Two bills addressing education issues that have been an interest item for the Bluegrass Institute are moving in Frankfort. Both have cleared the Kentucky Senate on a 23 to 13 vote and now are on the way to the Kentucky House. One of these bills, Senate Bill 3, addresses contentious issues with the governance of…
A half-year-old news article from the Courier-Journal about a study that ranks Kentucky’s education system as the 20th best in the nation has somehow resurfaced in the Twittersphere, and several educators are gushing over it. That makes it worthwhile to point to just a few reasons why the news article, the report and those who…
With the 2019 session of the Kentucky Legislature opening soon, reporters around the state are commenting on likely items of consideration, and several Bluegrass Institute education-interest areas are on those lists. Within the past few days, the Bowling Green Daily News issued “State board of education will push for more power for administrators” and the…
Even though Kentucky’s new statewide minimum high school graduation requirements were approved during the December 5, 2018 meeting of the Kentucky Board of Education, the subject continues to draw major attention and controversy. I was party to a discussion on the Kentucky Tonight October 15, 2018 show about what was then being proposed for the…
Over at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Flypaper Blog, Mike Petrilli just posted an echo of things I’ve been talking about for a long time regarding education, stating “Identifying ‘what works’ is still a work in progress.” Petrilli’s article points to major concerns I always have when I hear educators talk about using “what the…
As regular readers know, I have a number of concerns with the current draft of Kentucky’s social studies standards revision. The standards seem overly general and vague, leaving teachers, curriculum developers and test writers to guess about what is really to be included, and at what grade. One of the areas of my greatest concern…
During the Kentucky Board of Education meeting today, board member Gary Houchens (a Bluegrass Institute Board of Scholars member, BTW) mentioned that I have concerns about the draft social studies standards revision the board is considering. Since he made that public, I think our readers deserve to see my observations paper, too. Click here to…
The Kentucky Board of Education met today and a number of important items were on the agenda. Action was taken on a final version of a much-revised set of minimum high school graduation requirements. These have been steadily watered down as various education interests have pointed to supposed problems with earlier, notably more rigorous versions…
I wrote earlier that the Herald-Leader reported a few days ago that Kentucky now requires candidates to produce a high school transcript proving completion of the 12th grade to be shown to county clerks when registering to run for a local school board position. The Herald-Leader says nothing about a high school diploma being acceptable.…
The Herald-Leader reported a few days ago that Kentucky now requires candidates to produce a high school transcript proving completion of the 12th grade to be shown to county clerks when registering to run for a local school board position. The Herald-Leader says nothing about a high school diploma being acceptable. The article says only…