Florida's charters perform a lot like Texas'

I wrote yesterday about what happened to eighth grade performance in Texas after that state started its charter school program.

Let’s look at another state where more than 100,000 students now enjoy the benefits of charter school education – Florida.

First, here is a graph that shows enrollment in charter schools in Florida has been exploding just like in Texas. In the 2008-09 school year, the Florida Department of Education reported that there were 118,169 students in its charter schools.


Like Texas, Florida’s charter program started in 1996.

So, what happened in Florida after it adopted charter schools?

This graph shows how blacks in Florida and Kentucky (which still has no charter schools) did on the federal NAEP tests. Note that Florida didn’t participate in the Year 2000 NAEP. I obtained the scores using the NAEP Data Explorer tool.


Back in 1990 when the first state level NAEP math test was conducted, Floridas’ blacks scored 231 while our black kids scored 240. Florida’s blacks continued to score below Kentucky’s until after that state started its charter schools.

Things then changed notably. By 2003 Floridas’ blacks caught up to our kids and stayed pretty much even with them for a couple of years.

After 2005, however, Floridas’ blacks moved out ahead of ours. As of the new results for 2009 which were just released a short time ago, Floridas’ blacks scored six NAEP Scale Score points higher than our kids. That is a notable difference.

Thus, over the period shown in the graph above, Florida’s blacks went from scoring nine points below our black eighth graders to scoring six points above. The relative ground lost by Kentucky’s blacks was 15 points.

Also, to reiterate, note that the difference in performance began to appear several years after Florida started its charter program.

Unfortunately, the NAEP data can’t tell us how blacks in charter schools in Florida performed over time. The NAEP samples from the charter schools were too small to provide statistically reliable information.

All we can tell from the NAEP is that the overall eighth grade math performance for all students in charters in Florida lagged the statewide average for all the state’s students in 2005 by eight points. However, things sharply reversed by 2009 when the students in Florida’s charter schools outperformed the state’s non-charter students by three NAEP Scale Score points.

As is the case for Texas, there is no way to know how the students in Florida’s charters would have scored had they remained in the regular school system. Still, the data highlighted above is consistent with the likelihood of charters in Florida being part of the reason for the state’s improvement. In fact, this data supports the idea that the introduction of competition to the public school system “raised all boats” in that the regular public schools also improved.

What we do know is that something dramatic is happening for blacks in both Texas and Florida, something far better than Kentucky has offered its blacks. And, we do know that the timing of the increase in charter school enrollment in both those states fits nicely with the possibility that charter schools have played a role, maybe a major role, in making this happen.

More on Texas Charters

A couple of days ago I pointed out the explosive growth in enrollment in charter schools in Texas shown on this Texas Policy Foundation graph.


Notice charter school enrollment exploded in Texas after 1996. And, this graph does not include another group of thousands more Texas students enrolled in special charter school districts. Overall, I estimate that charter school enrollment in Texas now amounts to around three percent of the entire school population in the Lone Star State.

Because the rise in charter enrollment was so dramatic, I was curious about what might have happened to Texas on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) after charters were introduced. Was there any indication that charters impeded or helped? I focused on eighth grade math because this is one of Kentucky’s major educational stumbling blocks, especially for our minority students.

What I found is remarkable.

This graph shows how blacks in Texas and Kentucky (which still has no charter schools) did on the federal NAEP tests. Keep in mind that Texas’ charter school growth began after the 1996 NAEP was administered.

Read more »

Prichard brings board of education chair’s frustration to mind

Over at the Prichard Committee’s blog, they’ve been writing a lot lately about improving teaching as the key to improving education in Kentucky.

But, somehow, Prichard’s ideas mostly just bring to mind a most insightful comment that Kentucky Board of Education Chair Joe Brothers made back in October. Reacting to some rather similar suggestions on how to fix our education problems, Brothers said,

“I came on the local (school) board in 1987. What you just said to me is no different than what I heard in 1987. So why should I be hopeful?”

(Comment made at the October 8, 2009 Kentucky Board of Education Meeting in Frankfort, Kentucky. An audiovisual recording of this meeting is on line).

To be clear, I agree with Prichard – teaching is an important key.

It’s how we can effectively make that happen that is at issue.

Prichard’s soft, nudge-but-don’t-rile-the-bureaucracy approaches have been out there for two decades. They haven’t taken hold; haven’t produced nearly enough, nearly fast enough.

I continue to see excessive high school dropout rates, excessive college remedial requirements, continuing gross performance gaps for minorities, continued placement of the least prepared teachers with the most demanding students and teachers who still try to put the blame elsewhere when inner city kids don’t learn.

We still mostly see less than one out of three Kentucky students testing at or above proficiency in math, reading, writing and science on federal NAEP tests. In middle schools, some of those proficiency rates run closer to only one in four.

So, it’s clear, after 20 years, that Kentucky’s education community needs a kick in the pants to get true reform going. Joe Brothers is beginning to get that. He also gets the fact that the “same old, same old” isn’t getting the job done.

Prichard has been saying much the same thing for 20 years. And, while Prichard certainly has some basic ideas right, too many of our teachers still are not listening.

Given the constraints and protectionism built into our current education system, there is little reason, as Brothers put it, to “be hopeful” that things will now change if we continue doing mostly the same old stuff.

That is why we encourage Kentucky to adopt approaches that create competition within the education world. Competition spurs innovation and improvement far more rapidly and effectively than bureaucratic tinkering ever has. We owe it to our kids to do more than just rehash ideas that have a 20-year track record as non-starters. We need to offer students choices that will create competition that will in turn spur teachers to earnestly seek out better ways of doing their jobs.

Quote of the day: Parental (school) choice needed

"It is mothers and fathers - not any politicians - who have the greatest interest in the welfare of their children and who know their children best. As long as funding for schools is independent of parents' choices of which schools to send their children, and as long as government owns and operates schools, government schools will respond less to the needs of children and more to the interests of the government-salaried bureaucrats who run each school as the monopoly that it is." -Donald J. Boudreaux, George Mason University economics professor

The door to a decent life

Melanie Barrett and Kathy Hancock get it in Christian County.

So does the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville.

Barrett and Hancock are “Opening Doors” (subscription) to a better life for young adults ages 18 to 21 who dropped out of school. Their Academy of Continuing Education (ACE) allows these recent dropouts to complete their education with a full high school diploma rather than the far less rigorous GED.

Why is a high school education and the related diploma better?

One reason, as the New Era points out, is that savvy employers know the difference. A high school diploma provides a definite hiring edge.

One example cited in the newspaper: “Rarely do military units accept someone without a high school diploma.”

The reason is simple. The US military knows that people with high school diplomas are far more likely to successfully complete their first enlistment. Given the growing expense to train each soldier, sailor or airman to function and fight in today’s complex military environment, those first-term losses are just too expensive.

Since its inception, the Bluegrass Institute has pointed out the same facts about the GED versus a full high school education, and we’ve made it very clear that Kentucky’s unacceptably high public school dropout rates cost the state more than we can bear.

The Hopkinsville academy also highlights something else. Our ‘One Size Must Fit All’ public school system isn’t meeting the needs of many kids. Now, the ACE program in Hopkinsville is introducing a different approach for kids with different needs who CHOOSE to go to a different type of school.

So, why does the public school establishment – which doesn’t meet the needs of these kids and which continues to suffer a dropout rate so high that it never honestly determined what that rate is – continue to fight real school choices for Kentucky’s children?

Charter schools not part of Ky.'s Race to Top

On December 23, 2009 the Herald-Leader reported under the title above that Kentucky’s application for ‘Race To The Top’ funding from the federal government would not include the introduction of charter schools in Kentucky.

We see several problems with the article.

For one thing, if the Herald-Leader got it right, Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday isn’t well informed on Kentuckians’ opinion about charter schools. The Herald-Leader writes, “Holliday added that he's not sure there is widespread support for charter schools.”

We have two public opinion polls that say different. One was conducted for the Bluegrass Institute by staff at Western Kentucky University. Another was recently conducted by the Friedman Foundation with support from the Bluegrass Institute. Both surveys found that Kentuckians definitely want more parent choice and that there is interest in charter schools here.

The 2007 “School Choice Survey” from Dr. Larry Caillouet and his Western Kentucky University team (Caillouet, Larry, “School Choice Survey,” Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Bowling Green, Kentucky, April 30, 2007) asked this question:

“Charter schools are a form of school choice in which schools are run by the principal, teachers and parents without the regulation of teachers unions and state education departments. Do you feel charter schools would be good for Kentucky education?” Here’s how Kentuckians responded:


The Friedman survey uncovered similar reactions.

I guess Commissioner Holliday isn’t reading us as carefully as he needs to. If he can come up with some scientifically conducted surveys to counter ours, we’d love to see them.

There’s another problem of a technical nature with the Herald-Leader’s article. It gets our name wrong. We are NOT the Bluegrass CENTER for Public Policy Solutions. We remain – as we have from our inception six years ago – the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions.

We contacted the Herald-Leader before Christmas with a request to correct the error. When I checked a few minutes ago, the original error remained in the web version.

At this point, both a correction and an in print and on line apology would be appreciated.

I hope the newspaper did a better job getting the rest of the article correct.

Charter schools in Texas grow in popularity

The Texas Public Policy Foundation reports that there has been huge growth in charter school enrollment in Texas.


Meanwhile, Kentucky’s kids can’t get into a charter school because they are not legal here. Ask your legislator why Kentuckians can’t enjoy this high performance educational choice – one that minorities especially find beneficial – while over 100,000 kids down in Texas can.

Getting realistic about KEES scholarships

There have been concerns for some time that the criteria for giving away tax and lottery money to Kentucky college students are too lenient. Kids who really don’t deserve the money get it, anyway.

Now, WAVE 3 TV reports that legislators may finally discuss tightening requirements for KEES awards.

Plenty of kids in Kentucky can use extra help in paying college expenses, but we need those kids to understand they have to meet us half way with good academic effort to earn that support. With budgets getting tight, we simply cannot afford doing anything else.

Superintendent evaluations shouldn’t be hidden from the people

Apparently, the Jefferson County Board of Education just doesn’t get it.

Here’s the deal: the public’s right to know trumps the seemingly incessant desire of some in the education complex to hide their actions from public view.

Now, the Messenger-Inquirer (subscription) chides the Jefferson County board for trying to get a special law passed so their desire to evaluate their superintendent in secrecy will no longer be illegal.

We agree with the Messenger-Inquirer on this one. Ultimately, public money, lots of it, gets spent by local boards and their superintendent. Thus, except for some very special situations which are already covered in statute, local boards have no right to conduct their affairs in secret.

A whole lot of “stuff” is happening in Jefferson County – athletes dying in football practice, a busing plan from hell, deceptive redefining of CATS scores, and more. Especially in Jefferson County, the public deserves to know how all of those issues are being handled, fully and openly. If school board members there can’t deal with that, they need to resign so others who understand the concept of openness and transparency can replace them.

The state’s open meetings law is one of our better statutes, and it needs to be supported, not subverted.

One out of five kids not on track with peers

The US Census Bureau has a different, politically correct way of saying it, but the bottom line in a December 8, 2009 press release from this agency is that one out of five kids aged 12 to 17 in the United States isn’t attending classes with their age group, but has instead been held back at least one grade in school.

That strikes me as an awfully high percentage of our kids that are being held back in class.

Is this an indication of problems with teaching rather than some inherent problem with the students?

On a happier note, the same Census release says there has been a notable increase in parental involvement with kids, though more action here is clearly warranted. Parents who reportedly talked or played with their kids three or more times a day increased from 50 to 59 percent between 1998 and 2006.

One note in the Census data should be required reading for everyone in Louisville, including the court system, that has a hand in the outrageous busing plans there (which we have frequently blasted before).

The Census says that, “For children ages 6 to 11, the odds of being on-track were 36 percent higher if they had never changed schools.”

The data implies that the disruptive busing plan in Louisville, along with all the other problems it created, probably significantly increases the odds that children in the state’s largest city will fall behind academically.

Politicians' pensions

Newly elected State Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon, has filed a bill that would undo a grandiose pension policy for Kentucky's part-time legislators.

Click here to listen to the 90-second audio commentary.

U.S. charter schools at 5,000 and growing

Check out education researcher Jay Greene's map showing California -- where the charter-school movement started about 20 years ago -- with more than 800 charter schools operating during the 2009-10 school year.

Ohio, Kentucky's neighbor to the northeast, trails only California (809), Arizona (482) and Florida (423) with 332 charter schools. Kentucky is one of only 11 states without charter schools. Six of Kentucky's seven neighboring states have charter schools.

Let your legislator know: Kentucky needs charter schools.

Is the school scoring deception expanding?

I have written on several occasions (such as here) about deceptive test score reporting practices in the Jefferson County school system.

For several years, Jefferson County has turned the CATS Kentucky Core Content Test results on their ear, claiming that any child who scores above the “Novice” level is doing “At or Above Grade Level” work.

That is absolutely untrue.

Kentucky’s CATS program has no “At or Above Grade Level” scoring, and no-one at the Kentucky Department of Education who is responsible for the assessment says that it is credible to claim anything above Novice indicates At or Above Grade Level performance.

Now, the deception may be expanding.

In response to yesterday’s blog about “Would you call this “Substantial” progress?” an anonymous commentator claimed the National Assessment of Educational Progress also reports scores in an “At or Above Grade Level” format.

That is absolutely untrue, as well.

The anonymous commentator cited supposed “At or Above Grade Level” NAEP results that exactly matched the percentage of students who scored at or above the NAEP “Basic” level. While NAEP “Basic” is not tied to CATS “Apprentice” scores in any way, the logical deception used by the Anonymous commentator is chillingly similar to the one Louisville’s schools have been using with the CATS scores.

Now, here is a possible key to all this.

As I also recently reported here and here, Jefferson County Public Schools participated as a separate entity in the recent 2009 NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment in Mathematics. The NAEP Proficiency rates were quite low, disastrously so for blacks, who only had a seven percent proficiency rate in eighth grade. So, it’s no wonder some in the Louisville school bureaucracy would like to confuse the truth.

Is the Louisville system now trying to redefine the NAEP down just as they did with the CATS results so people in Kentucky’s biggest city will be confused about how bad the performance there really is?

Stay tuned for more.

Quote of the day: Try this on, Frankfort

"Pardon my skepticism, but — try as I might — I can’t see any reason why it’s always necessary to raise taxes and fees whenever the government is faced with a budget shortfall. Given the size of budgets these days, especially at the state and county levels, it’s hard to understand why legislators invariably look for ways to increase taxes and generally resist cutting costs until they are forced to do so." Harris R. Sherline, Opinionfest.com

Would you call this “Substantial” progress?

Over at the Prichard Committee’s blog, they are waxing ecstatic about a new report that Prichard head Bob Sexton and Prichard number cruncher Susan Weston just released called, "Substantial and Yet Not Sufficient: Kentucky's Effort to Build Proficiency for Each and Every Child."

I think they only got the title half right.

This graph shows the latest available eighth grade results for Kentucky from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.


After almost two decades of KERA, I don’t see how anyone can be very happy about the fact that less than one in three of our eighth grade kids is proficient in any of these subjects, while in the critical areas of reading, writing and “rithmetic,” the proportion is closer to only one in four students.

“Substantial” progress – Hardly!

Even if we had started at zero back in 1990 (and we didn’t start that low), the proficiency rate growth is so slow that we are decades away from seeing rates that I would call “substantial” in Kentucky’s NAEP results.

Not sufficient – You Bet!

Government and the gallows: History repeats itself, again

Will the costly — and often radical — agendas planned for taxpayers wind up being the downfall of the politicians who planned them?

Click here to read the entire column.

College prep academy earns the title

The North Lawndale College Prep Academy in Chicago is another public charter school. Its enrollment is also heavily inner city.

But, the school graduates 90 percent of its students, and those who graduate go on to college.

We recently looked at some inner city Louisville regular public high schools with graduation rates only around half that number.

Wouldn’t it be great if Kentucky allowed charter schools so kids in our state could catch the fire of high expectations that you will see in this video from North Lawndale?



You know, poverty wasn’t ‘invented’ in Kentucky. Neither was the bigotry of low expectations for students.

But we have both problems in too many Kentucky schools today.

Charter schools weren’t invented here, either.

But, they provide a workable answer to the first two problems.

Isn’t it time for us to move beyond our short-sighted “not invented here” syndrome and establish public charter schools that can fight poverty and low expectations?

Oakland charter is a federal Blue Ribbon School!

Here’s a school that makes it a point to fight the soft bigotry of low expectations in incoming students.

Result – this is a National Blue Ribbon School!



Don’t look for any schools like this in Kentucky – unless our legislature votes to join the 40 other states with charter schools.

Connecticut charter school cleans up state rankings

Here’s a middle school in Hartford, Connecticut that is a charter public school.

The school’s enrollment is 100 percent low income and 100 percent African-American or Hispanic.

It ranks:

#2 for Performance Gains
#2 for African-American Student Scores
#4 for Low Income Student Scores
#5 for Overall Middle School Improvement



Hartford kids can get access to outstanding schools like Jumoke Academy because Connecticut has a public charter school law. Kentucky’s kids are completely left out because our state lacks the legislation to allow charter schools here.

Bills would place state spending online

Legislation filed for the 2010 session of the Kentucky General Assembly would make state government open, better, smaller and — most important — less costly.

Click here to read the press release.

Charters aren’t just for inner city locations

This charter school, located in a formerly underperforming public school’s building in a rural area of Georgia, is meeting kids needs because it has the flexibility to do new things.



Why is Kentucky continuing to deny our kids this sort of education advantage that public charter schools have provided to students in 40 other states?

Kentucky jobs or feed Washington egos?

President Obama's scaremongering claims employers will require employees to pay more for their insurance or quit offering insurance benefits altogether if his health care bill is not passed.

The President completely ignores the other just-as-likely scenario -- the part where employers are going to have to drop jobs to pay for Washington mandated health care coverage, increased taxes and potential fines if his health care bill passes.

When the federal government puts mandated costs on Kentucky businesses -- which must make a profit or close their doors and put everyone out of a job -- other cost-cutting actions are required to stay viable.

Only government entities have the luxury of unlimited funds and no threat of competition.

Heard any push back from Frankfort to Washington to try to protect Kentucky businesses? Didn’t think so.

Kentucky NCLB scoring errors did impact schools – Story grows

Another local newspaper reports that a school has gotten its NCLB scoring changed due to errors in the initial 2009 report. Adding information to my earlier post, the Manchester Enterprise (subscription) reports that the Paces Creek Elementary School has had its NCLB criteria upgraded to meeting all goals.

The Enterprise says Paces Creek Principal David Murray claims a glitch in the Infinite Campus student tracking program was at fault.

If so, this is a serious problem that raises more questions about the Infinite Campus program, an absolutely critical element in the Kentucky Department of Education’s plans to improve student tracking and reporting.

Kentucky NCLB scoring errors did impact schools

We first surfaced this story here on September 28th, one week after the 2009 NCLB scores were released. Schools were complaining that their NCLB results were wrong because those test results didn’t have the right student counts for kids with learning disabilities.

We added to the story here, here and here.

Now, the first findings have trickled out in a regional news report. The Kentucky New Era (Subscription) says that at least one school and a school district in its readership area just got their No Child Left Behind (NCLB) classifications revised upward due to those errors in the counts of learning disabled students.

So far, there is no overall report from Frankfort about the number of schools and districts that are impacted. There likewise is no report on how this important mistake happened.

I hope the Kentucky Department of Education will collect all of that data for us in one, forthright news release. Information I’d like to see includes the listing of each school and district that got erroneous scores back in September along with the new NCLB classification. I’d also like to see a summary of the expenses involved to support NCLB consequences in those schools and districts that really were not required. We have to pay for such things as assistance in schools that fail NCLB, and schools sometimes have to offer extra, expensive tutoring, as well. So, this error is important, and we need to see exactly what happened and why, and what is being done to fix the problems.

Charter meets kids’ needs in Atlanta

Charters are not just for brilliant kids. They really excel with kids who need extra help.

See how that works in this Atlanta charter school. Teachers even making “house calls!” When did you ever hear something like that about Kentucky’s public schools?

The public option in 40 seconds or less

Want to explain the public option to your friends in 40 seconds? Former Bluegrass Institute staffer Caleb Brown, along with Austin Bragg and Lester Romero and have entered a video contest on health care.

Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmBLD9w-mzk

To show your support, they need your votes between now and Sunday night at 11:59. To vote, people just need to watch the video and type - and this is important - "My choice for the winner" in the YouTube comments. It's that simple. Vote only once.

Even the governor says 'no' to more taxes

Even Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear recognizes that raising taxes during a recession is a bad -- really bad -- idea.

And Sen. Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, offered the understatement of the yet-to-occur General Assembly session during an informal interview with reporters on Tuesday at the state Capitol: "Now is not the time to raise taxes."

So why is House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, floating the idea?

Stumbo told the (Louisville) Courier-Journal: “We are not growing our revenue streams to adequately fund those costs (of running state government), ...”

Government only has two ways of "growing" revenue: raise taxes or cut spending. If you don't think you're paying enough taxes, then feel free to send a contribution to: Kentucky Department of Revenue, Frankfort, Ky. 40602. Otherwise, tell your political representatives in Frankfort to do what every Kentucky family must do: "Live within your means."

School choice: A call to action

In November parent, activist and school choice advocate Virginia Walden-Ford visited Louisville with the purpose of educating and rallying parents for school choice in Kentucky.  The commonwealth is one of a handful of states that does not currently allow charter schools to operate within its borders.  As one parent in the video below explains, we need charter schools "yesterday"...

Christmas trees, chestnuts roasting

Gov. Beshear's recent invitation to attend the lighting of a "holiday tree," rather than a "Christmas tree" brought howls of protest from citizens and a change of heart from the governor. What could change if the same passion were displayed about our commonwealth's failing education system or a pension policy that allows Kentucky's part-time legislators to enrich themselves at taxpayers' expense?

Click here to listen to the 90-second audio commentary.

Why New York City’s Ed Chancellor is demanding more charter schools

New York City’s Education Chancellor, Joe Klein, knows a good deal when he sees it. So, he is taking on state legislators and bureaucrats in Albany, pushing them to reduce or eliminate their cap on charter schools.

Why is Klein sticking his neck out?

Here’s one great reason why.



Meanwhile, here in Kentucky inner city kids in places like Louisville and Covington share none of this excitement. Why – because while Klein wants more charter schools in New York, the fact is that Kentucky doesn’t have even one!

Not getting it right

The editorial staff at the Ashland Independent thinks the Kentucky Board of Education’s legislative request to implement higher accountability for local school boards and superintendents is on target as far as superintendents go but misses the mark on holding local board members accountable.

The newspaper’s logic doesn’t wash.

At present, Kentucky school superintendents essentially have no more control than the local boards do in problem schools. The School Based Decision Making Council (SBDM) in each school is where all the power rests. A SBDM can thumb its nose at the superintendent just as effectively as it can snub the local board. So, under the current situation, it is no fairer to hang a superintendent than it is to go after a local board.

However, as we recently blogged, the real legislative proposal includes more than the Independent discusses. The state board also wants to modify SBDM authority so that superintendents will have the authority they need. Therefore, superintendents can be fairly held accountable. In the same vein, if the state board’s real proposal is enacted, local school boards should also be held accountable if they don’t act to remove a superintendent who just stands by while even a single school in the district founders.

Very simply, if even a single school in a local district isn’t performing, everyone involved needs to get in the act.

Right now, however, there is a problem with some local boards. They are dominated by elements supported by the teachers’ union, which puts up large sums of money to support allies and defeat opponents. Ideally, the boards should be accountable to the local voters, but it isn’t working out that way in some areas.

Thus, while nearly three dozen schools in this state have failed No Child Left Behind for more than six years in a row (the worst has failed for nine straight years), virtually no one gets fired, virtually no one gets transferred and few (if any) school board members lose re-election.

Meanwhile, the kids in those schools continue to suffer in poor performing schools that condemn students to lifelong consequences.

So, no sir, we think the Kentucky Board of Education has the right idea, this time.

First, restore appropriate authority to local boards and their executive. Then, second, hold them all accountable if necessary.

KERA was way off the mark in the way it destroyed accountability for both local boards and superintendents, and it’s high time to set that right.

Jefferson County Board of Education violated open meetings law

The recent brouhaha the school board in Jefferson County kicked up by holding their evaluation of the district’s superintendent in secret has reached a legal climax.

And, it’s good news for those of us who believe in public transparency.

A Jefferson Circuit Court judge has ruled in support of an earlier Kentucky Attorney General finding that the local school board conducted their meeting illegally.

This mistake is going to cost the board, perhaps in more ways than one.

First, Circuit Court judge Irv Maze ordered the school system to pay the Louisville Courier-Journal’s legal fees for bringing the secrecy suit to court.

However, this legal gaffe might cost the board in other ways, as well.

As I discussed in a blog yesterday, the Kentucky Board of Education is highly upset about local boards and superintendents who are not “carrying the mail” for their students. The state board wants legislation so it can remove local school board members and superintendents when schools chronically under-perform. Though no specific names were mentioned in those recent discussions, it was also pointed out that the state board has the authority now to remove board members for misconduct.

Certainly, it’s no secret that Jefferson County has some of the state’s worst chronic low performing schools. The state board was quite critical of that situation in its October meeting.

Now, with the Jefferson County board in the hot seat for disobeying the law, the state board might not have to wait for new legislation. Jefferson County’s school board might just have given the state board all the ammunition it needs.

Are the days of Frankfort's closed-door budget meetings coming to an end?

The days of Kentucky's political bigwigs meeting behind closed doors with armed guards posted during critical budget discussions may be coming to an end. Sen. Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, and Rep. Jim DeCesare, R-Rockfield, are filing legislation that would require online posting of Kentucky's checkbook in a searchable database.

I wrote about their proposals in a recent Bluegrass Beacon column.

State’s school leaders finally getting tough

The Bluegrass Institute has pointed it out for some time, and now we finally are hearing widespread recognition from state leaders that KERA has not met expectations as it approaches its 20th anniversary.

That includes surprisingly candid comments made last week by Kentucky Board of Education chair Joe Brothers and the Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday.

Holliday and Brothers started laying out ‘how it is’ in the Kentucky Board of Education’s meetings last Wednesday and Thursday. They stuck to their guns under close examination by the Kentucky School Boards Association (KSBA) on Friday.

Some quick examples of the new awareness from Brothers and Holliday:

“The state’s lowest-performing schools must improve or new leadership must be put in charge.”

“Those who perform will become more and more successful and will reap more rewards. Those who don’t will be identified for help and change, or find other employment or other missions in life.”

There have been justified concerns that it isn’t fair to hold local board members and school superintendents accountable for school performance because under KERA the School Based Decision Making Councils, often called Site Base Councils, don’t have to listen to what their board or super says. In answer to that, the KSBA writes,

“Brothers and Holliday said they would be seeking change in that area as well.

‘The major change you will see is on the site-based council and principal selection issue,’ Holliday said.”

Congratulations to Brothers and Holliday for sticking to their guns under the KSBA microscope. It’s beginning to look like some real change might finally be coming to Kentucky’s under-performing schools.

Learning can change brain connections

Some very interesting scientific studies about how students learn to read and how to help struggling readers are coming from a somewhat unexpected area – the nation’s medical schools.

Using advanced “functional MRI” technology, medical research teams at places like Carnegie Mellon University and Yale Medical School have made some remarkable discoveries. Here is an article on the latest from Mellon which says that proper practice that leads to mastery can create permanent changes in our brains.

Among other things, the Mellon team looked at how brains changed when weak readers got an intensive program in better reading. While this article does not mention it, I have talked to the Mellon team and they use a program with good phonics approaches that are then followed by extra work in reading comprehension.

This isn’t the first set of interesting findings on reading to come from Carnegie Mellon. It builds on earlier work there and additional work by Bernard and Sally Shawitz at Yale Medical School. Both research teams are using functional MRI technology to actually “look” inside the brains of people while they read.

Kentuckians need to take note of this new scientific evidence.

One important note: this research isn’t coming from schools of education. It’s coming from the medical research community.

Another point: reading is a “drill to skill,” not a “drill and kill” effort. Kids in these medical team research programs start out with a healthy remedial program in phonics and then move to comprehension. The process has to be done in order if we want to develop the proper brain areas, and it has to be extensive, meaning there is practice, too.

We heard very different “stuff” from many reading gurus when KERA got started. In some schools, we still hear different “stuff.”

Now, real science is starting to blow holes in a lot of what we were told.

Hat tip to KSN & C.

Obamacare will send BIG bill to Kentucky

Look out! Washington wants to throw a $199 million unfunded mandate at Kentuckians.

That is in the fine print of 2,000-plus pages they don’t like to talk about. Kentucky and 38 other states have Medicaid-income cutoffs below those in the new proposed federal legislation.

The feds pay for the first three years. But starting in 2016, the fourth year, the average state will be obligated to pay 10 percent of the extra cost.

Some questions:

1. Will Kentucky be able to print money like the federal government in 2016?
2. If we can’t print money, how many tax increases will the federal folks force on Kentuckians?
3. Who in Frankfort is looking out for Kentuckians now while something can still be done?
4. Shouldn’t these Washington legislators be forced to read, understand and communicate the cumulative impact on what they are doing to Kentuckians BEFORE passing anything?

This is not an emergency. This legislative approach is negligence.

Kentucky Board of Education getting fed up – and tougher!

Jim Warren at the Herald-Leader nicely summarizes some of the more important issues to come up at the recent Kentucky Board of Education meeting.

The board wants authority to remove local school superintendents and school board members when schools consistently under-perform.

The board also wants to expand preschool programs and to raise the minimum school dropout age to 18.

Of course, removing superintendents might not make sense unless some other actions that the board discussed are also taken. Right now superintendents don’t really have much authority in schools due to the way the School Based Decision Making Councils (SBDM) operate, but that might be changing.

The board did discuss how a superintendent can fire a principal, but it is the SBDM that gets to hire the replacement. In one recent case discussed by the state board chair, Joe Brothers, a principal was removed, but the SBDM promptly hired someone just as bad. Now that person has also been removed and the superintendent is watching the same crazy process work all over again.

By the way, all the board’s discussions are now in archived Webcasts available here:

12/09/2009 Video and audio --


12/10/2009 Video and audio --


12/09/2009 Downloadable audio podcast --


12/10/2009 Downloadable audio podcast --

Kentucky Commissioner of Education outlines Kentucky’s “Larger Goal” for Education

Very simply, it’s “high graduation rates with students prepared for college.”

You can hear Dr. Holliday's statement on the archived webcast of the recent Kentucky Board of Education meetings here.

Move the time slider to 1:21:40 to hear some of Dr. Holliday’s preliminary comments along with the “Larger Goal” statement.

It’s a good goal.

By the way, all the board’s discussions are now in archived Webcasts available here:

12/09/2009 Video and audio --


12/10/2009 Video and audio --


12/09/2009 Downloadable audio podcast --


12/10/2009 Downloadable audio podcast --

Charter schools can generate impressive graduation rates

Here is a neat video about a North Carolina charter high school that recently sent 100 percent of its first graduating class on to college.

This isn’t a private school. It isn’t in an exclusive area, either. The school is in a high poverty area and has many minority kids.

Kentucky needs this sort of performance in its schools, too.

But, we first need to pass a law to allow charter schools.

Kentucky’s new education commissioner knows about charter schools – he came to us from North Carolina. Let’s get a charter school law in Kentucky so he can help bring this sort of success to our kids.

Catch the excitement of charter schools

Wouldn’t you want a leader like this running your child’s school?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is the excitement in KIPP charter schools.

We need schools like this in Kentucky – but we first need a law that allows charter schools in this state.

'Tis The Season for a Tax Deduction For Liberty: Join Operation Kentucky 1792

Deny all or save some?

Public charter schools may not save every Kentucky child trapped in a failing school. Harriet Tubman didn't rescue every slave, either. But Virginia Walden Ford, executive director of DC Opportunity Scholarships, points out that 300 slaves were freed because of Tubman.



While Ford spoke about scholarships in her city, the same point applies to charter schools in our commonwealth: Just because we can't save everyone doesn't mean we don't save some.

Kentucky Board of Education votes for more honest and accurate graduation rate

The Kentucky Board of Education just made a key decision -- adopting regulation changes for the interim assessment process that will be used while the state rebuilds from our now discarded CATS program. As part of that interim change, the board made an especially important and commendable decision.

Kentucky will move as quickly as possible to more accurate graduation rate reporting using the federally researched Average Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR) formula, which I've extensively discussed (such as here and here) in this blog.

Moving Kentucky to better graduation rate reporting has long been a goal of the Bluegrass Institute. We are pleased that this better formula for estimating graduation rates will be used for the class of 2010. We will also see fully disaggregated data by race from the new calculations for the first time, as well. Up until now, that information has only covered statewide totals.

Actual results from the improved calculation will be made public beginning in 2011 because all the data required to compute the AFGR cannot be gathered until some time after the class leaves school.

In the longer term, the state will move to a highly accurate graduation rate calculation around 2013. This will track each individual student in the system so that no longer will any kids “drop through the cracks.”

As a consequence of the increased accuracy, the department of education briefers at today’s meeting admitted that high school graduation rates from the AFGR calculation will be lower than those reported by Kentucky’s current, inflated and heavily criticized calculation. Based on experience in other states like Oregon that already moved to high quality student tracking for graduation rate reporting, the AFGR rates will also probably prove somewhat too high once the high quality data starts to appear after 2013.

No one knows for certain, but the experience in some other states indicates our true graduation rate could be as much as 10 points lower than the 84 percent rates currently being reported. That is a significant difference that would amount to somewhere around 50 percent more kids being lost than is admitted by the current calculation.

Unemployment obligations could reach $1 billion

Kentucky already has borrowed $474 million from the federal government for unemployment costs; that total could grow to $1 billion.

Gov. Beshear's task force on the issue, which has been meeting since April, is divided on what to do -- not surprising since government, union and business agendas have significant conflicting priorities.

How much more mandated costs can state lawmakers and the federal government throw at Kentucky’s businesses before the only business option is to put many more people into unemployment lines?

While anyone can rationalize a single incremental cost increase, the cumulative impact of a multitude of such costs reduces incentives for employers to create jobs. Kentucky must change -- from being hostile to business to creating an atmosphere that attracts new companies, creates more jobs and lowers our record-high jobless rates.

Answering this question is key to getting unemployment costs under control.

Before the governor's task force splits the baby in negotiations, remember: only business provides jobs. Government and unions are only good for adding mountains of cost and layers of bureaucracy.

Who is excited about KIPP charter schools?

– How about MSNBC!!!

No Virginia, the excitement about high performing charter schools isn’t just in the minds of the Bluegrass Institute.

Check out this video report from MSNBC.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It sure is a shame our kids can't enjoy this kind of education that can only come when a state has charter school legislation. Why don't you ask your legislator why that is?

What kind of educator runs a charter school?

Educators who want to be principals in the top performing Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools don’t just walk in the door and get hired.

In fact, if they don’t already have lots of experience, they first go through a special training program as Miles Family Fellows. Then, the Miles Family Fellows grads and other, more experienced applicants have to do an additional preparatory year in the Fisher Fellows program before they can take the reins of a KIPP charter school.

With all of that required preparation, what kinds of applicants are willing to go through all these requirements to run a KIPP school?

Take a look at the qualifications of last year’s group of 11 in the Miles Family Fellows training group.

There are several Teach for America “graduates” plus college credentials from places like UCLA and Ivy League schools like Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia.

The Fisher Fellows program group is also loaded with educators from top-notch schools.

Their credentials read much like those mentioned above.

Why do these highly motivated people put up with all the training? They know that the KIPP schools are doing dramatic things in places like inner-city New York. They also know they will have a chance to really make a difference for kids without being stifled by all the red tape that tends to smother principals in regular public schools.

Sadly, Kentucky can’t attract any of these sorts of innovative educators. We don’t have charter schools where such dynamic leaders can really spread their wings.

Ask your legislators why Kentucky children are losing out while kids in high needs areas of more progressive states like New York and Texas get a chance to enroll in schools where the leaders have top notch backgrounds plus extensive preparation to be a school leader in a KIPP charter school?

Health care fiasco: 'It's certainly not reform'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell makes several statements that fly in the face of justifications of big-government spenders for the emergency health care bill:

The independent Congressional Budget Office estimates premiums to most Kentucky families will go up. Yet the bill is being sold by supporters as reducing premiums for families. Which is it?

Sen. McConnell, R-Kentucky, states a provision in the bill will cut $500 billion in Medicare coverage for seniors. Yet President Obama pledges: If you like the coverage you have, you can keep it. Which is it?

McConnell's statement is clear and on the record. What's needed in response: a clear statement from Obama's crowd, including Kentucky Reps. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, and Ben Chandler, D-Lexington, that not only can we keep our current coverage, but also that premiums will be lowered -- for the health insurance plan we choose.

More on new federal math test results for Louisville

Here are the math proficiency rates for fourth and eighth grade students in Jefferson County Public Schools from the new 2009 NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment report.




(Find these rates for students who scored “At or above Proficient” in Tables A-9 and A-10 in the report)

As you can see, in 2009 the NAEP said that overall only around one in three of the district’s fourth grade students and barely more than one in five of Louisville’s eighth grade students were proficient in math.

That overall situation is certainly disappointing, but for blacks in Louisville, the situation is positively grim, especially in eighth grade.

In eighth grade, only about one in fifteen black students in Jefferson County is getting well prepared in math according to the NAEP scores.

Read more »

Dropout rates and charter schools

When students drop out, everyone loses.

Click here to listen to the 90-second audio commentary.

Talking liberty on the airwaves

Jim Waters guest hosts for Darrell Duval on the "Darrell and Al Show" from 6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. on NewsTalk 93 WKCT-AM in Bowling Green. Listen tomorrow morning online at http://www.93wkct.com/schedule.htm.

Kentucky's math problems

There is no question – math has historically been the weakest academic area in Kentucky’s public school system.

Thus, the Kentucky Legislature’s Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee (EAARS) directed the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability (OEA) to perform a very extensive study of the situation. The report has been presented to the EAARS for review in three separate parts.

Part three was discussed at the committee’s meeting on December 7, 2009, and it looks like the OEA has taken a very deep look at the problems, which should make the final report a must read for many educators in this state.

However, I was especially struck by a couple of very candid comments made by the OEA briefing team on the seventh. Here is what was said,

“In general, we noticed, um, a kind of a suspicious relationship between district administrators and high school math teachers. In general, um, district administrators did not engage much with high school math teachers, and, um, made some sarcastic comments. Like, one district administrator suggested that there’s a special place in the after life for high school math teachers – and not a very nice place.”

“Some, um, Kentucky teachers lack the actual basic mathematics knowledge that they might need and lack the flexibility in knowing how to approach a problem when they, um, see it.”

No wonder we have problems.

And, hats off to the OEA team who clearly worked very hard to bring some of these issues to light.

More on new federal math test results for Louisville

Here are the math proficiency rates for grade 4 and grade 8 students in Jefferson County Public Schools from the new 2009 NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment report.




(Find these rates in Tables A-9 and A-10 in the report)

As you can see, in 2009 the NAEP said that only around one in three fourth grade students and barely more than one in five eighth grade students in Jefferson County were proficient in math.

That overall situation is pretty disappointing, but for blacks in Louisville, the situation is positively grim, especially in eighth grade. In eighth grade, only about one in fifteen black students in Jefferson County is getting adequate math preparation according to the NAEP scores.

Read more »

Federal testing says Louisville’s schools no better than in nation’s largest cities

New National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results from the 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment in Mathematics are out. For the first time, the Jefferson County Public School System in Louisville participated in this special administration of the NAEP.

Unfortunately, while Louisville had strong demographic advantages compared to other participating school systems, its math performance was no better than middle of the pack, at best. For example, Jefferson County’s eighth grade whites only outscored students in three of the other 17 participating school systems, while the eighth grade blacks in Jefferson County did only slightly better, besting blacks in five other participating cities.

And, poverty was no excuse.

Read more »

Charter School Petition

Parents please take a few moments to sign the petition for Charter Schools in Kentucky at putkidsfirstky.org.

The petition asked legislators to support Representative Brad Montell's new bill, House Bill 79. The bill will allow for the creation of charter schools in Kentucky.

Give Kentucky's kids a chance for a better education by signing today.

‘Coincidences’ adding up to a costly mistake

Gov. Beshear was for allowing voters to ratify or reject a constitutional amendment on gambling before he was against it.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon column.

School Based Decision Making Council toe stub

The Montgomery County High School has a parents versus teachers tiff going over some books that were included in a reading list for a kids in a college track English course. The parents are upset about the suitability of the language and subject matter in the books, which set off this latest round in the never ending book censorship saga.

However, the Kentucky School News and Commentary Blog just provided an entirely different angle concerning the selection of these particular books.

Aside from the raw language and racy material, the reading skills required by some of these books are apparently only elementary school level. One book is rated at third grade difficulty, two at fourth grade difficulty, and the fourth requires only sixth grade level reading skills.

How did such undemanding books wind up in a high school college track English course?

Well, under KERA, the final authority on the curriculum in each school is the School Based Decision Making Council (SBDM) at the school. The SBDM are dominated by teachers, who by law under KERA must have the majority vote.

So, ultimately, this is definitely not a ‘win’ for the Montgomery County High School’s Site Base Council. Why did the council allow books of such low rigor to become part of a college track high school English course?

However, there is another issue. The news reports indicate the books were pulled from the course list by the district superintendent. I don’t think he can do that. My understanding is that only the SBDM has authority in the curriculum area.

So, stay tuned for more on this story. Will the school back their own approved curriculum, or the superintendent?

Wind generation – maybe not as good an answer as you think

We’re hearing lots of commentary about switching the country over from fossil fuel energy to other sources. One of the most frequently mentioned is wind generation.

Well, that may not be quite as viable an option as some would like us to believe.

Aside from many interesting technical issues involved with creating and maintaining a much larger and more spread out power transmission and distribution infrastructure that currently does not exist, a surprising caution about the proposal just surfaced in, of all places, the latest newsletter from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Wind generators can pose a significant wildlife threat.

Don’t forget: environmentalists have been extraordinarily successful at blocking all sorts of past energy efforts like expanded oil well development. If they link wind generation to excessive killing of birds, especially endangered ones, the great alternate energy hope might get stopped dead in its tracks.

Read more »

More kids will need college remedial courses in Kentucky

The Courier-Journal reports about the anticipated impact of increased admissions requirements in Kentucky’s public colleges next year.

This is very bad news, as Kentucky’s college remediation rates are already high.



The largest impact of the new change will probably be felt in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, which handles most of the state’s two-year programs. The newspaper estimates that 30 to 50 percent more of next year’s freshmen will have to take non-credit bearing remedial courses after the new standards take effect.

Impact at the state’s four-year institutions will be smaller, partly due to the fact that applicants who need remedial courses are already are being shuffled into the two-year programs.

The paper quotes Lana Jennings, director of the developmental education program at Murray State University Community College, about students who find out they need remedial courses in college. She says, “Many of them are embarrassed. Some are angry. Some are grateful that the help is here because they realize they are not ready for prime time.”

And, a lot of them probably are a little upset that their KERA educations didn’t prepare them for college.

The costs of remediation are rising rapidly. The Courier says currently, “…state spends more than $35 million a year on college remedial education, according to state's Council on Postsecondary Education.” It isn’t clear if that includes both the taxpayer supported costs plus the students’ added costs of tuition for the non-credit bearing courses.

In any event, this new $35 million figure is up dramatically from an estimate provided to the state legislature only around two years ago of $25 million a year, which included both the taxpayer and student-borne costs.

These are real consequences of a public education system that simply isn’t meeting all the promises that were made back in 1990.

If you know of a student who sailed through high school and then got the sudden shock in college that remedial courses were required, let us know with the comments section.

And, get ready to see a lot more kids in the remedial course pool next year.

Big Government health care: False choices

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, recently summed up the House version of health care reform: "What we've decided to do today is abandon the very principles of America."

Rogers also blisters the Democratic plan for offering "false choices" by insisting "it's either (a government-run system) or nothing."

Watch his statement before Big Government makes it disappear from the Web:



Notice that Kentucky congressman Ed Whitfield's name card was clearly seen behind Rogers the whole time he's talking. Yet Whitfield is nowhere to be found.

It should cause Kentuckians to wonder if -- or how vigorously -- Kentucky's congressmen fought against this plan, which, Rogers emphasizes, allows some government healthcrat to "rip you off your own individual plan."

Top political donations organization is ----

The Center for Responsive Politics just released a new report and database on the top political campaign donors.

Heading the list is ---- The National Education Association, the parent of the Kentucky Education Association – the teachers union.

The NEA gave a total of $56,349,269 to federal and state campaigns in 2007-08. Of that, the lion’s share, $53,672,972, went to state level contests and to support or defeat ballot initiatives.

It’s no secret that the Kentucky Education Association is a major political player in Frankfort.

To put this in perspective, one analyst says of this data, “America's two teachers' unions outspent AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, General Electric, Chevron, Pfizer, Morgan Stanley, Lockheed Martin, FedEx, Boeing, Merrill Lynch, Exxon Mobil, Lehman Brothers, and the Walt Disney Corporation, combined.”

Somehow, this just doesn’t look right. Should one, single group in our society have so much influence?

Is our education system failing?

Gov. Beshear spouts that the Kentucky Education Reform Act has been a 'stunning success.' Someone needs to explain the definition of 'success' to the governor, especially in light of abysmal test scores, deceptive proficiency rates and failing schools.

Click here to listen to the 90-second audio commentary.

More on Jefferson County’s reading performance follies

I got a question from the post yesterday about how Jefferson County’s reading performance doesn’t stack up against the real scoring from the Kentucky Core Content Tests. So, I am going to add to the discussion, this time using examples from the eighth grade EXPLORE reading tests from the ACT, Incorporated.

First, as this graph shows, Jefferson County’s eighth grade students scored below the statewide average on the EXPLORE tests in the 2007-08 school year (Note: the district fell even further behind the following school year, but that is another story).



Now, consider the next graph. It shows the percentage of students (rounded) that Every1Reads claims were reading “At or Above Grade Level” in the 2007-08 school year. That is compared to the statewide average percentage of students that scored at or above the EXPLORE reading “Benchmark Score” of 15.


The EXPLORE “Benchmark Score” identifies students who read well enough to pass an initial social studies course in a typically demanding US college. The figure of 33 percent was computed from the information in Table 1a in “The EXPLORE Profile Summary Report, Kentucky EPAS, 2007 – 2008.” The table shows that 67 percent of Kentucky’s students scored a 14 or lower. So, 100 minus 67, or 33 percent scored at or above the benchmark score of 15.

Unfortunately, data isn’t available to directly compute the percentage of students in Jefferson County that met the EXPLORE reading benchmark, but since the district’s scale score was lower than the state average for the assessment, it is a safe bet that somewhat less than one in three Jefferson County students is actually on track to do decent reading in postsecondary studies.

There is generally wide agreement these days that kids need some sort of postsecondary education. Thus, the fact that Jefferson County is preparing less than a third of its students to meet this goal is chilling evidence of the bankruptcy of the inflated, “At or Above Grade Level” claims from Every1Reads.

Find the EXPLORE Profile Summary Report here.

The EXPLORE scores for the state and Jefferson County are in an Excel spreadsheet available here.

“Teacher evaluation in this country is fundamentally broken”

– US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

Quoted in Education Week (subscription)

Secretary Duncan continues, “…teacher evaluation is divorced largely from student progress, student success, how do you defend that?”

Here in Kentucky no teacher has ever lost a license due to fundamental inability to teach. Not one. Unless they commit a crime, it is impossible to get rid of teachers who simply don’t do the job.

Education Week also points out that, “…the administration still places a major value on merit pay, saying that the federal Teacher Incentive Fund, which gives grants to school districts for performance-pay programs, was ‘the best thing the previous administration’ did.”

I don’t think any of that money worked its way to Kentucky, because our union-dominated public school system doesn’t have merit pay programs.

It remains to be seen if pressure from Washington will finally trump the teachers' union's lock on Kentucky schools, but it certainly looks like Secretary Duncan intends to try.

Transparency: A world-wide movement.

In October 2009, Bluegrass Institute founder Chris Derry traveled to Singapore to speak about the concepts of transparency and accountability at the Pacific Rim Policy Exchange.  The Institute's own transparency website, FreedomKentucky.org, was used as an example!  You can watch the presentation below.

What happens when you have a disfunctional education financial accounting system

– Others chime in

I wrote yesterday about the interesting bait and switch of earmarked dollars at the Phelps High School.

Now, the Lexington Herald-Leader is asking questions, as well.