I posted a first observations blog about the new 2015 NAEP scores for all Kentucky students earlier. In that post I only compared Kentucky’s scores between the years. Unfortunately, doing valid comparisons of Kentucky’s NAEP scores to those from other states isn’t so easy. For one thing, statistical sampling errors in NAEP turn many apparent…
The results from the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were released this morning. This is going to be a challenging set of data to evaluate due to a number of factors I will be discussing in future blogs as the various issues come up. In any event, I know many are interested in…
Situation is much worse for black students Back in early September I introduced our readers to a new concept in high school graduation rate reporting for Kentucky that I dubbed the “Effective High School Graduation Rate.” My September 4, 2015 blog, “Kentucky’s Effective High School Graduation Rate,” provides a detailed explanation of this calculation, but…
Richard Innes, the Bluegrass Institute’s staff education analyst, will be on air live with Pastor Jerry Stephenson on Louisville’s WLLV AM 1240 starting at 10:30 am Friday, October 23, 2015. Innes and Pastor Stephenson will be talking about new testing results for Louisville area schools including a disturbing answer to a puzzle about white and…
Were Common Core critics right? One of the most astonishing comments to come out of the Kentucky Board of Education’s October 6, 2015 meeting came from Bob King, the president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE). King said his group was seriously considering radical revisions to entering college courses to create a remediation-course-free…
The Kentucky Legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on Education held a series of discussions about school choice options that might work in the state on Monday, October 12, 2015. One of the major topics covered was the Scholarship Tax Credit program where businesses can get a tax credit for making investments in children with scholarships that…
Don’t know what Education Savings Accounts are or how they are opening up great education opportunities for students in other states who are not thriving in the one-size-must-fit-all traditional public education system? Now you have an easy way to find out. Dr. Vicki Alger is a real expert on school choice issues such as Education…
Don’t know what Education Savings Accounts are or how they are opening up great education opportunities for students in other states who are not thriving in the one-size-must-fit-all traditional public education system? Now you have an easy way to find out. Dr. Vicki Alger is a real expert on school choice issues such as Education…
Editor’s note: Since this column was originally released on Sept. 17, the commonwealth finally – finally – posted the KentuckyWired contract. However, the points made here about this big-government boondoggle remain very timely and relevant. If Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration wants taxpayers to trust it to build KentuckyWired – a $350 million, 3,000-mile high-speed Internet…
The Daily Times from Glasgow reports that “Barren Circuit Judge Phillip Patton agreed with an earlier decision by the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General that the Glasgow Independent Schools Board of Education willfully violated the Open Meetings Act in a judgement (sic) entered on Thursday.” In addition to this reconfirmed violation by the Glasgow…