The Courier-Journal reports that the latest idea to turn around “Persistently Low-Achieving” Shawnee High school is to turn it into a Primary to grade 12 school. How dumb, but how insidiously clever! Dumb, because mixing five-year olds in with a group of high school students with a long and chronic history of problems is probably…
Doesn’t much happen in Kentucky! The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the city’s teachers union and the Cincinnati Board of Education have agreed to a new teacher contract. It now awaits approval by the city’s teachers. Full details of the contract won’t be released until the teachers get a chance to review the tentative agreement, but…
The Courier-Journal reports that Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear told reporters at his annual end-of-the-year news conference that he will try to get the Kentucky House and Senate to agree on a new bill to create charter schools in Kentucky. Last year, the governor stayed out of the fray as charter school legislation was discussed, but…
The Kentucky Board of Education had a two-day meeting on December 7 and 8, 2010 which devoted major time to discussions about Kentucky’s new school assessment program, scheduled to launch around 2012. There is still a lot of work to be done, and many decisions left to be made, but some key points are starting…
The ink is hardly dry on Michelle Rhee’s resignation letter from the chancellor’s position in the Washington, DC public school system, but no moss is growing under this high energy lady’s feet! She is announcing plans to form StudentsFirst, a new lobbying organization that will challenge the education employee unions’ current lock on school politics.…
The Messenger-Inquirer writes in “Schools need reliable accountability” (subscription) about the editorial staff’s frustration with a proposal from the Kentucky Department of Education to ask for a waiver from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability so the state can lower accountability standards, again. The paper correctly points out that we have already done this twice,…
Even the Prichard Committee agrees! In what looks like a clumsy attempt to get the Jefferson County Board of Education to override its vote to replace the school district’s superintendent, Sheldon Berman, the Courier-Journal’s editors have managed to impressively demonstrate their blindness to the plight of their own readership’s children. On Sunday, December 5, 2010,…
News reports from the Grayson Journal-Enquirer indicate that leaders at the East Carter Middle School in Carter County are upset because they have been identified as failing to meet No Child Left Behind (NCLB) targets for nine straight years. The school’s leaders are complaining that their scores are higher than other schools in their area…
Kentucky’s college enrollment/grad rates trail nation Jim Warren at the Lexington Herald-Leader has the details. One telling point from the article: “Kentucky had 48 percent of its first-time, full-time college freshmen in 2002 graduate from public four-year colleges and universities by 2008, compared with 55 percent nationally and 53 percent in the 16-state region covered…
The Hazard-Herald reports that the ACT, Incorporated has concluded its investigation into alleged cheating in Perry County high schools and found that there was improper activity in both the Perry County Central High School and the Buckhorn High School. Not many details have been publicly released, but that may be due to the fact that…