Three years ago the Campbellsville Independent and Taylor County school districts tried to hide the details of a lawsuit they lost involving a teacher who had sued for wrongful termination. At the time of the trial, the court sealed the records. Now, the Central Kentucky News-Journal reports those school districts had no right to prevent…
It was no surprise to us, but the print version of the Sunday Kentucky Enquirer just ran a front-page teaser along with a full article about a new study from the Center on Education Policy (CEP) that shows the reading gap for boys versus girls is larger here than in other states. You can read…
It’s been four years since Senate Bill -130 from the 2006 Regular Legislative Session brought us quality tests from the ACT, Incorporated – EXPLORE for eighth grade students, PLAN for tenth graders and complete testing of all eleventh grade students with the ACT college entrance test. One of the nice features of the new tests…
Surprise move in Senate yesterday has teachers union hopping mad The Kentucky Senate’s Education Committee meeting yesterday must have been fun to watch (KET didn’t cover it for some reason). In a surprise move, a proposal to once again give school superintendents some real control over the principals in their schools was tagged on to…
I wrote yesterday about the surprise revelation that the Kentucky Department of Education already started to use the rules from House Bill 176, which was passed in January, to start holding some of the state’s worst-performing schools accountable. Accountability was not expected to start until late summer and was supposed to be based on the…
Audit of 10 schools raises as many questions as answers Last Friday, the Courier-Journal reported that 10 schools across Kentucky, including six in Jefferson County, were undergoing “Leadership Audits.” The article said the audits, “Could result in major restructuring, including replacing the staff or closing the school.” The article reported that this was a result…
Test scores stand Our new analysis indicates cheating didn’t happen and the firing was a bad mistake for kids The Herald-Leader reports Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday recently issued a letter (confirmed elsewhere as on February 1, 2010) concerning the official investigation that fired Booker T. Washington Academy Principal Peggy Petrilli cheated on CATS…
The dispute over the Knox County Public School District’s summary cancellation of a long-standing student transfer agreement has been an on-going discussion item here for months. The latest news is that a recent decision from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday to freeze any further transfers is unacceptable to the Corbin Independent School District. The…
The Kentucky School Boards Association reports that Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday will ask the Kentucky Board of Education to delay Kentucky Core Content Testing into late May. Holliday will do this even if the US Department of Education does not approve the inevitable late delivery of resulting test scores, which are used for…
If you haven’t already heard, Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo threatened all the state’s representatives with loss of local school building projects if they didn’t vote for his bad idea budget that burdens the state’s most financially stressed businesses with even more economic stress at this highly inopportune time. Under the speaker’s misguided bully tactic,…