Even though Kentucky’s new statewide minimum high school graduation requirements were approved during the December 5, 2018 meeting of the Kentucky Board of Education, the subject continues to draw major attention and controversy. I was party to a discussion on the Kentucky Tonight October 15, 2018 show about what was then being proposed for the…
Over at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Flypaper Blog, Mike Petrilli just posted an echo of things I’ve been talking about for a long time regarding education, stating “Identifying ‘what works’ is still a work in progress.” Petrilli’s article points to major concerns I always have when I hear educators talk about using “what the…
As regular readers know, I have a number of concerns with the current draft of Kentucky’s social studies standards revision. The standards seem overly general and vague, leaving teachers, curriculum developers and test writers to guess about what is really to be included, and at what grade. One of the areas of my greatest concern…
During the Kentucky Board of Education meeting today, board member Gary Houchens (a Bluegrass Institute Board of Scholars member, BTW) mentioned that I have concerns about the draft social studies standards revision the board is considering. Since he made that public, I think our readers deserve to see my observations paper, too. Click here to…
The Kentucky Board of Education met today and a number of important items were on the agenda. Action was taken on a final version of a much-revised set of minimum high school graduation requirements. These have been steadily watered down as various education interests have pointed to supposed problems with earlier, notably more rigorous versions…
I wrote earlier that the Herald-Leader reported a few days ago that Kentucky now requires candidates to produce a high school transcript proving completion of the 12th grade to be shown to county clerks when registering to run for a local school board position. The Herald-Leader says nothing about a high school diploma being acceptable.…
The Herald-Leader reported a few days ago that Kentucky now requires candidates to produce a high school transcript proving completion of the 12th grade to be shown to county clerks when registering to run for a local school board position. The Herald-Leader says nothing about a high school diploma being acceptable. The article says only…
The Kentucky School Boards Association (KSBA) just posted their comments on a proposed set of changes to the Kentucky high school graduation requirements. In their comments, the KSBA takes issue with the planned use of the ACT college entrance test results as one of a number of ways that Kentucky’s students can show they meet…
As we mentioned earlier, Jim Waters, the CEO of the Bluegrass Institute, was among those who testified yesterday to the Kentucky Legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on Education about problems with Kentucky’s very unique approach to public school governance know as School Based Decision Making (SBDM) (You can access the KET video of the entire hearing…
EdChoice just did EdChoice recently released a report about “SURVEYING FLORIDA SCHOLARSHIP FAMILIES, Experiences and Satisfaction with Florida’s Tax-Credit Scholarship Program.” According to the EdChoice report: “Florida’s tax-credit scholarship program serves some of the state’s most disadvantaged students. Recipients are primarily non-white students from low-income families—often with household incomes well below the poverty line. During…