We’ve talked before here and here about the remarkable programs in the Taylor County public schools that meet all their students’ needs, along the way producing perfect high school graduation rates. Just like charter schools, Taylor County provides students with options to meet different needs and ambitions. In fact, Taylor County’s superintendent, Roger Cook, proudly…
A rather remarkable letter has been circulating in the web for several days and now has surfaced in a major news outlet’s blog. “Catholic scholars blast Common Core in letter to U.S. bishops” showed up this morning in the Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet blog. I was aware of this letter, but it is so…
The Fordham Foundation points out that Next Generation Science Standards omit most of the material found in high school chemistry and physics courses. And, the Common Core State Standards cut off at about the 10th grade level in math, as well. That’s a real problem, because if there are no standards for upper level high…
Yesterday the Kentucky Department of Education released results from the first round of Program Reviews in “Arts and Humanities,” “Practical Living & Career Studies” and “Writing.” These reviews are going to be used in place of tests in these areas in the new Unbridled Learning school accountability program. But, there seems to be a problem.…
An October 23, 2013 post in the Hechinger Report says: “In Kentucky, for instance, the first state to adopt the Common Core and begin introducing the standards in classrooms, there is still large variation in how devoted teachers and principals are.” Wow! There is another Common Core myth in trouble. And, no, I didn’t write…
I share those thoughts, but I didn’t write them. They actually come from an October 25, 2013 Education Week Blogs piece from Marc Tucker. Tucker actually says of the recent study that attempted to match scores for the states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress to scores from an entirely different international test: “Nice,…
The American Thinker just published an excellent article by Bruce Deitrick Price about “Sages on Stages Desperately Needed.” Price summarizes the pitfalls in supposedly “new” education methods being ushered in as a result of the Common Core State Standards. The problem is, these education ideas are not new. Worse, these education philosophies were already tried…
It seems a little ironic. A new report came out today claiming that US eighth graders in most states score somewhat above the international average on math and science tests. Aside from some concerns about the methodology employed in this report, somehow I cannot get excited about the US scoring somewhat above the international average…
In another example of how Kentucky’s complex and time-consuming to grade Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (K-PREP) assessments lead to long turn-around times for results, the Courier-Journal just announced that parents in Jefferson County are just now getting the results for their children from the last school term’s assessment cycle. How is a parent…
While Kentucky’s educators crawl along with hand-slap reforms that do little to fundamentally shake up our existing, school-choice and true-reform-hostile public schools, down river in Memphis, Tennessee, a true revolution is under way – a revolution that won Tennessee an enormous first round grant from the Race to the Top competition (Kentucky’s relative lack of…