New York City has a strong charter school movement, and it showed in 2013 math and English Language Arts (ELA) testing. The graph below, taken from a New York City report, shows that students in the city’s charter schools outperformed students in similar (peer) schools in the city. But, in math, the Big Apple’s charters…
Louisville Citizen’s Concerns About Public Education This is the sixth video in the Bluegrass Institute’s School Choice Week collection. In this video, Pastor Jerry Stephenson from Louisville provides a short discussion of the problems he sees with the public school system in Kentucky’s largest city and what he would like to see happen to remedy…
Governor Steve Beshear’s budget request increases funding for K to 12 education at a time when the state’s muddling economy can’t support much increase in revenue. So, to make his K to 12 magic happen, the governor is cutting funding for just about every other state agency besides education by amounts ranging from 2.5 to…
Why Good Charter School Laws Are Critical As discussions about enacting a charter school law in Kentucky, we continue our video messages for national school choice week with more about why good charter school laws are critical.
The Lexington Herald-Leader ran an article today titled “Report: A large majority of Ky. kids aren’t reading proficiently by fourth grade.” The headline is correct, and the new report the paper references from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Kentucky Youth Advocates is, sadly, pretty much on target. But, that didn’t stop education commissioner…
Criticisms of Charter Schools in Ohio It’s national school choice week, and as part of the Bluegrass Institute’s observations we are featuring a series of videos on school choice issues of interest here in Kentucky. It is important to understand that not all state charter school programs, and the laws that create them, are created…
An article in the Central Kentucky News-Journal about the controversy over teaching cursive writing provides insight into what some of our teachers are being told about teaching anything not explicitly in the Common Core State Standards. Says Fourth-grade teacher Mandy Cox: “If it’s not assessed, we’re not supposed to be spending class time doing it.”…
This CN|2 report says Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday is in favor of charter schools for Kentucky. Holliday knows there are now outstanding examples of charter school successes. CN|2 quotes Holliday asking: “What are these outstanding charter schools doing that we could bring to these districts of innovation in Kentucky?” That is a great…
Real cases of student data compromises reported There is real, growing concern about the way sensitive personal data is being collected and stored on government computer systems. Already in the new Kentucky legislative session, House Bill 5 has been introduced to tighten rules for collection and security of personal data across all state agencies. This…
Choice, Accountability and Flexibility in Charter Schools It’s national school choice week, and as part of the Bluegrass Institute’s observations we are featuring a series of videos on school choice issues of interest here in Kentucky. This is our third video in the series, and it discusses how charter schools offer expanded school choices for…