Regarding claims about Kentucky’s NAEP Reading progress The Late Paul Harvey was a master at giving us “The rest of the story,” and we at BIPPS find ourselves continuing the tradition of filling in important, missing information in comments from others. Our newest case in point just chirped up in Twitter, where the Kentucky Department…
How much does my child’s school really spend each year? It’s a very reasonable question, one we get asked at the Bluegrass Institute. Unfortunately, we’ve had to answer for years that we really don’t know. The reason is that the data provided by the state, such as in the Kentucky School Report Cards system, just…
The Herald-Leader reports that the Pike County School Board has voted to allow certain carefully selected and trained teacher volunteers to become armed protectors of their schools. Candidates will get a background and drug tests, mental evaluation, and a qualification course with firearms training. The Pike County Sheriff’s Office will provide this for free, keeping…
Education Week reports that Kentucky is one of 17 states that still have not submitted acceptable plans to implement the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and will now get more time to do so. As EdWeek puts it: “State departments and the boards that oversee them have been grappling with how best to comply…
And, why does Kentucky seem poised to ignore the best approach again? It’s a deep, dark secret – largely hidden for nearly half a century – something it seems most educators don’t want you to know. Project Follow Through, the most expensive and expansive education research project ever undertaken, clearly identified one, best-performing teaching approach…
“Education commissioner: State ‘up a creek’ if charters don’t get funded” Insider Louisville
As I wrote yesterday, there are comments floating about that Kentucky should delay funding charter schools due to the state’s general financial pinch. But, if the goal is better education, I don’t think that is a very good idea. Yesterday I pointed to evidence from the National Assessment of Educational Progress that charter schools do…
We are hearing a lot lately from some quarters that Kentucky needs to delay funding charter schools. I think that is a mistake, especially for the kids who could benefit, and recent test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) in eighth grade math backs me up. I…
Kentuckians hear it all the time. The state supposedly has made dramatic improvement on things like “National Tests” since KERA began. For example, the Prichard Committee proclaims that Kentucky ranks “8th in fourth-grade reading,” which is actually where the state ranks if you only look at overall 2015 scores for fourth grade reading from the…
It was probably a surprise statement for many during last night’s Kentucky Tonight show on KET, which included Bluegrass Institute president and CEO Jim Waters. At 37 minutes and 40 seconds into the online version of the show, Brigit Ramsey, who now heads the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, stated that Kentucky’s teacher salaries now…