WFPL reports that after 12 years of operation, the Kentucky Virtual High School (KVHS) program is shutting down. The Kentucky Department of Education operated KVHS offered a variety of on-line study options from high level Advanced Placement courses to standard high school courses and even remedial options. As I discussed several years ago, KVHS turned…
Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday has some sobering comments about how increasing health care costs for state employees and retirees are unsustainable. In his discussion of the ballooning costs, Holliday simply declares: “The current path is not sustainable.” Holliday candidly admits this is “well above my pay grade” to solve, but his department and…
One of the more interesting presentations at the February 1, 2012 meeting of the Kentucky Board of Education was offered by the Kentucky School Boards Association’s (KSBA) ‘eMeeting’ team. eMeeting is a computer-based meeting support program for groups like local and state boards of education. It allows automated development of the meeting agenda and support…
The Bowling Green Daily News has a very good editorial about the case for authorizing charter schools in Kentucky. The editors at this paper get it. Parents should have choices so their kids don’t get trapped in under-performing schools. Why do establishment educators somehow feel they have an unrestricted entitlement to per-pupil funding that is…
Bluegrass Institute president Jim Waters discusses how charter schools have the flexibility to be creative and many times force existing public schools to improve…
Eyes rolled as soon as he said it. Dejuan Wright, a Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) teacher, made a blanket statement in his testimony before the Kentucky House Education Committee on February 14, 2012. Said Wright: “One record I’d like to set straight today is that JCPS scored four points higher in both reading and…
“Have you ever noticed that the people who speak in opposition to charter schools tend to represent those who are employed by school systems, while those who speak in favor of charter schools represent the students? Makes you wonder, just which group do the schools exist to serve: employees or students?” Rich Gimmel, President of…
Louisville, KY. – The Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) is sponsoring an educational forum on charter schools and parental choice options for failing black and low income students within Jefferson County Public Schools and throughout Kentucky. Dr. Howard Fuller, the pioneer education reformer and one of the nations’s most distinguished advocates for providing children from black…
This week the US Department of Education announced that Kentucky will receive “full flexibility,” as Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) spokesperson Lisa Gross characterized it, from many requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Under NCLB, Kentucky’s schools were required to bring all students to a 100 percent proficiency rate in…
Monday night, Bluegrass Institute education analyst Richard Innes took part in a panel discussion on KET’s ‘Kentucky Tonight’ about raising the high school dropout age to 18 across the state.