Group dashes credibility with choice

We wonder how the Kentucky Association of School Administrators (KASA) arrived at its decision to name Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Stephen Daeschner as the state's Superintendent of the Year.

It certainly can't be because of his district's performance, which has been anything but stellar. In January, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) audited JCPS after two of the district's schools performed in the lowest possible CATS classification for four consecutive years.

The audit found that racial and gender achievement gaps are increasing at both low and high-performing schools and that the district lacked strategies to address these disparities. The audit also found problems with important superintendent duties, including security at school facilities, organizational practices and the monitoring of instructional programs.

Daeschner's schools performance lags on other tests, too. His worst-performing high schools consistently produce the state's lowest ACT Composite scores. In 1995, five of Kentucky's bottom-10 public high-school ACT Composite scores were recorded in Jefferson County. A decade later, the district had seven of the state's 10 worst performers. In 1995, the worst JCPS high school got an ACT Composite of 16.1; in 2005, the district's lowest-performing school achieved an abysmal 14.7.

Without doubt, the enormous size of the Jefferson County school system makes it difficult to govern. But when a school district provides miserable results on both the CATS and ACT and is subjected to an audit, it seems totally inappropriate to salute the man in charge as an exemplary performer.

A soon-to-be-released report by the Bluegrass Institute reveals that several Kentucky schools do a remarkable job of providing a solid education for their students at a reasonable cost, even with above-average poverty rates. Finding its next Superintendent of the Year among these districts could help keep KASA from dashing its credibility with another pick like Daeschner.

Sources:

Educators applaud Daeschner by Chris Kenning, Louisville Courier-Journal

District Audit Report, Jefferson County School District, January 23-28, 2005 Kentucky Department of Education, Frankfort, KY 40601. Available in hard copy only.