Greater transparency and accountability may have exposed padded student counts Kentucky Department of Education briefers unsuccessfully tried to tap dance today around a firestorm that has blown up over the next school year’s funding for preschools. Their two-step involved one of the most confusing presentations I have ever heard in a state legislative meeting (for…
Back in January, Editorial Projects in Education (EPE), parent of the Education Week newspaper, released its “Quality Counts 2012” report, complete with all sorts of rankings of all the states on a variety of indicators. State leadership in Kentucky wasted no time crowing about the fact that Kentucky somehow miraculously moved up 20 places in…
Kentucky Secretary of Energy and the Environment Len Peters spoke at the EPA’s hearings on Tuesday, June 5, 2012, concerning the blockage of coal mining permits in Kentucky. Here is what he said:
Here is a short clip of comments from Kentucky State Representative Ben Waide concerning the EPA’s impact on the coal industry in Kentucky. Sorry about the background noise, but there were LOTS of people getting ready for the pro-coal rally.
During its scheduled meeting today, the Kentucky Board of Education acted on a proposal that only surfaced a few days ago, adding a four-year extension to Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday’s contract as the state’s chief state school officer. Holliday, who came to Kentucky while the board was still populated by a number of Fletcher-era…
A new article in Education Week, “Scientists Find Learning Is Not ‘Hard-Wired’,” (subscription?) is going to create some interesting discussions around the country about how much we know – or rather don’t know – about how students learn. The EdWeek article is full of interesting terms like “neuro-myths,” “snake-oil pitches” and “half-truth.” Comments of note…
The Sentinel-News’ editors are asking why kids are still in school now that all of the testing is finished (subscription). As the newspaper correctly points out, “The week of school after KPREP/year-end exams seems a bit of a waste of time.” There isn’t much, if any, learning going on. It’s just a wasteful bureaucratic way…
Story sheds light on Kentucky’s learning disabled policies It’s an interesting story. Per the Courier-Journal’s article, “Achiever | Manual junior doesn’t need extra time to score 36 on ACT,” Jefferson County Public Schools student Kenny Jackson has been labeled as ADHD and could have qualified to get extra time to take the ACT college entrance…
I have a problem with people who somehow think certain sectors of the economy can magically be shielded from the realities of economics. The facts are that sooner or later, when real resources are not available, every area of society suffers. A case in point of the magical thinking viewpoint about economics came out today…
Over at Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday’s blog, he just posted these comments about nationwide performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP): “All groups of children – white and non-white – have increased NAEP performance by as much as 20 to 30 points over the past 30 years. However, the overall NAEP…