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Is East Carter County High School REALLY a “Proficient” school?

EducationBy Richard Innes November 6, 2012

In Kentucky’s new Unbridled Learning school accountability program, the East Carter County High School was the lowest scoring Grade 9 to Grade 12 high school to make it into the “Proficient” school accountability classification.

Here are some quick stats for this school:

Oh, Yeah, the proficiency gap for biology for males and females in this school is nearly 12 percentage points, in favor of the females, as well.

But, it gets REALLY interesting when you look at the female minus male proficiency gap in English II. It’s an incredible 32 percentage points! Only 36.8 percent of the males are proficient in English, while 68.8 percent of the females pass in this subject.

Wow!

This school gets a “Proficient” label even though less than half of its students are proficient in key subjects like math, history and biology! And, Heaven help you if you are a male student.

This is a disturbing example of the problem with the new Unbridled Learning program.

By the way, there is nothing wrong with the tests involved. Both the End-of-Course and ACT college entrance tests are well-coordinated with what students need to do well in postsecondary education.

The problem is the way these basic, and low, proficiency rate statistics get buried by the time East Carter County High’s overall school accountability score of 58.0 is computed.

Notice that East Carter County High’s low academic performance is somewhat balanced out by the school’s graduation rate, which is above state average. However, when only one in four students is passing math and doing well enough to avoid taking a remedial course as soon as they go on to college, you have to wonder how much of that graduation rate is solely due to social promotion.

To be fair – unless someone’s been cheating (I sadly have to mention that after many reports of cheating in schools around the country, and some right here in Kentucky related to sudden rises in test scores) – East Carter High has made notable progress since it was identified as a Persistently Low-Achieving School several years ago.

Still, do you think this is really “Proficient” school performance?

I certainly hope not!

Troubled Louisville high school in more trouble

EducationBy Richard Innes November 6, 2012

This time, it’s with the Feds!

Without question, the “Academy as Shawnee” is one of the state’s most troubled high schools.

Shawnee was one of the very first schools in the state to land itself on Kentucky’s Persistently Low-Achieving Schools list back when the program first started several years ago.

The school’s high school graduation rate in 2011 in the new Unbridled Learning release package is a truly abysmal 42.3 percent. That is solidly in what a research team from the Johns Hopkins University has termed a “Dropout Factory.”

Shawnee’s new Unbridled Learning rank is way down at the lowest possible rating, the 1 percentile level.

However, The Academy at Shawnee is listed as a magnet school because of its aviation maintenance programs. Students at Shawnee can actually earn FAA licenses in airframe or power plant maintenance.

Uh, maybe.

It seems records-keeping at The Academy has been a bit hap-hazard. The FAA is fussy about records keeping for schools that train aircraft mechanics, and the Courier-Journal reports the:

“FAA found record-keeping discrepancies that included faculty forgetting to sign forms, students forgetting to sign in and out of classes, and students using the wrong forms to document their course work.”

The article does mention that students have a 100 percent pass rate on FAA exams, but as our schools often like to tell us, real education involves a lot more than just test scores. In this case, the reason the FAA is so hard over about records-keeping is that habits of sloppy records keeping can lead to missed aircraft inspections and maintenance that does not get done properly. That, in turn, can lead to innocent passengers and flight crew getting into a whole lot of trouble.

Sloppy paperwork and the slipshod maintenance that results also lead to aircraft companies getting hit with multi-million-dollar fines to encourage them to keep records accurately and do things properly, too.

So, the kids at The Academy didn’t learn an important lesson.

And, since the Courier says the school got in trouble over paper work ten years ago, it looks like the faculty needs to learn some lessons, too.

At present, the Jefferson County School District and the Jefferson Community and Technical College, who jointly operate the Shawnee program, have voluntarily shut it down. They hope to get recertified next year. For the sake of the students and the aviation industry, I hope they finally get it right, next time.

Coal exports set to break records in 2012

EnergyBy Jim Waters November 5, 2012

According to a recent report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), there is more reason to support state sovereignty over energy than is popularly known.

The EIA now predicts that 2012 is set to be a record year for coal exports, outpacing the 1981 record of 113 million tons. By the end of 2012, the U.S. is set to have exported over 125 million tons of coal to rapidly industrializing countries such as China and India.

This news is particularly beneficial to Kentucky, a state with ample supplies of “thermal coal” – used to generate electricity – as opposed to “metallurigcal coal” – used to produce steel. That’s because thermal coal is responsible for 95% of the increases in coal exports this year.

Although market forces currently favor an energy switch from coal to natural gas domestically, Kentucky’s most valuable natural resource still has great value worldwide. For environmental groups that justify radical new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency by arguing, “coal is on its way out anyway,” perhaps they should be reminded that the demand for coal expands far past the borders of the U.S.

By pushing for sweeping new mandates which make establishing new coal-fired power plants a sure path to bankruptcy, the EPA is using the force of federal government to put the boots to Kentucky’s most valuable comparative international economic advantage: ample reserves of high quality thermal coal.

It will be a ‘Bluegrass Tuesday’ this week on 84WHAS

MediaBy Jim Waters November 5, 2012

Join Bluegrass Institute interim president Jim Waters for a special “Bluegrass Monday” Election Day edition on the Mandy Connell Show on 84WHAS. Listen live here.

Jim will also join Matt Walsh on NewsRadio 630 WLAP Tuesday beginning at 8 p.m. to offer analysis and insight on what the election results mean for Kentucky and its greatest challenges.

K-PREP and Unbridled Learning school testing and evaluation are here, but what does this mean? # 10

Education, Transparency and AccountabilityBy Richard Innes November 5, 2012

K-PREP science at all school levels

As we discussed in an earlier blog about the new Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (K-PREP) tests in social studies, we also find disturbing evidence that the new K-PREP science assessments for elementary and middle schools are nothing more than warmed over CATS Kentucky Core Content Tests (KCCT).

This graph makes that clear.

This is particularly disturbing because Senate Bill 1 from the 2009 Regular Legislative Session, which led to the creation of K-PREP, stipulates on Page 4 that academic content standards would be revised by now in all key academic subjects, science definitely included. The revised standards would, “Focus on critical knowledge, skills, and capacities needed for success in the global economy.” The law continues by saying the responsible agencies are to “Ensure that the standards are aligned from elementary to high school to postsecondary education so that students can be successful at each education level.”

On Page 6, the law requires all changes to be promulgated by January 15, 2011.

On Page 7, the law says, “Using the revised academic standards developed pursuant to subsection (2) of this section, the board shall revise the annual statewide assessment program for implementation in the 2011-2012 academic year.”

Well, it does not look to me like that happened in K-PREP science, and possibly not in social studies, either.

Because the standards for science and social studies seem to be unchanged from CATS, that makes the new K-PREP scores in those areas no more trustworthy than those old CATS scores were. Parents and students need to be aware of this and should be cautious about relying on K-PREP scores as accurate indications of academic preparation in those subject areas.

Editorial echoes Bluegrass Institute’s call for reforming corrupt pension system

Reduce Government Spending, UncategorizedBy Jim Waters November 4, 2012

The Lexington Herald-Leader today joined the Bluegrass Institute in calling for reforming the state’s corrupt legislative pension system. The editorial stated:

“Kentucky’s public pension systems have myriad problems, including a collective unfunded liability exceeding $30 billion. By comparison, the cost of this loophole is miniscule (sic). But the principle is huge. Even without this reciprocity, the rules lawmakers have created for computing their own pensions are more generous than the rules used to determine the benefits of rank-and-file public employees. The reciprocity loophole just rubs the faces of those rank-and-file workers — and of taxpayers — deeper in the dirt. It must end as part of pension reform.”

The pension-reform banner is being carried during the current election by many House candidates challenging incumbents who have kicked the can down the road, resulting in an out-of-control pension system that threatens to crowd out essential services, threaten retirees’ pensions and decimate the commonwealth’s entire economy.

Read the Bluegrass Institute’s latest report on the state’s retirement-system crisis entitled “Future Shock: Kentucky Politicians’ Opulent Pensions Have Become a Modern-Day Gold Rush.”

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