Commissioner’s blog lays out tough numbers about Kentucky’s education performance

Education Commissioner Terry Holliday and his staff are really starting to tell it like it is with Kentucky’s public education system.

As I reported recently, this month’s meeting of the Kentucky Board of Education contained lots of hard-hitting facts about where the state really stands in making education progress.

Now, Commissioner Holliday adds to the candor with more sobering facts about education in Kentucky. His blog from August 13, 2010, “The Class of 2010, What Does Their Future Look Like?” uses the most recently available data on high school graduation rates and college success rates to project what will happen to Kentucky’s new group of graduating students.

This table summarizes Dr. Holliday’s sobering projections for this group of students.



To learn more about the disturbing numbers in this table, click the "Read more" link below.

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Kentucky also lags in four-year college completion rate

A new report presented by Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board (which creates the SAT college entrance tests and runs the AP program) is loaded with educational comparison data for the 50 states and Washington DC.

Over the past few days, we’ve looked at Kentucky’s substandard performance in getting students through to two-year degrees. Now, let’s see how we do with four-year degree programs.

Sadly, the answer is – not well. Graph 9.3c on page 159 in the report shows Kentucky’s four-year college success rate is only 47.3 percent. That ranks only 36th in the nation and is nearly 9 points below the US average.

Kentucky whites seriously lag in two-year college completion rate

I’ve been writing about a new report from the College Board (which creates the SAT college entrance tests and runs the AP program). This report is loaded with educational comparison data for the 50 states and Washington DC.

Yesterday, I discussed one of the most disturbing graphs in the report, which shows that Kentucky seriously lags the national average for completion of Associate Degrees as of 2007.

Now, I’m going to cover some even worse news.

Figure 9.2h on page 154 in the report ranks each state’s white students’ Associate’s Degree graduation rate. Kentucky could not place much lower. Only in two states, Arkansas and West Virginia, is the graduation rate for Associates' Degrees for white students lower than in Kentucky. Kentucky's two-year degree graduation rate for whites is only 31.2 percent, over 10 points lower than the national average rate of 43.5 percent.

Since Kentucky’s population runs around 85 percent white, our predominant racial population group is doing terribly compared to their counterparts in the rest of the nation. We simply must fix this!

Note that these white students graduated from high school in 2004 or later, so they spent their entire K to 12 school experience in KERA-influenced schools. Also, most two-year students in Kentucky are from in-state high schools, so this is a reflection of KERA, not out of state education systems.

The report also has a graph for black students' graduation rates in all 50 states. Only 23.7 percent of the state's black Associate's candidates got their degree within three years as of the 2007 results, which is below the national black average of 26.4 percent.

As I mentioned yesterday, this should not be a big surprise to our long-term readers since the Bluegrass Institute has stressed for some time that our remedial course requirements for recent high school graduates who go on to college are very high.

But, it’s sad to see that our extensive spending on KERA has not created better results for the state’s two-year college candidates from 2007.

Kentucky lags in two-year college completion rate

A new report presented by Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board (which creates the SAT college entrance tests and runs the AP program) is loaded with educational comparison data for the 50 states and Washington DC.

One of the most disturbing graphs (Figure 9.2c, page 149) shows that Kentucky seriously lags the national average for completion of Associate Degrees as of 2007. Students in our state’s two-year programs who entered in either the 2004-05 or 2005-06 school terms only succeeded in getting their degree 23 percent of the time. Nationally, 27.8 percent of two-year degree candidates got a degree within three years of entering college. The state ranks 35th in the nation on this statistic.

These students graduated from high school in 2004 or later, so they spent their entire K to 12 school experience in KERA-influenced schools. Also, most two-year students in Kentucky are from in-state high schools, so this is a reflection of KERA, not out of state education systems.

Kentucky's 23 percent graduation rate from two-year colleges should not be a big surprise to our long-term readers. The Bluegrass Institute has stressed for some time that Kentucky's remedial course requirements for recent high school graduates who go on to college are very high.

Still, it’s sad to see that our extensive spending on KERA has not created better results for the state’s two-year college candidates from 2007.