Education in Kentucky in crisis: Who said this?

“But education in the state and nation is in crisis. Almost daily reports tell of American students falling far behind their international competition on performance test scores. And Kentucky has been a perennial poor relation among U.S. school systems. While there have been notable gains in the 20 years since enactment of the Kentucky Education Reform Act, they’ve come too slowly to keep pace with students in other states, much less the hard-working learners of developing nations.”

Who said this?

Click the “Read More” link to find out.

(Clue, it wasn’t anyone from the Bluegrass Institute)

Read more »

Persistently Low-Achieving Schools in Jefferson County share common problems

The Courier-Journal reports that some of the newly identified group of Persistently Low-Achieving Schools in Kentucky share common problems.

According to the newspaper, audits of Fairdale, Doss and Seneca High Schools in Jefferson County – three of the six schools from Jefferson County in the 2010 low-achieving schools group – identified common problems:

• Classroom instruction lacks rigor,

• Teachers and administrators don’t set high expectations for students and

• Disruptive student behavior impedes learning.

These findings match some of the findings from some of the 2009 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools, such as Fern Creek and The Academy at Shawnee.

Auditors are recommending some strong actions in the three newly audited schools.

Read more »

E-Learning in Louisiana saves student from being a dropout

It wasn’t going to be a happy story.

Jude Eschete was all set to graduate from a high school in Lafayette, Louisiana when, just days before the ‘big day,’ he learned that he was not going to pass a mandatory English class.

Sadly, Eschete put away a graduation cap and gown he had purchased months before. Crushed, he had to tell his relatives that the graduation celebration was cancelled.

Eschete went to work, waiting tables.

Fortunately, Eschete was about to get a big blessing while he contemplated going back to school to finish work on that one, last class he needed to get his diploma.

By chance, one of his customers, an employee of the Lafayette Parish School Board, told him about the eCampus distance learning program, which had been recently introduced in the parish.

Eschete enrolled. Now, he has become the first eCampus student from Lafayette Parish to complete getting a high school diploma with the program. His diploma has already opened the door to a better job, and he is even working on a college application which may open even bigger doors for this e-learning success story.

Eschete’s ‘but for the grace of God’ success story may not be much different from some that could be told here in Kentucky. While Kentucky has a similar e-learning program, called Kentucky Virtual High School, there hasn’t been nearly enough publicity about its availability. So far, as I reported in September 2010, here and here, participation has been very low compared to the potential need.

Kentucky needs to do something about that.

Kids shouldn’t have to find out about e-learning opportunities by chance like Eschete did. Right now, a Kentucky student can complete all the credits required for a regular high school diploma from home through the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning. There are also other ways that students can sign up for digital courses that range from remedial level to advanced placement through his or her local school district.

With thousands of kids dropping out of Kentucky schools every year, the Bluegrass Institute thinks that virtual learning is badly under-used; but, as the story of Jude Eschete proves, this new approach to learning can save kids futures while providing Kentucky with a better educated, more employable population.

If you know a kid who could benefit from digital learning opportunities, and he or she isn’t getting good support from the local school district, let us know. We would love to help.

And, stay tuned for more on virtual learning in the Bluegrass State. We are going to have more to say on this important, emerging education technology.

Higher education standards won’t guarantee better schools

One of our correspondents raised an interesting issue back before Christmas – namely, there doesn’t seem to be much of a relationship between those states that have higher standards for their state tests and actual academic performance in the schools in those states.

I decided to take a look at that in a new way, comparing improvement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics assessments to a new analysis of the relative difficulty of various state standards.

What I found was very interesting. This graph shows what I found:


All of the correlations figures shown are low, meaning that across the country, at least between 2003 and 2009, there hasn’t been much of a correspondence between having higher state academic standards and improvement in mathematics.

Interestingly, the correspondence is even weaker for blacks than for whites. In fact, the data indicate that, across the country, eighth grade blacks receive essentially no benefit from living in states with higher math standards on their own state tests.

While there are limitations to this study, one message seems fairly clear: Those who pushed an early idea in KERA that testing would largely drive reform all by itself were wrong. It didn’t work out that way in Kentucky, and this new little study says it isn’t working out that way in general across the country, either. While testing is important, it isn’t a final answer. Testing standards can be overshadowed by such things as inefficient use of resources, restrictive union practices, inadequate teacher preparation, inadequate teacher professional development and a number of other issues we have discussed extensively in this blog. Schools clearly need other stimuli, perhaps including the spur of competition that school choice can create, to make real improvement that reaches ALL students.

For more details and study limitations, click the “Read More” link.

Read more »

Taking liberty to the airwaves: BIPPS on WLAP

Jim Waters, vice president of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, will guest host for Leland Conway on Lexington's NewsRadio 630 WLAP-AM today (Dec. 27) from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. (EST) and Tuesday (Dec. 28) from 3 p.m. until the University of Kentucky basketball programming at 4:30 p.m. (EST)


Click here to listen live.

Charter school bills headed to Kentucky Legislature

At least two state legislators are talking about introducing charter school legislation in the Kentucky Legislature’s 2011 Regular Legislative Session.

In the House, Kentucky Represenative Brad Montell has already pre-filed a bill, (Bill Request 180), which apparently will be known during the session as House Bill 103, to introduce a five-year pilot program of 20 charter schools.

Some key features of this comprehensive bill:

• Authorizes public charter schools;

• Establishes the Public Charter School Commission and identifies membership selection and responsibilities to grant and manage charter schools and manage a new trust fund for charter schools;

• Provides information about charter school authorizers, their responsibilities;

• Describes charter school applications, renewals, and revocation process;

• Requires the commissioner of education to distribute charter school information to potential authorizers;

• Identifies student enrollment and withdrawal requirements to be followed by a charter school;

• Identifies employment conditions for charter school staff;

• Discusses how local, state, and federal funds will be distributed to charter schools using formulas and allocation processes used in non-charter schools;

• Includes charter school teachers within the state retirement system;

• Includes employees of boards of directors of public charter schools in the state-sponsored retirement system;

• Includes noncertified employees of public charter schools in the state-sponsored retirement system.


President of the Senate David Williams also has promised charter school action to both the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce during the past few weeks. So far, a specific bill has not been filed, but Senator Williams promised this and other key legislation will be presented to the Senate early in the 2011 session, providing enough time for full discussion in both houses.

Highly experienced Jefferson County teachers don’t go to/stay in low-performing schools

New information – not previously available to the public – strongly confirms what many already suspected: because teacher seniority rules assignments in Jefferson County, few experienced teachers are found in the school district’s many low-performing schools.

“Analysis of Collective Bargaining Agreements in Kentucky Districts”, a new report from the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability (OEA), a division of the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission, provides the data for the table below. This table shows that middle schools in Jefferson County that experience high demand for teacher in-transfers have much higher test scores (pink shaded area) and far more experienced teaching staff (blue shaded area).


The experience difference is dramatic. In schools where teachers want to go, only around one in ten teachers are low-experienced – having three or fewer years of experience. In sharp contrast, in the schools not many teachers want to go to, nearly half of the entire staff is low experience.

The impact on student performance is obvious. In the schools where teachers want to go, the student proficiency rate averaged across math and reading runs an astonishing 40 points higher than the average for the schools where teachers are much less interested in working (72 percent proficiency versus only 32 percent).

This is what happens when union seniority rules trump the needs of children.

What is worse, Jefferson County has no plan to fix this mess. The OEA’s report also says:

“The draft version of the 2011 Comprehensive District Improvement Plan does not include any policies or programs related to teacher distribution and transfer provisions.”

That’s outrageous!

Read more »

Taking liberty to the airwaves: Does Noah's Ark need Kentucky's help?

Jim Waters, vice president of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, will be discussing his recent Bluegrass Beacon column about the planned "Ark Encounter" theme park in Northern Kentucky on "The Joe Elliott Show" on 970 WGTK-AM today at 2 p.m. EST.

Listen live here and call in at 502-571-0970

New military test results: High school grads are not ready for careers

It’s not news to me, but a new Education Trust report that says today’s students are poorly prepared for non-college careers is getting wide play in the press.

The Associated Press says a new study from the Education Trust shows that nearly one in four who tries to join the US Army lack the minimum academic skills required for enlistment.

That already sounds pretty bad, but it looks a lot more serious when you learn that the Army says only about one in four individuals aged 17 to 24 are even qualified to take the service’s test battery. The rest are either physically unfit, a high school dropout, or have a criminal record.

I ranked the states for the percentage of whites listed in the report’s Appendix A table as scoring too low on the services test battery.

Kentucky placed as the gruesomely disappointing second worst state in the nation. Only white applicants from Maryland did more poorly.

It’s important not to overly stress the new study, as it has some important limitations. The test sample isn’t random, but is composed of individuals who self-select to try for admission to the service. Few college-bound students will be in this mix.

On the other hand, this is the most significant data available from a true employment test for non-college track jobs that is uniformly given in all 50 states.

Also, the report does examine a rather important group of non-college bound students. They are healthy, have high school diplomas, and are not in legal trouble. So, the fact that a notable proportion still can’t pass a relatively simple academic test is truly disappointing.

A number of key players in the education area are upset by the report. Responding the announcement, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the AP, "Too many of our high school students are not graduating ready to begin college or a career — and many are not eligible to serve in our armed forces. I am deeply troubled by the national security burden created by America's underperforming education system."

Click the “Read More” link to learn more about the test and what other key education watchers are saying about the new findings.

Read more »

State financial peril in 12 months?

You think the federal deficit is as bad as it gets? Think again. A CBS 60 Minutes segment paints an ugly picture about what might be coming to state and local governments near you.

Now, apply the same terms used to describe the federal government's attempt to cover up hidden deficits – "financial irresponsibility," "reckless spending," "unrealistic state employee benefit packages" and "political gimmicks" - to Kentucky.

The federal government is too busy printing money and trashing our economy to give any more to states.

What's going to happen to the city and county governments in Kentucky when the state can’t pay their bills? What happens to the entities owed money by the state that don’t get paid?

It’s time to think hard about this and demand our elected officials address the tough financial issues and stop the gravy train ... now.

Do teachers’ union agreements in Jefferson County comply with the law?

I wrote several days ago about some of the disturbing findings in a new report from the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability (OEA) concerning the Jefferson County Teachers Association’s (JCTA) union contract.

Today, I want to discuss OEA’s comments about the way modifications are made to the Jefferson County Teacher’s contract using a process called “Memorandum of Agreement” (MOA).

To briefly summarize, OEA says that the teachers’ union MOAs in Jefferson County Public Schools:

• May have bypassed the locally elected Jefferson County Board of Education’s statutory authority and responsibilities to negotiate and approve all contracts,

• Severely impair transparency of the true contract provisions for both Jefferson County Board of Education members and the general public,

• Remain in force, outside of board and public view, even after new contracts are negotiated, which can effectively alter the contract’s language even before the ink is dry,

• May have directly violated the law created in House Bill 176 in the 2010 Regular Legislative Session concerning a specific stipulation that union contracts could not impact the restaffing of teachers in Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.

• May have resulted in ineffective restaffing in those schools impacted by HB-176.

While there is nothing inherently illegal or improper about MOAs for union contracts – they are widely found in other areas such as the air transportation industry – the actual operation of MOAs in Jefferson County appears highly problematic and worthy of investigation and remedy in future law.

For details on the extraordinary OEA findings, click the “Read More” link below

Read more »

Quote of the day: A quality education can ...

‬‪"A quality education can change a life. It can break the cruel cycle of poverty and end generations of dependence on government. It opens the door to opportunity and provides the skills for success after school. An engaging and challenging education is the proven path to prosperity and a life-long love of learning." Jeb Bush, former Florida governor and chairman of Foundation for Florida's Future

Busing in Louisville: Another failed education experiment

Why do liberals think they can repeat the same experiment time and again and somehow, finally, come up with a better, different answer?


A great case in point is the busing situation in Jefferson County. Busing for integration has been going on there for about four decades.

But,

· Busing isn’t doing much to improve the deplorable performance of schools on the West side of town,

· Busing isn’t making a notable dent in the Black to White performance gaps,

· Mostly, busing just makes it almost impossible for parents to be involved with their children’s schools and

· Busing probably makes kids stuck on buses for hours a day angry with the whole education system (I’d love to see a news team do a survey on that).

Still, to hear Kentucky Senator Tim Shaughnessy (D) of Louisville tell it, proposed legislation to temper the busing experiments by allowing parents to chose to send their kids to the closest school is a bad idea.

Somehow, Sen. Shaughnessy has convinced himself that sending kids to the closest school will cost more money than the current situation where kids are bused as far as 28 miles away from their homes.

Senator, it’s actually insulting that you think we are dumb enough to believe that. With neighborhood schools, more kids would be able to walk to school and busing, when necessary, would cover much shorter distances.

Most importantly, Senator, how did you possibly convince yourself that Louisville’s four-decades of busing for integration is improving schools?

Consider the white minus black proficiency rates in Jefferson County in 2005 and 2010.

According to the 2006 NCLB report for the school district, in 2005 the white minus black proficiency rate gap for reading was 24.69 points. According to the 2010 NCLB report for the district, it hardly improved, dropping to 23.6 points, a drop of only 1.09 points in five years. At that rate of improvement, the gap won’t be eliminated in the next century.

For math, in 2005 the white minus black proficiency rate gap was 28.7 percent. It scarcely budged to 28.33 percent by 2010. In five years, the district closed the gap by a miserable 0.37 point, an average rate of improvement of only 0.074 points per year.

At this rate, over the next century the current white-black math gap of 28.33 points will only be closed by another 7.4 points. It will still be over 20 points different. It would take 382 years to reduce the white minus black math gap in Louisville to zero.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s quite good enough, Senator Shaughnessy.

And, since the Jefferson County Board of Education recently announced that they are getting rid of busing fanatic Sheldon Berman so they can refocus the district on academic improvement, I suspect a lot of other, more sensibly thinking people in Louisville also are starting to realize that the dismal gap improvement isn’t good enough, either.

Tax breaks to build an ark? 'Noah' way, brother

Our opposition to the Beshear administration's decision to give tax incentives to 'The Ark Encounter' in Northern Kentucky has nothing to do with the religious content of the planned theme park. Instead, it's about an economic development approach that results in government picking economic "winners" and competitors placed at a distinct disadvantage.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

USA Today doesn’t like new US ranking on international tests, either

The editors at USA Today are also upset about the new PISA international test results.

The title of their article says it all:

“Our view on education: 'We're No. 15!' doesn't cut it in today's global economy”

What is really curious about this editorial is that it supposedly lists an “Opposing View.”

Except, the opposing view doesn’t seem to be much happier about the low rankings.

The final summation is worth echoing:

“Three successive U.S. presidents have committed massive efforts to improve education. Unless those involved start embracing reforms instead of resisting them, the next international rankings, due in 2013, are likely to show the U.S. even further behind.”

Teachers unions, especially in Louisville, are you listening?

Taking liberty to the airwaves: Jim Waters points to KERA's successes, failures

PADUCAH, Ky. – Not everything about the Kentucky Education Reform Act was a failure.

Jim Waters, vice president of policy and communications, told WKYX NewsTalk 94.3 morning show host Greg Dunker today that KERA helped solve serious funding and nepotism problems in Kentucky’s school districts.



Waters was on the show to talk about the Bluegrass Institute’s new report analyzing the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA), the commonwealth’s nationally acclaimed reform.

The report, “KERA@20: Lessons learned,” was released in conjunction with the reform policy’s 20th anniversary. While there has been some academic progress, when the costs of KERA are factored in, research indicates that each point gained on the credible national tests now have a higher price tag than ever.

While the report is a look back, it’s also meant to influence the future direction of Kentucky’s education policy as the state prepares to implement a new testing system next year.

Waters said this would be the right time also for education policymakers to get rid of KERA’s failed management system for local schools –known as School-Based Decision-Making Councils.



KERA was signed into law by the late Gov. Wallace Wilkinson in 1990, who – at the time – called it “the most important piece of legislation since the signing of the (Kentucky) constitution.”

Click here to hear more of the interview.

US has “unimpressive” showing on new international test results

This from “Views on the News” from Teachers College at Columbia University:

“The United States made an unimpressive showing on a global comparison of academic achievement among 15-year olds, touching off a fresh round of self-criticism by education reformers, policymakers and pundits, who declared that the results of the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) are evidence that the nation continues to lose ground as a global education and economic leader.”

Following this sobering assessment, the educators at Columbia try to soften the impact. I guess they don’t get it because manufacturing isn’t a big deal around New York City any more, a place which lost a lot of its manufacturing industry years ago.

But, for states like Kentucky, where manufacturing is still important (Bet you didn’t know we still produce something like 40 percent of all aluminum in the US and 30 percent of the country’s stainless steel – per comments at this week’s Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Policy Convention), this is serious stuff.

Just look at the “Made in China,” made in “South Korea,” “Made in Japan,” etc. labels that predominate in our stores today.

And, those labels don’t just appear on low-tech items. If you open up a lot of electronic devices, you will find the microchips come from places like tiny Singapore, a country where kids positively “whup” ours on those international math and science tests.

Analysis of teachers’ union contracts exposes Jefferson County’s contract flaws

A new report shows the Jefferson County Public Schools’ teachers’ union contract has many problems and is well behind current policy in more progressive school districts in Kentucky.

According to the recently approved “Analysis of Collective Bargaining Agreements in Kentucky Districts,” Jefferson County’s union contract:

• Is the most “cumbersome”

• “Strongly dictates the process for staffing schools in the district,” unlike other district agreements

• Unlike the other eight district contracts, remains “seniority driven”

• Constrains principals and school councils from retaining quality, newly hired teachers, allowing senior teachers to bump new hires with a “paper transfer” even if no opening is available at the school

• Might run afoul of Kentucky statutes

• Uses dubiously administered “Memorandums of Agreement” that might hide important contract modifications between the superintendent and the union from the visibility of school board members who are supposed to approve the document

• Prohibits using student performance data as part of the evaluation process for teachers

Staffing is key

Most of the eight other Kentucky districts with union contracts used to have similar staffing restrictions, but the new report from the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability (OEA) says all the other districts have moved on in the past decade to more progressive staff management agreements with their unions.

Under those much better agreements, superintendents, principals and school councils face far less interference in teacher hiring and placement due to outdated seniority rules. The OEA reports that administrators in districts that have dropped contractual seniority transfer guarantees find the current process to fill teacher vacancies to be far superior to past policy.

In stark contrast, contractual interference resulted in Jefferson County doing a terrible job in re-staffing its Persistently Low-Achieving Schools. Many of the new teachers in those schools are brand new and inexperienced. That is a recipe for continued failure that can be laid firmly at the feet of the uncaring union leadership in Jefferson County.

There is a lot more of important information in the new OEA report – especially regarding more problems in Jefferson County. The report was approved last Tuesday by the Kentucky Legislature’s Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee but still has not been released in the Legislative Research Commission’s web site. I’ll let you know as soon as it is.

Quote of the day: Let's go back to 1946!

‬‪"Unions in 1946 called more strikes than in any other year in American history, and that fall voters elected a Republican Congress. The 80th Congress proceeded to abolish wartime rationing and wage and price controls, enact a record tax cut and pass the Taft-Hartley Act, limiting the power of labor unions." --Michael Barone, columnist

Gross water rate hikes: Not just Northern Kentucky any more!

Lexington gets socked!

Here are the details.

With the new hike, Lexingtonians will be paying 47 percent more for water than they did two years ago!

Wake up Kentucky. The EPA water rampage is going to impact everyone on a commercial water system.

Making Shawnee High into a K to 12 school: Is this a clever ploy?

The Courier-Journal reports that the latest idea to turn around "Persistently Low-Achieving" Shawnee High school is to turn it into a Primary to grade 12 school.

How dumb, but how insidiously clever!

Dumb, because mixing five-year olds in with a group of high school students with a long and chronic history of problems is probably akin to committing child abuse with those younger students.

Clever, because the NCLB test results for all grades are added together in a K to 12 school. That way, the generally higher grades for the elementary and middle school grade kids will offset the deplorable high school results, hiding the fact that the high school kids do a poor job.

Read more »

David Boaz goes 'One-to-One' on KET... tonight!

As part of his visit last week to Kentucky, David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, also taped a segment for KET's award-winning "One-to-One," which will air tonight at 8 p.m. (eastern).

Boaz's segment will be joined by a segment with former Gov. Paul Patton during the second half of the program.

Boaz spoke at a Bluegrass Institute luncheon in Lexington on Thursday. He is the author of "The Politics of Freedom: Taking on the Left, the Right, and Threats to Our Liberties."

These interviews will air in place of "Kentucky Tonight," which is being cancelled due to inclement weather, according to Bill Goodman, who hosts both programs.

Virginia judge declares parts of health care fiasco unconstitutional

Today, in a landmark decision, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson struck down parts of the new federal health care law. Specifically, Hudson declared the mandate that all individuals buy health insurance unconstitutional.

"This won't be the final round," remarked Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, who filed the case, "but today is a critical milestone in the protection of the Constitution."

Judge Hudson wrote in his statement, "This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation and is unsupported by previous legal cases around the Commerce Clause of the Constitution."

While the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately decide the fate of the individual mandate in the health care law, the judge's statement echoes the sentiment of many Americans that the broad reach of the federal government through mandates has become an increasingly slippery slope.

This is an important victory for those of us who value individual liberty and freedom of choice in health care.

Kentucky's governor and attorney general have chosen not to uphold their constitutional duty to protect the commonwealth's citizens from Washington's heavy handedness. Thank goodness Vriginia's leaders stepped forward and forced the issue.

To follow all of the court decisions surrounding the health care bill, visit FreedomKentucky.org.

Cato Institute scholar visits home state of Kentucky

Yesterday, David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of The Politics of Freedom, visited the Bluegrass Institute in Lexington for a luncheon event.

Boaz, a Mayfield native, gave an optimistic yet realistic view of freedom in the commonwealth and nation. He noted that while great advancements have occurred in scaling back government involvement in areas like airline deregulation, we still have much work to do to ensure the freedom and liberty intended by our founders.

Boaz echoed the message the Bluegrass Institute continuously works to promote: people thrive when given freedom.

"The simple system of liberty doesn't have many rules," Boaz commented. "Basically, let people alone to produce and trade with a few simple rules."

Boaz also signed copies of his book for luncheon attendees following the event.

Quote of the day

‬‪"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." ―Thomas Jefferson‬‪

Teachers’ union contract in Cincinnati actually mentions students!

Doesn’t much happen in Kentucky!

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the city’s teachers union and the Cincinnati Board of Education have agreed to a new teacher contract. It now awaits approval by the city’s teachers.

Full details of the contract won’t be released until the teachers get a chance to review the tentative agreement, but some general details are in the Enquirer article.

One of the most stunning comments comes from ‘Cincy’ schools superintendent Mary Ronan. The Enquirer reports that:

“She called the agreement student-centered, fiscally responsible and said it will support and enhance teacher quality.”

Per the Enquirer, school board member Eve Bolton says:

"We actually talk about students in this contract.’’

How’s that? Something other than a major, adult perks only document?

Apparently so.

Read more »

Citizen journalism: Mass media's 'small business'

Big media giants thumb their noses at citizen journalists, who use the latest technology to report breaking news in a timelier manner. Groups like the Bluegrass Institute employ the concept to release information critical to achieving success in promoting sound policies.

Click here to read the latest Perspective.

Governor now favors action on charter school legislation!

The Courier-Journal reports that Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear told reporters at his annual end-of-the-year news conference that he will try to get the Kentucky House and Senate to agree on a new bill to create charter schools in Kentucky.

Last year, the governor stayed out of the fray as charter school legislation was discussed, but not adopted, in the Senate while a charter bill was introduced, but ignored, in the House. Kentucky Senate President David Williams, who may oppose Beshear for the governor’s seat in next year’s election, blamed the loss of federal Race to the Top money on Beshear’s inaction on charters in the 2010 legislative session.

Clearly, as Kentuckians, including our governor, learn more about charter schools, support for these innovative schools is growing in the commonwealth.

What will the new Kentucky school assessment system look like?

The Kentucky Board of Education had a two-day meeting on December 7 and 8, 2010 which devoted major time to discussions about Kentucky’s new school assessment program, scheduled to launch around 2012.

There is still a lot of work to be done, and many decisions left to be made, but some key points are starting to emerge, as this Kentucky School Boards Council news release points out.

One key decision concerns the scoring categories for schools. Unless the board revises their decision as the assessment development continues, the scoring categories will be: “Distinguished,” “Proficient,” “Needs Improvement,” or “Persistently Low-Achieving.”

Unlike the program with the CATS assessment, at present there are no plans for score subdivisions for the four score categories.

When CATS ended in 2008, schools fit into one of three major categories, “Meets Goal,” “Progressing” or “Assistance.” However, there were multiple subdivisions of those three main categories such as: “Meets Goal,” “Meets Goal - Dropout Rate and Novice Reduction (not acceptable),” “Meets Goal - Dropout Rate (not acceptable)” and “Meets Goal - Novice Reduction (not acceptable).”

The current board has apparently decided Kentucky has had enough of lauding small amounts of progress. The board is sending a signal that it is time to get on with the mission of reaching proficiency, not something less (Jefferson County, are you listening?).

Michelle Rhee starting lobbying organization to counter teachers unions!

The ink is hardly dry on Michelle Rhee’s resignation letter from the chancellor’s position in the Washington, DC public school system, but no moss is growing under this high energy lady’s feet!

She is announcing plans to form StudentsFirst, a new lobbying organization that will challenge the education employee unions’ current lock on school politics.

Rhee is planning big – one billion dollars big – and one major player, Eli Broad, a well-known Los Angeles philanthropist is already on board.

Read more in this Sacramento Bee article.

I’ll bet a lot of union activists in DC are already wondering if they achieved a Pyrrhic victory when their heavy political activism led to the ousting of the mayor who appointed Lee to her DC schools job. That union political win ultimately led to Lee’s resignation.

Now, Lee is coming back at the unions in a way that could cost these employees first/kids second organizations millions.

Quote of the day: 'These kids have one shot at second grade'

"I think that you can’t use other excuses like the economy to put off doing what’s right for kids. These kids have one shot at second grade. They’re not going to be there again, and if we say, 'Sorry, we didn’t have time to pay attention to you until you were out of college,' then we have done a tremendous disservice to these kids." --Joanne Weiss, chief-of-staff to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

Owensboro’s Messenger-Inquirer gets it

The Messenger-Inquirer writes in “Schools need reliable accountability” (subscription) about the editorial staff’s frustration with a proposal from the Kentucky Department of Education to ask for a waiver from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability so the state can lower accountability standards, again. The paper correctly points out that we have already done this twice, first scrapping the KIRIS assessments, and then dumping the CATS assessments. In the process, the firm promise from our educators to provide dramatic improvement by 2014 has vanished into thin air.

Except for NCLB, no-one is talking a 2014 target date anymore.

Says the Messenger-Inquirer:

“But it's time to determine what the standards will be, set goals with firm deadlines, and then continue on that path long enough to determine which schools are succeeding, which are broken, and what needs to be done to fix them. Otherwise, we're just left with a bunch of test scores, but no real accountability.”

All I can add to that is “Amen!”

Courier-Journal’s nonsense about progress in Jefferson County Schools fools no-one

Even the Prichard Committee agrees!

In what looks like a clumsy attempt to get the Jefferson County Board of Education to override its vote to replace the school district’s superintendent, Sheldon Berman, the Courier-Journal’s editors have managed to impressively demonstrate their blindness to the plight of their own readership’s children.

On Sunday, December 5, 2010, the Journal’s editors published “Stop and Think,” a major diatribe against the recent school board action.

The Courier’s editorial staff writes:

“The sudden decision to oust Dr. Berman gives the impression — to parents, to students, to teachers and to prospective employers who might move to Louisville — that Jefferson County's public schools are stagnating or in decline. That is quite simply not the case.”

Among other items the paper mentions to support this broad-sweeping assertion is a claim that “percentages of students testing proficient in basic academic skills have risen steadily while students rated novice have dropped sharply."

That nonsense immediately brought fire in the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence’s blog here and here.

Let’s add a bit more to what Prichard has to say.

This table (click on it to enlarge, if needed) shows the proficiency rates for elementary schools on Kentucky Core Content Tests (KCCT) by subject and test year.

It starts with 2007 data, which was the last school term prior to Berman’s arrival in Louisville.

Note that between 2007 and 2010 Jefferson County’s performance (area shaded in yellow) fell in every subject area except math.


On the same table I also show the statewide average proficiency rates (shaded in light blue) for the same subjects and test years.

I then calculate the gap between the state proficiency rate and the rate in Jefferson County in the area shaded pink. Note the district’s elementary schools have fallen farther behind the state average in every area in the past four years, often sinking to double-digit gaps.

Now, we know the KCCT, particularly in high schools, does not give us a good picture of how well our schools are preparing our students for college and careers. That is why the KCCT program is being disbanded in another year in favor of better tests aligned to those student needs.

Some of those replacement tests are already in use in Kentucky. They are the ACT, Incorporated’s EXPLORE, PLAN and ACT tests, which are now given to all eighth, 10th and 12th grade students, respectively. We started using EXPLORE and PLAN with all students in 2007, and the ACT was first given to all our 11th grade students in 2008. Here is how those test results look for Jefferson County Schools versus the statewide average scores.


At best, progress has been terribly slow in Jefferson County, with no progress at all in the PLAN scores.

Read more »

Another school fusses about NCLB

News reports from the Grayson Journal-Enquirer indicate that leaders at the East Carter Middle School in Carter County are upset because they have been identified as failing to meet No Child Left Behind (NCLB) targets for nine straight years. The school’s leaders are complaining that their scores are higher than other schools in their area (Really? – Stay Tuned).

The East Carter Middle staff whines about poverty. Their school did report that 366 students in its NCLB tested population of 623 students in 2010 were in the federal free and reduced cost lunch program – a poverty rate of 58.7 percent. Hold that thought.

The grim fact remains that, after 20 years of KERA, East Carter does a poor job with its students and needs to spend more time on strong corrective action instead of making excuses.

This graph (click on it to enlarge), taken from the school’s 2010 NCLB report (access from pull down menus here), shows that even with the confidence intervals added (the thin horizontal lines above and below the actual proficiency rate scores shown by the small black squares), not one student group in the school met its Annual Measurable Objectives (AMO) in reading. Not one group.


It gets worse.

Here is the same sort of AMO graph for the Allen Central Middle School in Floyd County. At Allen Central 220 of the 319 students tested under NCLB in 2010 were in the federal free and reduced cost lunch program – a poverty rate of 70 percent. That is a lot higher than the East Carter County’s 58.7 percent poverty rate.


As you can see, Allen Central met all of its goals with flying colors despite much higher poverty rates than East Carter County has. Allen Central didn’t even need NCLB loopholes to do it!

Now, you can begin to understand why I am losing patience with educators who keep making excuses instead of progress. Schools like Allen Central show IT CAN BE DONE!

It gets even worse! Click the Read More link to see how.

Read more »

Quote of the day: Lennon, love and political philosophy

"Lennon was a gifted songsmith, period. His political philosophy was puerile and as predictable as sightings of peace symbols in Haight-Ashbury during the summer of love. 'Love' is not all the world needs, and whenever I imagine no possessions I see only a sanguinary free-for-all. I'll continue to enjoy Lennon's music. But his political 'philosophy' is to human enlightenment what, say, a rock concert by Milton Friedman would have been to human entertainment." --Donald Boudreaux, George Mason University economist on the anniversary of John Lennon's death.

KERA’s legacy continues

Kentucky's college enrollment/grad rates trail nation

Jim Warren at the Lexington Herald-Leader has the details.

One telling point from the article:

“Kentucky had 48 percent of its first-time, full-time college freshmen in 2002 graduate from public four-year colleges and universities by 2008, compared with 55 percent nationally and 53 percent in the 16-state region covered by the education board.”

Cheating on ACT confirmed in Perry County

The Hazard-Herald reports that the ACT, Incorporated has concluded its investigation into alleged cheating in Perry County high schools and found that there was improper activity in both the Perry County Central High School and the Buckhorn High School.

Not many details have been publicly released, but that may be due to the fact that the Kentucky Department of Education indicates the case has been turned over to investigative agencies such as the Attorney General’s office and the Educational Professional Standards Board (which grants, and revokes, professional teacher and principal certifications).

The Educational Professional Standards Board confirmed to the newspaper that it now has a complaint pending.

The wrongdoing involves extremely important tests that tell students if they are on track for preparation for college and careers.

So far, the students – who were found innocent of any wrong-doing by the ACT – are the only ones who have suffered. Many of the recent PLAN and ACT scores have been invalidated, and students must retake the tests. That could seriously impact students’ planning for college.

Hopefully, the guilty parties will be identified and receive proper punishment for their wrong-doing. Among their other faults, these misbehaving adults have presented their students with an extraordinarily bad lesson about acceptable behavior.

Education commissioner agrees with us

Jefferson County Board of Education member Linda Duncan got it wrong about NCLB

I wrote a week ago that Ms. Duncan does not understand that what counts as proficient work on the Kentucky tests used for NCLB compliance is nothing like the performance required to get a “Proficient” score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Now, Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday (who reads this blog, by the way) has felt it incumbent to write a letter to the Courier-Journal that explains NAEP “Proficient” isn’t the same as “Proficient” on Kentucky’s tests. He also agrees with us that we don’t want to lower the bar for our kids, which is clearly what board member Duncan wants to do.

Will the folks in Jefferson County ever learn?

Straight talk for school reform elsewhere ... but deafening silence in Kentucky

Kentucky's approach to brainstorming school reform is to fill task forces with those who want to protect the status quo and who can’t implement a single reform. It's a brilliant political approach because there will be no real system change and everyone will get along.

But there is a different approach. Real commitment and being really serious about it!

Who will champion this cause in Kentucky?

Who has the courage in Kentucky to tell it the way it is?

Who will -- once and for all -- put Kentucky kids first?

The silence is deafening, isn’t it?

Blue skies ahead for Gray's pension

A few days ago, State Labor Cabinet Secretary J.R. Gray retired three years following his appointment to the position. This calls for a celebration.

For his service, Gray will receive a high five, er...three from the state and a bloated pension bonus estimated at about $1.2 million.

Hey, no retirement party is complete without presents, right?

Thanks to a 2005 law, Gray's legislative pension is calculated on the salary he received in his three years as cabinet secretary -- $137,865 this year alone -- instead of the 26 years he served in the Kentucky House of Representatives.

This loophole permits lawmakers to base their legislative pensions on the salary of another government job held either before or after serving in Frankfort.

The law also lowered the salary multiplying factor used in figuring pensions from a "high five" to a “high three." Gray's six-digit salary from his three years as cabinet secretary counts as his "high three," which means his pension will be figured completely on his salary as secretary.

In contrast, his "high three" from his years as a state representative would have been a much lower number -- around $40,000.

In all, his pension added about $400,000 each year to his three-year salary as secretary, meaning Gray was essentially paid over a half-million dollars a year for heading the labor cabinet.

Now, he's retiring in time to barely meet the three-year requirement and cash out on his oversized pension.

Gray and all of the other political cronies who plan to take advantage of this taxpayer-funded cash cow might be celebrating. But citizens are not.

Fort Campbell chapel: Where did all the money go?

Back in October, Fort Campbell began work on a brand-new $8.4 million chapel complex, expected to be completed by 2012. The chapel will seat about 1,200 people, and will also house administrative offices, mulitpurpose classrooms, and various other amenities and services.

Awesome! I'm all for supporting our troops. They fight for our freedom and deserve all the recognition they can get.

But according to the Citizens Against Government Waste database, the project received $14.4 million in funding from the federal government.

Whoa ... Wait a second. For those math buffs out there, that's a $6 million difference.

Here's the $1 million -- or in this case, $14.4 million -- question: Where is all that extra money going?

My spidey senses are tingling, and I'm detecting some wasteful spending.

Logic left behind, or no logic at all?

Another educator attack on No Child Left Behind has just been published in the Courier-Journal.

Disputing what NCLB shows, Louisville high school teacher Noah Cooksey claims the Long Term Trend data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show “Today's students outperform their counterparts from 40 years ago at every age level in both reading and math.”

Well, that just isn’t so.

In fact, on page 2 the “NAEP 2008 Trends in Academic Progress (NCES 2009–479)” report card clearly and plainly says:

“The average reading score (in 2008) for 17-year olds was not significantly different from that in 1971.”

“The average mathematics score (in 2008) for 17-year-olds was not significantly different from that in 1973.”

When it comes to the Age 17 data, Cooksey doesn’t know what he is talking about.

It gets worse. Click the “Read More” link to see that.

Read more »

Gov. Beshear champions 'It's all about who you know' policy to escape personnel axe

Hear ye, hear ye: Gov. Steve Beshear is making a decision without establishing a task force!

Beshear is asking the Kentucky Personnel Board to exempt 81 political appointees from a new budget-cutting law that would abolish their jobs on Dec. 31.

How many special jobs can a governor provide to "friends?" Apparently 856 -- the number of Beshear's political appointees on the state dole as of Sept. 29. Incredibly, that number had increased by 30 from last winter when the Kentucky General Assembly tried to force him to reduce that number.

Kentucky's budget is in tough shape, requiring cuts in funding for programs and non-politically appointed state workers, yet this governor seems determined to protect his political pals -- even if 10 percent of Kentuckians are unemployed.

Here's some questions that need to be asked and answered before the personnel board renders its decision on Dec. 10:

* What if these political appointees had to earn their job everyday like people in the private sector?

* What if the governor had aggressive transparent goals to be accomplished and made his personnel decisions based on actual measurable performance of the people 'accountable' to achieve those goals?

* Who’s going to make the tough decisions when the reality hits that the feds can't print anymore money to bail out Kentucky?

Let's look on the governor's award-winning transparency site and see if the answers are there. Oops. Not there. It appears that business-as-usual cronyism rules the day.

Persistently Low-Achieving Iroquois High School finally calls for help

BUT, it took federal pressure to make this happen

They are waking up in Iroquois High School in Louisville. This perennially low performing school is now calling out to the community for help. Iroquois also is finally recognizing that poverty cannot be used as an excuse if you want to improve performance of poor kids. You have to adopt a school culture that insists these kids can learn despite poverty, if they get the right help.

According to the Courier-Journal, only 38 percent of the school’s students are proficient in reading and a dismal 15 percent meet math standards. The dropout rate of 40 percent is terrible, and only 10 percent of those who do graduate are ready for college and careers.

So, the school is reaching out to the community for help and support, which is great.

What isn’t great is the fact that it took so long for educators in Louisville to wake up to the seriousness of the situation and admit that, despite the poverty challenge, these kids can learn.

Another thing that isn’t great is that it took the federally mandated Persistently-Low Performing School program, which some in Louisville still fuss about, to create this new awakening.

What may be the most disturbing of all, however, are comments made by Jefferson County Board of Education member Linda Duncan.

While I salute her for showing up at the school’s public outreach meeting, I am having problems with her excuses. She doesn’t like the accountability system that identified Iroquois, claiming the problems are caused elsewhere because the kids arrive at this high school unprepared.

That’s right. Those kids in Iroquois were failed long before high school.

BUT, Ms. Duncan, you are responsible for the elementary and middle schools that feed Iroquois. Are you taking action in those feeder schools to create an Iroquois-like wakeup call there, as well?

Maybe Ms. Duncan talked about that but the Courier just didn’t pick it up. I’d like to know, if Ms. Duncan or one of our readers can inform us.

You see, it’s obvious that the problems in Iroquois and a lot of other poor-performing high schools didn’t start there. And, trying to fix those problems just by concentrating on Iroquois isn’t very likely to provide a high-quality solution, either. Louisville has system problems, and it needs system leaders who can grasp and deal with that fact.

KERA: Chartering a way to unfulfilled promises

Despite all the fanfare and good intentions of politicians and bureaucrats, the Kentucky Education Reform Act has failed to adequately educate and prepare the commonwealth's students for the rigors of the 21st century global marketplace.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

Click here to learn more about KERA.

Quote of the day

"The government is making money because it now controls so much capital, but it is robbing that money from the private economy in the process. It is never a good sign when your central bank is a national profit center." –-Wall Street Journal

Tea Party water rate protest getting continued coverage

Attorney General didn’t hire experts to insure public’s interests are met

The Northern Kentucky Tea Party’s battle to stop an enormous, 25 percent hike in water rates in their region continues to expose more questions about public servants’ performance.

This latest from the Kentucky Enquirer mentions highly questionable spending (earlier identified as using tax dollars to purchase such things as flowers and back massages for water district staffers) by the Northern Kentucky Water District, which even the state attorney general’s office indicates "are, at best, uncomfortably on the border of a lawful action."

Another shocker in the Enquirer’s article:

“Unlike in some other cases, Attorney General Jack Conway's office did not hire its own experts to examine and challenge the water district's need for all or part of the rate hike.”

It’s Conway’s job to represent the public in such hearings. He’s not a municipal water supply expert. Without outside experts, how could he possibly know, even if complex technology changes required by unfunded mandates from Washington do have to be implemented, whether the actual costs claimed by the water district are accurate?

The rate hikes under review in Northern Kentucky will set precedents for all subsequent water company rate hike requests from other regions of the state. This initial process needs a full and thorough examination; so far, it isn’t getting it – except for Tea Party activists.

Taking liberty to the airwaves: Jim Waters to guest host on Bowling Green's WKCT

Jim Waters, Bluegrass Institute vice president of policy and communications, will guest host NewsTalk 93 WKCT'S Mornings with Darrell and Al from 6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. (CST) Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (Dec. 6-8).

KERA short-changed Kentucky’s teachers – but not their union!

We promised that our “KERA @ 20” reports would be living documents with updates and expansion coming in the KERA Portal where you can access everything from one page.

One of those recent updates is titled “Teachers Didn’t Get a Fair Share of Kentucky’s Education Funding Increase,” and you can access it by clicking on this title in the “See Also” section at the bottom of the KERA Portal.

Here are some facts:

Between the 1989-90 and 2008-09 school terms, total expenditures in Kentucky’s school districts rose by 54.9 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars, but the average Kentucky teacher’s salary only rose 12.6 percent in real dollars.


Where did the money go?

I know where some of it went. Non-teacher staffing in our schools rose by 59.4 percent between the Fall of 1989 and the Fall of 2007, while the number of Kentucky classroom teachers only increased by 21.8 percent (Sorry, I don’t have more current figures right now).


So, teachers in Kentucky didn’t fare that well under KERA. But, I suspect the unions did better. A notable proportion of the non-classroom teacher positions are in areas like curriculum specialists, assessment coordinators, and other skills that often are unionized positions. All of those extra union positions generate dues money for the union, but they don’t do a thing for raising the individual teacher’s salary.

Think about it, taxpayer. You put up 54.9 percent more in real dollars, but teachers only got a 12.6 percent raise. Do you really think that is the way to attract high-quality candidates into teaching careers? And, do you think the creation of a lot of featherbedding non-classroom jobs does a lot to improve education where it matters – in the classroom?

Was JCPS superintendent's problem really 'a failure to communicate?'

Thomas McAdam of the Louisville City Hall Examiner took the media to task for defending soon-to-be-ex Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Sheldon Berman.

He called a Louisville Courier-Journal editorial claiming Berman’s main problem was a failure to communicate as “fatuous,” for which the synonyms “dull,” “dense” and “dim-witted” apply.

McAdam wrote:

That’s the ticket. What we have here is failure to communicate. Same liberal excuse for Obama’s decline in popularity; the shellacking the Democrats received at the polls this month; and the rejection of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi socialistic healthcare and carbon tax agendas by the American public. Maybe if we’d just have explained ourselves to the ignorant lumpen proletariat in words of one syllable, they might have understood the wisdom of leftist government.

And Shelly Berman should have done a better job of explaining to Louisville’s unhappy and disgruntled parents that “…busing is a fact of life in 21st Century urban education;” despite the facts that: Busing is strongly opposed by the majority of students and their parents; It violates state law requiring neighborhood schools; It violates rulings by the U. S. Supreme Court; and it has failed to make any measurable improvement in the education of our children

Of course, it’s hard to explain something to people when you are out of town and out of contact.

McAdam also pointed out that Berman’s international travels – in which he was away from his post for 40 working days, or two full months out of 13 months – occurred while "only 33 of the system’s 133 schools met No Child Left Behind goals, a 13% drop from last year.”

Berman also missed every single graduation in the district. It should tell you something that the media and the Jefferson County teachers union continued to defend this incompetent educrat right up to the moment the JCPS School Board voted not to renew his contract.

In a way, Berman’s actual departure is sort of a non-event. Except for messing up the busing
situation and a politically correct but "parent-ally" unpopular student-assignment plan, he’s been gone -- more or less -- since he started.

Some governors form task forces, others take action

New Jersey's Gov. Chris Christie is providing the kind of education-reform leadership badly needed in Kentucky.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear talks, creates task forces to appear engaged on the issue and talks some more. But Gov. Christie acts by pursuing an aggressive agenda that includes "expanding school choice options for students and overhauling teacher tenure, compensation, and pensions."

He is putting the interests of New Jersey's kids ahead of the self-aggrandizing teachers unions and educrats in the schools of education who have yet to move from lah-lah land into the realm of reality.

I wonder when Kentucky's governor and education officials charged with reforming the commonwealth's education system might also be making that move.