Wow! The WSJ reports that teacher union activity is now so ridiculous that even the liberal New York Times has had enough. This WSJ article by Richard Whitmire and Andrew J. Rotherham really pulls no punches. Some gems: “A Washington Post editorial about charter schools carried this sarcastic headline: ‘Poor children learn. Teachers unions are…
New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof says it very nicely in his opinion piece: “It’s difficult to improve failing schools when you can’t create alternatives such as charter schools and can’t remove inept or abusive teachers.” We have a double dose of that in Kentucky where, unlike New York City, we can’t create charter…
This first video covers comments from the bill’s sponsor, Kentucky Representative Brad Montell. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG3zdjWUfR8] The next video, also from the press conference, contains comments from some of the proposed bill’s supporting groups and individuals. Note in particular how much insight the two parents have about the educational situation of their children. Who says parents don’t…
Apparently, I am not the only one who has reservations about the announcement yesterday of Governor Steve Beshear’s “Transforming Education in Kentucky” (TEK) Task Force. Herald-Leader Reporter Jim Warren contacted Senator David Williams, the ranking leader in the Kentucky Senate, and writes: “Williams, however, argued that the governor was covering old ground. ‘I respectfully submit…
About every ten years or so, it seems like we need to have a task force to get everyone to feel good about public education in this state. We’re actually a bit late this time, but Governor Beshear is launching his new education initiative, called “Transforming Education in Kentucky” (TEK). Anyway, after 20 years of…
Several days ago I published comments on the fourth grade results by year on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math tests. That included graphs for whites, blacks, and the overall student average scores for Kentucky versus the national averages for those same student groups. Now, I now present graphs that show how…
Yesterday we posted a link to a video about “What are charter schools, anyway?” With that question answered, this video tells you why we think we need school choice in Kentucky. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX2PHKUQbgE]
School choice options like charter schools are on a lot of policymakers’ minds right now. And, a bill creating parental choice public schools in Kentucky has been prefiled for the next legislative session. So, you might think it’s time to learn more about school choice. If so, here is a quick-to-view video that will introduce…
It is pretty much taken as fact that boys outscore girls on math. That is true with the new National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math tests, as well. For example, the two bars on the far left of the figure below show that while Kentucky’s fourth grade females had a 34 percent NAEP math…
– NCLB implications are significant, especially for minorities I blogged earlier on how the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows scoring of the Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT) in math has been inflating over time. Let’s look at how bad that inflation was in the 2009 math tests. We will see that the errors…