– Sort of The Kentucky Board of Education launched a new Public Comments Segment in its meeting today, but this decent idea needs more thought. The rules published in the meeting agenda said those desiring to speak had to sign up before the meeting began. Since this meeting start was at 8:30 AM, anyone who…
There have been more than a few eyebrows raised by the Kentucky Senate’s failure (refusal?) to confirm Steve Neal, The executive director of the Jefferson County Teachers Association, as a member of the Kentucky Board of Education. However, maybe that was the legally appropriate thing to do. There aren’t a large number of restrictions on…
This will warm you up for the Bluegrass Tax Liberation Day on April 18. See you at: Applebee’s Ball Park 207 Legends Lane Lexington, KY 40505 Saturday, April 18, 2009 11am-2pmrain or shine
The “North Area Counties of Kentucky Exposition of Science” was held on March 21, 2009, and the list of winners is now posted. To put it mildly, the winners’ list is dominated by the Northern Kentucky parochial schools. In fact, a Catholic school won the school-level award for both junior (grade 5 to grade 8)…
— Finally getting the message From our early days the Bluegrass Institute has pointed out that there is something wrong with the ratio of teachers to other staff in our schools. This graph, which shows Kentucky ranks dead last for this ratio among the 50 states and even Washington, DC, has run ever since the…
– Are they worth the cost? Around 74,000 teachers now have been certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and 32,000 teachers have been certified for more than half a decade. The organization’s directory of teachers indicates that as of March 30, 2009 there are 1,605 active certified teachers in Kentucky, although…
The legislative session has ended, and Senate Bill 1 (SB-1), which drops the CATS assessments, is now law. Next, activity to implement the nuts and bolts of the bill shifts to the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) and the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE). The first chance these two groups will have to work SB-1…
I blogged on an Ohio anti-government transparency trick yesterday. Already, the fruits of these shenanigans are coming to light. Today the Cincinnati Enquirer reports Ohio’s special education community is up in arms about the education budget that resulted from conducting the work in a private company immune from Ohio’s open records laws. Some of the…
A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics on “Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G-8 Countries: 2009” has just been released. We still need to worry about what our kids are not learning. Figure 12a in the report, shown here, indicates that for children who come from wealthy…
Ohio’s open records laws apparently do not allow that state’s citizens to access work done by private contractors – even if that work is for public organizations. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Ohio’s governor Strickland is currently working this loophole to hide his plans for school funding from both the public and their elected officials.…