Much of the discussion about public charter schools involves the impact these schools have on urban areas. And there are some great success stories, including those involving Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) academies in some of the most challenging inner-city areas in America.

However, as the putkidsfirstky.org Web site notes, “In Kentucky, many rural areas are more impoverished than our urban areas and, unfortunately, are experiencing crime rates.”

According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, around 20 percent of the nation’s more than 5,000 (and growing) public charters are located either in rural areas (696 charter schools) or small towns (387 charters).

The evidence suggests that charter schools would provide a viable option both for parents being harassed by educrats in both Kentucky’s big cities and rural areas.

Charter schools could re-empower parents in both Louisville’s West End and Knox County’s rural areas the ability to emancipate their children from miserably failing school districts.

New scores from the ACT, Incorporated’s EXPLORE and PLAN tests are out. The Herald-Leader covered some of the general stuff, already, though the paper may be making too much of an apples to oranges comparison by stacking up our 2009-10 scores to outdated national average scores posted half a decade ago.

The good news overall is that we are seeing a small amount of progress, which is exactly what Senate Bill 130 from 2006 intended as the EXPLORE and PLAN tests are aimied at getting our kids better prepared for college. Still, there is a long way to go, and there is at least one troubling area the newspaper didn’t cover.

That problem area is the unfortunate growth in performance gaps between Kentucky’s white and black students on the PLAN tests.

As you can see in the graph, the white minus black PLAN score gaps grew between the 2006-07 and 2009-10 school years for every area except reading. While the growth of the gaps has been small, growth isn’t what we want.

Another interesting thing in the graph above is that the science gaps are much smaller than gaps in the other subjects. Could this be an indication that even Kentucky whites under-perform in this area? Do our blacks engage better with science courses?

More research is clearly needed on that, because there could be a clue here that will help with the other subjects, as well. Certainly, with the gaps large and growing larger, such help is badly needed.

(CORBIN, Ky.) – Supporters of public school choice hope a planned rally for Saturday at Grace on the Hill Church at 2 p.m. (eastern) will send a clear message to Knox County officials, who recently ended a longstanding reciprocal agreement with the Corbin Independent Schools.

Click here to read the entire news release.

The latest in the growing story of Knox County Public Schools killing parent choice with the Corbin Independent Schools involves a Knox claim that Corbin turned down an application from a special needs student.

Not so, according to Jackie Frost, the child’s mother. Ms. Frost had the courage and honesty to go public with the story.

I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll just wonder if a material error like this could really hurt Knox’s case.

Here are some blogs to glance at over the weekend…

• The Humble Libertarian
• Economy Politics
• Kentucky Freedom Digest
• FreedomKentucky.org

“In Washington, a man gets up to speak and doesn’t say a thing, and the other men disagree with him for three hours.”

I was listening to local talk radio the other day and I heard something mentioned that struck me as odd.

There was a guest on the show who is running for public office to represent the people of Kentucky. The topic of conversation was the healthcare summit between Republicans, Democrats, and President Obama taking place that day. The host of the show asked his guest if he thought the Republicans were wise to attend the summit to which the reply was of course.

What was the guest’s reasoning? It was an opportunity for the Republicans to sell their ideas on healthcare reform to the American public.

Normally I’m not too animated when listening to this kind of stuff, but…I started yelling in my car.

Why? What’s wrong with that, you ask?

Here’s the problem. I’m sure that a lot of folks think the healthcare summit really was a great opportunity for the Republicans to sell their ideas to America BUT our representatives shouldn’t be selling the American public on anything! We don’t elect representatives to sell policies to us rather we elect them to represent us!

We need a mindset shift away from our elected representatives being some holy, untouchable group of salesmen that tells the public what is good for them back to representing the will of the people.  Remember, they are public servants! Servants!  They serve the public!

The graph I posted a few minutes ago is already out of date. The Kentucky Department of Education just released the 2009-2010 results for the ACT, Incorporated’s EXPLORE and PLAN tests.

I ranked the high schools in Knox and Corbin for the new PLAN data and added that to the data I ranked earlier for the 2008-09 year.

Here is how that came out.

Note to avoid confusion. The graph I posted earlier is for the eighth grade EXPLORE data, not PLAN data. I’ll post that tomorrow.

As you can see, Corbin improved its ranking, while both high schools in the Knox County system lost more ground.

– Lawyers swap arguments

– Kentucky Commissioner of Education urges mediation

As the deadline closes for Saturday’s rally to support school choice in the Knox/Corbin area, the lawyers for the two sides are swapping arguments with the Kentucky Department of Education.

The lawyer for Knox County is mostly complaining about all the money his district loses. Somehow, that lawyer thinks that more money automatically will equate to better educations. There is a ton of research, including some of our own in our Bang for the Buck report, that proves otherwise. Knox’s lawyer better try another tack.

The lawyer for Corbin takes the high ground, talking about the much better education kids get in Corbin while offering a rebuttal to the idea that somehow the kids magically bring better educations with them when they switch school systems. The Corbin lawyer cites evidence that shows it’s the Corbin schools – not something innate in the kids – that provides those better educations.

Certainly, there is no doubt that kids in Corbin run educational rings around the Knox County kids.

For example, consider the ACT, Incorporated’s high school readiness test called EXPLORE, which is given to all public school eighth graders in Kentucky.

Out of over 300 schools that get EXPORE scores in Kentucky in last year’s school term, Corbin’s middle school ranks 36th. In very sharp contrast, Knox County’s two schools rank near the bottom of the stack.

I have four children, and I want them to grow up in a country that has a working First Amendment.