Transforming Education in Kentucky Task Force report finally out

It was promised before the end of the year, but, as the Herald-Leader just reported, the governor’s Transforming Education in Kentucky (TEK) Task Force report just released today, with most of the current legislative session already in the history books.

That’s probably not too much of a problem, considering that my first read shows there isn’t much new in this report.

Most of the ideas are pretty old hat things that have been floating around since KERA began. The rest is largely a warmed over “me too” sort of reiteration of already approved plans from Senate Bill 1 from 2009.

Actually, the presence of many recommendations almost amounts to an admission that many ideas in KERA have not worked out. Thus, while the report offers little that is new, there is plenty of evidence in it that much of the old isn’t working well, if at all.

I’ll have some more detailed thoughts shortly, but the biased makeup of this task force [no independent-thinking representatives from organizations like the Bluegrass Institute or the Family Foundation of Kentucky (which, notably, WAS on earlier task force efforts in education)] pretty much fore-ordained the outcome.

One clue to the real value of this report: the word “charter,” as in charter school, doesn’t appear. The group didn’t even consider one of the more successful crucibles for school change. It just mostly looked at the ‘same-old, same-old.’

One interesting final note: While this report is months late, the released file is titled “final_report_draft.pdf” It makes you wonder if this is really the “final, final” or just a draft that got posted by accident. Go figure!