Or geography and civics, either New results from 2014 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in eighth grade history, civics and geography are out, and Education Week reports the kids flat lined with the dismal performance from four years earlier in 2010. What kids across the country know about those subjects is apparently truly dismal.…
Hechinger isn’t exactly a conservative operation (HQ at Columbia Teachers College in New York City), but they are increasingly raising questions about the viability of the Common Core. In their latest post, “Are the Common Core tests turning out to be a big success or a resounding failure?” this education news crew says: “Last week,…
A New York Times article says it plainly. While teachers’ unions across the country are starting to align with parents and conservatives to fight what they say is excessive testing in schools, the Times writes: “In Kentucky, where the education commissioner has said parents do not have the right to opt their children out of…
While Kentucky has failed to even enact one of the most basic forms of school choice, charter schools, education programs in other states are moving out even farther ahead of us into much more dramatic school choice-territory. Several days ago Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed into law a school-voucher bill for his state that gives…
Educators going to jail for Atlanta cheating scandal The wheels of justice have ground slowly, but they are grinding hard. A massive cheating scandal with Georgia’s school assessments was uncovered quite some time ago, but the court decisions have now finally arrived. And it is clear that the courts have little tolerance for school people…
KET ran a special show on Common Core implementation in Kentucky’s classrooms last night, but rather than feeling like I was seeing something new, it seemed like I was in an early 1990s time warp. The show, which didn’t include a single critic of Common Core, was focused on what is supposedly changing in the…
Do Kentucky’s students with more exposure to Common Core really learn faster? This question arose thanks to a recent Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded report from the American Institutes for Research (AIR). That AIR report cites supposed “faster progress in learning” of students in Kentucky following the state’s changeover to the use of Common…
Sounding more than a little like us, a weekend article from the Ledger-Independent admits it, a full quarter of a century after the passage of the now legendary Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, major school problems have not been fixed in this state. Of course, school folks are quick to blame others like the…
By Gary W. Houchens, Ph.D. Bluegrass Institute Scholar Kentuckians are concerned about the quality of their schools and so, like many other states, the commonwealth has focused a lot of attention recently on improving its teacher evaluation system. Research is clear that the quality of the classroom teacher is one of the single biggest contributors…
Here in Kentucky, students have to accept a preordained party line In a stunning development that caught many by surprise, the West Virginia Board of Education has added an interesting feature into its new adoption of standards for science. WSAZ-3 reports that in West Virginia: “…students will be allowed to use scientific models to draw…