Report: School Based Decision Making Policy – A Closer Look
Read the report here.
Year one of Summit Learning in two Kentucky schools
Two middle schools in Kentucky’s Boone County Public School District adopted the Summit Learning program – one of the more frequently discussed digital learning programs – in the 2016-17 school year. We now have the first year of KPREP test results for those schools to examine, and I’ll be doing that in a couple of…
Kentucky Department of Education seeking still more feedback on the state’s Common Core-based math and English language arts standards
In an interesting surprise, the Kentucky Department of Education has started yet another public comment period on revisions to the state’s education standards for math and English language arts (reading and writing). This new comment period is announced in NEWS RELEASE No. 17-173, which currently is only available to e-mail subscribers but shortly should appear…
For those who think schools can’t overcome achievement gaps
I have been looking at the 2016-17 white minus black math proficiency rates in Kentucky’s schools and decided to see if there were any examples of schools where the achievement gap was less than five percentage points while at the same time both white and black students in the school outscored the statewide average proficiency…
Is there a big decay in education funding in Kentucky?
As we get ready to enter the 2018 legislative season, Kentuckians have been continually hearing about supposed large reductions in education funding. The latest hand-wringing example was an article titled “Schools face uphill financial picture in face of state, local cuts” published on December 10, 2017 in Ashland’s The Daily Independent. The article contains a…
Quote of the day
“When children perform near the bottom of the distribution of scores on standardized assessments in the early grades, there is minimal likelihood that they will ever make up enough academic ground to perform at significantly higher levels in later years. Put succinctly, Kentucky students who in early grades perform in the Bottom Third in reading…
White Minus Black Achievement Gap Hidden While School Council Claims Progress
More evidence that averaging test results can hide serious gap problems As the Kentucky Board of Education works through trying to revise Kentucky’s public-school assessment and accountability system following the demise of Unbridled Learning, a new example from the Dunn Elementary School in Jefferson County shows that just averaging scores for groups of students can…
How much do Kentucky’s school districts really spend per pupil?
How much does your school district really spend per pupil on education? I wish I could tell you. Want to know why I am bewildered? Click the “Read more” link. But, be prepared to be surprised. The sometimes enormous discrepancies between two of the Kentucky Department of Education’s online financial reports are absolutely shocking. Even…
WaPo: U.S. schoolchildren tumble in international reading exam rankings, worrying educators
There was lots of hand-wringing going on in Washington on Tuesday following the release of new scores from the 2016 administration of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Some takeaways from the Washington Post’s coverage include: “The United States tumbled in international rankings released Tuesday of reading skills among fourth-graders, raising warning flags…
Inequity continues in Kentucky’s schools
This is no surprise to our regular readers, but LEX18 in Lexington just posed “Kentucky Schools Becoming Less White, But Inequities Persist,” which further substantiates what we’ve been saying for years. However, there is a warning buried in the news item’s title that everyone in Kentucky needs to heed. With the state slowly becoming less…