We’ve been saying that the under-performance of public education isn’t just a high school problem for years. Now, a national research group has published a report that agrees with the obvious – and with us. Education Week says a new report from the “Center for American Progress” shows you won’t get good math and science…
Could put millions of federal school turnaround dollars at risk The Courier-Journal recently reported that “State says ‘confusion’ lingers over Jefferson school turnaround plan.” You bet it does! What the district is doing to restaff and turn around dismal educational performance in its Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLA) makes no sense to us. A Bluegrass Institute…
The Frankfort Independent School District is the scene of the latest control fight between School Based Decision Making Councils (SBDM) and a local school board, which is elected by the people. The school board wants to push the district’s students harder. The teachers don’t SBDM in Kentucky (which are solidly under control of teachers) have…
The new Digest of Education Statistics 2010 recently released, and there is sobering news for Kentucky in Table 112. The latest Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR) for Kentucky sank again for the second year in a row (click on graph to enlarge). Based on this latest available data from the feds, Kentucky’s AFGR slipped back…
A recent Courier-Journal editorial warrants an informed challenge. Putting it politely, the editor is seriously uninformed. The major thrust of the editorial is that Jefferson County Public Schools are getting too much sniping from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday and his staff. Per the Courier, the local school folk in Jefferson County are all…
Our high schools are not preparing kids for college and careers It was a remarkably candid admission from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday. The Central Kentucky News-Journal reports: “Holliday said Kentucky’s education system sells a false promise to students that if they graduate high school they are ready for college or a career. The…
WAVE-3 reports that Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is one step closer to the enactment of the nation’s most aggressive school voucher law. This law would allow parents to use part of the public school money to send their child to a private school, instead. Ebony James, an Indiana mom, says the change can’t come soon…
Education Week reports (subscription?) that the education school complexes in Kentucky and several other states are resisting a partnership between the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) and US News & World Report magazine to rank the performance of education schools around the country. Per EdWeek, Kentucky’s Ed school crowd says the USN≀/NCTQ proposal lacks…
The Courier-Journal ran a large article today about how Kentucky’s Education Commissioner Terry Holliday is getting more and more critical of the way Jefferson County Public Schools restaffed teachers in their Persistently Low-Achieving Schools. The Courier points out that some of these schools wound up with large numbers of first-year teachers after the restaffing took…
A new study of student performance has just been released from the National Center for Education Statistics. The study “presents information about the types of courses that high school graduates in the class of 2009 took during high school, how many credits they earned, and the grades they received. Information on the relationships between high…