In 2015 the Bluegrass Institute appealed the Kentucky Board of Education’s denial of an open meetings complaint to the Office of the Kentucky Attorney General. There was nothing unusual in that act. The Kentucky Attorney General reviews multiple open meetings appeals each year. What was unusual was the fact that an esteemed public body charged…
BIPPS scholar Dr. Gary Houchens has posted a nice discussion about the impacts of scholarship tax credits on student performance in other states. The quick message, these programs allow a tax credit when donors support private non-profit groups that give needy students scholarships to attend the K to 12 school that works best for those…
Over the past few days I’ve blogged about the problems with white minus black reading and math achievement gaps in Kentucky’s elementary and middle schools since KPREP testing started in 2011-12. Today, let’s look at the high school gaps. Figure 1 shows you the white minus black proficiency rate gaps over time from the KPREP…
A few days ago I blogged about the problems with white minus black achievement gaps in Kentucky’s elementary schools since KPREP testing started in 2011-12. Today, let’s look at the middle school gaps. Figure 1 shows you the white minus black gaps in KPREP reading over the time this Common Core-aligned testing program has been…
The State Journal prevailed in an open meetings appeal to the Office of the Kentucky Attorney General in a decision issued on October 6, 2017 — 17-OMD-207 — and the Bluegrass Institute Center for Open Government played a role in its victory. Assistant Attorney General Matt James ruled that the Finance and Administration Cabinet’s refusal to…
There is a really interesting podcast from the Education Writers Association about a study conducted by reporters at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune about the impacts of school choice on what was once Minnesota’s largest school district. What happened is interesting. When charter schools and district to district transfers became available, it wasn’t white students that bailed…
Kentucky’s open records and open meetings laws are, fundamentally, public access laws. They exist to ensure any person’s right to inspect and copy public records and to attend public meetings — regardless of the person’s identity or purpose — and to create a statutory mechanism for enforcing those rights. When the laws were enacted in…
The new KPREP results for the 2017 test administration are now loaded in the Kentucky School Report Cards Database, so I took a look at how the latest elementary school level achievement gaps for white minus black proficiency rates in math and reading look. The simple answer to my question is: very disappointing. In fact,…
“It is time for Kentucky to end the continued self-congratulations about how much progress we have made educationally since the days of KERA. We must acknowledge that student learning and performance across our state is far from what it needs to be if our children are to have a chance at success in the 21st-century…
KY Ed Sec says even small improvement in education could solve state’s pension, budget problems Kentucky’s Secretary of Education and Workforce Development, Hal Heiner, made a really interesting presentation to the Kentucky Board of Education today, and we think all Kentuckians should have access to those comments. Heiner says even a small improvement in the…