The most sweeping education reform bill since the 2010 advent of the Common Core State Standards in Kentucky is now under consideration as Senate Bill 1 from the 2016 Regular Legislative Session (SB-1/2016). This 90 plus-page bill (including amendments) impacts a host of important areas, including: • Changing the way Kentucky’s education standards and assessments…
Fallout: Does Common Core really get students ready for college and careers? It’s no secret: the Fordham Institute has weighed in heavily in favor of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) over the past six years. Unfortunately, critics charge with increasing justification that Fordham seems to be straying from objective and useful research into something…
Parents nationwide are taking to social media to express their voluminous frustration with ludicrous math exercises introduced by public schools as a consequence of the much – and deservedly – maligned Common Core State Standards. They know these exercises don’t serve their kids well. However, our students aren’t the only ones challenged by current “math”…
During efforts to fend off a true charter school bill a few years ago, legislative friends of adults running Kentucky’s traditional schools passed the Districts of Innovation bill, which supposedly allow traditional school districts in the state to do many of the same things that work well around the country in charter schools. But the…
One of the most frequent complaints heard from anti-charter school folks in Kentucky is that these schools of choice push out harder-to-educate students, thus inflating their performance. But a Manhattan Institute report released earlier this year challenges that. Per the study summary: “Students with disabilities and students learning English are more likely to remain in…
The Courier-Journal reports that the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office just hit the Jefferson County Public School District with an Open Records Law violation for not making public information available in accordance with the law. This adds to a growing list of violations of the state’s transparency laws by various education agencies which even includes an…
Kentucky has had its share of problems with online testing, and our state is far from alone, as past blogs here, here, here, here, and here point out. However, it looks like the massive technical hurdles presented by statewide online testing have yet to be overcome. The latest example just occurred in Tennessee, where a…
Or, is it education? Or what? At the outset I want to say that it is very hard to research the question in the title of this blog. Economists spar over this one every day, and I suspect some of the discussion is far more driven by politics than actual factual understanding of what is…
National study backs up BIPPS concerns Not long ago I did a series of blogs about apparent growing inflation in KPREP test results versus scores for the same students from the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Now, a new study from a national group with lots of involvement in the Common Core State…
Several days ago I blogged about some education finance issues dealing with the relatively low amount of federal funding for education in each state versus the requirement to follow federal mandates to receive that money. Today I offer another financial examination, this time looking at how Kentucky’s largest school district stacks up in the latest…