If not Senate Bill 3, then what?

The Courier-Journal reports that key leaders in the Kentucky House are already pronouncing SB-3 – the parent choice bill with both charter schools and neighborhood schools provisions – dead upon arrival.

SB-3 is intended to do something positive about poor performance in too many Kentucky schools by opening up more options to parents. The hope is that those options will create competitive forces within our currently monopolized school system that will spur real improvement for kids.

While the House leaders may make some supporters happy by pronouncing SB-3 dead, what, exactly, do those House leaders intend to do about the poor performance in many of our schools?

So far, the answer seems to be: not very much.

While the list of Persistently Low-Achieving Schools grows, and while gaps remain – largely unchanged – the best we are hearing from House Education Chair Representative Carl Rollins is that he wants to have a study on why blacks are under-performing. He also wants a bill to relieve regular public schools in Kentucky from burdensome red tape, the same sort of roadblocks that charter schools in other states can avoid now.

Well, here’s one newsflash: Schools in Kentucky already can request waivers from regulations.

It’s all covered in KRS 156.160, Promulgation of administrative regulations by Kentucky Board of Education — Voluntary compliance — Penalty, under Paragraph (2)(a).

This waiver provision has been in statute since KERA was enacted in 1990. Problem: it must not be getting used effectively if Rep. Rollins thinks we need legislation that already exists.

So far as studying why blacks under-perform, this is one of the most studied issues in education. I’d be surprised if diversity experts from the Kentucky Department of Education couldn’t outline all sorts of existing research for Rep. Rollins within a day of being asked to do so. We are past the point where we need time-wasting studies.

As Jim Waters recently pointed out in his syndicated column:

“No single politician, legislative committee or special-interest group should stand in the way of real reform in Kentucky’s education system.”

So, I return to my initial question: If not SB-3, then what? The kids of Kentucky are waiting for the answers.