I’ve recently been writing about a highly problematic report from Johns Hopkins University titled “For All Kids, How Kentucky is Closing the High School Graduation Gap for Low-Income Students.” The Hopkins report has many problems, but the biggest issue is fundamental. The report assumes that diplomas awarded in different states require the same level of…
As Kentucky’s education leaders debate education reforms again, a thought-provoking article in the Denver Post is worth consideration. In “If educators don’t buy in, education reform fails” author Dick Hilker points to an obvious history of remarkable resistance within the nation’s education system to making substantial changes. Although there have been massive efforts at education…
It took a lot of questioning and independent research, but the authors of a recent report from Johns Hopkins University called “For All Kids, How Kentucky is Closing the High School Graduation Gap for Low-Income Students” finally admitted – only after we collected some rather compelling evidence – that they altered high school graduation rate…
Hillary Clinton supported charter schools before being endorsed by the big teachers’ unions and receiving access to their cash and get-out-the-vote efforts. Clinton wrote in her memoir “It Takes a Village” that she favors “promoting choice among public schools,” while later claiming “charter schools are a way of bringing teachers and parents and communities together.”…
We have written several times in the last month (here, here, here and here) about a recent report from Johns Hopkins University titled “For All Kids, How Kentucky is Closing the High School Graduation Gap for Low-Income Students.” It appears Hopkins is starting to listen – a little. After Hopkins and GradNation ran a webinar…
One of the most confusing things for the Kentucky public to understand about results from the ACT college entrance test is what do the scores really mean. So, in this blog we will first look at how the scores are reported and then take a look at how Kentucky’s public school students are doing with…
Do Common Core State Standards Play a Role? News articles about 2016 ACT performance in individual school districts are starting to appear, and a comment from the Henderson Gleaner’s coverage of the Henderson County Public School District’s scores caught my eye. Per the Gleaner: “While Algebra II is a graduation requirement, most Henderson students don’t…
We took a look last Wednesday at Kentucky’s ACT college entrance test achievement gaps computed across all the state’s students from public, private and home schools combined. The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) also released some data about the Kentucky public school graduates’ 2016 ACT performance, and that data allows a limited (Composite Score Only)…
The title of the Prichard Committee’s blog says it nicely. “ACT results show far too few Kentucky high school graduates have academic preparation they need for postsecondary pursuits.” No, we didn’t write this for them. But, we agree. Clearly, Kentucky needs some fresh ideas. While the Prichard Committee probably won’t ever include charter schools in…
Our Wednesday, August 24, 2016 blogs only cover overall average scores for all students from public, private and home schools combined. Today, we dig deeper into the data, looking at performance over time separately for Kentucky’s overall student scores, public school only scores, and non-public school only scores (including both private and home school students…