Over the weekend the Courier-Journal ran an article with more evidence of teachers’ union interference with the expensive effort to turn around some of Jefferson County Public Schools’ (JCPS) Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLA). After first pointing out that PLAs in a number of areas around the state are making progress, the Louisville paper then points…
In the aftermath of several shocking audits that found school superintendents in some systems such as the Dayton Independent School District improperly received significant and unauthorized extra payments well above any agreed to contract figures, the Kentucky Department of Education has announced it is creating an on line repository for every school superintendent’s contract, salary…
The test cheating scandals involving teachers and other school staff in the Atlanta school system have now progressed to the point where three-dozen school staffers have been indicted. Kentucky had its own test cheating scandal on the state-run ACT testing program in Perry County several years ago. Several staff members received suspensions on their teaching…
WFPL reports the Louisville Tea Party is pushing charter schools, a saner busing policy and more fiscal accountability in the school system – all items the Bluegrass Institute has supported for some time. The word about the need is getting out!
And, when will they ever get on the same page? If students’ lives were not being ruined by the controversy, some of the nonsense coming from Thursday’s Leadership West Louisville lunch forum about the educational genocide in that city’s schools would be hilarious. During the meeting, while talking about what is needed to turn Louisville’s…
Due to the troubling rate of improvement in a large number of Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLAs) found in Jefferson County’s public schools, the entire school district has been under a microscope for some time. Concerns really started to ratchet up after the Kentucky Board of Education was told on February 6, 2013 that the worst…
The Leadership West Louisville Institute hosted one of their Lunch Forum Panel discussions today on the “Academic Genocide” going on in Louisville’s Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLAs). Panelist Terry Holliday, the Kentucky Commissioner of Education, got hit with what-if questions and came right back with some here’s-how-it-is answers. This is by far the strongest commentary yet…
No, I didn’t write that. It is the title of this Washington Post article from reporter Jay Mathews about the lack of effectiveness in many past reform fads. Of course, I did write “KERA (1990-2010) What Have We Learned.” My report outlines specific failures in Kentucky of many of the reforms that Mathews writes about.
A new move by the US Department of Education to bypass state departments of education is stirring up squabbles within the education community. Education Week reports in “Arne Duncan Spars With State K-12 Chiefs Over District Waivers (Subscription?) that the latest No Child Left Behind waiver business, where waivers are granted directly to school districts…
Another school district heads to the dust heap of consolidation following fiscal mismanagement that created irresolvable insolvency. The Wayne County Outlook reports the Monticello Independent School District breaths its last on Jun 30, 2013. Monticello is a tiny district with only 764 students per the latest 2012-13 fall membership counts. In 2012 Monticello’s 11th grade…