A new audit on operations in the Jefferson County School District’s central office, “Final Report of a Study of the ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CENTRAL OFFICE STAFFING, FUNCTIONS, AND OPERATIONS,” says on page 28 that “Transportation services were found to be very expensive, amounting to $54,648,585 in 2008-09, $57,085,703 in 2009-10, and $62,544,974 in 2010-11.” That’s…
Could be first time high-tech forensic test analysis has resulted in Kentucky certification consequences The Hazard-Herald reports that two Perry County educators, Rebecca Dobson and Jonathan Jett, have had professional certificates suspended and will face restrictions on their activities as educators even after their certificates are reinstated. These actions are the first to be taken…
You can’t lose money – if you’re an educator in Jefferson County The table below shows what happened to the first nine principals to be removed from the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools in Jefferson County. This table tells a very unsatisfactory tale. All of the principals were removed from these schools for cause (each principal had…
Oh, Boy, is teacher ‘Professional Development’ fun in Louisville! Professional Development is what educators call continuing education for teachers. Check this comment: “(An administrator has in the past provided) professional development (off campus) with a corkage fee for alcohol showing on the invoice for payment, and rebuked financial services for questioning the expenditure.” In other…
Will tie teacher pay and evaluation to improved student performance It has taken several years, but with final begrudging approval of the teachers union in Louisville, at least four of the city’s many Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLA schools) will use the “Transformation Model” to try to turn chronic low performance for students around. Under this…
A ‘follow the money’ adventure! Go ahead, set your own salary!!! I got a tip recently that the number of Jefferson County Public Schools employees earning over $100,000 annually is way out of line with similar sized school districts around the rest of the country. While I am still researching that, I now know one…
It looks like a bill to increase Kentucky’s minimum high school dropout age to 18 will enter the legislative process again this year, so I decided to update a little study I did last year. For starters, there is already research that questions the effectiveness of the Age 18 idea. When Massachusetts looked at similar…
North Carolina is changing its high school assessments and will begin testing all of its juniors with the ACT college entrance test. This past year, nine states tested all, or nearly all, of their high school graduates with the ACT. This provides these states with valuable information about how well they are preparing students for…
A group of Kentucky education organizations has banded together to grab a bigger percentage of a very stressed state tax pot. These education folks are quick to point to some decay in one element of our overall education funding for schools while totally ignoring the reality that overall, taxpayers have made some pretty decent increases…
A new group has put some serious energy behind a push for charter schools in Kentucky. The group, Kentuckians Advocating Reform in Education, hopes that Kentucky will cease to be one of a small number of states with no broad-based charter school law. Here’s the ad the group has been running around the commonwealth. This…