With a review of the Common Core State Standards implementation in Kentucky already under way, it looks like still more states are finding the need to either drop or, as in North Carolina, at least consider adjusting these controversial standards. These state-by-state efforts are going to take the “common” out of Common Core, of course.
Teachers starting to speak out in Kentucky No, I didn’t create the title for this blog. It comes from an article written by Jeff Jobe, editor of Jobe Publishing Company. This article ran in that firm’s multiple newspapers that that cover the Barren, Butler, Metcalfe, Monroe and Hart County areas. Examples include the Hart County…
A long awaited audit of the Fayette County School system, which serves Lexington, Kentucky, has finally been released and some of the findings are incredibly troubling. According to the first news release from the Lexington Herald-Leader, the auditor’s findings include: • Weaknesses in budget and financial-management processes, • Administrative and management salary increases that outpace…
It was a “how’s that again” moment. I was just informed that when Indiana dropped the Common Core State Standards, the US Department of Education told the Hoosiers they had to introduce new tests right away to keep their No Child Left Behind waiver. As mentioned in this recent Education Week article, Indiana was not…
Bluegrass Institute president Jim Waters will appear on the Leland Conway Show on Lexington’s NewsRadio 630 WLAP-AM on Thursday at 8:05 a.m. to talk about the federal government’s handouts of surplus military equipment to local police departments. Also, what about that fancy jet the governor’s office was given. Of course, someone paid for that plane, which, even…
Charges similar to ones being made by Kentucky’s education commissioner I wrote several days ago about claims from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday that the US Department of Education (USED) is overstepping its bounds and violating laws by trying to dictate education policy to Kentucky. It looks like Kentucky isn’t the only place where…
Kentucky was the first state to adopt the Common Core State Standards and the first to implement tests in math and reading that were aligned to those standards. And, those standards have proved increasingly controversial. So, it makes sense that the Kentucky Commissioner of Education has pushed up his original plan to revisit those standards…
In a set of comments that sound like things we have been saying for years at the Bluegrass Institute, the Kentucky School Boards Association reports Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday is exploding about federal intrusion into the state’s management of its education program. The specific trigger, according to the school boards group, is that…
If you have not taken time to read our major charter school debate with UK professors Wayne Lewis and Martin Solomon, you owe it to yourself and Kentucky’s children to take some time to do so. The professors provide a good introduction into the issues of establishing charter schools in Kentucky from the viewpoint of…
We always get questions about how Kentucky stacks up against other states on the ACT whenever new scores come out (the 2014 scores were released yesterday). Unfortunately, several issues make it a little tricky to answer this request, so I explain later in this blog why I look at the performance of only white students,…