping each other on the back and congratulating themselves on a "productive session."

School Boards Ducking Transparency

The Kentucky Enquirer just released results of its survey on “Can you contact your school board?”

This front page, top of the fold article makes it clear that far too many local school boards are not responsive to the public that elected them, often even omitting very basic things like member contact information in their Web sites.

As part of its study, the Enquirer looked at 63 Web sites for greater Cincinnati public school districts, including those in Northern Kentucky. In 41 of those sites there are no phone numbers available for even one of the local board members. In six more, only some member’s phone numbers are listed. Nineteen districts omit all board member E-Mail addresses while another nine only post some Internet contact information for some members.

This new report offers yet another nice example of the sorts of problems that were discussed in a recent Bluegrass Institute/Friedman Foundation report about public school financing.

That report discusses how changes in school funding, where less money now comes from local sources and more comes from the state, tend to reduce responsiveness of local school systems to the citizens they serve. Some have disputed those observations in this BIPPS/Friedman report, but it looks like a lot of Enquirer readers would agree that the comments are “right on.”

Eating tomorrow's golden eggs today

The Kentucky state Senate, after voting Thursday to further weaken the public employee benefits system, has abandoned all pretense to fiscal responsibility.

The mainstream media generally doesn't pay much attention to the $30 billion and growing public employee benefits nightmare. Indeed, precious little mention of last month's $50 million raid on the health fund can be found anywhere.

Kennesaw, Georgia actuary Thomas J. Cavanaugh told Kentucky legislators and retirement system officials back in January:

"Arguing that today’s taxpayers cannot afford the actuarially determined rates begs the question as to why or how future taxpayers are presumed to be able to do so."

Begging questions and avoiding hard truths about our oversized state government? Yep, sounds like our guys.

Frozen pennies, broken promises

The state Senate is expected to permanently raise the gas tax tomorrow. They call it "freezing the pennies," but this tax increase highlights many wasted opportunities in the 2009 General Assembly.

The case for this tax hike is much stronger than it was for the gale-force hot air the legislature hit us with last month. The Road Fund really is in the red. But better planning could have provided the necessary funds. It is too late for most of that now. Politics as usual wins again.

But the point that should be made as this happens is that those of us who pay the bills would be much more willing to go along with hard choices to fund necessary government spending now if our lawmakers were more open and honest about their fiscal activities.

KDE Messes Up EXPLORE and PLAN Score Release – Part 2

– What's it going to take to get accurate data?

I blogged yesterday about the misleading presentation of the 2008 EXPLORE and PLAN results in the Kentucky Department of Education’s (KDE) News Release 09-017 dated March 11, 2009.

There is more to add, but first a quick review.

I pointed out in yesterday’s Blog that the KDE’s tables create a false impression that national average scores on EXPLORE and PLAN exist for each year from 2006 and 2008 and that the national scores remained flat during this time.

The KDE’s news release actually reinforces that incorrect impression by specifically stating, “For the 2008 administration, scores nationwide remained flat, while Kentucky’s overall scores increased in nearly every subject area.”

Kentuckians deserve to be told that no one knows what the national trend in EXPLORE and PLAN has been since 2005. Only one fairly recent set of national comparison scores is available, and that was assembled back in the fall of 2005. More recent National trend data does not exist, despite the very false impression created by the KDE’s news release.

Now, however, I have done some more research, and the situation looks even worse.

I checked my old Blogs (now scrolled off our active site, unfortunately) and the KDE made the same, misleading presentation of national data last year, implying separate national scores had been collected in both 2006 and 2007. Here is the link to that earlier misleading KDE News Release 08-007 from January 30, 2008.

Still worse, I challenged the KDE on their erroneous data presentation last year. That didn’t stop the KDE from playing the same game with Kentucky’s citizens again.

In reality there still is only one recent set of national comparison scores for EXPLORE and PLAN, and that national score set was created in 2005. Despite the deceptive indication in the KDE’s tables, there is no national trend data available for EXPLORE or PLAN for 2006 through 2008.

Never the less, the KDE persistently parades this single set of 2005 national data as though it was from 2006, 2007 and now from 2008, as well. And, this year the KDE embellished the deception by specifically stating that the national scores were flat in 2008 when no data actually exist to support this claim.

The KDE’s misleading score reporting is unacceptable, and the fact that the department has now pulled the same stunt two years in a row is more egregious.

The public clearly deserves better.

KDE Messes Up EXPLORE and PLAN Score Release

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) messed up their news release on the latest results from EXPLORE and PLAN tests taken by our eighth and tenth graders this past fall.

This is a screen shot of a table in the report highlighting the KDE’s serious misrepresentation that the national scores on EXPLORE remained perfectly flat in all subjects between 2006 and 2008.


In fact, the text near the top of the news release says, “For the 2008 administration, scores nationwide remained flat, while Kentucky’s overall scores increased in nearly every subject area.”

This whole presentation is absolutely misleading.

Here’s the truth. The only national comparison scores available for both EXPLORE and PLAN are from the fall of 2005. That is the last time the ACT, Incorporated, which produces these tests, conducted a random sampling to determine national norms. So, there is no way to know if the national sample has been flat between 2006 and 2008.

This explains why the national scores the KDE presents in their tables are perfectly flat for all subjects for all listed years. They really are all just the 2005 scores. Anyone familiar with testing would immediately question such perfectly flat results. Apparently, that didn’t happen at the KDE.

By the way, later in the news release the KDE admits the national scores come from 2005, saying, “The national normative data for EXPLORE and PLAN are based on students who took all four academic tests within standard time limits as part of a national study conducted in Fall 2005.” But, this just adds confusion due to the earlier text comments and the two highly misleading tables in the release.

The table presenting the PLAN scores in the news release has all the same flaws.

Kentuckians deserve to be told that the new Kentucky EXPLORE and PLAN scores for 2008 are being compared to a national sample taken three years earlier and that the implication that the national scores have been flat since 2006 is nonsense.

I will contact KDE to ask for a corrected news release. Kentucky, you deserve better.

Forget “Mile Wide, Inch Deep” Curriculum in Science, too

During the deliberations on the pending legislative changes to our CATS assessments, there has been a lot of discussion that our mathematics curriculum has been a “mile wide, and an inch deep.” As a consequence, students have too much ground to cover and never develop mastery in the most important math areas like fundamental arithmetic operations and fractions.

Now, a new study reported by Education Week (Subscription May be Required) indicates that similar problems may impact science instruction in public schools, as well.

The problem is apparently becoming well-known. Education Week reports that the Advanced Placement exams in science are undergoing revision because these tests have been too broad and shallow in coverage, as well.

The first revised AP test will be in biology. It will be interesting to see how scores on this assessment shift nationally and here in Kentucky.

Fortunately, the current version of the bill to change CATS requires a thorough review and update for all of Kentucky’s education standards. Based on the latest research and the trends in AP science exams, it looks like the timing of this standards update could not be better.

Bill to Replace CATS Assessment Advances

The Kentucky House Education Committee met in an extra, short-notice session today to consider the latest version of the bill to replace the CATS assessment with a more modern and useful product.

Representative Jody Richards raised about the only objections, which concern the removal of writing portfolios from the accountability system. Richards asserted this will deemphasize writing in the commonwealth. He leveled a bet that writing in Kentucky ten years hence will be poorer because of the change.

Several other legislators in the room immediately told Richards they would take him up on his bet. It was apparent that nearly all the legislators agree that other provisions in the bill make it clear that writing remains important. In fact, writing will continue to be evaluated with such things as on-demand writing tests during assessment testing and a new audit program that will insure schools continue to use writing portfolios in the instructional program.

At the end of the meeting, all committee members in attendance, including Richards, voted to send the measure forward for full House approval.

A summary of the present version of Senate Bill 1 as the House Education Committee considered it today is in a Legislative Research Commission document available here.

Next steps are for the full House to consider and approve this version and then forward it to the Kentucky Senate for approval. Most likely, resolution of any disagreements between the House and Senate on this bill will be carried out in consent committee meetings over the next two days.

Great, another problem for Frankfort to solve

The Associated Press reported Wednesday on a silly survey purporting to rank the fifty states according to citizen happiness. Big-government types will be delighted to find out Kentucky ranked 49th, just ahead of West Virginia.

The nanny state solution to the state's misery problem might be to tax people who are sad, if you follow the logic of Frankfort's tobacco tax hikers, thus forcing them to be happy. On the other hand, the alcohol tax raisers would counter that taxing sadness wouldn't stop one single person from being sad, but that we should do it anyway for the children. And then those who advocate selling more bonds and raiding public pensions each year to "balance" the budget will coo softly that they can't be bothered to explain their reasoning because it is so complicated and would just upset us even more.

Beware of the scary taxpayer!

This hasn't been a good year for government transparency.

While President Barack Obama was showing us he didn't really mean it when he said the public would be given five days to view and comment on bills before he signed them, Kentucky's House Speaker Greg Stumbo and Budget Chairman Rick Rand have bottled up a bill that would give just one day for us to view revenue and spending bills.

What are these guys afraid of?

Smoke, drink, and gamble faster, y'all!

Eight months into the state's fiscal year, Kentucky's General Fund revenues are up $408,496 according to State Budget Director Mary Lassiter, suggesting overspending is still at the heart of any "shortfall."

Also, the state's cut on the Lottery is up only $738,409, while alcohol and tobacco taxes are down $6,072,745.

Looks like we raised taxes and raided the Health Fund just in time.

Since Gov. Steve Beshear apparently isn't going to do the "efficiency study" he promised, and the legislature doesn't want to do anything about prevailing wage or MUNIS, perhaps we should focus on smoking, drinking, and losing money on the lottery.

Good Impacts from 2006 Senate Bill on ACT Testing

Senate Bill 130 from the 2006 regular legislative session instituted testing with tests created by the ACT, Incorporated in grades 8, 10 and 11. Now, the Paducah Sun reports (Subscription required), that legislation is having positive effects on students and their higher education planning.

The Sun says Kentucky students now are starting to plan for college as early as middle school. This is a notable change from the historical trend where most Kentucky students didn’t start to think about higher education until their Junior year in high school.

The Sun article points out that today students take the ACT’s EXPLORE test in eighth grade and indicates that this helps students plan their high school years more effectively.

This is good news for all of Kentucky, as the new economy makes higher education virtually essential to earning a decent standard of living.

Even the President Understands the School Dropout Problem

The Associated Press (AP) reports President Obama will express deep concerns about the nation’s public school dropout rates in a major speech on Tuesday at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Per the AP, the president is not planning to offer any new legislation, and he will not propose disbanding the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind law. The news service indicates the speech will add to earlier Obama administration comments in support of the charter school movement.

This post only needs lions and tigers

A news story about an unsecured traveling bear show endangering middle school students in Corbin, KY (yes, really) was almost as absurd as the following passage in The New York Times about the bailout billions soon to be swallowed whole by our school systems:

Kentucky's education bureaucracy has demonstrated an ability to spend money quickly. But showing results and keeping track of the money? Now, that's funny...

New Report on Vouchers – They Improve Public Schools, too

A new report from the Friedman Foundation indicates that in 16 of 17 empirical studies on vouchers, the public schools also saw improvements.

(From: “A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on How Vouchers Improve Public Schools”
(Note: A total of 17 studies are represented here; figures do not sum to 17 because some studies include findings on more than one program.)

The only study that showed no difference was for Washington, DC, where the voucher program includes rules that largely eliminate the potential competition aspects of vouchers for public schools.

Find the Friedman study here.

The gas tax increase is a tax increase

The coming Kentucky gasoline tax increase may or may not be more justifiable than last month's tax increases because the money goes directly to road repair and construction, but it is definitely a tax increase.

Taxpayers looking for details on HB 374, the gas tax increase bill, though, will find on the Legislative Research Commission web site the following. It states the bill has "no fiscal impact."

House Bill 374 pretends that the average wholesale price of gasoline will never go below $1.786. I just filled up my tank for $1.69 in Nicholasville.

No word from the legislature if this causes any conflict with their silly price gouging law.

Beshear spins state big-pork listing

Gov. Steve Beshear expressed excitement and pride in a high national ranking that doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.

"Kentucky is proud to finish as one of the top 10 in the nation for business expansion activity during 2008," said Gov. Steve Beshear. "This ranking demonstrates that even through tough economic times, Kentucky can still be competitive in expanding our industrial base."

Yeah, not quite. Site Selection Magazine explains on its own web site that the ranking is based on a count of "new or expanded capital projects the previous year."

That means we did a lot of corporate welfare and road/infrastructure projects, mostly with borrowed money, nothing more.

A funny indicator that this list of 2008 big-government happy talking boosterism is just more silliness is the fact that a drawing of the governors racing their way to 2008 taxpayer-soaking paydirt is that Gov. Steve Beshear is shown here trailing current Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, who didn't ascend to his current office until 2009 after Rod Blagojevich, well, you know...

RE: "Grades Fixed: An Allegation Shocks No One"

The New York Times reports a new public school grade inflation scandal has just been uncovered in New Jersey.

This latest education scandal didn’t happen in Kentucky. However, with CATS scores soaring through the roof and with pressure of KEES scholarship money tied in part to higher grades, who knows?

Could grading inflation be an issue in Kentucky? Those fast-rising CATS scores offer one clue that games might be getting played. Our continued high levels of college remediation despite increasing high school grade point averages offer another.

If grades are being artificially boosted, it’s going to be up to honest educators – make no mistake, we have a ton of them – to come out like the brave new superintendent did in Fort Lee , New Jersey and promptly expose wrong-doing. Because, sooner or later, the truth almost always surfaces, just like it did in that major metropolitan area school system just across the river from New York City.

Will talk for freedom

I will be a guest on Jack Pattie's radio show at 9:00 Monday morning talking about the coming Bluegrass Tax Revolt. It's WVLK AM 590 or www.wvlkam.com.

Student School Vouchers – Even the New US Education Secretary Gets It

In what probably come as a surprise to some, the new US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, said several days ago that he was not in favor of shutting down the Washington, DC voucher program.

Duncan is quoted as saying, "I don't think it makes sense to take kids out of a school where they're happy and safe and satisfied and learning," Duncan told said. "I think those kids need to stay in their school."

This puts Duncan at odds with Democrats in the Congress who want to kill the DC voucher program.

Meanwhile, Kentucky not only has no voucher program, but it doesn’t even have the much more popular charter school program (which is now found in 40 states). So, more than a few of our kids are trapped in public schools where they may not be happy, or safe, or satisfied or learning.

Spinning bigger government in Corbin

Senate President David Williams, speaking at the 5th Congressional District GOP Lincoln Day Dinner, took credit for lowering a long list of various taxes since Republicans took control of the state Senate.

He also pointed out that the alcohol tax would cost someone who spent $100 on alcohol only $6.

Williams made no mention, however, of the increased debt load or the exploding public employee pension mess he just voted to make worse.

CATS killing time

The House Education Committee announced Friday afternoon it will consider on Monday SB 1, to repeal the disgraced CATS school assessment program. The bill previously passed the Senate unanimously.

In 2008, a similar bill failed to gain approval by even a single Democratic Senator before dying in the House without a hearing.

A healthy response from Mitch McConnell

As the Obama Administration gears up its healthcare reform efforts, free market advocates have very good reason to be concerned.

Meanwhile, a comment from Kentucky's Sen. Mitch McConnell is being used as "evidence" by big-government fans that their approach is actually the way to go. McConnell said:

"Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition. Ultimately, we would be left with a single government-run program controlling all of the market. This would take health care decisions out of doctors and patients hands and place them in the hands of another Washington bureaucracy."

Those who think that private plans losing out to public plans is simply a matter of efficiency forget who subsidizes money-losing government health programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

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