Some of the key comments from the NPR broadcast: • 40% of community college students need remedial courses • College freshmen don’t know how to study • No passion for learning • Big gap between K – 12 and Higher Ed (in 2012 less than half of Kentucky’s public high school graduates were ready for…
(Ditto for your school’s SBDM members) In a huge, multi-page article the Kentucky Enquirer reported yesterday about the difficulty that parents in Northern Kentucky and Southwest Ohio encounter when they try to contact their local school board members. Phyllis Sparks, a Boone County parent, made the general case: “Boards are always crying out loud that…
Over the weekend the Courier-Journal ran an article with more evidence of teachers’ union interference with the expensive effort to turn around some of Jefferson County Public Schools’ (JCPS) Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLA). After first pointing out that PLAs in a number of areas around the state are making progress, the Louisville paper then points…
WFPL reports the Louisville Tea Party is pushing charter schools, a saner busing policy and more fiscal accountability in the school system – all items the Bluegrass Institute has supported for some time. The word about the need is getting out!
And, when will they ever get on the same page? If students’ lives were not being ruined by the controversy, some of the nonsense coming from Thursday’s Leadership West Louisville lunch forum about the educational genocide in that city’s schools would be hilarious. During the meeting, while talking about what is needed to turn Louisville’s…
Due to the troubling rate of improvement in a large number of Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLAs) found in Jefferson County’s public schools, the entire school district has been under a microscope for some time. Concerns really started to ratchet up after the Kentucky Board of Education was told on February 6, 2013 that the worst…
The Leadership West Louisville Institute hosted one of their Lunch Forum Panel discussions today on the “Academic Genocide” going on in Louisville’s Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLAs). Panelist Terry Holliday, the Kentucky Commissioner of Education, got hit with what-if questions and came right back with some here’s-how-it-is answers. This is by far the strongest commentary yet…
No, I didn’t write that. It is the title of this Washington Post article from reporter Jay Mathews about the lack of effectiveness in many past reform fads. Of course, I did write “KERA (1990-2010) What Have We Learned.” My report outlines specific failures in Kentucky of many of the reforms that Mathews writes about.
A new move by the US Department of Education to bypass state departments of education is stirring up squabbles within the education community. Education Week reports in “Arne Duncan Spars With State K-12 Chiefs Over District Waivers (Subscription?) that the latest No Child Left Behind waiver business, where waivers are granted directly to school districts…
The Bluegrass Institute has pointed to serious problems with the transparency of information about public school superintendents for several years now with our Rewarding Failure expose. Our efforts are now being vindicated. In a press conference today, Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts Adam Edelen and Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday called for greatly…