I blogged earlier about the obvious inflation in the 2016 Unbridled Learning high school ratings for Kentucky. Let’s look at the elementary and middle school information. Table 1 shows the Unbridled Learning classification averages for elementary schools from 2012 to 2016. It also shows the individual proficiency rates for the various academic subjects tested in…
New Unbridled Learning school accountability results clearly inflated Well, it looks like a third “Out” is richly deserved for the credibility of Kentucky education’s ability to self-grade its performance. Following the same, troubled trail of Kentucky’s former KIRIS and CATS public school accountability programs, Kentucky’s Unbridled Learning public school assessment and accountability system is now…
I have been writing a lot about some obvious indications that quality control for Kentucky’s public high school diploma needs serious work. Whether we are talking about an analysis of college and career ready indicators or another analysis based on the fact that Kentucky regulation 704 KAR 3:305, Minimum requirements for high school graduation, requires…
NC choices especially help African-American males Unlike Kentucky, North Carolina already has some great school choice options for low-income students including a charter school system. Thanks to those options, that state now has evidence that especially for African-American males, schools of choice are proving far more successful at overcoming significant achievement gaps faced by these…
Sounding more like a BIPPS scholar than a member of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, Prichard analyst Susan Perkins Westin just had a rather interesting Op-Ed published in the Lexington Herald-Leader. She points out that a bill passed in 2002 to address the achievement gaps situation in Kentucky’s public schools has been largely ignored…
WKMS public broadcast radio from Murray State University says that Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin is calling for charter school legislation for the Bluegrass State in 2017. And, it looks like Kentucky could get financial help to establish charters from the federal government. Even the Prichard Committee admits that Kentucky’s chronic achievement gaps continue after more…
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…
Legislation during this year’s General Assembly requiring disclosure of public retirement benefits for all current and former lawmakers, “including their name, status, and projected or actual retirement benefit payments,” passed the Republican-run state Senate with unanimous, bipartisan support from all 38 senators and flew through the Democratically controlled House State Government Committee with 19 of…
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…