We are counting down the top 30 reasons to donate $17.92 each month to the Bluegrass Institute as part of our 1792: Never Out of Date campaign. Reason #27 to donate: You want to see Kentucky’s government bureaucrats held accountable. The Bluegrass Institute has worked to help make this happen. Our report Rewarding Failure shed…
Question: What happens Brownsville, PA when the highest paid teachers in the state have some of the poorest performing schools? Answer: The school board flatly rejects the teachers’ union’s new contract proposal. From EAGnews.org: Brownsville Area School Board director Nena Kaminsky recently made headlines when she convinced her colleagues to reject a proposed teachers union contact, and told…
We are counting down the top 30 reasons to donate $17.92 each month to the Bluegrass Institute as part of our 1792: Never Out of Date campaign. Reason #28 to donate: You want to know how Kentucky’s students are really performing and how effective our state’s education system is. We work tirelessly to paint an…
As we mentioned previously, more states – including Kentucky – now test 100 percent of their high school graduates with the ACT college entrance test. This allows a much better comparison of Kentucky’s ACT performance to such other states than was possible back in the days when only those students in each state that planned…
Sometimes, an editor in Kentucky really misses the message. A great case in point is the recent Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro) article, “ACT score gains encouraging” (subscription). The title of the article is OK; the gains Kentucky recently experienced on ACT college entrance test scores are encouraging. However, Kentucky still has a VERY long way to go,…
Even as bitter fighting over a ballot item to essentially disband the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission (NKYAPC) continues to unfold, Kenton County Clerk Gabrielle Summe now finds herself involved in another contentious ballot issue. This second ballot debate involves whether or not an open seat on the Covington Independent School District’s board should be…
‘Too many high school grads not ready for school, work’ The title of this Independent newspaper (Ashland) article, “Still Unprepared,” unfortunately says it very nicely. You have to wonder if the editor is reading our blogs, like this one.
Mary Ruble, assistant deputy executive director at the Kentucky Education Association, took issue during Tuesday’s public pensions task force meeting with a recent Bluegrass Institute claim that the state teachers union is one of several private organizations with its hand in the commonwealth’s public pension cookie jar. Ruble says “it’s simply not true” that KEA employees participate in…
A new report from the Brookings Institution indicates that vouchers in New York City that allowed African-Americans to attend private schools resulted in increased college attendance at more upscale schools. The study found: “…that using a voucher to attend private school increased the overall college enrollment rate among African Americans by 24 percent.” Interestingly, vouchers…
Action in Adair County High School provides yet another example of how parents and local taxpayers lost control in their schools when the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 created the School Based Decision Making Councils (SBDM) to rule our schools. In this case, the fight was over a plan to eliminate an agricultural teaching…