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New web site started working around 9 AM

Data on the 2010 performance of Kentucky’s public school system is starting to flow from the Kentucky Department of Education, and the link to the promised new data collection web site activated somewhere between 7:45 and 9 AM Eastern.

Apparently, the new ‘site’ is really a single web page portal that allows quicker and easier access to existing areas of the Kentucky Department of Education’s massive web site where the actual data has always been assembled for things like NCLB scores and college readiness rates. Still, it is a nice improvement in user friendliness, and hats off to the KDE technical staff for this update.

As a note about this new portal, only the section headings are actually links, at least at this time. You won’t go anywhere if you click on the individual subjects listed under the section headings. However, once you click the section heading, a new page opens where you can access the individual data listed in that section.

Also, several newspaper sites, like those operated by the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier Journal, have an extensive number of articles up already. It is obvious they received access to the data several days ago. But, there is a ton of information in the new reports, and there will be plenty of work for all for some time in analyzing all of this material.

I know I’ll be analyzing and writing about this material for some time yet to come.

And, if you are into the numbers, the new portal is a good place to get an overview of what is available.

“Parents really want a wide menu of choice options when it comes to their child’s education, and charter schools really do provide yet another option, especially within the public school realm.” –Lindsey Burke, The Heritage Foundation

What did she do to the environment?

The Courier-Journal reports that Pat Todd, the Jefferson County Public Schools director of student assignment – the czar of the district’s out of control busing plan – is leaving her job.

Todd leaves at a time, as the news article points out, “…when public objections over long bus rides are growing, legal challenges are continuing and a legislation that would unravel student assignment is pending before the approaching General Assembly.”

Pat O’Leary, a former Jefferson County School Board member, says, “We need someone with a little more open-mindedness to other solutions.” O’Leary favors neighborhood schools where parents, not a bureaucrat, get to select where their children are educated.

One point in the Courier’s article really caught my attention. It was Todd’s salary, which is $152,184 per year.

For some perspective, I checked the latest superintendent’s salary listing in the Kentucky Department of Education’s web site.

Out of the 172 districts that had superintendent salary information listed in 2009-10, only 11 districts paid their superintendents more than Ms. Todd received.

Somehow, that does not seem like a very good use of our tax dollars.

Tea Party, are you listening?


Test Question: What does Ms. Todd’s busing plan do to the environment?

Click the “Read more” link to see my estimate.

US Energy Information Administration says diesel produces 10.15 kilograms of carbon dioxide per gallon burned.

Conversion factor tables such as this one show 1 kilogram = 2.2046226 pounds

So, for every gallon of diesel Jefferson County buses burn, the air gets hit with another 22.37691939 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Partnership for a Green City – Louisville, says that the city’s school buses travelled 97,000 miles daily in the 2009-10 school year! They added more buses this year, so this number is low, now, but I’ll use it.

The American School Bus Council estimates a typical school bus gets 7 miles to the gallon.

So, every day, Jefferson County school buses probably burn around 97,000 miles / 7 miles per gallon = 13,857 gallons of diesel.

That means, every day, the buses put out 13,857 gallons * 22.37691939 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon = 310,077 pounds of carbon dioxide.

That’s 310,077 pounds of carbon dioxide EVERY DAY! That’s 155 tons of the gas, EVERY DAY.

I’ll be happy to update this little math exercise if someone finds a better estimate or an error, but the final number is going to be a WHOPPING amount of carbon dioxide.

Thank you, Ms. Todd.

The Kentucky Department of Education will be using new formats for the annual school performance reporting that will be released tomorrow. Three separate areas will be included.

The three report sections are:

Achievement

o Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT) Combined Reading and Mathematics Proficient/Distinguished Report

o Federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) data

o Iowa Test of Basic Skills data – administered in grades 3-7

Gap

o KCCT Combined Reading and Mathematics Gap-to-Goal Comparison Report

Readiness for College/Career

o Percentage of high school graduates college/career-ready

o 8th-grade EXPLORE, 10th-grade PLAN and 11th-grade ACT data

Another report section, Growth, will focus on student academic growth measures and will be computed beginning in 2012, with data expected to be available in the summer of 2012.

Here at the Institute we are particularly pleased to see the new emphasis on gaps and the re-introduction of a nationally-normed standardized achievement test (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) to the lineup.

Gaps were completely ignored in the state’s own accountability program under the now defunct CATS and KIRIS assessments. We have been highly critical of that deficiency.

And, in an action many considered to be a violation of statute, the nationally-normed tests were dropped for a time in our lower grades. Re-introduction of these tests means parents of young children will now be a bit better informed about how their student performs against peers from around the nation. We were also very critical of that action, which was also quickly criticized by the Kentucky legislature that had no intention of cancelling this program.

I anticipate the new report formats will take a little getting used to, but I will start writing about the results as soon as I can after they are publicly released tomorrow.

If there are some new tricks to reading these reports, I’ll pass that along, as well, as soon as I figure those out.

Source: KDE News Advisory 10-050 – September 14, 2010

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy.” –Daniel Webster

In 2006, The Bluegrass Institute hosted a discussion with John Stossel on free-market solutions to the currently government monopoly – one that he claims is ruining our children’s lives.  You can watch the entire discussion below!

John Stossel, 2006 from freedomky on Vimeo.