Concerned with obvious problems with the way local Kentucky schools and school boards are managing their money, Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts Adam Edelen’s office has released a set of 75 suggestions for how boards can do their job more efficiently. These recommendations should be very helpful to local school board members and others who…
I wrote a few days ago in this blog about learning by accident that a public review of the proposed revision to Kentucky’s social studies standards had been announced by Commissioner Terry Holliday in a “Fast Five on Friday” e-mail to school staff. That Fast Five went out way back on June 26, 2015. A…
I talked in January about evidence that Kentucky’s rather large high school graduation rates are possibly due at least in part to social promotion of students who really shouldn’t be getting a diploma. Now, more evidence of graduation pumping comes from the Washington Post’s Jay Mathews in “Mom wanted her daughter to flunk, but the…
Jane Robbins, a senior fellow at American Principles in Action, obviously shares my concerns about the recently announced demise of three important college readiness tests that have been used in Kentucky for a number of years. With ACT’s EXPLORE, PLAN and Compass tests all being shut down, Kentucky is going to lose important trend lines…
One of the more unfortunate outcomes from the introduction of the Common Core State Standards is the re-ignition of the “Math Wars” that raged in the early 1990s. This reinstitution of “hostilities” leaves our children at risk while educators cite inadequate research to fuss back and forth about how math really should be taught. One…
To be sure, there has already been considerable controversy about attempts to revise Kentucky’s public school social studies course standards. The squabble started in the Kentucky Board of Education’s October 7, 2014 meeting when a proposed revision to the social studies standards was severely criticized by Kentucky’s History Teacher of the Year, Donnie Wilkerson. Wilkerson…
If ever a well-intentioned government program was trusted too much and verified too little, it’s the 340B Drug Pricing plan created by Congress in 1992 to help indigent and uninsured patients acquire costly prescription medicines. The policy forces manufacturers to sell those drugs to participating hospitals at reduced rates; some price at more than 50…
Progress checks on Common Core being lost!!!! To my great dismay, the Kentucky Department of Education has announced it will not administer the ACT Inc.’s EXPLORE and PLAN tests in the fall of 2015, ending use of this important, well-established set of college readiness tests a year ahead of schedule. Kentucky used EXPLORE to test…
I was pleased to participate in a recent Kentucky Tonight broadcast on KET along with Kentucky Senator Mike Wilson, Kentucky Representative Derrick Graham, incumbent head of the Prichard Committee Brigitte Blom Ramsey and guest show host Renee Shaw (show online here). We had a lively discussion about many education issues that are likely to come…
On June 29, 2015 the Ashland Independent reported in “Auditor blisters Fairview school in report” that yet another case of improper use of school funds – this time in the Fairview Independent School District – is being referred to law enforcement and the Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board, an indication of the seriousness of the…