Virginia knows its education standards already excel

Will turn down federal Race to the Top money to keep what they have

The Virginia Pilot reports that the State of Virginia will turn down federal Race to the Top (RTTT) money so it isn’t forced to drop its superior Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL).

Back in 2004 the Bluegrass Institute featured a comparison of what the SOLs require versus what our now defunct CATS tests required.

Except, there really was no comparison.

They have some smart folks in Virginia’s education system.

Looking on the bright side, this probably increases Kentucky’s chance to win some RTTT money.

Looking on the dark side, we are going to get saddled with standards that won’t hold up to those in top states like Virginia.

Good government, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder

Undoing the failure of past irresponsible spending decisions in Washington may feel like starving to the entitlement-addicted crowd. But selling our nation’s soul for a bowl of socialism would be fatal for freedom.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

Why the FairTax will benefit Kentuckians

The FairTax is a proposed change to federal tax laws that would repeal all federal income taxes, including personal, corporate, capital gains and estate taxes, and replace them with a national retail sales tax. The proposed legislation would apply a sales tax rate of 23 percent on the transaction value of any new purchase or service.

A 23 percent rate may seem high – especially to low-income earners for whom consumption accounts for the largest portion of their take-home wages. However, it’s low-income and middle-income families who will benefit the most, thanks to the “prebate” system, which would eliminate the taxation of household necessities and make a fair tax plan more progressive.

Families would pay taxes on goods and services only if they spend above the poverty level. The amount that families would be able to spend tax free would depend on their size. For example, a family of four would be able to spend up to approximately $24,240 annually tax free.

The rebates would have the greatest effect at low spending levels, where they could lower a household's effective rate to zero or below; at higher spending levels, the rebate has less impact.

Comparison of effective tax rates: FairTax, income tax

*the effective tax rate is the rate of taxes paid post-prebate to expenditures (i.e. $6,803/$50,000)

The FairTax would see many Kentuckians benefit because of the low-income nature of the state. Kentucky currently has the fourth lowest median income in the U.S. with a median income of $41,458.

This means that many Kentuckians would see a reduction in the amount of taxes that they pay and thereby allowing them to keep more of their paycheck. With more discretionary income available, citizens across the commonwealth will be free to spend, invest and save at their choosing.

Not all teachers’ unions are created alike

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) just stepped up to the plate to help Colorado pass an important new law on teacher tenure rules. Part of the provisions link student performance to the right of teachers to continue on tenure.

And, agreement was recently reached in New York to pass a law that allows schools to link student test scores to teacher evaluations.

Linking performance to employee ratings a common-sense approach that has long been the standard in virtually every other area of society except teaching. The AFT is the dominant union in New York City, making it of major importance in statewide politics, as well.

Writes the Washington Post, “With the Colorado bill hanging in the balance, the American Federation of Teachers, led by president Randi Weingarten, broke with the National Education Association to endorse it as ‘for the good of kids.’”

How refreshing! A union finally setting aside some of its self-interests to meet the larger need of its members’ ultimate client, the children. That is the way professional organizations operate.

How sad that Kentucky’s dominant teachers’ union is the National Education Association (NEA). Except for a few local chapters in other states, the NEA so far has failed to see the light of enlightenment that is shining bright at the AFT.

So far, nowhere is that light more dimmed than here in Kentucky. Can you ever recall Kentucky’s teachers’ union putting aside self-interests to do something for the good of kids?

This selfish mode of operation could cost Kentucky dearly in the current Race to the Top (RTTT) competition. Those new laws in Colorado and New York are aimed directly at winning some of that money. Both of those states now can point to not only a dramatic improvement in their education policies, but also to a remarkable shift in local union support that certainly will make their bids much more attractive in Washington.

Meanwhile, Kentucky’s teachers’ union just trounced any chance of getting charter schools added to our RTTT reform proposal, in the process providing dramatic evidence that in Kentucky the union remains standing in the way of real education reforms.

Washington just might notice that, too, when RTTT judging starts.

NYC charter schools now outperform in science and social studies as well as math and reading

The New York Post reports Charter Schools Soar!

The Post says new data from the New York City Department of Education shows the city’s eighth grade charter school students outscore regular public school students by 19 percentage points in social studies and by nearly 18 percentage points in science. In fourth grade last year, the city’s charter kids bested regular public school kids by nearly 10 percentage points in science, as well.

This adds to previously announced information that NYC charter school kids bested regular public school kids by about 9 points in math and reading.

Naturally, the local teachers union tried to discredit these findings, saying the kids in charter schools are better off than the regular public school students in the city.

However, most New York City charters are so popular that admission is by random lottery, which raises questions about the union’s allegations.

Further damaging the union’s allegations is the fact that not one, but two recent reports on New York City charters both concluded that the students in these schools definitely outperform their peers in the regular public school system. You can read about those two reports here and here.

Sadly, while NYC kids are getting fantastic results in their charter schools, Kentucky children are left totally out in the cold because charter schools are still unauthorized in the Bluegrass State. When will our legislature finally wake up to their responsibility as the final “buck stops here” agent for education in Kentucky and start a decent charter school program for our students?

Not a whole lot of stimulating goin' on

Stimulus dollars were supposed to get people back to work on ''shovel ready'' projects in 60 days. Louisville is only a year behind schedule.

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

Another example of why Kentucky needs charter schools

This inner city DC charter school boards its students

Try that with a regular public school.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

The school takes in kids by lottery from inner city Washington, DC. Eighty percent of SEED’s students enter below grade level.

“Teachers put emphasis on the basics,” and it works. SEED graduates over 90 percent of its students and sends nearly every graduate on to college.

Just watch the excitement when kids win the lottery to enter this school.

Says one parent, “It’s called opportunity. We’ve never had that before.”

This school model isn’t for everyone, but it is saving kids lives in DC. Sadly, thanks to closed minded attitudes from adult-oriented education special interests in Kentucky, our kids still don’t have anything like the sort of opportunity that only a really flexible charter public school model can provide.

Hat tip to Education Commissioner Terry Holliday via Kentucky School News and Commentary

Why we need teacher incentive pay

Especially in Jefferson County



If you don’t pay them, they won’t come.



That’s the problem highlighted by this Courier-Journal article.

Teachers in Jefferson County don’t want to go to some of the school district’s six troubled schools that were recently identified among Kentucky’s 10 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.

After all, given the school district’s highly restrictive union contract and lack of real incentive pay for teachers who take on more demanding assignments, how can you blame teachers for turning thumbs down on a tough assignment that mostly just offers risks?

However, if you paid them more, they would come.

Read more »

2010 open records project: open season!

We just kicked off our 2010 Open Records Project!  In order to provide readers with a way to track the process and results of our project we have set up a portal on FreedomKentucky.org.  This will allow anyone to see what requests have been sent, their status, the results, and an evaluation of how responsive the state or local agency was to the request.

These requests will be targeting fraud, waste, and inefficiency in state government.

Take a moment and stop by to see what we have found already! If you have suggestions or thoughts on what you would like to see uncovered, let us know in the comment section below or email us.  An email address is provided in the comment section where your thoughts can be sent!

Overstating Jefferson County performance on federal reading tests

We go through the same cycle every time results from the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are released.

Individuals who don’t know a great deal about this test, sometimes aided and abetted by education professionals with obvious agendas, blindly jump on a simplistic score analysis and declare success for Kentucky.

One major problem with such simplistic analyses, as I recently pointed out, is that Kentucky’s student demographics are far less diverse than the rest of the county.

This even holds true when we try to compare our largest city school system in Jefferson County to other large city school systems in the nation, as this graph shows.


Jefferson County has a far higher percentage of whites than any other true ‘urban’ school district that participated in the 2009 NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment in Reading.

It has a far lower minority population, a much lower proportion of students still learning English, and even a notably lower poverty rate (based on enrollment in the federal free and reduced cost school lunch program).

All of those differences give Jefferson County a huge, unearned advantage in any simplistic comparison of scores to other, true ‘urban’ city school systems.

But, that doesn’t stop those simplistic comparisons from coming.

It didn’t stop Jefferson County spokesperson Bob Rodosky from telling the Courier-Journal, “I think we’re very competitive.”

Well, that’s a bit like sending a college basketball team off to play a junior high school team and then declaring that college team is competitive against other colleges.

(Graph Updated 3Jun10)

Fern Creek principal continues denials

The Courier-Journal attached a short video interview with the principal of Fern Creek High School in Louisville to a recent on-line article about Louisville’s six schools that have been identified as some of Kentucky’s Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.

The principal started right off denying that his school was “failing,” implying the audit labeled the school this way.

The audit didn’t say that.

Read more »

What grade does Beshear get on leadership for Kentucky's kids?

The Kentucky General Assembly couldn't get its work done in the constitutionally mandated 60-day session held earlier this year. So it's coming back to try again in a special session -- at a cost of at least $63,000 a day.

Of course, one of the reasons there wasn't an agreement reached during the regular session is because the Kentucky Senate would not cave on the House's demands for wads of extra spending.

What's missing from all this? Charter schools.

Gov. Beshear seemed to find agreement to add alcohol sampling licenses, but he has little backbone when it comes to plight of the thousands of failing children in Kentucky schools.

You can bet if the teachers union supported charter schools Beshear and the legislature would be running all over themselves to pass it now.

So ...

The governor said he wouldn't add charters to the session's agenda if there wasn't agreement between House and Senate leaders. True leaders may say that, but then they work hard to secure such agreements, something we have yet to see from Beshear. Governors of states providing charter school options led the fight in many cases.

What grade would you give Beshear on leadership for our kids and our future?

Is "get tough" school accountability already crumbling?

WAVE-3 reported last week on the replacement of staff in the six Jefferson County schools that are on the list of the state’s 10 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.

Out of about 200 teachers that could have faced transfer if the recommendations of leadership audits had been fully implemented, the WAVE-3 article says only 120 will actually be moved.

Even more interesting, WAVE-3 reports that principals in two of Jefferson County’s high schools will not be removed even thought the audits found they lacked the capability and capacity to lead their schools to real reform.

Those two principals are Houston Barber at Fern Creek Traditional High and Gary Hurt at Valley Traditional High. However, despite the audit findings, the news article says both principals will be kept on because they are “fairly new.”

Well, this table shows why I find that problematic.

School Report Cards from the Kentucky Department of Education for as far back as the 2006-07 year list both Barber and Hurt as principals in their current schools. That means these men were serving at least as far back as the 2007-08 school term. That doesn’t seem like a “fairly new” situation to me. Both men had already served as principals for nearly three school terms by the time they were audited.


It gets even more problematic.

Read more »

Bluegrass Institute welcomes Thatcher confidant John Blundell

The Bluegrass Institute welcomes John Blundell, author and adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, to Kentucky.

Blundell is the former Director General and Ralph Harris Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, which had a great impact on helping develop and disseminate Thatcher's economic policies. Lady Thatcher said of him:

"John Blundell has been one of the most effective champions of the free-enterprise economic model which has delivered progress and prosperity around the world."

It's the kind of "progress" that helped save a nation and that Blundell talks about in his excellent book "Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady."

This book offers great insight into how the character and rock-solid principles of freedom and personal responsibility were formed in Lady Thatcher -- in large part to her father, who was a store owner and local council member -- and how those beliefs affected an entire nation.

Blundell will speak, answer questions and sign copies of his book at 6 p.m. tonight at The Inn on Broadway in Lexington.

Blundell describes Thatcher as: "the woman who was the pivotal point of the rescue of a country, the woman who woke up her nation and made it once again a world leader and player."

Could our country and commonwealth use some of these ideas just about now?

Prichard’s comments about Jefferson County NAEP scores are off target

Just when it looked like the Prichard Committee was “getting it” about Jefferson County Public Schools, they just posted comments in their blog about the new National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores from a special run known as “The Trial Urban District Assessment” (TUDA).

Only, Prichard just blindly compared Jefferson County’s overall scores to other, true urban districts who took part, creating an image that Jefferson County was doing just great compared to similar school systems.

A few days ago, I wrote about why Jefferson County’s very different student demographics make such simplistic comparisons with TUDA to real urban districts complete nonsense.

Here is another graph I assembled that makes this quite clear: Jefferson County Public Schools do not serve a student population anywhere close to that served by the true urban districts that took part in the TUDA.


Note that the Jefferson County percentage of white students in fourth grade is identical to the national average for all school districts, urban, suburban and rural combined, and far above the percentage found in any other TUDA participating urban district.

There is simply no way that Jefferson County’s new NAEP results can fairly be compared to true urban school districts, which, unlike Jefferson County, have not absorbed their upscale suburbs into their jurisdictions.

Prichard won’t let me post comments in their blog any more, so maybe one of our readers will let them know that their comparisons don’t make sense.

You’d think this superintendent would be getting some praise

Well, guess again

Back in early 2009, the Union County Public School District was in trouble. Its performance under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was slipping. According to a Kentucky Department of Education “Staff Note” from February 2009, the Union County School District had reached Tier 3 status under NCLB and also had a school that had reached Tier 5 status under NCLB.

That was based on results from 2008 and earlier testing in math and reading with the Kentucky Core Content Tests (KCCT), the tests used for NCLB accountability.

However, the district hired Joshua E. Powell as its new superintendent in July 2008, and his program started to have impact in the 2008-09 school year

So, I was interested to see how this school district did on the 2009 state tests used for NCLB accountability.

To put it mildly, there was improvement in every area I examined. In fact, improvement was extremely high in elementary schools in both math and reading and middle and high school reading, as well.

Here is how the district ranked in 2008 and 2009 for reading and math proficiency in its elementary schools on the KCCT.


In reading, the Union County elementary schools’ average proficiency rate shot up from 148 among 175 districts with schools at this level to a rank of 55 in just one year. Things were even more spectacular in math where the rankings improved from 156th place among those 175 districts to 52nd.

The next two graphs show the rankings for middle and high schools.


Again, middle school reading improvement was spectacular, rising from 165th place to 76th place among the 175 districts with schools in this grade span. While not so notable, the district also showed a bit of improvement in math, as well.

Here is the high school ranking graph.


Once more, there was very strong improvement in reading among the 170 districts with high schools in Kentucky, and a little improvement as well in math.

Now, considering that this school system was one of only a handful that performed so poorly that it had been placed on “watch” status by the Kentucky Board of Education, you would think these first-year results would be garnering some praise.

Well, guess again.

This is Kentucky, and the bureaucracy apparently can’t stand success unless it comes from its approved programs.

You see, the Union County superintendent, Joshua E. Powell, went against the grain of the education crowd in Frankfort.

He started out by declining help from a Kentucky Department of Education ASSIST team, essentially saying he had an alternative that was better.

That was a good way to make enemies with all the bureaucrats who are involved with the ASSIST team. And, those bureaucrats have friends.

So, now, Mr. Powell finds himself in hot water, accused of violating numerous rules for School Based Decision Making Councils.

There is just one problem with the charges against Powell. His program seems to be working.

If the bureaucratic crowd wins out, we might just lose another educator who seems to be making it work for kids, but not for the adults in the system who really don’t want any boats rocked.

Before we start chopping off heads in Union County, we’d be smart to wait for the next KCCT scores, which should come out around August or September. If Powell can keep up the type of improvement he showed in his first year, then maybe what we really need to do is look at changing whatever rules the bureaucrats are trying to use to get rid of him.

Bluegrass Institute, Prichard Committee concur: Jefferson County Public Schools failing too many kids (Part 2)

The Bluegrass Institute is not the only group calling attention to the failure of Kentucky's largest school district. The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence also has a thing or two to say about the Jefferson County Public Schools' academic performance. (Part 2)

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Bullets.

Quote of the day: Unions vs. 'owners'

"Labour believes in turning workers against owners; we believe in turning workers into owners." Margaret Thatcher

Bluegrass Institute, Prichard Committee concur: Jefferson County Public Schools failing too many kids (Part 1)

The Bluegrass Institute is not the only group calling attention to the failure of Kentucky's largest school district. The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence also has a thing or two to say about the Jefferson County Public Schools' academic performance. (Part 1)

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Bullets.

New federal test results show Jefferson County whites lag in reading

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment for Reading results released this morning, and I have been going through the “Report Card” (NCES 2010-459) of the results.

Here is how the district’s fourth grade whites and blacks compared for reading proficiency (percent of students scoring at or above “Proficient” on the NAEP) to their counterparts in the rest of the nation’s large city school systems.


Here are the results for the eighth grade.


As you can see, while blacks scored about average, whites in Jefferson County did notably poorer than their counterparts in large cities elsewhere.

In addition, the percentages shown here, which come from the well-regarded NAEP, are at very strong odds with the sorts of percentages Louisville has been claiming with its “Every1Reads” program. According to Every1Reads, 90.6 percent of Louisville’s students were reading “At or Above Grade Level” in 2008. The NAEP scores above blow a hole right through that seriously misleading and inflated claim.

Furthermore, even the results shown above are still somewhat overly favorable to Louisville. When you look at Jefferson County’s student demographics, schools in this district enjoy many unique advantages over schools in typical large cities elsewhere in the United States. While it is hard to tie this down to the exact impact on the proficiency rate numbers, it is clear that lower poverty rates coupled with far lower populations of minorities and English language learners give Jefferson County huge advantages. Very simply, in any comparison Jefferson County should get much better results compared to other large cities than those shown in the two graphs above.

Read on to learn more about that. You probably won’t be able to find out about this elsewhere.

Read more »

Bluegrass Institute on NBC affiliate's coverage of charter schools

Kudos to anchor Jennifer Horbelt of WPSD-TV, Paducah's NBC affiliate, for doing some good reporting on charter schools. Horbelt and a photographer traveled to a KIPP Academy in Nashville.



Watch and read the story here.

Watch my full interview with Horbelt here. The teachers union refused to grant Horbelt an interview, but the Bluegrass Institute happily made the trek to Paducah.

The KEA's probably too busy issuing threats that make cowardly politicians in Frankfort cower at the thought of losing the union's 30 pieces of silver, even if doing so would change the course of our neediest children.

Patriots' gems

Past patriots have offered memorable verbal gems at important moments in America's history.

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

Forget that $175 million figure! RTTT failure could lock us out of far more

I blogged a few days ago about comments Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday made a week ago to the Kentucky legislature’s Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee. Holliday said if we lose Race to the Top (RTTT) funding that we will lose somewhat more than the $175 million that RTTT would bring. He also said we probably would lose RTTT if we don’t get a charter school bill enacted in the upcoming special legislative session.

But, I had no idea how large the stakes could really be. Holliday mentioned an additional $10 million grant we would not get, and he also said private foundations were getting ready to put up a lot more money that would probably mostly go to states that won RTTT awards.

Based on some figures I had seen mentioned for Gates Foundation programs, I did a rough estimate that Kentucky’s share of that private money could be about $15 million.

Well, forget that.

The total pot of private foundation money that may follow RTTT is on the order of $506 million.

If this money only goes to the eight or so states expected to win RTTT Phase 2 awards, Kentucky’s share could be $63 million – a WHOLE lot more than the $15 million I estimated earlier.

So, let’s be clear on this: turning down charter schools in Kentucky could come with a really steep price tag, $175 million for the face grant, plus another $10 million for charter school-college coops that won’t happen, and forfeiture of something like another $63 million from private sources, which is expected to largely follow RTTT.

That is nearly $250 million we are going to miss out on because a few groups more interested in adults than children don’t really want any education innovation in Kentucky at all.

Educational denial: Now it’s Metcalfe County High School’s turn

The Glasgow Daily Times reports that some of the local citizens in Metcalfe county are upset about the consequences for the Metcalfe County High School after it was named one of the 10 “Persistently Low-Achieving Schools” in Kentucky.

These folks are incensed that their school’s principal and School Based Decision Making Council (SBDM) are both out following an audit of leadership at the school.

The scapegoat for poor performance is a mystery, however. That scapegoat is Metcalfe County Schools superintendent Patricia Hurt. The Metcalfe County folks want to blame Hurt instead of the high school’s SBDM.

Well, under Kentucky law, the SBDM, not the superintendent, controlled the high school. The SBDM had final authority for all important areas like curriculum and the expenditure of money plus a host of other things that USED to be under superintendent control BEFORE KERA came along. But, not now. A string of lawsuits determined the ultimate supremacy of the SBDM nearly a decade ago.

Anyway, if things went bad at Metcalfe High, and this school’s performance doesn’t look so hot, it was the SBDM, not the superintendent, who was to blame.

And, if the SBDM didn’t understand that, then there is double reason to look for a replacement in management at the school.


(Click on Table to Enlarge)

More on grade inflation and how only girls may be benefitting

I have to admit I have reservations about the first graph below. It comes from Page 23 in the recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress 2005 High School Transcript Study.

This graph shows the high school grade point average for mathematics and science combined for high school graduates from various years since 1990.

The problem is that this graph clearly shows females outperforming males in what has been traditionally regarded as two subjects where males do better than females.

Not so, per the new NAEP study.


In fact, the new report shows the gap has been growing consistently since 1990, increasing by 67 percent over the time covered in this graph.

But, now look at the results for 17-year old students from the NAEP Long-Term Trend Mathematics Assessments. As with my last post in this series, this was assembled using the NAEP Data Explorer.


Low and behold, girls do not outperform boys on this respected mathematics assessment.

Sadly, the NAEP has not conducted Long-Term Trend assessments in science. But, I did check the 2005 Science Report Card for a different NAEP series known as the “Main NAEP.” It doesn’t cover as long a time period, but here is what that shows:


Once again, boys consistently outscore girls.

Since boys outscore girls in both math and science, it is an interesting trick for girls to have a higher combined GPA in those subjects.

Once again, can you say grade inflation? Especially for girls?

I plan to check with the NCES on the high school GPA differential. It does look strange, though the same assertion is made in the text of the 2005 High School Transcript Study that girls outperformed boys, so this is not due to a simple typographical error on the first graph.

Operation: Open Records 2010

Coming soon! Operation: Open Records 2010!

The Bluegrass Institute is beginning an open records campaign this month in an attempt to answer questions about spending, growth in government, and transparency!  We will keep you updated on progress, where to track the requests and how to submit your own!

Stay tuned!

Introducing more choices in education

Approving charter schools during the upcoming special legislative session could boost Kentucky's chances of securing millions of federal education dollars.

Click here to read the entire Perspective.

Suit for school choice filed

The News-Journal reports that the Corbin Independent School District has made good on its promise to do what it takes to protect student choice. The district filed suit in court to get its long-standing student transfer agreement with the Knox County Public Schools reinstated.

This lawsuit is about protecting the rights of parents to make a choice in the schools their children attend.

In past blog articles we have pointed to extensive evidence here, here and here that the Corbin system is one of the state’s top performers while the Knox system is near the bottom.

I would not be surprised if the relative performance of these two school systems becomes part of the lawsuit. After all, why should children be trapped in such a low-performing school system when a better option, at least until recently, has been available for many years?

How does trapping kids in schools advance education in Kentucky?

Are grades inflating in our schools?

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) recently released results from the NAEP 2005 high school transcript study.

The report contains this graph, which shows the increase in grade point average by subject for high school seniors.


The lowest line on the graph shows that the US average grade point average in mathematics rose from 2.34 back in 1990 to 2.63 by 2005.

It’s interesting to compare that trend to the math scores for 17-year old students from the NAEP Long-Term Trend Assessment. Here is a graph of those scores which I assembled using the NAEP Data Explorer:


As you can see, the NAEP math score stayed almost perfectly flat over the general time frame covered by the first graph.

Can you say, “grade inflation?”

Our schools are grading more easily, which makes them look good, but our kids are hitting college and getting the rude shock that they don’t know enough math and need to take remedial courses despite their misleadingly high GPAs from high school.

Kentucky legislators make professional education administrators impotent leaders

The School-Based Decision Making (SBDM) Law (KRS 160.345) relinquishes too much decision power to part-time administrative amateurs. Kentucky has systemic problems in its schools.

Name one other organization that has a crucial mission with severe consequences if it fails that hands over critical top management planning and decision-making to three non-management employees and two customers. Think about it.

Even though Kentucky’s school councils know there are problems, a special report documents achievement gaps are not being closed with any sense of urgency. It’s a tough job to turn a school around. It is next to impossible with Kentucky’s legislative edicts and union constraints.

There is another way. Kentucky could give total control and accountability to experienced, proven leaders that taxpayers are paying for but getting no real leadership from.

The Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education at the University of Virginia offers the opportunity for successful school administrators who have earned at least a master’s degree to also earn a professional credential in educational turnaround management. Successful candidates are established leaders who are dynamic, committed, strategic, data-driven and results-oriented. Moreover, they will have demonstrated success at mobilizing resources and motivating people to elevate student achievement in a time-compressed manner.

There's no comparison between the criteria to enter the Darden/Curry education management turnaround program and that required to serve on a Kentucky school council. Kentucky kids deserve the best at every Kentucky school.

It’s time to can the SBDM theory and implement a proven responsibility and accountability chain of command to get needed results with a sense that time is of the essence.

Getting results is what big education spending is all about - not management experiments and just getting along.

Great example of a lack of accountability

Want to find a good example of where we need accountability in government?  Try the upcoming Lexington-Fayette County PVA race. A former PVA is running again after a short stint away from the position. Apparently she left the post just in time to receive a nice state funded pension and now seeks to receive a paycheck in addition to that.

We need accountability.

In a time when jobs are being cut and budgets are tight we need accountability so that we don't waste funds.

As long as state and local leadership continues business as usual we will continue to have the usual problems.

How well do Jefferson County schools serve foster care children?

The short answer to this question is very poorly.

Hear exactly how poorly from Jackie Stamps, the Regional Director for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Department of Community Based Services.



Some of the things Ms. Stamps mentions are a depressingly low high school graduation rate for Jefferson County foster care children of only 26 percent and the fact that among those children who became too old to remain in foster care in 2008, 21 percent were already in jail.

Ms. Stamps also indicates that part of the problem is that foster care children in Louisville move frequently, and this disrupts their schooling.

I would add that point that if Jefferson County had a charter school option, it might help with this problem for foster care children and many other disadvantaged students, as well.

Ballooning national debt

Even Beetle Bailey character General Halftrack and his wife get it!

Why schools fail

Video from Kyle Olson

Kyle Olson is a vice president at the Education Action Group Foundation. His comments made during the recent Kentucky Education Restoration Alliance’s Education Forum set out some hard realities that sooner or later we simply must face.

Smart dollar management, Mr. Commissioner

In the May 14, 2010 meeting of the Legislature’s Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee (which I attended), Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday said he was going to use money for 35 “Highly Skilled Educator” slots to fund placing two subject matter experts in each of the regional educational cooperatives. Those experts will enhance training for teachers on the new education standards that will soon start to become available in Kentucky.

Using money from the often questioned, dubiously performing Highly Skilled Educator program seems like smart reallocation of scarce resources to me, and it did to legislators, as well.

This is the kind of creative money management Kentucky needs to see a lot more of.

Legislators finally approve regulation to get honest about high school graduation rates

One important action taken in the May 14, 2010 meeting of the Kentucky Legislature’s Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee was the approval of a new edition of regulation Kentucky 703 KAR 5:060, “Interim Assessment and Accountability Process,” which governs the accountability program in the state.

Included in this revision are requirements for Kentucky to adopt reporting with a more accurate interim graduation rate formula, known as the “Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate,” beginning in 2011.

During discussions on the regulation, which only covers a short, interim period for the next few years, it was also announced, assuming the state stays on schedule with the implementation of its Infinite Campus student tracking program, that we will switch to an even higher accuracy graduation rate reporting process in 2013.

Most states are already reporting high-accuracy graduation rates using the approach we will have to wait until 2013 to see. Historically, as states get honest about this important statistic, they find out their old reporting programs seriously overstated the real graduation rates in their schools.

I expect the same shock about our public school system is about to hit us, starting next year.

Here is an example of the kinds of graduation rates we might see, based on using a tool found in the Alliance for Excellent Education’s web site. This tool allows you to quickly determine a graduation-rate-like figure for all the high schools in Kentucky.


It’s a real shame that we don’t have accurate graduation rate data now. If we did, more of you would understand why Kentucky’s failure to implement charters schools has let more kids drop through the education cracks.

Charters, you see, like this one, are starting to show dramatic results with kids who likely would never have finished high school had they remained trapped in the traditional public school system. But, our teachers’ union doesn’t seem to want any Kentucky kids to benefit from this sort of effective help to graduate.

No charter schools will cost Kentucky big time

Eventual loss could be much more than $175 million

Yesterday’s meeting of the Kentucky legislature’s Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee (EAARS) brought some very frank comments from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday.

The Courier-Journal captured some of them, writing:

“I don't think (our Race to the Top application) will be in the top 10,” he said, adding that he expects only eight to 10 states to win money. “We'll give it our best shot. I hope I'm wrong.”

As the Courier also mentions, Holliday indicated some immediate impacts of a Race to the Top loss would be delayed implementation of the new assessment programs required by Senate Bill 1 from the 2009 Regular Legislative Session.

However, Holliday said more(I attended the meeting).

Aside from losing the $175 million that would come with a Race to the Top win, Holliday said Kentucky could also tap an additional $10 million to form charter cooperatives with colleges.

Holliday further added that private foundations like the well-known Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are also poised to add massive private donations to those states that win Race to the Top awards. The commissioner says it is doubtful those private awards will be coming to states that lose in the Race to the Top competition. Clearly such awards could easily run to many millions more.

Holliday again asked the legislators at the EAARS meeting, who come from both the House and the Senate, to reach an agreement on charter school legislation so the governor can add charter school consideration to his announced call for the special legislative session that begins on May 24, 2010.

Based on the commissioner’s comments, in round figures Race to the Top and the charter schools we will need to win the competition could bring us a lot more than $175 million, perhaps more than $200 million.

That’s an awful lot of money to walk away from just so legislators can appease a self-focused teachers’ union. Sadly, that union increasingly seems to show us it doesn’t have much interest in the best interests of the children and the Commonwealth of Kentucky in general.

One last note. I was pleased to see reporter Stephenie Steitzer from the Courier at yesterday’s meeting. A lot of important things have been happening at EAARS meetings, but the media have largely ignored coverage of this important group. Hopefully, this will start a new trend.

Could cutting Kentucky's budget be as fun as cutting 'American Idol' contestants?

Republican Whip Eric Cantor introduced a new idea to help cut the federal deficit.

"YouCut" places five federal budget programs on the chopping block every week for citizens to vote on. The "winning" program will receive an up-or-down vote on the House floor. The process would continue with a new program offered for votes each week.

Cantor explains his budget-cutting idea in the video below.




With Kentucky's budget overflowing with unnecessary expenditures, could this be an idea whose time has come -- not only for the country, but also for the commonwealth?

Even a bumbling agent can uncover shady business in the schools

Solid 'intelligence' gathering uncovers info about teachers' pay, attempts to keep charter schools out of Jefferson County.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

UK economist John Garen on the myth of creating jobs by creating deficits

Recently University of Kentucky economist John Garen, Ph.D., took the time to discuss the currently very popular idea of creating jobs by mindless, irresponsible spending.

Dr. John Garen on Creating Jobs by Creating Deficits from freedomky on Vimeo.

Educators need to fix their confusion about the Leadership Audits

There seems to be a great deal of confusion concerning actions being taken in Kentucky’s 10 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools. In particular, quotes from educators in Louisville concerning that city’s six Persistently Low-Achieving Schools betray massive misunderstanding, at the best.

At the worst, there is a process of denial going on in Jefferson County as educators seem to be trying to confuse the public about the process that will be used to try and turn around these low-performing schools.

Fortunately, I think better understanding is on the way.

The Kentucky Department of Education has now posted a good introduction to the School Improvement Grant process that identified the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.

Some of our educators need to read it.

Read more »

Fern Creek High School is clearly in denial

The list of Jefferson County educators who would rather deny the obvious than deal with problems continues to grow.

This WAVE-3 item shows that staff at Fern Creek High School are among those who just don’t get it.

Writes WAVE-3:

“A group that met Wednesday night at the school calls the decision unfair, claiming in all their efforts to graduate well rounded students they are now being judged by one round of test scores.”

Let’s get this straight.

Test scores were only the trigger for the Persistently Low-Achieving School audit at Fern Creek. The audit looked at a whole lot more than just test results.

Audit findings for Fern Creek include:

1. The principal and council do not focus on delivery of the curriculum, instruction and assessment to meet students' needs.

3. The principal and school council do not create a school plan that targets learning gaps and supports structures necessary for high student achievement.

4. The principal and the school council do not fully implement a school governance structure as mandated by state statute.

5. The principal and school council do not focus on the critical learning needs of gifted nor struggling students.

That’s based on looking at a lot more than just CATS/Kentucky Core Content Test test scores.

There are a lot more indications that this school does not perform well.

How about test results from the ACT’s PLAN test for high schools? The Kentucky Department of Education’s Excel file PLAN_Average_0607-0910.xls shows that in 2006-07, Fern Creek’s composite score was 15.9. It FELL to 15.2 in the 2009-10 school year. In the same time interval, the statewide composite average rose from 16.4 to 16.7. The school-to-state gap tripled from 0.5 point to 1.5 points.

Consider graduation rates. Using methods developed at Johns Hopkins University, the Bluegrass Institute’s report, “How Whites and Blacks Perform in Jefferson County Public Schools,” shows the school only graduated 40.7 percent of its black male students in 2008. Results were also dismal for both white and black females, where graduation rates hovered around 60 percent. That’s all. And, graduation rates for the school’s white females and black males had a trend of decline between the 2003-04 and 2007-08 school years.

Talk about graduating well-rounded individuals - They are not graduating at all!

How can the school’s staff miss things like this?

Let’s get this straight. Fern Creek’s underlying school culture has serious deficiencies. Perhaps the worst is that they clearly are in denial about their very obvious problems.

Sadly, denial seems to run deep in many parts of Jefferson County. For more examples of how educators in Jefferson County are denying obvious problems instead of dealing with them, check our earlier blogs here, here and here.

Leadership Assessments now on line

Following up a suggestion I made earlier this week, the Kentucky Department of Education has now posted all of the Leadership Audits for the state’s 10 “Persistently Low-Achieving Schools” and the five school districts where those schools are located.

These audits are an important part of the process to award these 10 schools federal School Improvement Grant money. Those grants amount to $500,000 a year in each school for three years, a total of $1.5 million per school.

You can find a general web page which has a short discussion of the audit process and a number of links to more detailed information here.

If you want to go direct to the web page with the direct links to each audit, click here.

Tired of Empty Words and Broken Promises?

Kenneth Campbell, president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, tells it like it is for children of color and the disadvantaged in this must listen video, recorded at the May 10, 2010 Education Forum hosted by Louisville’s Kentucky Education Restoration Alliance. If you want to know why blacks in Louisville and elsewhere are so interested in charter schools, you need to hear this.


(Click the "Play" button on the video screen above)

Why are Jefferson County’s schools failing kids?

Check out this new video for the answers along with citations of disturbing data from the Bluegrass Institute, the Kentucky Department of Education and even the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.


(Click the "Play" button on the video screen above)

Transy tobacco ban

So it seems Transylvania University in Lexington has joined the "tobacco group-think".  Effective August 1, 2010 the campus will go tobacco free.  Not smoke free. Tobacco free.  That's right, you can't even use smokeless tobacco. 

Why? 

Because the University of Kentucky and Transylvania University know what is good for you.

Granted, Transylvania is a private institution and is more than entitled to impose this ban if it sees fit.  However, it seems a bit extreme doesn't it?  At least the forward thinking Transy was willing to have a designated smoker's area when the University of Kentucky couldn't even allow the adults that attend their school that luxury.

Watch out, Kentuckians.  Your buttery popcorn and sodas are next!

Facts, not bias or propaganda, should determine charter school policy

Lawmakers should decide the future of charter schools in Kentucky based on facts, not propaganda.

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

UK economist John Garen discusses KY state budget

Dr. John Garen on Kentucky State Budget from freedomky on Vimeo.

You lookin' for a Sugar Daddy?

"If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation will you prefer the grain to a vote?" -- Bertrand Russell

A reminder that stark differences remain between big spenders and responsible leaders was brought home again to me via Kentucky's Washington delegation on page 16 of a recent Kentucky Gazette. See if you notice a difference:

A statement by a U.S. Senator bemoaned: "We are spending our nation's future into the abyss. ... by 2020, that cost (of the national debt) will jump to $248,700 per child under the age of 18. ... As a country we have to make hard decisions when it comes to entitlement programs. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will continue to drain our resources."

Right next to the Senator's statement is one by a Louisville congressman who spent his whole clip talking about how much taxpayer-funded pork he brought home: He announced that Kentucky would receive an additional $175 million in federal stimulus funding. The congressman bragged that "this new funding brings the total amount of Recovery Act dollars the Commonwealth has received from the U.S. Department of Education to more than $1.14 billion."

So, what will be the end result of all this stimulating spending, Mr. Congressman?:
"With this investment, our nation is guaranteeing our students have the resources to receive a high-quality education while maintaining the highest-skilled workforce in the world."

Wow. Really? Has he heard about: 1) Kentucky's 10.7 unemployment rate; 2) the massive problems in its schools; 3) employers who want to hire district graduates, especially minorities, but can't find those academically proficient enough to fill out a job application or read a simple manual?

He must not know: If money solved our education problems, Louisville, which spends 19 percent more per pupil than any other district in the commonwealth, would be the poster district.

On the very same page in the very same paper on the very same day, you can have two political leaders taking very different approaches to our fiscal problems. One is warning that we're spending away the future of our children and grandchildren. The other: Bragging about more spending.

This division is a microcosm of the entire country.

Some want less government, lower taxes and adherence to the Constitution by our elected officials.

Others prefer the Sugar Daddy approach, which keeps more and more dependents sucking on government’s teat, all while vigorously shaking their heads in approval at policies that redistribute the wealth and institute a State of Nanny-ism that runs every aspect of their lives.

Quote of the day: What is the most 'firing proof' profession?

"Education is the only job where you can fail at your job and still not get fired." -- Mandy Connell, WHAS-AM talk show host

Jefferson County School Board meeting is a mess

Today’s Courier-Journal coverage of last night’s tumultuous meeting of the Jefferson County Board of Education is loaded with insights into why the most troubled schools in this district are the way they are.

Some of last night’s comments were eye-watering.

It started with Jefferson County Schools Superintendent Sheldon Berman. Last week, Berman said he wanted to shut down the Robert Frost Middle School and transfer the students to other schools. He reversed himself before the board met yesterday amidst howls of protest.

The Courier writes that Berman said:

“…closing the troubled school in southwestern Jefferson County would have been the right way to proceed.

‘We believe it is the best educational intervention we had,’ he said.”

But, Berman caved, now basically admitting that the plan finally selected, which changes out the principal and 50 percent of the staff, isn’t the best approach for this school, but the school district is going use it, anyway.

Selecting second-best options when something better is available isn’t what we need from senior school leadership.

Berman took still another hit on his management style.

Tonya Mobley, the PTA head at Robert Frost Middle School, landed a hard punch on Berman. The Courier quotes her addressing Berman:

“'Since you were appointed (superintendent) you have only spent about 10 minutes at our school,' she said. 'That is not enough.'”

I don’t know if Ms. Mobley was exaggerating, but others I’ve talked to indicate Berman did not spent much time in his schools. It’s an issue the Kentucky Board of Education and the Commissioner of Education need to investigate.

Certainly, comments made last night are especially disturbing because Berman now will gain a lot more power in his district’s most troubled schools. That is because these schools must pass their School Based Decision Making school governing authority - to Berman!

Read more »

Ron Paul's mission to audit the Fed bears fruit

From the Washington AP today,

"The Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize an examination of the Federal Reserve’s closely guarded emergency lending to financial institutions in the months surrounding the 2008 financial crisis.

The measure passed 96-0 as an amendment to a comprehensive financial regulation bill before the Senate. The vote came as the Fed ramped up its emergency program to keep a European debt crisis from spreading further.

The Senate proposal would require a one-time audit by Congress’ investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, and cover a period beginning in December 2007. The GAO was specifically directed to examine potential conflicts of interest between the Fed and the banks receiving assistance.

The Fed’s short-term lending, designed to increase the liquidity of banks reeling from the crisis, grew dramatically at the height of Wall Street meltdown. At its peak at the end of 2008, the Fed’s lending totaled $1.16 trillion. Overall, the Fed’s balance sheet ballooned to $2.3 trillion, more than double where it stood before the crisis struck

Momentum for a more transparent Fed grew last week after its lead sponsor, Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., reduced the scope of the audit, and the Obama administration and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke withdrew their earlier opposition. A proposal for a broader audit failed 62-37 Tuesday."

For 30 years, Congressman Ron Paul has made the bank, cloaked in secrecy, his mission. To bring this quasi-government institution into public sunlight and scrutiny through transparency and accountability. And, after the financial crisis of 2008, his unfailing effort resulted in an astonishing win in the passage of HR 1207, a bill that would for the first time in it's creation audit the Federal Reserve Bank. The bill passed as an amendment both in the House Financial Services Committee and in the House itself.

The House version-HR 1207-is much stronger and both of these bills will probably die a slow death in committee during the reconciliation process, but this does not belittle the fact that a Senate bill has now passed unanimously and the House bill passed surprisingly to audit the Federal Reserve.

How much Kentucky government is really needed?

The Kentucky state budget deadline looms. There could be a shutdown of some sort. We’ve heard it all before: Need more money. Need to borrow more money. Need to spend more money. And more promises on the worn-out path of broken promises.

Why not just shut down? Our government leaders don’t create anything productive people need to buy. They don’t aggressively streamline operations, innovate or create jobs. They aren’t driven by competition to continuously improve. They haven’t proven they can stretch a dollar when time is of the essence. They retain, pay and reward state workers regardless of the economy and regardless of performance.

A University of Michigan economics professor concluded in a recent study that government employees make 45 percent more on average than private sector employees.

We know Kentucky state worker health care, pension, other job benefits and the work culture cost taxpayers a bundle. So how many state employees do we really need under these conditions when we can’t afford what we have?



We know that the bonding some want for schools will be covered by state mandated prevailing wage restrictions that stifle competitive innovation and increase cost. But those prescriptive restrictions are sacred. They can't be touched. In a shootout between improving schools or maintaining paybacks to unions, the kids lose every time.

Greece is getting a wake up call. California is getting a wake up call. Financial institutions got a wake up call. But Kentucky spenders can’t hear the phone.

It’s time to see how Kentucky government leaders perform with much less money to spend. After all, that’s what they are paid to do – lead with fiscally responsible approaches and get better results at less cost.

Poll may have asked the wrong question

A recent poll conducted by the Lexington Herald-Leader was published Monday.  In total, 600 Kentucky residents were interviewed over the phone and asked a variety of questions about political current events.

One of the questions dealt with resolving the state budget crisis. Those polled were asked if they preferred closing tax loopholes, increasing the sales tax, cutting funding for health and education services, or expanding gambling as a way to close the budget shortfall.  According to the results nearly 45% agreed that increasing revenue through expanded gambling is the way to go.

I disagree. In fact, I think a few very important options were left off the poll:

• Repealing prevailing wage
• Legalizing industrial hemp
• Making cuts in the bloated state pension system

Two of the three options above provide cuts to current spending. These would be much more desirable options than providing the state with more revenue.  Kentucky has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. 

We have decided to have our own poll.  Take a moment and weigh in on the poll located on the sidebar of our blog.  We would love to see what you think.  Some of the suggestions above have been included.

Public release of low-achieving schools’ audits coming

Per my conversation with Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday today, in the next day or so his department will publicly post the recent School and District Leadership Audits that were conducted back around March.

Those audits look at the 10 schools and owning school districts that were identified as Kentucky’s very lowest performing “Persistently Low-Performing Schools.” These are also discussed as the “Persistently Low-Achieving Schools,” by the way.

This is a nice increase in transparency for the department, and there is public interest in seeing what the auditor’s learned in each of these clearly problematic schools.

We’ll post the links as soon as they are available.

A listing of the 10 schools is available below in a table that gives an idea about how long each principal has been at the school. Those highlighted in pink have probably been in the schools long enough that the rules for the School Improvement Grant program will require their removal.

(Click on Table to Enlarge)

Superintendent Berman reverses plan: Won't recommend closing Frost Middle School

I hate to say I told you so.

Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Sheldon Berman is already backing off the originally announced plan to close the terribly under-performing Robert Frost Middle School.

Now, he says he will just remove the principal and 50 percent of the teachers.

There is a MAJOR problem with this new approach in any Jefferson County school.

The teachers' union contract ties Berman’s hands tightly on staffing changes through its seniority rules. Berman does not have a free hand to shift teachers around.

This move will probably just load up Frost Middle with a lot of low-experience teachers.

It already happened in the Fredrick Law Olmstead North and South Middle Schools. Berman controls those schools now as a result of a decision from the Kentucky Board of Education. That decision transferred control of the School Based Decision Making Councils several years ago. Those schools saw extensive staffing changes but still wound up with a lot of inexperienced teachers.

Why should we expect anything different this time?

More on denial in Jefferson County Public Schools

I recently wrote about the culture of denial in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) after six schools in the district were identified for major changes such as staff and principal replacement following an analysis of test results and on site audits to determine exactly how the school staff was performing.

In doing some other research, I found this example from WAVE-3 TV in Louisville from three-fourths of a year ago that further highlights the culture of denial in this school system.

In this case, JCPS Director of Planning, Research and Accountability Bob Rodosky was too busy trying to shoot messengers to own up to the painfully evident problems in Louisville's schools.

It is interesting to note in the WAVE-3 article that I said at the time that it was finally time to make some hard decisions about school staffing. Now, nine months later, with some added prodding from the federal government, maybe that long overdue process is actually happening.

A health care bill 'stinky' really hurts Kentucky businesses

Passing the health care bill was an Obama and Congressional "emergency." Well the devil’s in the details. Here’s an example of why Democrats didn’t want any transparency on this bill.

Beginning in 2012 businesses will be required to report all payments in excess of $600 for services or merchandise to the Internal Revenue Service on a Form 1099. That means businesses will have to send a 1099 to other businesses for virtually all purchases.

This onerous regulation will be expensive while adding absolutely no value for the cost incurred to comply. So much for driving costs out to improve competitive positions.

The Washington bureaucrats will probably spin this as a ‘job stimulus’ initiative because it might force companies to add a job to process this paper. But it will cost American consumers in higher prices. That is until a foreign company not subject to this nonsense takes all the work and eliminates the need for any U.S. jobs.

Kentucky's political leadership saw no need to protect the commonwealth's businesses from this type of onerous federal mandate. Too bad. This stinks. This hurts.

More shots education research and the folks who create it

I’ve been writing a lot about the poor quality of education research, so it’s worth pointing out that the largest organization for education researchers is the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The operation of this organization may provide insight into why education research is in so much trouble.

For years, AERA has been collecting a growing group of critics who charge the organization’s research focus has become more political and less objective.

The AERA itself just tossed gasoline on this fire by taking a highly political stand on the recently passed illegal immigration legislation in Arizona.

In reaction to that incendiary action, Peter Schmidt at The Chronicle of Higher Education hits the AERA right between what he clearly believes is the organization’s not-rigorously-researched eyes.

Schmidt’s political comments aside, his article provides insight into what may be an important part of the reason why education research lacks rigor. After all, if you are more focused on pushing agendas, objectivity usually goes out the window.

Newsweek flunks education research

I absolutely agree with the score, but this failing grade didn’t come from me, this time.

Newsweek just examined the sorry condition of education research and declared “Education research gets an F.”

To be honest, as more and more evidence of the vacuous quality of most education research piles up at places like the Institute for Education Sciences and in the insightful discussions from Arthur Levine, past president of Columbia Teachers College, it is becoming shockingly clear that education research, and the education schools that create this nonsense, are a real mess.

We’ve been saying it for some time.

Thanks to lousy research, our schools are overrun with reading programs that don’t work (see my earlier blog today), or, as Newsweek points out, math programs that don’t work and methods of teaching science that don’t work, either.

And, all the while, our teachers are being told these fad ideas work, so don’t ask questions - just use them!

Dreaming of a genie who fights for freedom

America is at a crossroads. Turn left and there you will see constitutionally illiterate, 'wealth-distributing' politicians who believe we need more government and less liberty. To the right: those fueled by freedom's fire who are committed constitutionalists and responsible stewards of limited resources.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

Denial persists at Jefferson County School Board

Fallout from the recent audits of six persistently low-performing schools in Jefferson County continues

Yesterday, the Jefferson County Public Schools District staff presented proposals to the local school board on how to deal with the extensive list of findings from the state audits of the district’s six Persistently Low-Performing Schools.

It looks like the fallout from those audits could lead to tough actions ranging from replacement of principals and teachers at some schools to the complete shutdown of the Frost Middle School.

But, WAVE-3 reports that some of people at yesterday’s local school board meeting remain in denial that anything is wrong.

Some examples from the WAVE-3 post:

"'We don't feel like we have any persistently low performing schools in this district,' said Joseph Burks, JCPS Assistant Superintendent for district-wide high school instructional services."

"I personally wake up every day teach the kids and make sure they know how to read and write and progress to the next level," said Dalton Holt, a Frost Middle 6th and 7th grade Language Arts teacher.

But, WAVE-3 points out that state auditors see it very differently, saying students at the identified schools are not meeting state standards.

What is really sad in all of this is that past school audits in Kentucky have a history of giving schools every benefit of the doubt, perhaps leaning back too far to avoid conflicts. If anything, the current crop of audits are unlikely to overstate the seriousness of problems.

But, denial has become an art form in this country, and it thrives in the Louisville school system. We highlighted one example of this before, when we pointed out that the district jimmied scores from the CATS test to create a false sense of progress in Louisville’s Every1Reads program. Now, the same lack of willingness to accept the obvious in Jefferson County helps explain why serious problems in many of the district’s schools have gone unsolved for so long.

Will it really happen?

Frost Middle School in Jefferson County closing?

WAVE-3 reports that the Frost Middle School, one of the state’s 10 Persistently low-achieving schools, has been recommended for closure.

But, wait, the school district is going to move the Phoenix School of Discovery into the same location. That’s not a charter school (we don’t have any), so it is still part of the Jefferson County Public School System, subject to all the union rules, etc.

Could that mean teachers with seniority from Frost might wind up right back in the same building?

Could that mean a school by any other name is still “Frost?”

Right now, the Kentucky Department of Education says the Phoenix School of Discovery is located at 10200 Dixie Highway in Louisville. What, if anything, will be going into that facility? Frost II, former staff included?

Also, Frost is located at 13700 Sandray Boulevard in Valley Station. Mapquest says that’s about 4.7 miles away from Phoenix’s current location, as the bus drives. Of course, in school bus happy Louisville, that is no issue.

This sure is getting interesting.

Independence Institute in Colorado debates states vs. federal =rights in health care

UK economist John Garen on school choice

This is a great discussion with John Garen, Ph.D., professor of economics at the University of Kentucky and adjunct scholar with The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, about school choice and the current education system in Kentucky.