As I wrote yesterday, with the Kentucky legislature coming back into session, a big question to be decided is whether the state will continue to use the Common Core State Standards for its English language arts and math standards. Already, lines are forming, and poorly-aimed shots were fired last week in an Op-Ed that appeared…
With the Kentucky legislature coming back into session, a number of education issues are heating up. One of the more hotly debated topics will be whether the state continues to use the Common Core State Standards for its English language arts and math standards. Because Kentucky was the first state to adopt the Common Core…
By Richard G. Innes, Staff Education Analyst As lawmakers prepare to resume the 2017 session of the Kentucky General Assembly after already passing historic labor reforms, pension transparency requirements and pro-life bills this year, their attention now turns to education policy and a vigorous debate about making Kentucky the 44th state to allow charter schools.…
There was a charter school conference at the Midwest Church of Christ in Louisville this week, and we captured video of some of the speakers, including the comments by Kentucky Representative Phil Moffett about his bill to bring charter schools to Kentucky. We’ll let Rep. Moffett tell you about his bill, which is House Bill…
Despite the snowy weather (check the video below), the heat for school choice in Kentucky was turned way up today at the state’s first School Choice Week Rally. Here are comments from one of the event’s speakers, Professor Gary Houchens, who is a member of the Kentucky Board of Education and also a member of…
Provides more evidence that blacks get left behind/Need other options Since the founding days of the Bluegrass Institute about 14 years ago, we have pushed the need for more school choice in Kentucky. That evidence includes our extensive discussions of the chronic achievement gaps for whites and blacks in Kentucky’s public school system in many…
There hasn’t been a lot of coverage of examples of charter schools working together with traditional schools to boost the performance of both, but examples are out there. For example, in 2010 Education Week reported, “Charters and Public Schools Team Up in Texas” (subscription?). Aside from the collaboration in the Rio Grande area of Texas,…
As we get closer to a charter school system in Kentucky, opponents of school choice are ramping up their largely self-serving attacks to a fever pitch in order to either derail this important effort altogether or to load the legislation with poison pills that will insure Bluegrass State charters fail. This past Sunday, for example,…
Kentucky has a major problem with white minus black achievement gaps and it is especially apparent in the state’s results over time from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Grade 8 Reading Assessment. The NAEP didn’t start to collect state level eighth grade reading data until 1998, but by now we still have a…
It’s National School Choice Week, and there are many telling reasons why Kentucky needs to expand school choice options for all students. However, the case is especially critical when we consider what is happening to the state’s largest racial minority, its black students. Comparisons of the earliest and most recent data from the National Assessment…