New reports came out last week on the performance of 2017’s high school graduates across the country on the ACT college entrance test. A lot of folks are especially interested in the results for Kentucky because Common Core has been in place in the Bluegrass State longer than anywhere else. Thus, Kentucky has the longest…
This is a question we get asked frequently. Before we can intelligently answer, we first have to explain why it is misleading to rank Kentucky’s overall average scores for all students against other states. Frequent blog readers already know the answer, but it bears repeating for new readers. Table 1 shows a comparison of Kentucky’s…
The Bluegrass Institute is frequently asked about the performance of various non-public school students such as those going to private and parochial schools and those schooled at home. Unfortunately, that information is not directly available. However, many years ago I realized that I could compute scores for the state’s non-public school graduates using scores and…
The Washington Post wasted no time posting its reactions to the new ACT scores that came out today. The title of the article says it all: “‘We didn’t know it was this bad’: New ACT scores show huge achievement gaps”
As I wrote earlier today, new ACT reports for the high school graduating class of 2017 are now publicly released. There should be a lot of interest because this is the seventh year after Kentucky adopted the Common Core State Standards, which were supposed to dramatically improve college preparation. Certainly, progress towards college readiness seems…
The new ACT reports for the high school graduating class of 2017 have been publicly released, and there will be a lot to talk about concerning these important college readiness test results in the seventh year after Kentucky adopted the Common Core State Standards, which were supposed to dramatically improve college preparation. Certainly, progress towards…
Writing in Education Week, Bernard Gassaway, a former New York City public schools teacher, principal, and superintendent adds his voice of discontent about the growing deception in high school graduation rates across the nation. Too many Kentucky’s school systems are certainly playing this game by passing out thousands of “Hollow Diplomas” each year, which discrepancies…
In a publicly released letter, a group of professors from Yale, Princeton and Harvard stress the need for students to think for yourself. Here’s one highlight from the letter about a major issue on our college campuses today: “…’the tyranny of public opinion’ does more than merely discourage students from dissenting from prevailing views on…
But, the SBDM problems run much deeper If you looked at our video coverage of the testimony about School Based Decision Making (SBDM) from Monday’s meeting of the Kentucky Legislature’s Interim Joint Education Committee, you are aware that educators in the Boone County Public School District, one of the state’s more highly regarded school systems,…
Since at least the mid-1990s, Kentucky’s public schools have used a unique method of school governance built around the concept of School Based Decision Making (SBDM). This concept provides an amazing amount of power to a council located at each school to direct many important matters such as selection of curriculum, finally determining how the…