Even 'conservatives' have traveled D.C.'s latest 'Bridge to Nowhere'

"The current budget cut proposals being debated in Congress are the political equivalent of making a New Year's resolution to lose weight going to the gym and then not going after the first week."

So writes Tim Shoemaker on the Campaign for Liberty blog.

Shoemaker is right.

Neither the White House nor congressional Republicans are proposing deep enough spending cuts to turn America's economic ship around and escape a deficit that threatens to drown our future.

Of course, it doesn't help when self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives, including the Kentucky delegation, would vote for a defense earmark that even the Defense department has repeatedly indicated it doesn't want and that the nation doesn't need.

In fact, conservatives refer to it as the "Mother of all Earmarks" and the new "Bridge to Nowhere" project.

But GE wants it, as does Rolls-Royce, its partner in the project to build an alternate engine for the F-35 joint strike fighter.

Yep, that's right -- an "alternate" engine.

Since GE lost in the bid to build the initial jet fighter's engine to Pratt & Whitney, it's using its considerable resources -- as evidenced by a recent aggressive ad campaign aided by a $9 million lobbying effort -- to be allowed to build an "alternate" engine ... all at taxpayers' expense, of course.

Even Tea-party conservative types in D.C. are having trouble saying "no" to GE, which has a presence in or near many of conservative leaders' districts, including Speaker John Boehner's in Ohio. About 1,000 employees have been working on the engine at a GE facility near Cincinnati.

GE claims that having an engine making competition will "drive down costs." Not so, says the Defense department. In its own release, the DoD said the additional costs, including "the burden of maintaining two logistical systems," will likely outweigh the savings.

On March 24, the Pentagon ordered a halt to the engine's production.

Despite the fact that the two biggest-spending presidents in U.S. history -- Barack Obama and George W. Bush, both administrations' defense secretaries and the Defense bureaucracy itself said continuing to fund the $4 billion project could sap resources needed for more immediate security concerns, GE vows to try and find a way to keep it going.

Of course, that's no problem -- as long as they do it with their own money.

Click here for a timeline by Citizens Against Government Waste of spending that's already occurred on this boondoggle.

Coming to a state near you, Kentuckians: More choices for parents, chances for kids

While Congress was busy passing a bill that would restore the torpedoed D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program on Wednesday, a state closer to (my old Kentucky) home was also passing landmark education legislation dealing with school choice and spending.

Indiana's House of Representatives approved a voucher bill allowing students in a family of four with household incomes up to $62,022 to receive a voucher covering from 50 percent to 90 percent of a private school tuition.

Imagine how such an option could shake up, say, a district like Jefferson County, where 60 percent of students are from low-income homes.

No doubt, anti-choice forces would wail about how such a voucher plan would throw government schools into chaos. But have you taken a look at that district's student-assignment plan and busing disaster lately?

It appears chaos arrived long ago. We're still waiting on choice to get here.

We Need School Choice

So says the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Education Organization (CEO).

Unfortunately, adult interests are overriding the best interests of students and parents in the struggle to educate our youth. The CEO also points out:

“Too many of our legislators talk about children and the need for better education, but are more worried about supporting the adult groups who are busy protecting the status quo for their own benefit.”

That is certainly true in Kentucky, which is one of the worst school choice states in the nation, without even one charter school.

Adults in ‘the system’ also attacked a very popular school choice program in Washington, DC after the Obama administration took over. Responding to that pressure, in an action that sent incredibly mixed messages about the new administration’s real support for educational reform, the Congress and the President torpedoed the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP).

Now, it looks like the new Congress is planning to right that wrong. A bill to reinstate the Opportunity Scholarships is working its way into law.

That’s good news for kids in our nation’s capital, but what about kids in Kentucky, many of whom are poorer, and more challenged than the inner city DC children?

When will Kentucky legislators stop deferring to selfish demands from adults who work in the school system and start doing things that make sense for the students who are trying to get an education in that system?

Get this straight Kentucky: Parents ALWAYS lose against teachers in school council votes

In its article, “Reducing band director's position frustrates crowd,” The State Journal (subscription) just provided another great example of the power that teachers – not parents – have in Kentucky’s schools. This story just played out in Franklin County.

At issue: Due to tight funding, what staff positions should be cut at Franklin County High School?

Parents had one point of view; teachers had another.

When the voting time came, parents got squashed.

One of the position reductions was for a science teacher. That’s a great way to increase STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) qualified graduates! Sadly, the motivation for this choice becomes crystal clear once you consider the specialties of the teachers on the Franklin High school council: an English teacher, a social studies teacher, and an agricultural teacher. No math teachers or hard science teachers to be found!

Another outstanding example of how parents loose out in school council votes occurred in the very upscale Fort Thomas school district back in 2007. In a story now long gone from the web, a showdown between parents and teachers over selection of a new principal at the Johnson Elementary school went solidly against the parents.

Civil asset forfeiture vs. Truth and Justice

Civil asset forfeiture strikes at the heart of property rights. Authorities simply seize private property without all the messiness of convicting someone of a crime. It's blatantly unconstitutional and it shouldn't happen, but it does. What's worse, many state governments offer little to no information to the public about what they're doing with those ill-gotten gains. A new report and video from the Institute for Justice illustrates the case of Georgia quite well. The video was produced by IJ's multitalented Isaac Reese.



Kentucky, for the record, is among the worst performers when it comes to transparency of its civil forfeiture records.

Sorry Mr. Jefferson County Superintendent: It just isn’t so!

Jefferson County Superintendent talking mush about turning around low-performing schools

Fantasy:

“I just don't think the transformation model is effective in producing immediate, dramatic change. It may have some long term benefits, but they are really long term.”

Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Sheldon Berman, quoted March 29, 2011 by the Louisville Courier-Journal

Fact:

As I discussed in this blog back on March 2, 2011, we now have early evidence from the recently released PLAN and EXPLORE scores for the first group of 10 schools to be designated as Persistently Low-Achieving Schools. Trend arrows on the far right of the table below (click on table to enlarge) show the Composite Score trend in each school between 2009-10 and the 2011-12 school years (PLAN and EXPLORE are given early in each school year).


The trend arrows show that three of the four NON-Jefferson County high schools made improvements in their performance after they adopted the “Transformation Model” for school turn-around.

In sharp contrast, the majority of the Jefferson County Schools, all of which choose the “Restaffing Option,” showed declines in scores.

Only one Jefferson County school using the “Restaffing Option” in this list showed improvement.

So, if we are talking about evidence of fast indications of progress, the data shows the Jefferson County superintendent does not have “the right stuff.”

Most would call the Lawrence County High School’s one-year Composite score jump “dramatic.” Many would also consider Leslie County High School’s one-year improvement notable, as well.

So, I’ll go with Commissioner Terry Holliday on this one. Holliday is also recommending the “Transformation Option,” which ties teacher evaluations and compensation to student performance. Keep in mind, the commissioner has been able to look at other during-the-term testing results that have not been released to the public in addition to the PLAN and EXPLORE data above.

By the way, I don’t care if the teachers union in Jefferson County doesn’t like the “Transformation Option.” It is time to do something for the kids instead of the adults in our schools. It seems to be happening in places like Lawrence County and Leslie County.

Using the right math program does work

Some Fayette County schools started using the ‘Singapore Math’ program in 2009. Initially, there was fear that this rigorous math program would cause declines in scores.

Well, flash forward to 2011. Now, a lot more of the school district’s elementary schools want ‘in.’

It seems that Singapore is starting to really shine – with Kentucky kids.

According to a Jim Warren report in the Herald-Leader, several Fayette schools using Singapore have made dramatic progress, including some nice improvements for minority populations.

Even the New York Times knows Singapore is a program to watch. The Times reports Singapore Math is being used in schools from inner city New York to the exclusive Sidwell Friends School in Washington that President Obama’s daughters attend.

The news about Singapore Math is no secret to us. We wrote about the success of this program in our KERA @ 20 reports, “KERA (1990-2010): What have we learned?” and “KERA@20,” both on line here.

Still, it’s nice to see more evidence that Singapore works, especially since that includes working with Kentucky students, especially our kids of color.

So, here are some bigger questions.

The nation of Singapore has been shining in international mathematics testing for years. As we ask in our KERA @ 20 report, why is it that only a handful of Kentucky schools are currently using it instead of ‘fuzzier’ math programs that confuse kids and parents?

How much evidence has to be put in front of our educators before they finally accept the obvious?

Part of the answer may be found in the New York Times article.

Teachers have to know some math to teach Singapore.

However, in Kentucky elementary school teachers can get a degree and be certified to teach after taking only one, trivial math course titled “elementary math.” It is taught below the level of college algebra. That probably isn’t good enough preparation to really teach mathematics, even to elementary school students. Just maybe, teachers fighting Singapore may think their own mathematics skills are inadequate to teach this highly successful program. If so, it’s time for someone to realize the kids deserve better. They deserve a high quality program like Singapore, which works in inner city schools, schools right here in Kentucky and the president’s daughters’ school, too.

Government's 'un'fair share

According to WKU economists Steve Lile and Brian Goff, "the public sector accounts for a larger share of the KY economy than is the case of most neighboring states."

In a paper on the new WKU Center for Applied Economics Web site, Lile and Goff offer the results of their research comparing the share of government activity that consumes states' gross state product (GSP), which like the national GDP, is a leading indicator of states' economic vitality.

Of the seven surrounding states, only Virginia and West Virginia -- both of which house large federal government agencies -- exceed Kentucky in the percent of their GSPs accounted for by government.


That's one of the reasons why it's so hard to believe the claims being made by Gov. Beshear and his get-along, go-along big spenders in the Kentucky General Assembly when they say that there's no need for spending cuts immediately to deal with the ongoing Medicaid mess.

In one sense, they're right. They should have been cutting the size of government a long time ago.

Tennessee: Your difference is showing

If you check out Western Kentucky University's new Center for Applied Economics online, here's some things you will find out about the commonwealth and its economic vitality:

• Kentucky's economy relies more heavily on manufacturing than all of the surrounding states other than Indiana. The commonwealth is 59 percent more dependent on manufacturing than the national economy.
  
  
• Notice how Kentucky's growth lags behind neighboring states:

• Persistent small differences in growth rates become a big deal over time. For instance, while Tennessee only grew at a 1.4 percent rate higher than Kentucky per year between 1997 and 2008, it added up to a 16 percent gap -- or a per capita income difference of $29,000 (Ky.) and $33,000 (Tenn.) during that decade.
  
  
• Kentucky and Tennessee share 350 miles of border and are similiar in terms of size, geographical features and historical/cultural similarities. Yet Kentucky lags behind:
  
  
  • Ky's "aggregate personal income" has dropped from 86 percent of Tennessee's to 64 percent over the last 45 years.
    
    
  • Ky's per capita income has dropped from 98 percent of Tennessee's to 92 percent.
    
    
  • Ky's population has dropped from 82 percent to 70 percent of Tennessee's.
    
    
  • Between 2000 and 2005, more than three times as many people moved to Tennessee as moved to Ky. Could it be that lower tax rates, a reliance upon the sales tax rather than punitive income taxes, school choice and a right-to-work law really do have consequences?

More Persistently Low-Achieving Schools identified in Kentucky

Feds: Kentucky Department of Education didn’t identify enough

Sending a clear message that the US Department of Education is fed up with schools that persistently perform poorly for students, the Kentucky Department of Education was recently directed to add more schools to the official Persistently Low-Achieving Schools list to comply with federal requirements. Apparently, the department had engaged in some of that ‘KERA math’ and didn’t correctly calculate the number of schools that had to be identified to meet the federally required percentage figures.

The two added low-achieving schools, Knight Middle School in the Jefferson County Public School District, and Newport High School in the Newport Independent School District, bring the state’s total number of low-achieving schools to 22. Here is the full list:








Jefferson County now has 13 of the 22 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools in the entire state, or 59 percent. The district has less than 20 percent of the students, however.

Check the Courier-Journal's coverage here.

Public weighs in on search for new Jefferson County school superintendent

Members of the public weighed in at a lightly attended meeting with the search firm that is helping the Jefferson County Board of Education in its search for a new school superintendent.

One of the key points is that the Jefferson County school system is complex, and it will have a steep learning curve for anyone who is not already familiar with the issues posed by a large school district.

Jefferson County citizens can do more to help themselves understand and interface in the hiring process.

Yesterday, the Bluegrass Institute released a ‘tip sheet’ for school boards hunting new superintendents. The sheet is based on our experience and observations in several hunts for education executives that proved highly problematic. While the tip sheet is of great value to school boards, it also provides ideas and search tools that public citizens can use to check out candidates. Check out our tip sheet, “Superintendent hiring: Advice to school boards.”

A change KY needs

Charter schools are a change Kentucky needs - plain and simple. Parents deserve a choice and a say in where their children attend school.

Is education failing to truly remove unsuccessful principals?

There has been a lot of hue and cry in the press over the past year as public school accountability measures required by the federal government have been kicking in across the nation.

Here in Kentucky, for example, we have seen a number of school principals removed from the current schools of assignment under the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools program created by House Bill 176 from the 2010 Regular Legislative Session.

But, the Associated Press is now raising a question – where are the ousted principals going?

It turns out most are quickly finding jobs – right back in education administration. In some cases, they are serving again as principals.

It’s an awfully strange way to make changes that might really boost student learning.

Need a GED? Testing in Kentucky is free through June 30, 2011

The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education just announced that the GED test cost of $55 will be waived in Kentucky until June 30, 2011.

The General Educational Development Certificate (what GED really stands for) offers a second chance for thousands of Kentuckians who dropped out of high school before getting a diploma. While the GED currently does not really represent the same level of education as a full high school diploma, the GED does provide a tremendously valuable entry way to higher education programs, and employers often do give GED holders preference in hiring over high school dropouts, as well.

Details on this cost-saving deal for those who need a GED are in the council’s news release.

Institute tips: How to find a new superintendent

A number of Kentucky school districts are searching for new superintendents. The Bluegrass Institute offers tips to local school boards on how to use the Web and questions for potential candidates to help ensure that reform-minded leaders are chosen.

Click here to view the latest news release.

Meanwhile, WHAS reports student aimed BB gun at school bus

The school bus stories from Louisville are growing faster than burley in Kentucky summer.

The latest from WHAS-TV says a 10-year old pulled a BB gun and aimed it at his school bus just after getting off.

The student had been in an argument prior to disembarking.

The article doesn’t clearly say so, but the way the event is described makes it sound like the student had the BB gun in his school pack all day long.

Great security there!

Jefferson Co. School Bus Drivers Start Speaking Out

Jefferson Co. School Bus Drivers Start Speaking Out

Fox41 interviews a Jefferson County Public Schools bus driver and the director of the busing program in this interesting article, which also has a video.

A few points:

• One of the few school bus monitors (an adult riding ‘shotgun’) had her nose broken – by an elementary school student!

• Some bus routes have fights almost daily.

• Elementary school students are the biggest problem (which makes sense because only the elementary schools are currently subjected to the full busing for integration plan. Just wait until they add middle schools to the plan next year).

• Fighting breaks out more frequently on the Interstates (what a great opportunity for a high speed crash disaster).

• Jefferson County’s busing director says they only have 40 cameras installed in their fleet of 930 buses. Cameras cost $1,800 each to install (Wow!). That would make a $1.6 million price tag to equip the entire fleet.

• Busing monitors are limited due to prohibitive costs. The district’s busing director says it would cost another four to five million to put monitors on all buses.


When will Jefferson County figure out that this expensive program, which has to be turning a lot of children off to education, is unaffordable, unworkable, and child (and maybe bus driver) hostile?

Wouldn’t concentrating on improving education in the neighborhood schools do a whole lot more to create real integration by improving the economic standing of West End Louisvillians?

Bashing on buses continues on in Louisville

But, who is doing it?

Fox41 now reports the latest on school bus violence in Louisville is actually a mystery.

Did a school bus driver assault a child, or were the kids acting up?

I like one of the comments that points out much of this would not be happening if the school district wasn’t subjecting kids to unreasonably long bus rides. That common sense observation is apparently beyond comprehension for the Jefferson County education system.

Meanwhile, Jefferson County keeps running up a multi-million dollar price tag for buses, drivers, and diesel to support its unreasonable busing plan while the Herald-Leader fusses about a lack of money for Kentucky’s schools.

If Jefferson County stopped almost literally burning up money, they might have enough to do some pretty credible preparation for the new education standards, which take effect next year.

As things stand, instead of teacher preparation, the Louisville area’s school district is turning money into diesel into carbon dioxide and a lot of other products of combustion that seem to be hindering, rather than helping, educate the city’s children.

Hundreds of parents tell Fox41: Bullying continues on Louisville’s school buses

Finally, the real dimensions of the violence and bullying on Jefferson County’s school buses are starting to emerge. Fox41-TV in Louisville reports receiving hundreds of calls from parents of children who have been bullied.

Bruised and swollen faces and broken arms just can’t be part of a high quality educational experience.

Read more details and catch a Fox41 video here.

Clearly, the district’s buses are beyond its control. A district spokeswoman even admits that putting monitors and cameras on buses isn't the answer, admitting they "have a lot of situations where those things haven't worked."

Parents are starting to sue. That will likely drive the taxpayers’ bill for this expensive, child-hostile nonsense to even higher levels.

SEEK and ye shall find Medicaid money

What would happen to Kentucky schools' academic performance if Frankfort's politicians had the same degree of concern about low test scores and high graduation rates as they showed toward proposals to cut a minuscule amount of funding for one year to help shore up Kentucky's Medicaid budget?

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

There ain't no such thing as a 'free lunch'

For two weeks in a special session, Kentucky legislators have been debating what to do about the Medicaid budget shortfall. The Governor proposed borrowing money from next year's budget, not only to plug the budget hole but also so the commonwealth can reap more federal funding with the higher Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) before the higher match rate from stimulus funds runs out in June of this year.

There are two problems with this approach.

For starters, borrowing money from next year's budget to fill a gap this year is a bad business move for anyone. Most Kentucky businesses and residents, like state government, have experienced the hardships of the economic recession. As a result, we've made due with less. We've trimmed our budgets, cut out excess spending, and worked to find more ways to save. Scaling back is not easy and often it's unpleasant, but it's reality. The commonwealth should take the same approach.

But beyond that, increased federal funding does more harm than good for state budgets. Yesterday, the Texas Public Policy Foundation released a paper analyzing just how damaging increased federal funds are to states. Increased funds not only lead to greater control of state programs by the federal government, but they also bloat spending to unreasonable and unnecessary levels.

By expanding programs with one-time funds that will run out, we are laying the groundwork for an economic disaster in the commonwealth.

House goes along with Senate's Medicaid plan; Beshear vows to veto spending cuts

The fact that the Kentucky House of Representatives voted tonight to accept the Senate Medicaid's plan is surprising. After all, Speaker Greg Stumbo said the House would not accept any spending cuts, particularly to education.

But wait, don't get your hopes up...

The House accepted the Senate plan only after Gov. Steve Beshear promised, apparently in a letter read today on the House floor today, to use his line-item veto authority to axe out spending and accountability measures is, unfortunately, not.

Apparently, the governor doesn't believe he can achieve the savings he promised. Otherwise, he would have gladly embraced the Senate's call for independent verification of what are sure to be future claims he will make about the great savings accrued from his managed-care approach to Medicaid.

Currently managed-care contracts are not even in place, and there is little chance the governor will be able to find the nearly $425 million in savings needed to plug Medicaid's budget by the end of next year.

Rep. Jim DeCesare, R-Bowling Green, praised the Senate substitute for House Bill 1, passed largely along party lines on the Senate floor today (this after earlier versions had picked up bipartisan support).

"It is a responsible plan that trusts, but also verifies," DeCesare said in a statement. "The plan, which credits the Governor for savings already achieved, fully funds Medicaid services this year while protecting the taxpayer and holding the Governor accountable through independent evaluation of his actions."

The Senate plan would have enacted small spending cuts over the next fiscal year -- 1.74 percent, across-the-board reductions next year -- but did allow those cut funds to be reinstated once an independent accountant and representatives from the state's Consensus Forecasting Group had certified his claimed savings. In return, it allows some borrowing from next year's Medicaid budget to balance this year's checkbook. At least $139 million is needed to plug the hole.

The cuts would have amounted to $23.5 million for K-12 education and $23 million for higher education.

Also, it would have restricted the amount of debt restructuring (delaying payments on the interest, or, as this governor has even done, the principal payments on loans) to the amount originally agreed to by legislators in last year's budget session -- about $202 million.

Ignoring the wishes of the people's representatives, the governor not only has restructured nearly the entire amount, but the House version of the Medicaid fix would have allowed him to keep those monies.

Apparently, the governor thinks he can get by with this. However, the November election indicated voters were wary of "borrow-and-spend" policies in Washington. The question: Will the same folks who sent fiscal hero Sen. Rand Paul to Washington catch on in Kentucky?

Beshear's letter indicated that he planned to veto all of the legislation's safeguards, leaving him with the all the money and no accountability," DeCesare said.

"Besides being a cynical move, it leaves the people of this Commonwealth holding the bag again, because come next year even deeper cuts will have to be made," he said.

Of course, those cuts won't occur until after Election Day.

For more on Kentucky's Medicaid program, visit the Bluegrass Institute's transparency site here.

Links: Fast food, NPR, open records requests

• This is such a classic example of the government "encouraging" choice by restricting choice.  Give me a break. 
• CafeHayek points out that if there is such a demand for NPR's services, they shouldn't need any taxpayer subsidies, right?
• Christian County High School responded to a records request for their school based decision making council meeting minutes.  A tip-of-the-hat to them for posting these meeting minutes online! You can view them here.
  

Why did Gov. Beshear go AWOL?

More now from Gov. Steve Beshear's recent interview with Tony Cruise on Louisville's WHAS-AM.

Here, Beshear is explaining why he went AWOL from the Capitol after calling lawmakers back into a special session to address Kentucky's Medicaid budget deficit at a cost of $63,500 per day:



Actually, I think what voters expect is for Beshear and those elected to lead by making the tough decisions, right?

Based on November's election, I would also say that those same voters, er, citizens the governor was trying to reach while flying around the state to try and drum up votes, er, animosity against lawmakers who had the audacity to propose spending cuts -- even to the bloated education budget -- aren't thrilled about Beshear's plan to borrow $166.5 million from next year's Medicaid spending plan to plug this year's holes.

Wasn't that election an expression of the outrage against Washington's "borrow and spend" policies? Now the Beshear administration is trying to take the commonwealth down that same path to economic failure.

I wonder: Will we see the outrage over that before the end of the year?

How Kentucky - and the US - was dumbed down

Here’s a neat You Tube that meshes perfectly with our KERA @ 20 reports.



After you view this You Tube, check out our KERA @ 20 reports to learn how bad ideas about education held Kentucky back for two decades.

Outrageous sewer district rate rises proposed to meet unfunded EPA mandates

In the latest action to outrage many Northern Kentuckians, the region’s Sanitation District Number 1 has voted to ask judge executives to enact huge rate hikes over the next two years.

SD1, as locals call it, wants a rate hike now of 15 percent followed by another 15 percent hike in just one year.

But, that isn’t all. SD1’s spending plan calls for rates to continue to rise to 107.6 percent of what they are today by 2019!

The SD1 board says it needs the money to meet requirements of a settlement with state and federal environmental regulators. The total price tag by 2025, according to SD1 officials, will be $1.2 billion!

The SD1 board elected to front load much of the cost of this dubious project at a time when many home owners in the region have lost jobs and are facing foreclosure on their homes.

The Kentucky Enquirer’s parent paper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, has details here.

While few are against intelligent programs to ensure our environment is kept healthy, the enormous size of SD1’s planned program raises questions as to whether such extreme measures are warranted, or even affordable. Citizens along with business and industry are likely to demand much more information and justification for this program, which hits at one of the major attractive features in the Northern Kentucky economy: currently inexpensive costs for water and energy.

The SD1 plan follows by only a few months some highly contentious hikes in water rates in the region (see here, here, here and here).

And, down staters should not assume that this is just Northern Kentucky’s problem. Read here about how the water rate hike trend in Northern Kentucky recently expanded to Lexington.

Given Washington’s continued attacks on Kentucky’s water-related infrastructure, and the equally ominous attacks on the state’s coal and energy industries, Kentuckians had better wake up to the threats to our livelihoods, and quickly.

Independent auditor needed to verify Beshear's future Medicaid savings claims

One of the problems with the Medicaid "compromise" coming out of the Kentucky House of Representatives is that it lacks the strength of accountability needed to ensure that the savings promised, and then no doubt touted by the governor, actually are delivered.

Members of the state Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee were right today as they "peppered (Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Janie) Miller (right) with questions about how those savings will be documented."

The House is proposing allowing Beshear to stick to his original plan of borrowing $166.5 million from next year's Medicaid spending plan to balance the program's budget this year.

However, as the Lexington Herald-Leader reported, there's a caveat: "If the state can not demonstrate that it has generated more than $116 million in savings through managed care and other efficiencies by Aug. 15, there will be across-the-board cuts in most areas of state government by Oct.1."

But who will determine if these unlikely savings actually are achieved? It will be Miller and the administration's budget office, who have hardly been interested in stepping into the sunshine with all the information lawmakers -- much less you and I, the lowly taxpayers -- deserve to know.

Since it is our money, after all, shouldn't the plan demand an independent entity determine whether or not real savings have been accomplished?

Where is that efficiency study?

Whatever happened to that "comprehensive efficiency study" of state government that was promised by Governor Beshear?



I had high hopes for that.

A Bluegrass Institute records request found that an efficiency study hadn't been done BUT the governor did conduct a survey of state employees on how the state can save money.  You can find those results separated by area of government here. I wonder if the governor has implemented any of those suggestions.

Email the governor and ask him

Open records: School based decison making and the state pension system

Operation: Open Records 2011 is in full swing! Here are some updates on some recent activity

• Governor Steve Beshear recently made the claim that the state's pension systems would be on solid ground about 15 years.  A series of requests have been sent to his office to obtain the information he used to make this claim.  You can follow the process of these requests here!
• A request to obtain school based decision making meeting minutes in Jefferson County pointed to a database where anyone can view the meeting minutes for any school in the JCPS system.  This is a great resource for anyone interested in seeing what happens at the meetings responsible for important school decisions.  

Check back at the Operation: Open Records 2011 page for more updates!

National dropout conference meets as Kentucky debates dropout age

Too many Kentucky high schools graduate too few

Data implies Age 18 dropout age minimum doesn’t work

As our legislature debates the merits of raising the minimum high school dropout age in Kentucky from 16 to 18, a national conference is meeting to discuss the serious problem of dropouts across the nation. Along with other materials, a conference team from The Everyone Graduates Center has provided an analysis that has charts showing how many ‘Dropout Factories’ are found in each state. The disturbing finding, as of 2009 Kentucky had 22 high schools which meet the Johns Hopkins University’s criteria of less than 60 percent graduation success to be labeled as ‘Dropout Factories.’ The same web data provides some interesting new information regarding the attempt to raise Kentucky’s dropout age to 18. Earlier, I assembled a quick study in a blog that looked at trends in federally reported Averaged Freshman Graduation Rates for states that had an Age 18 minimum dropout age in place for at least four years. My study showed few of the 15 states with at least four years of Age 18 experience had a trend in graduation rate improvement that even matched the national rate. Now, using some of the data from The Everyone Graduates Center and Johns Hopkins University, I assembled the tables below which shows how Kentucky ranks for dropout factory performance against the same 15 states that have already shifted their minimum dropout age to 18. This first graph shows the percentage of high schools in the Age 18 states that are dropout factories. The schools with the lowest percentage of dropout factories rank at the top in this listing. Notice that even without a current age 18 limitation, Kentucky already ranks around the middle in this listing. Given the large variation in graduation rate performance shown in this first table, it is clear that a minimum dropout age of 18 provides no guarantee of good performance with the Johns Hopkins data. We can also look at the percentage of students in each state that are trapped in dropout factories. This next table looks at all students. On this metric, Kentucky looks even better compared to the states that already have moved to age 18. Finally, here is a similar table for minority students. Once again, Kentucky is already doing better than a notable number of the age 18 dropout minimum states. So, why would we want to emulate the general performance of Age 18 states? We already do better than many of them. The new Johns Hopkins data adds to the earlier evidence from the National Center for Education Statistics on Averaged Freshman Graduation Rates that I discussed in the earlier blog. The data indicates that an Age 18 dropout restriction, by itself, does not guarantee good graduation rates. Does Kentucky have a dropout problem? YOU BET! Will trapping kids in school until age 18 help? Probably not. Technical Note: You can access the data used to assemble the tables above by logging on here. This brings up a web page with the Kentucky data. Click on the graph in the lower right of the section near the top of the web page to find the graph showing “Number and Percent of High Schools with Weak and High Promoting Power Ratios.” To access the other states’ data, scroll to the bottom of the Kentucky page, where a US map allows selection of other state profiles. Then, click on the charts for that state to select the graph showing “Number and Percent of High Schools with Weak and High Promoting Power Ratios.”

'Cheap states' and higher ed

Cato's Neal McCluskey argues that politicians have the relationship between state spending and tuition prices exactly backwards.

JCPS wants input on new superintendent

With superintendent Sheldon Berman on the way out, Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) is on the hunt for a new superintendent.  The district is looking for input on what the public would want to see in their superintendent.

One piece of advice I might give is look for a superintendent who will be evaluated based on performance, metrics, and specific goals.  So often this is not the case.

JCPS will have a survey available at the beginning of the week on their site.

UAW's King: The Godfather of 'Sole'

Labor unions are desperate. After losing 50 percent of their membership during the past decade, union bosses are resorting to intimidating employees and the companies who hire them. Even UAW chief Bob King admits: If foreign automakers in America can't be "persuaded" to unionize, unions likely will fold.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

Education commissioner says more about BIPPS interest area: Weak school superintendent evaluations

Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday adds more ideas about the rating of superintendents – and other education staff – in his latest blog.

The commissioner says:

“As I travel the state, most administrators tell me that we need to address this broken process.”

The commissioner also admits:

“In Kentucky, we have 174 different versions of principal, teacher and superintendent evaluations.”

The commissioner’s blog additionally contains links to several interesting resources that can help local school boards improve their rating systems.

Without doubt, the system now in use for superintendent evaluations is badly broken, as the Bluegrass Institute’s recent report, “Rewarding Failure,” clearly shows. Many current evaluations lack any sort of meaningful metrics of performance. Most are just ‘rubber stamps’ to ratify whatever the superintendent is currently doing while totally ignoring student performance all together.

Few evaluations, if any, contain enough material to justify pay increases and continued employment.

Click here to read the Bluegrass Institute’s superintendent eval expose, “Rewarding Failure.”

Check here for the latest updates on all the other Open Records issues!

BIPPS appearing on 84 WHAS to respond to governor's recent attack on the institute

Jim Waters, Bluegrass Institute vice president of policy and communications, will appear on 84WHAS in Louisville on Monday at 7:35 a.m. EDT to discuss the current legislative battle in Frankfort over how to balance the commonwealth's deficit-ridden Medicaid budget.

Waters will be a guest on the "Tony Cruise and the Morning Team" show. He will respond to Gov. Steve Beshear's recent attack (following) on Cruise's show earlier this week:

Here's the exchange:

Cruise: According to the Bluegrass Institute, you had promised $250 million in savings for the current two-year budget. That did not happen. Now, you’re going to pull another almost $170 million out of next year’s Medicaid budget to kind of plug a hole in it. Governor, in all honesty, is that a solution or a Band-Aid?

Governor: “Well Tony, first of all, the Bluegrass Institute’s stuff is a bunch of baloney. You know, that’s a right-wing think tank composed of one person that puts his blog up on the line all the time.”

Listen to the full interview (about 7 minutes long) here.

Berman opens up on what went wrong in Louisville

Here’s surprisingly candid commentary on fox41.com.

I wonder if people in Eugene will get to see this.

Listen in today as WLAP's Leland Conway shines light on gov's 'baloney' (comment)

Long-awaited transparency bill signed by governor

Listen in today during the 4 p.m. (EDT) hour as WLAP's Leland Conway, host of "The Pulse," no doubt will have some fun with Gov. Steve Beshear's opinion of the Bluegrass Institute.

In an interview with Louisville's 84 WHAS morning talk show host Tony Cruise earlier this week, the governor called the Bluegrass Institute a "right-wing think tank" and its research "a bunch of baloney."

That was in response to Cruise's question about whether the governor's plan to address the Medicaid budget gap this year was just a "Band-Aid," especially considering the fact that Beshear had failed to achieve $250 million worth of promised savings in the current budget.

Beshear followed with his attack on the institute, but never answered the specific question.

The governor's probably not too happy with the fact that he had to sign Senate Bill 7, sponsored by Sen. Damon Thayer, which amazingly passed the House on March 8 with a 95-0 vote and was signed by Beshear on Thursday, the day after he attacked the institute.

SB 7 requires all three branches of Kentucky government -- executive, legislative and judicial, to put their checkbooks online so that taxpayers can see just how quickly the commonwealth is running out of Band-Aids.

Hmmmm. I wonder why the Beshear administration didn't make as big of a fanfare about the signing of this bill as they did the other fluff, mostly meaningless -- or liberty destroying - legislation that usually gets most of the attention? Of course, the governor knew that not signing the bill would be the equivalent of political suicide.

Governor ignores facts, attacks Bluegrass Institute

(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — Gov. Steve Beshear refuses to provide the answers or the leadership needed to solve the state’s Medicaid budget crisis.

This became clearer when he dismissed the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free-market government watchdog, by labeling it “a right wing think tank.”

Click here to continue reading the latest media alert.

Transparency is a means, not an end

It has been argued that government transparency is "its own reward." The idea is succinct, simple and completely wrong. In fact, it misses the point of government transparency almost entirely. We don't want governments to be transparent for the mere sake of transparency. We want transparency so that we can hold our government accountable for the actions of government agents.

My friend Samantha Swindler is the former editor of the Times-Tribune in Corbin. Her newsroom (particularly intrepid young reporter Adam Sulfridge) successfully used Kentucky's reporter-friendly open records laws to bring down a corrupt sheriff in Whitley County.

Sam sums up what happened in an article for the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University:

Our investigation into the sheriff started with a joke—literally. I heard our sportswriter joke about people buying guns out of the back of the sheriff's barbershop. (It's a county of about 38,000, and the sheriff worked as a barber.) On a whim, I sent an open records request to view the sheriff's evidence logs. He refused to show them to me but after an appeal to the state attorney general, I got them. I found there were months when nothing—guns, drugs or money—was recorded. That was quite unusual, considering we had a drug-related arrest story in nearly every edition of our 6,000-circulation daily.

At best, this was shoddy record-keeping. At worst, perhaps he really was selling guns from the back of his barbershop.

The story gets far more interesting from there. Here's complete and current coverage from the Times-Tribune.

Adam and Sam took great personal risks to tell this incredible story of murder, guns, drugs and corrupt cops. It's a testament to the power of fearless journalism combined with good sunshine laws to reveal serious government corruption.

Tsk, Tsk: Beshear burns BIPPS when asked about his failure to achieve promised Medicaid savings

On the defensive about his crumbling Medicaid scheme, governor recoils, calls BIPPS a 'right-wing think tank,' its research 'baloney'

Credit 84 WHAS morning talk show host Tony Cruise with doing his homework and showing what a relentless search for the truth can produce. In this case, it was the questioning of Gov. Steve Beshear about his failure to produce promised savings that prompted a, shall we say, "irritable" response.

Listen to the full interview here.

Following is the exchange between Cruise and Beshear, in which the governor tried to dismiss the leading independent source of transparency and Medicaid facts in the commonwealth:

Cruise: According to the Bluegrass Institute, you had promised $250 million in savings for the current two-year budget. That did not happen. Now, you’re going to pull another almost $170 million out of next year’s Medicaid budget to kind of plug a hole in it. Governor, in all honesty, is that a solution or a Band-Aid?

Governor: “Well Tony, first of all, the Bluegrass Institute’s stuff is a bunch of baloney. You know, that’s a right-wing think tank composed of one person that puts his blog up on the line all the time.”

I will be on Tony's show on Monday to offer a response to the governor's failure to provide transparent, accountable and strong leadership on the Medicaid issue. Read my recent column on the Medicaid mess here.

In that column, entitled "Beshear's 'Bad-Aid' replaced with some serious stitches," I write:

Even if Beshear’s $86 million in Medicaid savings existed — an “if” bigger than the federal deficit — it still falls $39 million short of what his administration promised during the last budget go-around. And that’s just for the fiscal year ending June 30.

Beshear promised $250 million in savings for the current two-year budget. On top of that, his administration pledged significant progress on moving Kentucky’s Medicaid team toward a score of $425 million in savings through managed-care contracts.

Instead, the administration called an audible and asked lawmakers to pull nearly $167million from next year’s Medicaid budget to plug this year’s hole — without spending cuts. Instead, they promised: We’ll find savings through efficient management — next year.

Indeed, “It’s like déjà vu all over again,” Yogi Berra said.

Hmmmm. Notice that last line in my column, then check out what the governor had to say on the show.

Seems like Tony Cruise isn't the only one may be reading the Bluegrass Beacon column.

Responsible unionism in schools?

It can happen, elsewhere

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools are earning a reputation around the country for laudable performance with underprivileged students.

But, our teachers union in Kentucky says they cannot work with charters.

Not so in Baltimore, where KIPP and the American Federation of Teachers local just inked a 10-year agreement on salaries and school days that will allow KIPP to continue its effective model for school reform within affordable costs.

How come teachers in Baltimore can make charters work, when our teachers’ union in Kentucky says no way?

How does the intransigence of Kentucky’s teachers union benefit children?

But, it could happen. It is happening – elsewhere.

Why would a district with charter schools hire a charter school enemy?

The Courier-Journal announces that Sheldon Berman, Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent, has been hired as the superintendent of the Eugene, Oregon school system.

Eugene’s school district has three charter schools.

Why would a charter school opponent be hired in such a district, unless that district wants to attack its parent choice options?

Here’s the initial article from Eugene, Oregon’s The Register-Guard newspaper.

Regular legislative days are 18 times more expensive than special session days

Every time a Kentucky governor calls a special session, we read the same fact in news stories:

It will cost more than $63,000 a day for a special legislative session, which would last a minimum of five days.

However, this cost is marginal and fairly minor in the bigger legislative budget picture. It is simply the additional cost to taxpayers for an unplanned legislative day. Keep that in mind.

The real question is: how much does a regular legislative day cost? If you're a newspaper assignment editor, please steal this idea, assign the article and print it above the fold on the front page of Sunday's edition.

My back-of-the-envelope calculations assume that the price of a legislative "day" is roughly the legislative branch budget divided by the 90 days lawmakers are allowed to meet each biennium.

Alas, I can already hear some protestations from some Frankfort-ers that I am including construction costs, Legislative Research Commission staff, work days for staffers when the legislature is not in session, retirement contributions, insurance and the like. And lawmakers only meet for 90 days every two years.

My response: Lawmakers do not do their legislating on the sidewalk in front of Rick's White Light Diner. Every dollar spent on the legislative branch is spent in support of the days lawmakers spend discussing and passing legislation. Lawmakers don't do all their own bill drafting. Many resources are leveraged in the days leading up to and following any legislative session, including "special" ones.

As to retirement contributions, if you believe they don't deliver much in the way of high quality deliberations, then perhaps we should discuss letting Kentucky lawmakers take care of their own retirements. Until then, it's included in my calculation.

By using that figure (total legislative budget / legislative days), we must assume that lawmakers believe (and the governor agrees) that each dollar appropriated is necessary for lawmakers to do their jobs on behalf of Kentuckians.

For simplicity's sake, let's leave aside the fact that lawmakers in this biennium are contributing a small share of the money requested for their legislative retirement plan. Also, the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center and a few others received no funds as part of Frankfort's necessary belt tightening this biennium.

So let's take a look at HB 511, which is

AN ACT making appropriations for the operations, maintenance, and support of the Legislative Branch of the Commonwealth of Kentucky

in 2010's legislative session. The total appropriated biennial legislative branch budget is $104,856,200. Divided by the 90 days lawmakers are allowed to meet each biennium, that's $1,165,068.89 per legislative day.

At this point, I know some clever reader will ask him or herself: If it costs taxpayers more than a million dollars each day lawmakers spend in Frankfort, why aren't they prioritizing their workload so budgets pass on time and they get to (gasp!) go home early and save us all a few bucks?

I'm afraid I don't have a very good answer to that.

Housekeeping note: If a member of the Kentucky General Assembly or Legislative Research Commission believes that my simple calculation is in error, we will be happy to correct these numbers after discussing it.

Wasting money to argue about money

Frankfort is a mess right now.

The General Assembly's "special" session carries a price tag of $63,000 each day.

Governor Steve Beshear is traveling the state by plane to defend his plan to borrow $166 million from next year's budget to cover this year's Medicaid budget shortfall. Traveling by plane is not cheap.

Kentucky's citizens, taxpayers, are tired of politicians spending more and more money to argue about money. The first place the Governor and General Assembly should look for funds to fill the Medicaid gap is the money they are wasting in special session and the travel, security, and staff costs associated with flying all over the state.

What is more frustrating is that the governor believes he is doing his duty by traveling around. When asked to defend his state sponsored travels, the governor replied:

"The government is paying for the governor of this commonwealth to do his duty to go out in this state and inform the citizens of this state on what the state senate is attempting to do to the children of this state and the folks who need health care in this state"

I don't remember reading anything about going out in the state to barnstorm in the state constitution. In a time when citizens are required to tighten their belts, so should the government.

Can we even call them 'special' sessions anymore?

Currently the Kentucky General Assembly is burning through a little over $60,000 of taxpayer money each day because it couldn't accomplish its job in a timely manner. This extra time is most often referred to as a "special session."

We should change that terminology.

Are these sessions really "special"?  There have been "special" sessions in eight of the past 10 years. That is not special, that is a demonstrated lack of ability to get the job done and a show of disrespect to the citizens of Kentucky.

Special session short

While Kentucky's state legislators remain embroiled in a conflict over the Medicaid budget deficit, commonwealth taxpayers are footing the bill. The special session runs a tab of $63,000 per day.

The Bluegrass Institute has covered the debate in our weekly column here and on the Bluegrass Blog here. To stay updated on the special session, follow our live tracking on Twitter.

For a quick summary, watch this recent video CN 2 put together highlighting the current debate.

Forced unionization's other cost

The Lexington Herald-Leader (days after legislators in Wisconsin passed that controversial legislation) has an interesting piece on the toll unions take on the professionalism of teachers, the paychecks of teachers and the resentment the public in Kentucky might someday feel toward teachers and their unions. The authors, Gary Beckner and Paula Jackson-Eaglin, represent the Association of American Educators:

The proposed legislation by the Wisconsin governor reduces the superpower status of the teachers unions by ending forced unionism — the practice in which one is required to pay the union as a condition of employment.

On the contrary, what could be more democratic than allowing teachers to make the choice for themselves whether the union meets their needs?

In no way does the legislation eliminate the union; rather, it reins in its ability to forcibly collect dues from teachers. The practice of allowing teachers to think for themselves effectively cuts off millions to union political action accounts.

With its monopoly being threatened, the union is pulling out all the stops to disable this legislation, regardless of the effect on the professionalism of teachers, children in the classroom or taxpaying citizens.

The unions have enabled AWOL legislators in Wisconsin with their rhetoric, fueled never-ending protests, trashed state capitols and left their posts in the classroom for days — all in an effort to halt this legislation. Their leaders are clearly more concerned with strikes and sick-outs than the students of Wisconsin.

For years, local educators have joined teachers unions in thinking their money was going to advance their profession. Unfortunately, the National Education Association (NEA) and their local counterpart, the Kentucky Education Association (KEA), have grown into behemoth special-interest groups that clearly do not use their member dues exclusively for the advancement of the teaching profession.

Luckily for Kentucky teachers, they can and should make informed choices on where to spend their hard-earned dollars. Many local union teachers believe that because they aren't forced to pay union dues, this behavior does not affect their membership in the KEA.

I have no problem with collective bargaining for workers in general. People have a constitutional right to organize. It's right there in the First Amendment. My problem with unions is that, at least in the public sector, people who pay for the government services do not have the ability to opt out of both consuming and paying for the unionized workers' services. The only truly essential check on the power of unions is the ability for customers to look elsewhere for goods and services.

Behind bars and brackets

David Boaz at the Cato Institute reminds us that if you fill out an NCAA bracket and plunk down a few bucks, Congress believes that you should be in jail.

Perhaps a commenter can educate me, but is participating in an NCAA office pool against Kentucky law? Whatever the answer, why exactly does Congress have the power to prohibit consenting adult Kentuckians from engaging in office pools?

I'm pretty sure that's one power Congress lacks.

ACT testing in Perry Co.: Trust? NO! VERIFY!!!

One month ago the Perry County Schools Superintendent announced that cheating in his district is a ‘dead issue.’

Hardly!

The 2011 ACT testing of all Kentucky 11th grade students was conducted today, and an E-Mail yesterday to all the District Assessment Coordinators (DAC) says that neither the ACT, Incorporated nor the Kentucky Department of Education was willing to trust Perry County staff to administer the tests on their own.

The E-Mail for March 14, 2011 contains this item:


ACT SCORES RE-POSTED TO OPEN HOUSE

ACT scores from the March 2010 administration have been re-posted to the KDE Open House site. The update was made after ACT, Inc. completed its investigation of ACT administration errors made at Perry County Central and Buckhorn High Schools in Perry County. Lowered scores for those two schools are reflected in the update. Due to the issues in Perry County, ACT and KDE staff will be on site at both high schools during the administration of the ACT in March 2011.

All DACs should be sure to remind staff that the Administration Code applies to all state tests, and reports of problems may lead to actions, including lowering of scores, and personnel discipline and retraining.

The e-mail provides more evidence that staff members at the Kentucky Department of Education are really unhappy about cheating in Perry County. Further evidence of that is the fact that the department forwarded an inquiry to the Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board, which recently confirmed that professional credentials of unnamed educators in Perry County are under investigation due to the cheating.

By the way, if any other teachers out there are considering cheating, just look at what has already happened to Perry County.

The department of education reanalyzed Perry County’s ACT scores with all the cheating results scored as zero. The district’s ACT average for 2010 dropped from 19.2 to 10.4! That really hurts.

And, with certificate action still pending, the consequences for cheaters may have only just begun.

Education task force's report: Nothing but a bunch of mumbo jumbo

The much-ballyhooed report from Gov. Steve Beshear's education task force fizzled like a popped balloon. ''Breaking New Ground'' was really full of the same ol' mumbo jumbo, concerned more about pleasing all education stakeholders and quieting Kentuckians who are discontented with plummeting test scores and graduation rates. By the way, how are Kentucky's white fourth-graders doing in math compared to the rest of the nation? Unlike the task force's report, our bullet offers a no-spin revelation of the data.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Bullet.

Monday Links: transparency, logic, and Medicaid

• Where's the transparency!? - Remember all those promises on the campaign trail about transparency in the administration? It appears maybe the administration doesn't remember.
• Where's the logic? - Economist Russ Roberts debunks Larry Summers economics "logic" regarding Japan and the recent tragedy there.
• Medicaid records requests - some records requests were recently sent to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to obtain some information about the thinking behind the idea that the Medicaid program will work itself out of a hole in a few years. 

Beshear's 'Bad-Aid' replaced with some serious stitches

Gov. Steve Beshear’s deer-in-the-headlights approach to Kentucky’s Medicaid crisis on one hand leads to him claiming to have saved only $86 million in Medicaid spending this year, while on the other hand quietly seeking a waiver from one of the “Obamacare” mandates that comes with no money to pay for it.

Click here to read the latest Bluegrass Beacon.

Bluegrass Institute's spotlight on school superintendent evaluations having impact

It’s obvious that the Bluegrass Institute’s Operation Open Records effort to highlight the serious deficiencies in public school superintendent evaluations across Kentucky is having impact.

Last week, Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday discussed the evaluation issue with superintendents. The Kentucky School Boards Association reports Holliday said:

“…you’re going to continue to be under great scrutiny,” the commissioner said. “I’d encourage two components for your evaluations: setting goals for student performance and setting goals for the working conditions. If you improve working conditions, you will improve student learning results and you will improve your retention rates for teachers.”

The Bluegrass Institute recently issued a report that shows many superintendents annual evaluations in Kentucky are meaningless rubber stamp exercises that provide the public with little or no information about how superintendents really do their primary jobs – educating students.

Click here to read the Bluegrass Institute’s superintendent eval expose, “Rewarding Failure.”

Check here for the latest updates on all the other Open Records issues!

Update on proposal for Kentucky’s new assessment program

Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holiday just posted a 6-page updated discussion of the working proposal for Kentucky’s new school assessment program as of March 11, 2011 here.

The commissioner also mentions this in his blog, but the link to the article was broken there. I posted a comment to that blog for those who try to find the article without coming to the Bluegrass Policy Blog.

I plan to be at a meeting of the School Curriculum Assessment and Accountability Committee on Tuesday where this will be discussed. I’ll provide a further update after the education community makes their comments.

Overall, the proposal is starting to shape up pretty well, integrating a number of diverse assessment programs, graduation rates, and audit team actions into a diversified examination of school progress.

There is only one area where I have some concerns, but I think I have an idea of how to handle that. More after Tuesday’s meeting.

Governor's Medicaid power play hits providers and most needy recipients

On Friday, the Health and Family Services Cabinet Cabinet issued public notice for Medicaid rate reductions to take effect April 1 if no budget agreement is reached.

The cabinet will significantly reduce payment to hospitals, nursing facilities, home health agencies, community-based services, pharmacies, comprehensive care centers, primary care centers, local health departments and other providers of Medicaid services in the commonwealth. The rate reductions are approximately 35 percent.

Gov. Beshear has called a special session beginning Monday to address the Medicaid budget hole. He says he can’t reduce a single dollar -- not $1 -- of spending anyplace in the state budget except for his promises for cuts in Medicaid.

Kentucky employees provided Beshear many ideas for reducing spending that he apparently can’t see:

- Eliminate potential duplication at the Education Cabinet's Office of Training & Employment (OET) and the Economic Development Cabinet's Bluegrass State Skills Corp. (BSSC) and its Workforce Training department.

- Quit sending teachers and administrators to conferences when they are nearing retirement or can’t apply conference materials when returning to work.

- Don't mandate purchases off bid lists when local options are quicker and less expensive.

- Shift money currently spent on educational grants, special programs and "experts" from Frankfort, to where it matters most -- classrooms.

- Answer: "What happened to all the lottery money that was supposed to be spent on education?"

- Address wasted energy in school facilities.

- Cut back on administrative staff all over.

Maybe it's time to remind the governor about his commitment to do an efficiency study that would save the state $160 million to $180 million per year. Maybe it's time to ask him to provide an accounting of savings realized from taking action on the thousands of suggestions received from state employees to save money.

Maybe Beshear should bring to the table Monday details about how he is going to save all those dollars in future Medicaid payments as a result of his requests for information from Medicaid providers.

Not $1! Not $1. But he can decree a 35 percent cut to entities that have to make a profit to survive -- a 35 percent, cold-turkey cut on Kentucky businesses. It must be nice to decree it and not get one challenge from the "yes" crowd.

Of course, it's much easier to point the finger and force pain on others than make tough internal decisions cutting unnecessary spending that could avoid it all.

It's time for some adult leadership on state spending in all areas.

Hazard-Herald confirms: Perry County educators under investigation for cheating on ACT

The latest news about the ACT cheating scandal in Perry County’s two district high schools:

The Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board has now opened a full investigation into the activities of the professional educators involved.

ACT reported in November that cheating was definitely confirmed in both high schools.

By the way, new PLAN scores that were recently released add more evidence of misconduct.

The table below (click on it to enlarge), extracted from an Excel spreadsheet with the new test results for all schools in the state, shows both of Perry County’s high schools experienced very large score increases on the PLAN test between 2008-09 and 2009-10, the year when the cheating allegedly occurred. PLAN is another state-required test from the ACT, Incorporated given to all 10th grade students that is very similar to the ACT.

Both Perry County schools then experienced tremendous score drops after close scrutiny forced the staff to play honest during the current school year’s test cycle.


These one-year PLAN score drops between 2009-10 and 2010-11 are absolutely enormous. They are more than twice as large as any other drop in any other high school in the state.

Thus, the evidence mounts, including findings from the ACT investigation itself, that answer sheets were altered. And, ACT says the students didn’t do it. That means the only other individuals who had access to the controlled answer sheets did.

What we don’t want to do is send a message to educators around Kentucky that if you get caught altering test sheets, others will cover for you. If that bad message does get sent, Kentucky’s new assessment system’s credibility is dead before the first test booklet ever gets printed. I think the EPSB agrees.

Violence was endemic on Jefferson Co. School bus before driver got assaulted

Facts are dribbling out in the school bus driver assault case I blogged about on March 4, 2011.

It turns out conditions on this bus are out of control far beyond anyone’s worst nightmares.

Fox41.com reports that this one bus “had about 150 incidents of fighting and other misconduct this school year alone.”

I’m beginning to understand the frustration of the parent who assaulted the bus driver.

Read more »

Governor's Medicaid plan: Prohibit spending cuts, reduce hospital reimbursements by 35 percent

Reporting on next week's scheduled special session, Kentucky Public Radio's Tony McVeigh reports: "Gov. Behear unveiled his plan for filling a gaping hole in the state’s Medicaid budget, created when Kentucky received fewer federal stimulus dollars than anticipated."

That's true. But that doesn't give this administration carte blanche to refuse spending cuts as an option for filling the Medicaid budget gap that ensued as a result of stimulus funding.

After all, stimulus funding is, theoretically anyhow, one-time funding. So, even if Kentucky would have gotten that funding, what was the plan for balancing Medicaid's budget next year?

Oh, by the way, McVeigh failed to report that Beshear failed to fulfill his commitment to cut $125 million during the current fiscal year. The governor fell $39 million short. That money must be made up. The bills must be paid.

To try and score political points via fearmongering, Beshear threatens to make cuts to those providing Medicaid services. It's obvious Beshear knows there's an election coming up -- he would rather cut nearly $250 million worth of Medicaid hospital reimbursement than agree to some fairly painless cuts that might cost him some votes with the teachers unions or some other special interest group.

So House leaders say give the governor a chance to find the savings needed to make up the difference. But if Beshear couldn't even cut $125 million this year, how can we be confident that his promised $425 million in efficiencies during the two-year budget period will materialize?

It's time for spending cuts now ... even if it is an Election Year.

More bullying in Louisville

This time, the school district is joining in

The Courier-Journal reports that a former student at the highly competitive DuPont Manual High School, who left there after she was bullied, is now being denied sports eligibility in her new school.

Normally, it is true that transfers must sit out of sports for a year.

What makes this story remarkable is that the Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) already granted this student a waiver from that rule because of the bullying. The KHSAA determined that the transfer was not to get some sort of player advantage but was due to the coaches at DuPont Manual failing to control bullying on the team.

Now, in what starts to look like a piling on situation, the Jefferson County Public School District says it has its own rules, and the student can’t play regardless of the KHSAA ruling.

What might put a big stink in all of this is that the student’s lawyer says the school district would allow the student to play if she transferred to a school the district wants her to attend. Instead, exercising school choice, this obviously intelligent student is going to Ballard High School, and it’s hard to blame her. The district wants to send her to either Seneca High or another, unidentified school that “has been labeled a failing school.” That probably means one of the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools, which abound in Louisville.

Not that Seneca is any prize. When I did the “How Whites and Blacks Perform in Jefferson County Public Schools” report a few years ago, Seneca had some pretty grim graduation rate statistics.

More recently, Seneca High’s rather low ranking for ACT Composite Scores in Kentucky-wide testing of 11th grade students in 2010 (tied for 157 out of 228 high schools that had scores reported) shows this would be an unlikely place smart students would chose to attend. The ACT Benchmark Scores indicate only 17 percent of the students at Seneca scored high enough on the ACT math assessment to be on track for college.

Ballard High, by the way, ranked 23rd in the state in 2010 for its ACT Composite Score in the same grade 11 testing program.

I think one of the reader comments to this article summed the situation up well. That reader says:

“So she left her school because she was bullied. Now JCPS is bullying her.”

Read more in the Courier article.