One of the more important features of the impending revision to Kentucky’s public school assessment and accountability program is the ending of the state’s current Priority Schools program, which started life back in 2010 as the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools program. Since its inception in 2010, a total of 47 schools have entered Priority/Persistently Low-Achieving status,…
The American Federation for Children reports the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico just issued a ruling that their hurricane-ravaged island’s new law expanding charter schools and vouchers to private schools is legal and constitutional. This throws cold water on a Puerto Rican teachers’ union effort to have the new school choice law declared unconstitutional. The…
A new article in Kentucky Forward talks about “Pew Trusts: It’s hard to manage your credit when you’ve never been taught about ‘interest.’” The article mentions a new Kentucky law that will finally require our schools to teach students something about credit and finances – beginning in 2020 – but that comes awfully slowly since…
The first-ever audit of the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) by State Auditor Mike Harmon was the subject of today’s meeting of the Budget Review Subcommittee on Justice and the Judiciary in Frankfort. Harmon’s audit raises issues identified in “Shining the Light On Kentucky’s Sunshine Laws: A Proposal for Legislative Revision,” a 2017 report by the…
With 340B being back in the news and with beneficial legislation in the works, I wanted to take the opportunity to reshare my thoughts. The 340B program, a well-intentioned program which, through bureaucratic tinkering, has gone off the rails, primarily due to a lack of oversight and transparency, is back in the news. Created in…
Regarding possible state management of the Jefferson County Public School District: “This should give the people of Jefferson County the most concern. You look at the findings of that audit, which, again, I’ve not heard anyone refute. They are incredible. They’re incredible. There are things going on in the classroom in that district with students…
We in Kentucky constantly hear about how important preschool is, but the reality might be something different. Certainly, as we’ve pointed out before, the studies done on the Head Start program indicate that any benefits fade out by the end of the third grade. More recently, an examination of a program in Tennessee added similar…
Education financials are all over the map Across the country we hear strident complaints from teachers and other educators about supposed under-funding of the nation’s public education system. Supposedly, funding is lower now than it was back in 2008 before the Great Recession started. The latest entrant in the “we demand more dollars” fray is…
While the brew continues to boil about a potential state takeover of the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), some are asking questions about how other state takeovers in Kentucky have worked out in the past. I wasn’t sure, so I decided to look at several Kentucky systems that were taken over some time ago but…
A Tweet recently showed up with a Kentucky educator claiming that Bluegrass State “education is still funded at 47th of 50 states since 2008.” I have no idea where this “stuff” comes from, but two fairly frequently cited sources from the US Census Bureau and even the National Education Association (NEA) show something different. The…