Dr. Wayne Lewis on charter schools

Dr. Wayne D. Lewis, Jr. from UK is starting a series in his blog about charter schools.

It’s well worth a look.

More on Louisiana Vs. Kentucky on the ACT

After I started posting comments on the new ACT score release yesterday, I was engaged by an anonymous reader with an obvious bias against charter schools. That individual also seems to be having a lot of trouble getting his or her facts straight. That happens in this blog from time to time, and we do work to try to insure that our readers get an accurate picture when those who post comments are confused.

However, sometimes, good comes from those reader challenges, even when the reader is wrong.

A case in point: our anonymous – and not well-informed – correspondent alleged that Louisiana tested 100 percent of its students with the ACT in 2007. That isn’t true, but when I checked the right information for 2007, I discovered something that adds to my evidence that post-Katrina Louisiana has made some remarkable progress on the ACT.

Here is the real data on graduates tested and ACT scores for Kentucky and Louisiana from 2007. It is on line in the ACT, Incorporated’s web site, accessible under the “ACT Average Composite Scores by State” section (I removed other state data for clarity).


Notice that both states had nearly identical numbers of graduates tested in 2007 (77 percent in Kentucky and 79 percent in Louisiana) and that Louisiana scored 0.6 point lower on the ACT Composite Score than Kentucky.

Because the 2007 participation rates are so very close, I think comparison of these scores is reasonable.

Now, flash forward to 2011. Here is how ACT reported that data.


Notice that both states now test all their graduates. However, the ACT Composite Score situation has flip-flopped. Louisiana – ravaged by Katrina six years ago – now scores 0.6 point higher than Kentucky.

So, between 2007 and 2011 charter school rich Louisiana went from 0.6 point below Kentucky’s ACT Composite Score to 0.6 point above. That relative change of 1.2 points is noteworthy on a 36 point test like the ACT.

Even after I pointed this out, our anonymous nay-sayer was unconvinced. He or she tried to claim something to the effect that only the rich had moved back to Louisiana after the big storm hit.

I doubted that assertion, so I checked the percentages of students eligible for free and reduced cost lunches in the National Assessment of Educational Progress eighth grade reading assessments of 2003 (Closest pre-Katrina administration) and 2009 (most recently available). I used the NAEP Data Explorer to find those figures.

Guess what: In 2003, free and reduced cost lunch eligible students in Louisiana amounted to 50% of all the students there.

In 2009, lunch eligibility in Louisiana rose significantly to 62 percent, an increase of 12 points.

In contrast, Kentucky’s poverty rate was 42 percent in 2003 and rose to only 47 percent in 2009.

So, Louisiana had 8 points more poverty in 2003 and that rose to 15 points more by 2009.

If anything, based on the most recently available student poverty rates in NAEP, Louisiana should be at a notably higher disadvantage relative to Kentucky today than it was back in 2003 before Katrina hit. That makes Louisiana’s progress on the ACT even more remarkable.

The ACT doesn’t report on poverty rates, so for now the 2009 data is the most recent I can offer. But, most school statistics don’t change all that rapidly, so it is still very likely that poverty in Louisiana remains notably higher than Kentucky’s even today.

This adds more evidence that something in Louisiana is boosting their performance, and charter schools, which now enroll 70 percent of the students in New Orleans, for example, certainly seem likely to be a part of the process.

Southern charter school state handily beats Kentucky in new ACT test results

The new ACT results are out, and I already posted a blog earlier today with the news that Kentucky did edge up slightly in ranking among those states where ACT testing is essentially universal.

But, a really big story concerns how Kentucky stacked up against hurricane-racked schools in Louisiana. Louisiana rebuilt its post-Katrina school system largely by harnessing the power and flexibility of charter schools to move out much more quickly than traditional, regulation- and union-constrained public schools could ever accomplish.

Here is our comparison graph again of states where ACT testing is virtually or totally universal.


Note that Louisiana, one of the nation’s strongest charter school states, and also a Southern state, outscored Kentucky by 0.6 point for the 2011 high school graduates’ ACT Composite Score. Here is a further breakdown of ACT Composite Scores by race for the two states:


In particular, notice that blacks in Louisiana outscored Kentucky’s blacks by a full point on the ACT Composite Score. That is a notable difference.

However, the white situation is much more dramatic. Kentucky’s whites languished behind whites from Louisiana by a whopping 1.6 points! That is a very dramatic difference in state-to-state comparisons.

Keep in mind, both states tested all of their graduates, so these comparisons are quite appropriate.

When you consider the challenges Louisiana has faced, this is clearly rather remarkable performance – for them. Good job, Louisiana!

The situation shows that Kentucky could make stronger educational gains, faster, if it would finally establish a good charter school program.

Data sources: ACT Profile Reports for Kentucky and Louisiana, on line here.

Smells like school spirit

Here is a NY Times/David Brooks Op-Ed that is well worth your time to read if you care at all about certain elements in the public school system who would mislead us about the need for real reform.

CREDO study finds Indiana charter schools superior to traditional public schools

In the spirit of Milton and Rose Friedman, Indiana recently expanded on its historic school voucher program by passing legislation linking teachers’ pay with student performance. But in the wake of these victories for school-choice, yet another example for Kentucky from neighboring Indiana has fallen under the radar.

CREDO, the group that brought you the methodologically flawed “Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States,” recently released a follow-up report which focuses on charter schools in the state of Indiana.

Although sticking with the same quasi-experimental structure, CREDO finds that Indiana charter school students show significantly higher gains than their traditional public school counterparts in both reading and math. 98% of charter schools showed similar or superior academic growth in reading compared to traditional public schools, while a full 100% showed similar or superior growth in math.

Charter school detractors, such as KY Rep. Carl Rollins (D), may now think twice when using the dubious 2009 CREDO study as proof against charter school performance. If Rep. Collins wants assurance that charter schools “are really going to help us make progress,” he need only ask Dr. Margaret Raymond, Director of CREDO at Stanford University: “At a time where there is acute attention to quality in the charter sector, the charter schools in Indiana are proving to be a high quality option for students and parents.”

Click here for the full report on Indiana.

Quote of the day: Are site-based councils an acceptable substitute?

“We certainly feel that we have an alternative that is meeting many of the same things, particularly in the areas of autonomy and being able to make decisions at the school level, in managing a budget, in hiring staff, in choosing instructional materials and so on.” --former Education Cabinet Secretary Helen Mountjoy, who told a radio reporter that site-based councils represent an acceptable substitute for charter schools.

Read more in "Charter schools needed, would thrive in Kentucky," a Bluegrass Institute perspective by former intern Tabitha Waggoner.

BIPPS' education efforts get boost from national organizations

Two national groups have come alongside the Bluegrass Institute to help bring true education reform, including parental school choice, to Kentucky.

On May 13, Kevin Chavous, the new chairman of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, spoke at a dinner officially announcing BAEO's presence in Kentucky. Pastor Jerry L. Stephenson, an inner-city Louisville minister, has been named the first state coordinator of BAEO, which now has chapters in eight different states.

Chavous, a former Washington, D.C. city councilman, joined Joel Adams, the new state coordinator for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, to pledge their support in working with the Kentucky Education Restoration Alliance coalition to convince lawmakers to bring charter schools to the commonwealth.

"What we are saying is, it's time for Kentucky to step up," Chavous said at the event. "There is a movement in America to change education. You can either get on the train or you can get left at the station. We need you to commit for these kids."

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An education comparison that never gets old

Don Boudreaux asks, "What if supermarkets were run like local public schools?"



Read Bluegrass Institute education work here.

Charter schools: What do 41 other states and the District of Columbia know?

Kentucky remains one of 10 states without a law allowing charter schools, "and I think we're probably going to remain one of the states without charter schools," Carl Rollins, D-Midway, recently stated on KET's "Kentucky Tonight" program.

Rollins claims that nobody has convinced him that charter schools "are really going to help us make progress.”

Yet why is it that 41 other states and the District of Columbia -- including six of seven of Kentucky's neighboring states -- allow charter schools while 43 other states have some type of school choice law. Kentucky has neither.

States without a charter school law: Kentucky, Washington, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Alabama, West Virginia, Vermont and Maine.

States with no school choice law: Kentucky, Washington, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Alabama and West Virginia.

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.

Noisy teacher mob in Indiana doesn’t stop charter school legislation

Legislators on both sides of the aisle, Dems as well as Republicans, in Indiana get it – charter schools work, and their state deserves more of them.

And, those legislators have the …… (choose your own term) to stand up to a mob-like group of teachers who don’t get it.

Gov. Mitch Daniels also laid it out plainly about his state’s teacher’s union officials:

“Their priority is their organization, not the young people of Indiana. Their special interest domination of education policy from the local level to the Statehouse has hurt Indiana children for too long and this year, change must finally come.”

Read all about senior leaders in Indiana with courage and conviction to do the right thing for students here.

I sure hope this will finally inspire some of our legislators to do the right thing for kids instead of cowering before noisy educators who selfishly stand in the way of educational progress.

Kentucky Tonight on education legislation now on line

You can now hear the entire exchange between Kentucky Tonight show host Bill Goodman and Representative Carl Rollins and Senator Gerald Neal as they discuss what is REALLY in a report that Rollins has been citing to support his claim that charter schools don’t work.

The pertinent comments begin at 32 minutes and 28 seconds into the video.

First, Rep. Rollins cites the same numbers, again. Then, at 34 minutes and 19 seconds, Sen. Neal says the Stanford study is the best out there.

Finally, at 34 minutes and 33 seconds, Host Goodman starts to do some real education. The lesson is short and simple.

By 35 minutes and 29 seconds, Rep. Rollins admits he now isn’t sure about what is in the CREDO report.

Then, Goodman asks Rep. Rollins the question I raised: since the CREDO study doesn’t support his assertion that charters don’t work, would Rollins be willing to hear bills on charter schools?

Sadly, instead of providing a direct answer, Rep. Rollins changes the subject to another bill that does not come close to providing Kentucky what charter legislation would.

Hopefully, as Rep. Rollins has more time to consider the real evidence – instead of relying on what teachers union people are telling him – he will come to realize that Kentucky’s children can benefit in a number of ways if we get real charter schools in this state. That is what is happening in 40 other states that already have charters.

Now that's not how we treat a guest, is it?

A couple weeks ago Tracy McDaniel traveled to Frankfort, Kentucky from his home in Oklahoma to discuss his experience with KIPP schools and the benefits that charter schools create in the education system. You can see his testimony below...



Following this testimony there was a standard question and answer period in which legislators sought to satisfy their questions about charter school legislation. The following is a "question" from a legislator...

I don't know about you but I grow weary of "back in my day" monologues. Here's the deal: The "back in the day" approach is obviously not working for our schools in Kentucky. The solutions that McDaniel testified about are an option that should be considered to help solve a problem that is out of control.

It is obvious from the outset of the legislator's "question" that he knows where he is going. He continues to attack McDaniel rather than taking the opportunity to ask a subject area expert any relevant questions. What good does that do? Do our elected officials consider this productive? I would think that regardless of where they stand on the charter school debate they would respect an expert who traveled across the country by treating them with respect and learning more about the issue at debate.

Maybe that's just me.

Excuses, excuses

Critics are good at making excuses for why Kentucky can't properly educate our children and why charter schools won't work even though credible research and proven results indicate otherwise.

Click here to listen to the 90-second audio commentary.

KIPP Charter School principal briefs Kentucky legislators on charter schools

In this video, Tracy McDaniel, the principal of the KIPP Reach College Preparatory School in Oklahoma City briefs legislators on the Interim Joint Education Committee about charter schools and what they can offer.

Tracy Mcdaniel, principle of KIPP school in Oklahoma from freedomky on Vimeo.

Talking charter schools

As we mentioned earlier the Kentucky Legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on Education held hearings on August 9, 2010 on charter schools and what they might bring to the commonwealth.

We shot lots of video of the event, as did another blogger, and we will be posting those in the next couple of days.

In addition, the Bluegrass Institute also hosted a small roundtable discussion with several charter school experts

• Tracy McDaniel, president of the KIPP Reach College Preparatory School in Oklahoma City
• Kenneth Campbell, president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options

and several members of our coalition to bring charter schools to Kentucky, including:

• Jerry Stephenson, pastor of the Midwest Church of Christ in Louisville
• Jim Waters, vice president for Policy and Communications at the Bluegrass Institute
• Kelly Smith, Vice President for Strategic Partnerships at the Bluegrass Institute, and
• Myself, Richard Innes, Education Analyst for the Bluegrass Institute.

Some of the interesting answers to our questions from the charter school experts are available for you here.

Rev. Jerry Stephenson speaks in Frankfort

In this video filmed in Frankfort, Kentucky, Rev. Jerry Stephenson discusses charter schools, race, underperforming school systems, and the tea party movement.  Check this out!


Pastor Jerry Stephenson, Frankfort July 2010 from freedomky on Vimeo.

How’s that again? Prichard Committee citing good example from a CHARTER SCHOOL!

The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence has been notably quiet in the fight to get a decent charter school law in Kentucky.

That makes one of their new blog items especially noteworthy.

Can it really be? Prichard lauding practices of teacher evaluation from Pittsburgh's City High? A CHARTER SCHOOL!

Check it out for yourself here.

Of course, we have to look elsewhere to benefit from innovations from charter schools because Kentucky does not have any of these innovative schools.

And, so far, Prichard hasn’t been of any help in changing the law so we can fix that deficiency.

Charter school shootout on KET, Part 2

KET’s Monday night show on charter schools provided plenty of examples of how opponents of charters will grasp at almost any straw to fight introducing these highly successful public schools in Kentucky.

One of the more outrageous of those examples occurred about 48 minutes into the program (which is on line here) when Brent McKim, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association, tried to make a case that competition from charter schools would induce public schools to waste money on public relations instead of helping students.

Well, even without charter schools, our regular public school system has been working overtime to inundate the public with all sorts of public relations “stuff” about how wonderfully the system is progressing.

One of the worst examples comes from McKim’s very own school district. The Bluegrass Institute has written plenty about it.

This PR nonsense involves grossly inflated claims about reading improvement in Jefferson County under the Every1Reads program.

Check out my comments here, here and here.

If McKim is really serious about public schools wasting money on PR stunts, he can start saving some money right now by getting his very own home town school district to stop misleading the public with the nonsense that any kid who scores above “Novice” on the Kentucky Core Content Tests is somehow “performing at grade level” and is doing just fine.

The facts are that while the Every1Reads program claims Jefferson County readers are over 90 percent up to speed, the recent National Assessment of Educational Progress Trial Urban District Assessment showed only 30 percent of the fourth graders in town read proficiently and just 26 percent of the eighth grade students did.

Charter school shootout on KET, Part 1

Per our alert yesterday, last night’s Kentucky Tonight show on KET was all about charter schools.

It brought together State Representatives Brad Montell, R-Shelbyville and Carl Rollins, D- Midway with Jefferson County Teachers Association president Brent McKim and Bluegrass Institute board member Phil Moffitt to hassle it out about charter schools.

Of course, as is usually the case with Kentucky Tonight shows, there were plenty of ‘opinions,’ only some of which are really true. I’ll discuss an obvious one in this first blog.

One of the key issues in the charter school debate is whether or not the current, plodding pace of Kentucky’s regular public schools is adequate.

Around 49 minutes into the show (which is now viewable on line here), McKim stated that Kentucky used to score around 48th or 49th on a whole host of education indicators in the early 1990s. One indicator he mentioned was the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Well, here are some facts.

Back in 1992, Kentucky’s overall eighth grade math scale score on the NAEP ranked 28 out of 41 states. Thirteen states scored lower than Kentucky did that year (so, we didn’t rank 49th or 48th, not even close). On a percentile basis that can be compared to the 2009 results, when all states participated, this is about the 34th percentile.

Flash forward to 2009.

Kentucky’s overall eighth grade math score on NAEP tied one other state for a rank of 34 out of 50 states. Fifteen states out of this larger testing group scored lower than Kentucky. Kentucky’s performance falls at about the 34th percentile for comparison to the 1992 situation.

In other words, in eighth grade math our relative performance didn’t budge for all students compared to other states between 1992 and 2009. But, back in 1992 the state’s performance wasn’t equivalent to a 48th or 49th place performance, either.

Adding insult to injury, as of 2009, the NAEP says Kentucky’s eighth grade math proficiency rate is only 27 percent, little more than one in four. How can anyone call this significant progress?

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