“Online resources are overflowing, but reliable means to evaluate them and help teachers use them are rare.” Lawrie Mifflin in The Hechinger Report’s “How to sort the good from the bad in OER” (OER means Open Education Resources) (Note: this is particularly problematic in Kentucky where the school council in each school is responsible to…
An Open Letter to Kentucky Legislators from the Bluegrass Institute: Dear Legislators, Twenty years ago, a group of community leaders met and wondered how they could make the biggest difference in poor children’s lives in the inner city of Louisville. Their passion resulted in School Choice Scholarships and was based on the founders’ vision that children…
A new bill in the Kentucky House presents notable problems for Kentuckians interested in homeschooling. House Bill 574 from Representative Chris Harris, D – Forest Hills, would add significant new state mandates on the shoulders of parents who decide to homeschool. The bill requires: Parents to submit an affidavit attesting a homeschool student received 1,062…
Regarding claims about Kentucky’s NAEP Reading progress The Late Paul Harvey was a master at giving us “The rest of the story,” and we at BIPPS find ourselves continuing the tradition of filling in important, missing information in comments from others. Our newest case in point just chirped up in Twitter, where the Kentucky Department…
Ronda Harmon, executive director of the Kentucky Association of School Councils, recently wrote that those who question the commonwealth’s contentious School-Based Decision Making (SBDM) approach toward governing schools “somehow stand in the way of improvement” and are “public school opponents.” It’s a curious charge since groups representing superintendents, school boards and the business community openly…
How much does my child’s school really spend each year? It’s a very reasonable question, one we get asked at the Bluegrass Institute. Unfortunately, we’ve had to answer for years that we really don’t know. The reason is that the data provided by the state, such as in the Kentucky School Report Cards system, just…
The Herald-Leader reports that the Pike County School Board has voted to allow certain carefully selected and trained teacher volunteers to become armed protectors of their schools. Candidates will get a background and drug tests, mental evaluation, and a qualification course with firearms training. The Pike County Sheriff’s Office will provide this for free, keeping…
Education Week reports that Kentucky is one of 17 states that still have not submitted acceptable plans to implement the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and will now get more time to do so. As EdWeek puts it: “State departments and the boards that oversee them have been grappling with how best to comply…
And, why does Kentucky seem poised to ignore the best approach again? It’s a deep, dark secret – largely hidden for nearly half a century – something it seems most educators don’t want you to know. Project Follow Through, the most expensive and expansive education research project ever undertaken, clearly identified one, best-performing teaching approach…
Editor’s note: The Bluegrass Beacon is a weekly syndicated statewide newspaper column posted on the Bluegrass Institute website after being released to and published by newspapers statewide. “Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed,” wrote 18th century English writer Daniel Defoe in “The Political History of the Devil.” “As certain…