Freedom-info flows from different streams

Congratulations to Thomas McAdam, who covers the shenanigans at Metro Louisville's City Hall for the Louisville Examiner.

McAdam, an attorney and great writer who obviously enjoys his new perch, has just published his 1,000th article for the Examiner. His articles get right to the point, and he's not afraid of offending the sensibilities of corrupt and criminal politicians and bureaucrats. Plus, it's solid, accurate information.

In his latest article, McAdam notes the decline of the "old" media and the dramatic shift in the way in which Kentuckians get their news.

"Electronic news delivery, free and instantaneous, is clearly the wave of the future," McAdam writes.

He also notes the decline of Kentucky's largest newspaper, the Courier-Journal:

"As the paper’s death-rattle becomes more audible, the home edition grows increasingly thinner. Pretty soon, there won’t be enough paper in the C-J to wrap a dead fish, or to line the bottom of a birdcage. We used to joke that 'Today’s news is tomorrow’s garbage; and the Courier-Journal has speeded up the process by 24 hours.' Guess that's not so funny anymore."

By contrast, the Examiner is the fastest-growing news source in the country. It publishes in 238 individual cities, each of which has their own Web editions.

Helping Kentuckians recapture their freedom is the Bluegrass Institute's mission. But that takes informed patriots. And we can all be grateful for the work that McAdam and other online "informants" do.

Boone County’s “Making the Most of High School” is parent-friendly idea

It's great for students, too

Even though I hear constant dialog from Kentucky educators about how they are reaching out to parents, we still hear about disconnects between parents and schools.

So, it was a real pleasure to attend the Boone County Public Schools’ "Making the Most of High School" parent event last Saturday.

The event was kicked off by Kentucky State Senator John Schickel and Boone County Superintended Randy Poe, and it was loaded with 35 different breakout sessions for parents and students that covered a tremendous range of topics.

Here is a partial listing of the breakout sessions assembled by Superintendent Poe and his enthusiastic Boone County staff. This will give you an idea of the huge range of subjects covered. You can see the full list by clicking the “Read more” link below.



• MATHEMATICS, THE PIVOTAL CLASS – How parents can help their kids master math

• NOT MY KID – Informing parents about drug issues

• BUILDING YOUR RESUME IN HIGH SCHOOL – Aimed at getting into college and beyond

• COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS – How to get the $$$$

• FINANCING YOUR FUTURE EDUCATION – Understanding the KEES scholarship and other programs

• DEMYSTIFYING THE COLLEGE APPLICATION PROCESS – What parent and student doesn’t need this help?

• DUAL ENROLLMENT IN HIGH SCHOOL – How to balance attending both high school classes and college classes while still in high school

• I HATE THIS RIDE, LET ME OFF: THE EMOTIONS OF HIGH SCHOOL – They could charge double for this one!

• SPORTS ELIGIBILITY IN HIGH SCHOOL AND THE NACAA CLEARINGHOUSE – Must know for high school athletes

• EDUCATION OF GIFTED STUDENTS IN BOONE COUNTY SCHOOLS – For the parent who has one, this is gold

• HIGH SCHOOL AND BEYOND FOR EXCEPTIONAL STUDENTS – Boone didn’t overlook the special needs kids, either!

Dr. Anna Marie Tracy from the Boone County Schools says that teachers and other staff donated their time to the event, and the costs were covered by private industry donations, making this a very efficient "bang for the buck" program.

I hope a lot more school districts are doing something similar for parents. If your school district isn’t, why not download the topic listings for your school system by clicking the “Read more” link or by just e-mailing them the link to this blog.

And, if you are a Boone County parent who didn't come to this conference, you really missed out on a great opportunity. I hope you will be there next year, because your kids deserve no less.

Read more »

Mercatus: Government pay outpaces private sector

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University recently released data outlining a rather striking fact: government pay in the last decade has outpaced that of the private sector.

I suppose this isn't surprising given that the government doesn't have any real competition to speak of.  It's difficult to compete with someone who makes the rules and has a seemingly unlimited supply of funds.

Take a moment and read what the Cato Institute says about it here.

Kentucky Representative Darryl Owens upset about Ed Commissioner’s comment

Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday got some criticism yesterday for making statements that all schools with diversity will fail No Child Left Behind by 2014.

I like a lot of things Commissioner Holliday is doing, but given the big loopholes like confidence intervals, busing, etc, etc, in No Child Left Behind, it is at best premature to say no school with diversity will be able to escape sanctions in 2014.

Also, the facts are that a lot of Kentucky schools can’t meet the relatively low performance targets in our current Kentucky Core Content Tests, and they are doing a very bad job of getting kids ready for life. Many currently deserve to be identified as problematic when the proportions of kids scoring at or above benchmarks statewide for the EXPLORE, PLAN, and ACT tests – tests which are tied to what kids need next – remain low.

Internet blacklist? Did I wake up in China...in 1984?

You read the title correctly. An article posted on The Huffington Post a couple days ago discusses the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act and it's dangers.  Don't be fooled by the title of this act...it's a trap!

Basically, this act gives the government the power to put web domains on a blacklist if they are under  suspicion of "infringing activities".  Wasn't it just a few months ago that the current administration of the United States called out Iran for web censorship during their national elections? 

The internet is one of the most powerful modes of free speech we have, let's not let this domino fall.  The Bluegrass Institute fought against this type of activity in Kentucky just last year!

College and Career Readiness in Kentucky

One of the very interesting additions to the new academic reporting from the Kentucky Department of Education is a new series of data on College and Career Readiness. This shows the percentage of graduates from the school system that score high enough on the ACT college entrance test to avoid needing any remedial course work in math, reading or English upon entering a Kentucky public postsecondary institution. In addition, for 2010, a student who earns an industry recognized “career certificate” is also counted as a success. If you want more information, I provide that and some caveats in the “Read more” section, which you can access from the link below with the same name below.

But, this is largely straight-forward, so let’s look at how Kentucky did in 2010 on this new indicator.

• There is a huge variation in school performance on getting kids ready for college and careers.

o The top school, DuPont Manual High in Jefferson County, prepared 81 percent of its 2010 graduates for college and careers. This school is expected to achieve a 91 percent college and career readiness rate for its graduates in 2014.

 DuPont Manual is a highly selective magnet school. The fact that it still fails to prepare one in five students is very disturbing.

o The bottom performing schools – The Academy @ Shawnee, Valley Traditional High School, Western High School, all in Jefferson County and Deming High School in Robertson County – are only expected to have a 52 percent readiness rate in 2014. I seriously doubt they will reach that goal given their current, dismal performance.

 In 2010 only 4 percent of the three Jefferson County schools’ graduates are college ready!

 In Deming High School, only 3 percent are ready for college and careers.

 These are gruesome numbers after 20 years of KERA.

• In 2010 only 15 of the 228 high schools in Kentucky adequately prepared half or more of their graduates for college and careers.

• High school size doesn’t matter much.

o The correlation (a statistical calculation involving the correspondence of data) between the number of graduates and the percentage that are college and career ready is a rather low 0.32. There is a slight benefit to being a larger high school, but not much. For example:

 Among the top 10 schools for percentage of students who are college and career ready, six exceeded the state median figure and four had much lower numbers of graduates.

 In fact, all four graduated 74 or fewer students in 2010, and two tied with graduates totaling only 44.

 At the other end of the performance spectrum, only one high school exceeded the state median number of graduates, but this could be due to large numbers of dropouts in these very low performing schools.

 Out of the 10 bottom performing schools for college and career readiness, seven are found in Jefferson County.

• Many districts did not report that any students completed any industry-recognized career certificates. Does that mean that in many districts such alternate career pathways are totally unavailable or that programs don’t do an adequate job of preparing students to obtain such certifications?

o No high school in the enormous Jefferson County Public School system reported any student earning such certification.

Read more »

What happened to Jefferson County’s 2008 NCLB Tier 5 schools in 2010?

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, back in 2008 four Jefferson County Elementary Schools were in the worst NCLB performance Category – Tier 5. They are:

o Atkinson Elementary
o Hazelwood Elementary
o Maupin Elementary
o Okolona Elementary

These schools all failed consistently to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for at least six years by 2008.

So, what is happening to those schools today?

According to the NCLB Media Report for 2009, all four schools were reconfigured after the end of the 2008-09 school year and prior to the start of the 2009-2010 school term. That reset their 2009-10 NCLB accountability status all the way back from a worst possible Tier 5 classification to having no accountability classification what-so-ever today – NONE!

Do you believe that?

Here is one example. This table summarizes the Maupin Elementary School’s NCLB performance by year since this program started.


Note that Maupin never, EVER, met the Annual Measurable Objective score for reading under NCLB. By my estimate, Maupin would be a No Child Left Behind Tier 5, Year 3 school in this new school term of 2010-11 (Note, the department of education had to rename the “Tier” system to avoid confusion because the federal government is now using that name for something else. The correct new term would be Restructuring, Year 3).

Never-the-less, Maupin faces no consequences what-so-ever in the current school term. It won’t face consequences until after the 2010-11 NCLB scores come out around August or September of 2011.

Maupin’s entire school staff got a “Get Out of Jail Free” card from the district’s parent- and student-hostile busing nonsense simply because the enrollment in the school changed by at least 20 percent. Do you think an enrollment change that small should wipe out all accountability?

Still to be decided – what happens if Maupin fails NCLB again. Will it go to a “Restructuring” classification, or just start NCLB all over at the least severe category of School Improvement, Year 1 (The old Tier 1)? I’ve been talking to the Kentucky Department of Education about this very serious question. So far, no answers, but the department is sensitive to this obvious problem.

By the way, I have similar tables to the one above for the other three Tier 5 schools from 2008. Click the “Read more” link to see that.

Read more »

Prichard Committee slams Jefferson County Schools performance for kids in poverty

We agree

I doubt you’ll ever see a link from the Prichard Committee’s blog to our site, but when they get something really right, we are happy to acknowledge that.

In this blog Prichard takes a good shot at the Jefferson County School District’s lousy performance in the newly released state testing data for its many kids in poverty.

Someone in Jefferson County really needs to wake up.

Note: I have not double-checked the exact numbers in the Prichard post, but they usually get this sort of data correct.

Jefferson County busing plan “BUS-ted” NCLB again!

It’s no surprise. The Jefferson County Public School District’s chaotic busing plan – supposedly justified by needs for diversity – thoroughly trashed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability for the district’s elementary schools. Is this the real reason educators in Jefferson County continue to defend this child- and parent-hostile mess?

Here are some of the gruesome statistics for the district’s 89 standard configuration (Primary to Grade 5) elementary schools:

• THEN: In 2008 a total of 21 Jefferson County elementary schools were in NCLB improvement categories ranging from Tier 1 to Tier 5. Another five schools lacked enough high needs students to be considered federal Title 1 schools, so they were not held accountable. However, these five schools also failed to make the NCLB targets.

• NOW: In 2010, only 10 elementary schools face consequences in the latest NCLB report. That is true even though NCLB standards got tougher during the past two years. In the new report, the non-Title 1 schools can also face state-level sanctions, but few did in Jefferson County.

Thus, in 2008 there were 26 Jefferson County elementary schools that would face sanctions, then in 2010, with the standards raised, only 10 schools faced sanctions?

Does that sound credible?

Consider this:

• In 2010 out of the 89 standard configuration elementary schools in Jefferson County, 67 (that’s 3 out of 4) were “reconfigured” and got excused from all NCLB accountability thanks to busing.

• Of the 67 reconfigured Jefferson County elementary schools in 2010, 56 (that’s 84 percent) actually failed to make overall adequate yearly performance in reading for at least two years in a row. WITHOUT BUSING, THEY SHOULD HAVE FACED CONSEQUENCES.

• Many of the same 56 schools that failed in reading also failed in mathematics.

• Out of the remaining 22 schools that were not reconfigured, 10 faced NLCB consequences. Thus, for those few elementary schools in Jefferson County that were held accountable, nearly half (45 percent) failed to escape NCLB sanctions in 2010.

Any way you slice this, a lot of schools that should be held accountable, were not.

Read more »

Obama: Money alone can't solve school predicament

The Associated Press is reporting on a huge MSNBC interview with President Obama this morning on the crisis in education in the United States.

The article links to a section of the MSNBC web site with a video of the events so far.

Interesting comment from the MSNBC interview:

According to a recent Time survey, 67 percent of the US population now believes the public school system is in crisis.

And, in his videoed comments, the president says that:

Teachers union can’t defend a status quo where one-third of the students are dropping out and 2,000 schools are dropout factories.

Also, the president endorses firing teachers who don’t perform.

Finally, even our president now admits that just throwing more money at education isn’t going to work.

Check it out for yourself.

Then, keep up to date in this blog. There is more than ample evidence in the new test results I am writing about (lot’s more to come) to support that nationwide concern at an even higher level in Kentucky.

• I’ve already touched on some of the most disturbing data, such as the decline in our high schools in nearly every subject tested last year.

• Later today, I will next show how the elementary schools in our largest school district escaped any accountability what-so-ever under NCLB in 2010.

• Finally, we are going to look at the grim performance in many of our lower grades on the new Iowa Test of Basic Skills, which was given for the first time during the 2009-10 school term. Wait until you see how poorly some of our schools are doing in even teaching the basic stuff that children must master before they really are prepared to take on higher order thinking assessments.

Government brought to you in technicolor

Jim Waters, Vice-President of Policy and Communications, speaks about the Bluegrass Institute at a meeting of the Kentucky Patriots.

Government brought to you in Technicolor by Jim Waters from freedomky on Vimeo.

Quote of the day

"I can't say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days. --Kentucky pioneer Daniel Boone

Don’t believe schools don’t have to have 100 percent proficiency in 2014 to avoid NCLB trouble?

Check this out

I talked in an earlier blog about how the abuse of a statistical process called “Confidence Intervals” means Kentucky schools don’t have to post 100 percent proficiency rates in 2014 to avoid No Child Left Behind (NCLB) sanctions.

How about some real examples?

The Trapp Elementary School in Clark County is a top performer, but it doesn’t need to get all of its students to reading proficiency in order to avoid NCLB trouble in 2014. In fact, it could be considered to be done now, even though its current proficiency rate in reading is less than 90 percent.

As this graph shows (taken from the Trapp Elementary School’s 2010 NCLB Report, access from pull down menus here), the school’s current proficiency rate of 87.50 percent plus the confidence interval “bonus points” already place the school in the 100 percent proficient category for NCLB purposes (click on the graph to enlarge).


Actually, Trapp Elementary makes 100 percent with about a half a point to spare. The top of the confidence interval in this graph was cut off. It really rests at 100.45.

Want to see an even more impressive example? Click the “Read more” link

Read more »

Guess who’s reading us now: The Washington Post’s education blog

In the middle of all the Kentucky score report hoopla, I don't want to forget to mention that the Washington Post read our recent blog, “Report builds mountain out of education ant hill” and asked us to provide a short intro plus link for posting in their blog.

See that Washington Post article here.

To the Post’s credit, when they get better information, they fix what they write.

Quote the day: Tax cuts

"The worst deficit comes from a recession. And if we can take the proper action at the proper time, this can be the most important step we could take to prevent another recession – that is, the right kind of a tax cut. Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create new jobs. --President John F. Kennedy

Kentucky’s 2010 No Child Left Behind performance: Excuses don’t work

As I wrote earlier today, the first news about Kentucky’s 2009-10 school year performance is mixed, at best.

• The percentage of schools that made Adequate Yearly Progress under NCLB is down, again.
• Proficiency rates in Kentucky Core Content Tests (KCCT) in our high schools declined in every subject except writing.
• There were also very large one-year drops in elementary school social studies and middle school science.
• However, those drops are offset by improvement in elementary and middle school levels in the other subjects.

Naturally, the excuses are starting to come.

The Herald-Leader reports that the Kentucky Department of Education says the drop in successful schools is largely due to another notable increase in the NCLB target proficiency rates in math and reading for this year.

That excuse is amplified by a mailing from the Kentucky Department of Education, which points to more discussion of the NCLB issue in this blog from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday.

Well, I’m sorry, but those excuses really don’t work for me.

To find out why, click the “Read more” link below

Read more »

Some links for your Thursday...

• Care to take a guess at what the salary for the superintendent of Fayette County Public Schools is?  Here...see for yourself.

• Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek really does have a way with being blunt.  Once again, he hits the nail on the head with this assessment of the notion of just getting legislation passed is an accomplishment.

• Be sure to watch this debate!

Kentucky’s 2010 NCLB performance is down, again

High schools see many declines in KCCT scores

The first news is mixed, at best. The percentage of schools that made Adequate Yearly Progress is down, again.

The Kentucky Department of Education’s 10-052 News Release shows that in 2010 only 55.6 percent of the state’s schools reached their NCLB targets.

The BRIEFING PACKET, STATE RELEASE, NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND (NCLB), Adequate Yearly Progress Report 2009 from last year shows that 60.2 percent of the schools met that target in 2009.

Even worse, as shown in the table below, which is derived from a table in the education department’s news release, proficiency rates declined nearly across the board in our high schools from 2009 to 2010. There were also large one-year declines in the Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT) scores in elementary school social studies and middle school science, although proficiency rates rose somewhat in the other subjects in those schools.


[Table note: Scores from KDE News Release 10-052, Change in scores by Innes]

Naturally, excuses are being made for all of this, and I’ll discuss them in the next post.

Also, I saw comments somewhere (sorry, forgot to capture the link) that superintendents are already questioning the big drops in elementary social studies and middle school science. I don’t blame them.

So, stay tuned. There could be a scoring error in the department’s new numbers.

Kentucky’s 2010 assessment and accountability data starts flowing

New web site started working around 9 AM

Data on the 2010 performance of Kentucky’s public school system is starting to flow from the Kentucky Department of Education, and the link to the promised new data collection web site activated somewhere between 7:45 and 9 AM Eastern.

Apparently, the new ‘site’ is really a single web page portal that allows quicker and easier access to existing areas of the Kentucky Department of Education’s massive web site where the actual data has always been assembled for things like NCLB scores and college readiness rates. Still, it is a nice improvement in user friendliness, and hats off to the KDE technical staff for this update.

As a note about this new portal, only the section headings are actually links, at least at this time. You won’t go anywhere if you click on the individual subjects listed under the section headings. However, once you click the section heading, a new page opens where you can access the individual data listed in that section.

Also, several newspaper sites, like those operated by the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier Journal, have an extensive number of articles up already. It is obvious they received access to the data several days ago. But, there is a ton of information in the new reports, and there will be plenty of work for all for some time in analyzing all of this material.

I know I’ll be analyzing and writing about this material for some time yet to come.

And, if you are into the numbers, the new portal is a good place to get an overview of what is available.

Quote of the day: Charter schools

“Parents really want a wide menu of choice options when it comes to their child’s education, and charter schools really do provide yet another option, especially within the public school realm.” --Lindsey Burke, The Heritage Foundation

Busing Czar quits in Jefferson County Schools

What did she do to the environment?



The Courier-Journal reports that Pat Todd, the Jefferson County Public Schools director of student assignment – the czar of the district’s out of control busing plan – is leaving her job.

Todd leaves at a time, as the news article points out, “…when public objections over long bus rides are growing, legal challenges are continuing and a legislation that would unravel student assignment is pending before the approaching General Assembly.”

Pat O’Leary, a former Jefferson County School Board member, says, “We need someone with a little more open-mindedness to other solutions.” O’Leary favors neighborhood schools where parents, not a bureaucrat, get to select where their children are educated.

One point in the Courier’s article really caught my attention. It was Todd’s salary, which is $152,184 per year.

For some perspective, I checked the latest superintendent’s salary listing in the Kentucky Department of Education’s web site.

Out of the 172 districts that had superintendent salary information listed in 2009-10, only 11 districts paid their superintendents more than Ms. Todd received.

Somehow, that does not seem like a very good use of our tax dollars.


Tea Party, are you listening?


Test Question: What does Ms. Todd’s busing plan do to the environment?

Click the “Read more” link to see my estimate.

Read more »

New Kentucky school performance reports release tomorrow

The Kentucky Department of Education will be using new formats for the annual school performance reporting that will be released tomorrow. Three separate areas will be included.

The three report sections are:

Achievement

o Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT) Combined Reading and Mathematics Proficient/Distinguished Report

o Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) data

o Iowa Test of Basic Skills data – administered in grades 3-7

Gap

o KCCT Combined Reading and Mathematics Gap-to-Goal Comparison Report

Readiness for College/Career

o Percentage of high school graduates college/career-ready

o 8th-grade EXPLORE, 10th-grade PLAN and 11th-grade ACT data

Another report section, Growth, will focus on student academic growth measures and will be computed beginning in 2012, with data expected to be available in the summer of 2012.

Here at the Institute we are particularly pleased to see the new emphasis on gaps and the re-introduction of a nationally-normed standardized achievement test (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) to the lineup.

Gaps were completely ignored in the state’s own accountability program under the now defunct CATS and KIRIS assessments. We have been highly critical of that deficiency.

And, in an action many considered to be a violation of statute, the nationally-normed tests were dropped for a time in our lower grades. Re-introduction of these tests means parents of young children will now be a bit better informed about how their student performs against peers from around the nation. We were also very critical of that action, which was also quickly criticized by the Kentucky legislature that had no intention of cancelling this program.

I anticipate the new report formats will take a little getting used to, but I will start writing about the results as soon as I can after they are publicly released tomorrow.

If there are some new tricks to reading these reports, I’ll pass that along, as well, as soon as I figure those out.

Source: KDE News Advisory 10-050 - September 14, 2010

Quote of the day: Taxes

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy." --Daniel Webster

John Stossel on education and the market

In 2006, The Bluegrass Institute hosted a discussion with John Stossel on free-market solutions to the currently government monopoly - one that he claims is ruining our children's lives.  You can watch the entire discussion below!


John Stossel, 2006 from freedomky on Vimeo.

Report builds mountain out of education ant hill

The Center on Education Policy (CEP) recently issued a report titled “State Test Score Trends Through 2008-09, Part 1, Rising Scores on State Tests and NAEP,” lauding a supposed discovery that improvement on both state public school tests and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is moving in the same direction and looks much better than previously reported.

Unfortunately, the report turns the mathematics of statistical sampling on its ear while attempting to claim that the performance of most states is improving on the NAEP reading assessments.

The facts: Between 2005 and 2009, the period of major concern in the CEP report, NAEP’s own Reading Report Card for 2009 clearly shows that a strong majority of the states did not post statistically significant improvements in either fourth- or eighth-grade reading. That general lack of progress is found both for the percentages of students scoring at the level NAEP calls “Basic” and at the level NAEP calls “Proficient.” Trying to claim otherwise, which the CEP report attempts to do, simply is not statistically defensible.

There are more issues with the CEP report, such as the selection of an unrealistically low target performance level – NAEP Basic – as a suitable comparison level for state assessment programs. If you would like to see more on that, just click the “Read more” link below.

Read more »

Quote of the day

"For too long, we've accepted failing schools. Achieving true diversity doesn't come from kids leaving before breakfast and getting home after dinner.” --Louisville Metro Council member Hal Heiner

Bluegrass Beacon gains national attention

A recent column by Bluegrass Beacon columnist Jim Waters is gaining national attention.

The column involves an assault by Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway on private business. , who filed a lawsuit against FedEx claiming the non-union company is avoiding paying taxes by using independent contractors. It's a ludicrous charge, but it helps Conway politically with FedEx's unionized competitors.

The outcome of the lawsuit could affect every Kentucky company that employs independent contractors.

RedState.com recently linked to the column on its front page.

Redstate.com, which has been online since July 2004, is one of the most widely read right-of-center blogs on Capitol Hill and is considered one of the most influential voices of the grassroots on the right.

Remarkable dropout rate improvement in Dayton: charter schools played a role

Last Saturday, “Northern Kentucky’s Promise” sponsored a conference in Covington on reducing dropouts in our public schools. While there were a number of interesting presentations and discussions, one discussion that really stood out in my mind came from Michael Carter, the Interim Senior Vice President of Sinclair Community College, which is in Dayton, Ohio.

Mr. Carter and his college have been extremely active in dropout recovery efforts in Dayton, and the effort is clearly paying off. Carter mentioned that the dropout rate for schools in the Dayton area used to be 26 percent. That has now been cut in half.

Read more »

Black pastor: TEA party not racist, promotes values good for all Americans

Critics like to paint the TEA party as a racist movement. But here’s one black pastor who says the TEA party’s message is one that appeals to all Americans, including his community.



Pastor Jerry Stephenson is the host of The Values Coalition radio show, which airs from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. each Friday on WLLV-AM 1240 in Louisville.

Advance Kentucky schools pace state and nation for AP course performance

Once again, the Advance Kentucky program to improve Advanced Placement (AP) course participation and performance in Kentucky’s high schools has produced some really impressive results. This program, which I have written about before, features many innovations such as very careful and thorough training of AP teachers along with merit pay for those teachers and rewards for students. AdvanceKY, as it bills itself, is raising the bar for performance in Kentucky.

The 28 high schools that participated in the AdvanceKY program in the 2009-10 school term (listed below) accounted for an astounding 43 percent of ALL the increases in AP passing scores (scores of 3 or higher) in Kentucky high schools statewide.

Considering that Kentucky had 225 high schools in this school year that reported scores from ACT testing, this means that just 12 percent of Kentucky’s high schools produced 43 percent of all the improvement statewide. That’s remarkable.


But, there was a lot more good news in the news conference hosted by AdvanceKY head Joanne Lang and Gregg Fleisher, the National AP Director at the National Math and Science Initiative. Mr. Fleisher’s organization assisted the formation of AdvanceKY with funding and other support.

A few highlights from the news conference include:

• The 28 AdvanceKY high schools achieved 2,112 AP math, science, English (MSE) qualifying scores (QS) or a 53% increase above 2009 compared to U.S. and KY increases of 7.5% and 9.1%, respectively

• AdvanceKY schools increased AP passing scores at seven times the national rate.

• Thanks in large measure to AdvanceKY schools, Kentucky ranked 4th in the Nation in percent increase in AP scores of 3 or more in the math, science and English test areas (17.5%) from 2009 to 2010.

• In the first group of schools to participate in AdvanceKY, those schools in “Cohort 1,” the increase in AP Math, Science and English exams scored 3 or higher for minority students rose an astonishing 825 percent between 2009 and 2010.

• Thanks to the AdvanceKY schools, Kentucky surpassed the U.S. rate for minorities (blacks and Hispanics) scoring 3 or more in the math, science and English areas.


There were a lot of worthwhile comments from state leaders such as State Senator David Williams, Education Secretary Joe Meyer and Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday, and I’ll cover those in future blogs.

But, the lead honors rightly go to Ms. Lang and Mr. Fleisher’s organizations for bringing their superbly performing program to Kentucky.

You can find more details about the AdvanceKY 2010 AP performance here.

And, here is a list of the schools that turned in such remarkable performance on the AP last year.


Congratulations to all!

Jim Waters to speak at freedom events

Jim Waters, vice president of policy and communications, will speak to the Kentucky Patriots at 1 p.m. Saturday at The Inn on Broadway in Lexington. He will also speak at a rally - along with U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul in Shepherdsville at 4 p.m. The event will be held at the VFW Post.

Trigg County school board refuses to jump on tax-raising bandwagon

Not all school boards are jumping on the tax-raising bandwagon.

The Trigg County School Board recently declined to raise property taxes, citing the county's struggling economy. This is a vast change from recent years in which the school board has typically raised the tax by 4 percent each year, the maximum amount allowed by state law without a voter referendum.

But economic reality has a way of messing up tax-and-spend fantasies.

Unemployment skyrocketed in the region when Johnson Controls Inc., the area's largest employer, closed its doors in 2008. Johnson Controls employed 559 workers in Cadiz and the surrounding communities, and had been a Trigg County mainstay for 42 years. The school board has voted down tax increases each year since Johnson closed its doors.

Superintendent Travis Hamby says the district could really use the money. What administrator wouldn't say that? But give Trigg County school board members credit for putting the interests of their community ahead of a revenue grab.

We wonder if Jefferson County Public Schools and other districts that have thumbed their collective noses at taxpayers while ignoring citizens' pleas to contain taxes are paying attention to the fiscal responsibility shown in Trigg County.

We bet taxpayers who vote in elections for school board members are.

For more information on property taxes and school boards, click here.

Rewards for entrepreneur's hard work could dissolve 'overnight'

Kentucky officials continue their assault on private business. The latest infraction: A lawsuit filed against FedEx by Attorney General Jack Conway, who claims the non-union company is avoiding paying taxes by using independent contractors. It's a ludicrous charge.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

Kentucky's Attorney General fiddles while other states’ leaders protect their citizens

While federal officials continue to tout the benefits of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), 20 states have won an important victory in the fight to sue the federal government over the constitutionality of the new law.

Judge Roger Vinson of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Fla., struck down the government's attempt to dismiss the lawsuit from trial.

The repercussions of Vinson's ruling on states’ powers cannot be overstated.

“Our whole system of federalism rests on the decisions of this case,” Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, told the New York Times.

Despite the fact that Kentuckians’ insurance premiums now are rising due to increasing costs caused by the federal plan, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway refuses to join the fight to prevent Washington’s takeover of the commonwealth’s health care policy.

Conway labeled a letter sent to him earlier this year by 29 state lawmakers requesting that he join the effort to stop the health care fiasco “a political stunt.”

But how should states respond? The Heritage Foundation's Gregg Girvan details how states can protect their citizens.

Girvan encourages states to "work toward customized state-level reforms aimed at empowering consumers rather than federal bureaucrats.”

Thursday Links

1. Share your knowledge! Want an easy way to help the cause of liberty? Are you interested in sharing what you know about the inter-workings of local government, corruption, success stories? Learn how you can become a contributor at FreedomKentucky.org!
2. Show Me The Spending - Our colleagues at the Show Me Institute in Missouri have developed a great spending database for their state. Check it out! It is very similar to what we did with  FreedomKentucky.org and state spending.
3. Cato's thoughts on KY race - The Kentucky senate race caught the attention of the Cato Institute this week.

E-Learning produces first graduate for Hopkins County Schools Academy

Several weeks ago, the Bluegrass Institute released my new report, “Virtual schooling in Kentucky: Great promise with challenges,” about virtual learning systems in Kentucky.

It focused on the Kentucky Virtual High School system which serves both advanced students who want to take Advanced Placement courses and those students who have fallen behind and need special help.

Now, another variation of an e-learning program is starting to produce benefits in Hopkins County.

The Kentucky School Boards Association is echoing a Messenger (Madisonville) article about a new e-learning based program in Hopkins County that has already produced its first graduate. Instead of being a dropout, newly graduated Dillion Ellis is on his way to a potentially very worthwhile career as a diesel engine mechanic.

My only concern as I read the article is that the new Academy will graduate students with only 23 credits while the regular high schools in Hopkins County require either 25 or 27 credits to graduate. All still exceed the state minimum of 22 credits, however.

A “Well Done!” is in order for Hopkins County for harnessing the promise of technology for students who need extra help. This technology-based system is meeting needs of students who must work and need special schedules and other assistance which can be greatly facilitates with E-learning approaches.

Spotlight on teachers' union advantage controlling school board elections

U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves has ruled that Kentucky’s special interest election law limiting individuals’ contributions to candidates for local school board races is unconstitutional.

The law restricts contributions from individuals to $100 while the union continues to poor hundreds of thousands into the campaign of its chosen candidates. That unfair and unbalanced policy gives teachers’ unions a hugely unfair advantage in controlling those political school board races.

Teachers' unions take full advantage of it, as well, by doing such things as helping get school board members who favor union policies over children’s education elected. Such mischief might be occurring in Carter County, where union-oriented school board members have approved a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) in construction of a new school.

It’s outrageous that some of these board members stand to personally benefit from their “yes” votes on the PLA. It’s also proper that the Associated General Contractors of Kentucky have filed a lawsuit against the Carter County Board of Education and Kentucky Department of Education

Union allegiance is to unions. Their primary objectives are clear: Soak taxpayers for more pay, more benefits, more rules and more restrictions.

No union should be able to buy board members, legislators or votes. Thank goodness a federal judge finally said “STOP.”

EPA demands would de-energize Kentucky's economy

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) increased regulations on coal mining in Kentucky and several other states have done more than just tighten the rules in coal states; they have fueled an angry response from supporters of coal.

Coal workers are protesting the increased EPA regulations, as they both threaten their jobs and the coal industry as a whole.

Representatives from Kentucky’s coal industry joined members of the Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security (FACES of Coal) and national legislators from both parties for a rally on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C., to protest the EPA’s new rules limiting mountaintop mining, which threaten one in every four coal jobs in the region. Nearly 18,000 jobs and 80 small businesses are linked to the new permits.




Not only do EPA mandates threaten Kentucky’s economy, they also jeopardize the commonwealth’s electricity rates, which are some of the lowest in the nation.

Coal produces more than 90 percent of Kentucky’s electricity and supports 84,000 jobs in the commonwealth, according to the National Mining Association.

When federal agencies like the EPA dictate rules and regulations, we as state citizens foot the bills – usually in the form of higher utility payments – and lose the jobs, neither of which Kentucky can afforded during the current economic malaise.

Quote of the day

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." --Thomas Jefferson

More about corporate welfare down on the farm

In another radio commentary on farm subsidies, Jim Waters notes that most crops don't get government handouts and yet thrive.

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

More kids taking AP courses in Kentucky: Scoring higher

But, why?

The Kentucky Department of Education has some good news about Advanced Placement course taking in Kentucky.

The number of test takers, number of tests taken, and number of passing scores (3 or higher) have all increased.

We’ll have to wait until Friday to learn how much of the increase comes from the very excellent Advance Kentucky program. This program, which has been expanding in Kentucky, uses some powerful techniques including merit pay for teachers and financial rewards for students who do well in AP courses.

Last year, a notable part of the overall increase in Kentucky’s AP performance came from the Advance Kentucky schools.

Will history repeat?

Busing nonsense will expand next year in Louisville

WAVE 3 reports that by a narrow 4 to 3 vote the Jefferson County Board of Education voted to expand the city’s radical busing plan to include the city’s middle schools with the 2011-2012 school term.

Jefferson County Board member Joe Hardesty captured my thoughts fairly well when he said, "My concern over implementing anything beyond the elementary stage at this point is that we are going to overload the transportation system."

Only, I don’t think he used the right tense of the verb. I think the system is already overloaded.

Face-to-face communication trumps educrats' spin

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tells it like it is. This time the topic is education budget cuts.




Like New Jersey, Kentucky has education budget challenges driven by skyrocketing benefit costs.

Like New Jersey, Kentucky also has powerful teachers' union bosses obstructing reasonable policymakers from addressing the funding problems.

Benefits have been devouring Kentucky's education budget increases just like in New Jersey.

Perhaps it's time for some straight talk from Kentucky's governor -- just like the teachers' union received from New Jersey's governor.

Just what do you think the chances are for that?

Spencer Magnet editor’s opinon: school board’s tax raise is a “swindle in fear”

No, we didn’t write this.

Embry's example

Rep. C.B. Embry talks on WBFI's morning show last week about why he's trying to get copies of both the U.S. and Kentucky constitutions into the hands of all high school freshmen in the commonwealth's 17th House District.



Embry's already distributed -- or planned to hand out -- more than 500 copies of each of the constitutions.

All Kentucky lawmakers can follow Embry's example by contacting the Legislative Research Commission at (502) 564-8100.

I guest hosted on that show and will do so tomorrow morning as well. Join me from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. on www.wbfi-radio.com.

Jefferson County busing mess rolls on: Will board expand this bad plan?

The Courier-Journal reports the Jefferson County Board of Education is meeting tonight to consider whether they will expand the busing chaos in their elementary schools to the rest of the schools in Louisville.

Apparently, board members have been getting an ear- and eye-full of comments about the messy elementary school plan and are unsure if they should move forward with another busing expansion.

That is just what the kids in Louisville need – moving even more kids of different ages around the system. Yeah, right!

How does Kentucky’s top-performing magnet high school compare to New Orleans’ top performing CHARTER magnet school?

Answer: Not well

There is no question that the DuPont Manual High School in Louisville is Kentucky’s top performing school on the ACT college entrance test. Year after year, Manual’s kids have achieved the very best ACT Composite Score in Kentucky.

That’s not so surprising, considering this highly selective magnet school pretty much gets to admit only the cream of the crop from the massive student enrollment in the state’s largest school district.

But, how does Manual look when we stack it up against the Benjamin Franklin Charter Senior High School, the top performing CHARTER high school in New Orleans? This table gives you an idea. While Manual has a number of advantages and which should allow it to easily outperform Ben Franklin on the ACT, that clearly isn’t happening.


Table notes:

*2009-10 Franklin Percent Minority and Lunch Data from Here.

2008-09 Franklin Disabilities Data from Here.

2008-09 DuPont Manual ACT Scores from 2008-09 School Report Card. Manual Demographic Data Calculated from Report Card's KCCT Math Testing Data

There are some important things to note.

• The poverty excuse doesn’t work for DuPont Manual here. There are three times more students in poverty, as signaled by enrollment in the federal school lunch program, in the New Orleans school.

• The tired old complaint that charter schools exclude minority students doesn’t help Manual in this comparison, either. Not surprisingly, both of these highly selective magnet schools enroll few students with learning disabilities, but Benjamin Franklin enrolls more than Manual.

• The “race card” won’t work for Manual. Benjamin Franklin has nearly twice the percentage of minorities found in selective Manual.

• The school enrollment base in Louisville that Manual draws from is three times larger than the school enrollment base in post-Katrina New Orleans. With many more students to draw from, this should give Manual a large advantage. That advantage doesn’t work, however.

Any way you slice this, DuPont Manual should outshine New Orleans’ Ben Franklin High.

Thus, the educational flexibility that comes from being a charter school works for this “high end” example of ‘a tale of two schools’ just like it works for other charter examples we have been highlighting for those schools that work with disadvantaged inner-city students. In a comparison of Kentucky’s and Louisiana’s largest city’s very best magnet schools, the flexibility of a charter school solidly trumps Kentucky’s very best.

Part of the reason for that is that thanks to charter school flexibility, Ben Franklin can get and keep the teachers it needs and implement the policies it needs without undue union interference. Try doing anything like that in the schools in Louisville without the union being willing to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to block it.

Read more »

Christian Science Monitor on the miracle in New Orleans schools

Charter schools are playing a key part

The Christian Science Monitor recently ran a nice article about the recovery of New Orleans’ schools after Hurricane Katrina.

Charter schools played a big role in the turn-around.

Shannon Jones, executive director of the Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives at Tulane University in New Orleans, points out that schools are held accountable for results in a new way because parents can choose any school in the district. Schools that don’t perform lose enrollment.

The job isn’t done in New Orleans, but the city now boasts schools like the Benjamin Franklin Senior High School, a magnet charter school, with an ACT Composite Score of 27.1. That eclipses anything even the top magnet school in Kentucky, the DuPont Manual High School in Louisville can produce.

Troops to teachers with gusto

Not here! In California

It’s no secret that former members of the US military can make outstanding teachers. After all, when the military isn’t fighting, it’s educating and training. Troops get exposed to some really creative instructional techniques that involve things like technology and higher order thinking skills (essential for battlefield survival) that our schools now say they need, as well.

A great program is available to transition troops leaving the service into teachers, called “Troops to Teachers.” It could provide some great teachers here in Kentucky.

But, a state that is likely to get far more teachers from the military is California, where, as The San Diego Union-Tribune reports, that state’s effort actually has a headquarters at San Diego State University, right next to the huge San Diego naval and marine complex.

Here in Kentucky, if we have a “center” for Troops to Teachers, I’ve not heard about it. About all I could find on Kentucky’s Troops to Teachers program is some web information from the Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board and a single individual listed as a point of contact. No college campus based center to help is identified.

Bowling Green freedom rally today!

Jim Waters, vice president of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free market think tank, will speak at the Southern Kentucky Tea Party rally at the National Corvette Museum convention hall in Bowling Green this Sunday at 5 p.m.

Calling all patriots in south central Kentucky: Come out and show your support for lower taxes, limited government, state sovereignty and individual liberty.

Other speakers at the event will be U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Rand Paul and Nashville radio talk show host Steve Gill, author of "The Fred Factor."

Bullitt County getting the word about ACT performance

Improvement is unlikely if only the high schools get involved

It looks like educators in the Bullitt County Public School District are catching on – strong performance on the ACT college entrance test is important for all students in the district, and real performance improvement will take involvement of all schools: elementary, middle and high schools.

Bullitt County educators are not happy about their current ACT performance, nor should they be. As the Pioneer News reports, their district ranks in 111th place for their 11th grade students’ performance on recently released ACT testing from the 2009-10 school term. That is not an impressive rank among the 169 Kentucky school districts that have high schools (Note: the news report got the number of districts wrong). Furthermore, Kentucky Department of Education data show only 16.2 percent of the district’s students scored high enough on the ACT math test to be considered likely to do well in a freshman college algebra course.

But, Bullitt County’s reaction to the sobering news is rather remarkable, and hopeful.

The district brought in Dr. Debbie Powers, Executive director of the University of Louisville’s Kentucky Principals Academy, to lead a meeting of all the district’s elementary, middle and high school principals, vice principals, counselors, instructional coaches and data managers.

Let me reemphasize that: Bullitt County is getting ALL of its key school leaders involved, not just the high school teams.

Both Powers and Bullitt County clearly understand that the district needs to address ACT performance with a coordinated program that involves every school, not just the high schools.

Better ACT performance doesn’t magically appear in the high schools. It is a long-term proposition where the efforts from elementary school to high school must be carefully coordinated if really dramatic improvement is to occur.

Hats off to Bullitt County for taking these important first steps!

Bowling Green freedom rally tomorrow

Jim Waters, vice president of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free market think tank, will speak at the Southern Kentucky Tea Party rally at the National Corvette Museum convention hall in Bowling Green this Sunday at 5 p.m.

Calling all patriots in south central Kentucky: Come out and show your support for lower taxes, limited government, state sovereignty and individual liberty.

Other speakers at the event will be U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Rand Paul and Nashville radio talk show host Steve Gill, author of "The Fred Factor."

Federal judge slaps Kentucky teachers’ union’s lock on school board races

WAVE-3 TV reports a federal judge has ruled Kentucky’s special interest election law that limited individuals’ contributions to candidates for local school board races is unconstitutional. The law restricted contributions from individuals to $100 while the union could give hundreds of thousands to its chosen candidates. That unbalanced rule gave the state’s teachers’ union a hugely unfair advantage in controlling those political school board races.

U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves noted that in 2008 the Jefferson County Teachers Association spent nearly $150,000 to support one candidate for the Jefferson County School Board. He also said the union spent "well over $100,000" in support of other individual candidates in other races. "In contrast", Reeves wrote, "candidates who rely on individual donations must raise support in $100 increments."

Basically, under Kentucky’s crazy rules, a candidate who wanted to oppose the teachers’ union’s candidate had to find at least 1,000 donors who each would give the maximum of $100 in order to compete. This unfair situation led to a union lock on the Jefferson County School Board and school boards in a number of other parts of Kentucky while the rights of students and parents got trampled.

The judge’s ruling is only temporary, applying to this year’s elections, but let’s hope the injunction becomes permanent since our teachers’ union-dominated legislature so far has been unwilling to end this travesty.

Bowling Green freedom rally this Sunday

Jim Waters, vice president of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free market think tank, will speak at the Southern Kentucky Tea Party rally at the National Corvette Museum convention hall in Bowling Green this Sunday at 5 p.m.

Calling all patriots in south central Kentucky: Come out and show your support for lower taxes, limited government, state sovereignty and individual liberty.

Other speakers at the event will be U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Rand Paul and Nashville radio talk show host Steve Gill, author of "The Fred Factor."

Sweet TEA sours liberal left

Leftist elites in the media, academia and government try to make the TEA party about the messengers. However, it's really the movement's message of lower taxes, less government and more liberty that critics loathe.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

National special education student numbers declining

Education Week reports (subscription?) that the number of special education students in the United States has been declining recently.

Several explanations are offered.

Ed Week says:

“About 80 percent of children who are classified as learning-disabled get the label because they’re struggling to read. So, scholars say, the dropping numbers could be linked to improvements in reading instruction overall; the adoption of “response to intervention,” which is an instructional model intended to halt the emergence of reading problems; and a federally backed push toward early intervention with younger students.”

Amplifying this point of view, Alexa E. Posny, the assistant secretary overseeing the US Department of Education’s office of special education and rehabilitative services says, “I believe we over identify children as learning-disabled. A number of students have just not been taught how to read.”

Ms. Posny talked about her experience in Kansas. She says that after the state adopted a “multi-tiered system of supports,” which is Kansas’ version of ‘Response to Intervention (RTI),’ enrollment in the learning-disability category dropped from 56,328 in 2005 to 55,834 in 2008.

RTI is a learning program for students who are encountering early learning problems. It is just starting to take hold in Kentucky. Under RTI, educators look first at their teaching methods rather than almost automatically blaming the child for having learning disabilities.

Of course, some nay-sayers have chimed in to blame No Child Left Behind, saying schools are just trying to avoid identifying too many kids as learning disabled so they won’t be held accountable for them separately under the federal accountability system. Maybe, but schools lose money when they don’t identify kids who need extra help. I’ll bet this is only a factor in a few schools that are right on the edge with their learning disabled student count.

For most schools, I think Ms. Posney’s comments are more on target. For years we over-identified kids as disabled when the real problem was bad teaching approaches like Whole Language Reading that didn’t work. Now, with better reading programs slowly coming into more widespread use, the learning disabled landscape is coming into sharper focus. The data are starting to show that there never really were all those learning disabled kids, just bad teaching programs.

Quote of the day

"I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered..." --Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

Word about NCLB transfer options may finally be getting out

It’s been a provision of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) since the bill was enacted back in late 2001. If a child attends a school that fails to make Adequate Yearly Progress for two years or more in a row, that child has the right to transfer to a better performing school.

For years, parents seemed reluctant to take advantage of this opportunity to get a better education for their children. Could this be changing?

In Bullitt County, the Courier-Journal reports several local schools saw far larger enrollment growth than officials expected. One of the causes cited – parents taking advantage of their child’s rights under NCLB.

In one school, NCLB transfers accounted for a 50 student increase in enrollment. In the past, the school district says that there were usually only around 12 NCLB-based transfer requests total in the entire system.

The article does indicate that some of the NCLB activity may be related to parents being unhappy with rezoning of the school district. That rezoning moved their children out of a better performing school into one that was failing under NCLB.

Never the less, the activity in Bullitt County shows that more Kentucky parents are willing to act on their rights when the bureaucracy places their kids in under-performing schools.

One other note: At the end of the article, there is a short discussion of busing issues. It is clear that Bullitt County wants school bus rides to be under 45 minutes, preferably no more than 30 minutes.



Jefferson County, are you listening?

Kentucky kids ‘hit the floor hard’

Even though Kentucky didn’t win anything in the second round of Race to the Top (RttT) funding, Gov. Beshear was happy that steps being taken will significantly improve the education experience for Kentucky’s students.

In whose lifetime?

Can we afford another 20 years of the spin, promises and little steps offered by the Kentucky Education Reform Act?

Rep. Brad Montell, R- Shelbyville, had proposed a solid charter school bill during the 2010 legislative session that contained the best from successful charter options around the country. Yet Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, chair of the House Education Committee, would not even give the bill a hearing. The House also failed to pass – or even consider -- a charter school bill during this year’s special legislative session.

There it is. United we stand, divided we fall. Kentucky kids hit the floor hard. But at least the adults got along.

Even Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, who few would consider a staunch supporter of charter schools, recognized that a lack of leadership harmed Kentucky’s chances for a $175 million piece of the $3.4 billion RttT federal funding pie.

In one of his rare nonpartisan moments, Moberly questioned the lack of leadership from Gov. Beshear.

If past performance is the best predictor of future behavior, Beshear’s needed leadership is not, never has been and probably never will be provided. Too bad, kids.

And the kicker: Education Commissioner Terry Holliday said the only reason officials pushed for charter schools was to get the federal money.

Wow! That ought to poison any prospects for free money for a long time to come.

I wonder how that statement jives with all the spin in the RttT applications and presentations?

Corporate welfare down on the farm

Many believe agricultural subsidies from Washington help sustain Kentucky's small family farms. The truth is, most of the funds go to the largest, wealthiest operations. Ten percent of Kentucky farmers grabbed more than $1.2 billion of the $1.5 billion that flowed into the commonwealth between 1995 and 2009.

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

Charter schools come in many flavors

One of our frequent, though often misinformed correspondents posted a sweeping comment on a recent blog that:

“…charter schools don’t want anything to do with special education, homeless or migrant children.”

That is another piece of uninformed, overly generalized opinion such as that frequently pushed by self-interested teachers’ union folks and their fellow travelers.

Just ask knowledgeable people in New York City. An article about the state of New York lifting its cap on charter schools so more charters can be created to specially serve students with disabilities points out that:

“…while charters (in New York City) enroll fewer students with disabilities, the gap is not as large as initially reported by the state teachers union, known as NYSUT. According to Department of Education data, 13 percent of charter school students have an Individualized Education Plan, indicating that they have special needs, compared to 15 percent at traditional public schools. NYSUT reported the numbers as being 9.4 percent at charter schools and 16.4 percent at district schools.”

So, the truth is that the spread in charter school enrollment of students with learning disabilities in the ‘Big Apple’ is only two points, not the very large seven point spread the teachers’ union would have us believe.

Like I said earlier, our correspondent got fooled by union propaganda. Don’t fall into the same trap.

If you want to get a more rounded viewpoint, click the ‘Read more’ link below.

Read more »

Taking liberty to Central Kentucky's airwaves

Jim Waters, Bluegrass Institute vice president of policy and communications, guest hosts on WBFI’s BBC morning show from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. (CST) Thursday, Friday, Monday and Tuesday (Sept. 9, 10, 13 and 14).


The program can be heard by 350,000 listeners throughout central Kentucky. Listen at 91.5 FM (McDaniels/Leitchfield), 97.1 FM (Ft. Knox, Radcliff) and 100.9 FM (Harford/Beaver Dam). Click here to listen online.


Jim will interview policymakers and movers and shakers in Kentucky’s freedom movement at 8 a.m. each day.

Quote of the day

"In essence, school choice is like a catalytic converter – accelerating the benefits of other elements of education reform. I don’t believe that school choice by itself is the answer to the challenges we face. But certainly, as part of a comprehensive strategy, it is very meaningful." --Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at the recent National Conference of State Legislatures conference in Louisville

Did low participation in online learning cost Kentucky Race to the Top funding?

Education Week reports (subscription) about an analysis by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning of the 16 finalist states’ Race to the Top proposals.

Per the association, the winners were ready to use RTTT funds to offer more online opportunities.

There were also plans in the winning states to replace mandatory seat time with a competency-based progression system where kids could advance to the next level once they mastered skills. Such an approach allows fast learners to move ahead while slower learners still get the extra time they need to learn the material. On line learning can make such programs work much more effectively.

Here in Kentucky, we also have a virtual learning system, but as I point out in the Bluegrass Institute's recently released paper, “Virtual schooling in Kentucky: Great promise with challenges,” it is under-utilized and poorly advertised. Perhaps the RTTT judges looked at that and decided Kentucky isn’t a leader in this area (which I suspect we are not).

Regardless of RTTT, I think that virtual schooling systems offer a lot of potential to improve education for many students in Kentucky. I also think these advanced educational systems can work much more efficiently than our current system.

Virtual schooling won’t be a suitable approach for all our kids, but it may reach many of today’s students far better than traditional classrooms – especially those dropping out – if we do a decent job of letting students know they have the option and then run the program intelligently.

This dog just will not hunt (Part 2)

Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, nailed it when he told CN/2 Politics that “we will continue to improve Kentucky schools without the money” from the federal Race to the Top (RttT) competition.

Who, exactly, is “WE?”

Neither Rollins, legislators, governors’ task forces nor School Based Decision Making Councils are in the chain of command.

“We?”

Rollins’ response is another example of a lack of defined leadership and real accountability that characterize Kentucky’s education system.

Anyone courageous enough to support charter schools during the recent RttT competition righty supported rigorous accountability. Charter schools should be held accountable to meet tough objectives within three to five years or be closed, they said.

What would happen if we applied those same expectations to each Kentucky public school, including the requirements found in successful charters across the country that education teams failing to meet expectations lose their jobs?

What a difference a dose of real accountability would do to improve performance and focus on what is really important – effectively educating the kids.

I bet that dog will hunt.

Tiger has nothing on this goofy golf tale

Lexington's $12 million budget hole has resulted in the elimination of several police and firefighter positions. Still, parks and recreation bureaucrats resist privatizing the city's golf courses, which would save more than $1 million annually.

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

This dog just will not hunt (Part 1)

We all know Kentucky earned $0 in Race to the Top competition. Why?

We also know that Kentucky has wide proficiency gaps, unacceptable graduation rates and plentiful remediation needs for students entering Kentucky colleges. Why?

CN/2 Politics got some great clues from some Kentucky leaders after they learned their dog didn’t hunt again.

Maybe, just maybe, Kentucky’s lack of vision, leadership, enthusiasm and commitment combined with lackluster results played a major part.

Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, chair of the House education committee, said the Obama administration must have been serious about charter schools being part of the solution set to get the money.

But wait! Maybe the DC folks knew Rollins is against charter schools and blocks all opportunities to give them a fair hearing and vote.

Sen. Ken Winters, R-Murray, chair of the Senate education committee, was very disappointed but agreed that no charter school options probably sunk Kentucky’s chances.

Maybe there is a root cause!

Maybe the teachers union resounding "NO" was all it took to kill any charter school option in the legislature and all potential Kentucky award dollars.

Contractor group files suit against Carter County Project Labor Agreement

Associated General Contractors of Kentucky filed suit Sept. 1 in Franklin Circuit Court to stop the Carter County School District from awarding bids under a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) with the Tri-State Building and Construction Trades Council for construction of Tygart Creek Elementary School.

The PLA:
- Reduces competition by imposing union rules on contractors who work on the project
- Requires workers to be union members and pay dues
- Requires contractors to hire workers from local union halls
- Forces contractors to follow union work rules
- Mandates that contractors pay union wages and benefits

The following excerpt gives an example of how competition is controlled by the PLA:

Tygart Elementary School
Prebid Meeting Minutes August 17, 2010
1. Introduction of Project Team Attendees list is attached to the Prebid Meeting Minutes
2. Project Overview and Description
3. Discussion of PLA (Project Labor Agreement)
Review wage rate requirements per the terms of the PLA. All bidders a [sic] advised to review and compare the published prevailing wage rates issued by the Kentucky Labor Cabinet and also to review the prevailing wage rates applicable to the PLA included with addendum #1. All contractors are advised that the higher of the two wage rates shall take precedent for any and all crafts.

The PLA requires contractors to use the HIGHER of the Kentucky Labor Cabinet's published prevailing wage rates or the applicable PLA rates. The contractors do not have the option of using their normal wage rates or practices.

This PLA for the Tygart school is another example of big government deciding how to spend our tax dollars with no regard for free and open entrepreneurial competition, best practices or cost.

You wouldn't know Kentucky is strapped for money to take care of its schools when it comes to giving unions what they couldn't win in open competition.

This is a very important lawsuit. More to follow.

Kids Count misses the count

The Kentucky Kids Count 2010 County Data Book was released recently, and I’m still looking over the data tables as there may be some good information here.

However, one set of data in the book is definitely wrong.

On page 2, the new report says,

“From the 2002-03 school year to the 2008-09 school year, the Kentucky high school graduation rate increased 5 percentage points from 79 percent to 84 percent, yet this is a drop from 85 percent in SY 2008.”

That’s not right. It grossly overstates the real graduation rate in Kentucky, something I have reported on for the Bluegrass Institute since its founding days back in 2003, and which was confirmed by federal research four years ago, which I also reported about extensively, for example here.

Why does the Kentucky Youth Advocates (KYA), who publish the County Data Book, continue to echo the past nonsense from the Kentucky Department of Education? Why does the KYA rely on data that even the Kentucky Commissioner of Education now admits over-reported graduation rates by about 10 points?

This graph, which I have used before, shows the difference between the nonsense that the KYA continues to quote and the results of graduation rate calculations by the US Department of Education.


By the way, I asked KYA about their continued use of data that even the federal government is no longer willing to accept. KYA weakly replied that they and their parent organization for this report series have decided to use government reported data.

OK, which government data?

The graph above shows the difference between graduation rates calculated with the Kentucky Department of Education’s inflated formula, which is being dropped, and the graduation rates reported by the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Why continue to report bad data?

Over to you, KYA.

Courier Confusion

How many kids got sent all over creation during Jefferson County Schools’ opening day?


It’s kind of amusing. The Courier-Journal doesn’t seem to be able to get its numbers straight about the number of kids who got home really, really late on the chaotic opening day of schools in the newspaper’s own home town.

On August 31, 2010, in “JCPS may delay new assignment plan for middle, high schools,” Courier reporter Toni Konz said 400 kids were impacted.

Back on Sunday, a Courier editorial said it was only 200 kids.

Of course, that Sunday editorial was trying to take a shot at State Senators David Williams and Dan Seum for being concerned enough about the mess in Jefferson County to propose a bill to protect parent and student rights to choose a school close to their home.

I guess when the Courier wants to take shots at legislators it’s perfectly OK to cut numbers in half whenever it suits the editors’ purposes. Or, maybe some of the Courier’s editors got too much of a dose of that “fuzzy math” our kids have been getting in KERA schools for the past 20 years.

By the way, I’d not be surprised if even the 400 number Toni Konz reported were actually low. I am hearing from parents who have children in other schools besides the three where the 400 kids supposedly got badly misrouted on opening day.

And, just today I heard that a bus that had been dropping kids from Cochran Elementary off at 5:15 PM or later suddenly dropped kids off without parents waiting a half-hour early at 4:45. Five year olds got to walk home, crossing busy Louisville streets, on their own thanks to this latest busing gaff.

If you are a Jefferson County parent who knows of other continuing problems with the busing program, let us know.