Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Kentucky's education system: All noise, no impact

The Kentucky Legislature is quick to protect the status quo -- including the budget -- of the commonwealth's K-12 education system. But without change, there is no change.

The question is, do legislators really know what educators are spending per school and what the taxpayers they represent get for those dollars?

The Cato Institute found other states don't really know. So what about Kentucky?



MUNIS is the overall name for the statewide financial management system used by the Kentucky Department of Education and all of the state’s public school districts and individual schools.

The system should be able to answer questions that delve into what learning bang are we getting for our extensive education spending. Given the high number of students performing below grade levels, many system-approach questions should be asked and answered: Who's comparing systems? Why is low performance accepted when other schools do better? What is a school’s bang for the buck now?

It’s time for education professionals to get into the details and give up their "get-out-of-tough-questions-free pass" concerning THEIR bang for OUR buck.

The system fires way too way many blanks, resulting in all noise and no impact.

No comments: