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New test results raise questions about claims of progress

February 29, 2012 By 1 Comment

Yesterday the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) released the testing results from the fall for the PLAN and EXPLORE testing in Kentucky.

These two tests are coordinated at the grade appropriate level with the ACT college entrance test and use similar Benchmark Scores to show if students are on track to be successful in college and careers.

The EXPLORE is given to eighth grade students in Kentucky while our 10th graders take the PLAN.

Since I participated in a panel on charter schools in Louisville last night (more on that later), the first analysis I did on the new data focused on Kentucky’s largest school district. The table below shows what I found.

Among Louisville’s 21 regular high schools (special alternative schools don’t get test results), the majority – 14 of them – had really disappointing results for PLAN mathematics performance. In these 14 schools (highlighted in pink) fewer than 20 percent of the students scored at or above the PLAN Math Benchmark Score.

That means the overwhelming majority of the students in those schools are not on track for college and careers.

In a real shock, six of the schools posted math benchmark performance in the single-digit category. Fewer than one in ten of the students in those schools are on track to survive the first college math course they would take in a two- or four-year postsecondary school.

District wide, Jefferson County’s 10th grade students scored below the statewide math benchmark, as well.

Statewide, the new PLAN 2011-2012 Profile Summary Report shows that our students scored well below the national norm PLAN score for mathematics set in 2010, leaving Jefferson County even farther behind that national norm.

Clearly, a lot more needs to happen for kids in math, both statewide and in the state’s largest school system. PLAN makes that very clear.

And, as I recently pointed out here and here, the relative performance improvement in charter schools versus non-charter schools for math make these schools of choice and innovation look even more attractive for Kentucky.

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Jefferson County’s gain will be Kentucky’s loss

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

With the announcement of a new administrative cabinet in the Jefferson County Public School system comes the unhappy news that Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) Associate Commissioner Dewey Hensley will be leaving state service to return to his former school district.

Hensley’s new post will be as Chief Academic Officer in the reformed Jefferson County Public School District’s administrative cabinet. There, I suspect he will focus his considerable energy and talent to turn the entire Jefferson County school system around in a manner similar to his former successful efforts in the J.B Atkinson Elementary School. Atkinson is located in that school system.

Hensley will be leaving the KDE’s Office of District 180, which refers to the department’s activities to turn around (as in a 180 degree change) the state’s persistently low-performing school systems. He was also crucial in implementing statewide initiatives on digital learning.

Lisa Gross at the KDE indicates a replacement for Hensley has not been named, and it is possible an interim District 180 head might be appointed while the KDE makes a more extensive search to fill this very crucial position.

While Dr. Hensley’s service at KDE was fairly brief, he definitely made major contributions, including establishing programs to deal with over 40 Kentucky Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.

I suspect Dr. Hensley will be sorely missed by Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday, but the ailing system in Jefferson County certainly needs dramatic and energetic senior leadership, too. Jefferson County Superintendent Donna Hargens could not have made a more solid selection for her senior academic leader.

However, it remains to be seen if the Hargens/Hensley team can overcome strongly entrenched adult interests in Jefferson County to effect real change for the system’s students.

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Jefferson County Public Schools in decline!

January 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

NO, WE DIDN’T SAY IT (this time)!!!

This week we’ve been taking a look at a new audit on operations in the Jefferson County School District’s central office, “Final Report of a Study of the ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CENTRAL OFFICE STAFFING, FUNCTIONS, AND OPERATIONS.”

This shocking report outlines a host of major management problems in this clearly troubled school system, which is by far the largest in Kentucky.

Our earlier posts have concentrated on money and management issues, but we now turn to the shocking comments from the audit team about the primary mission of the school district, education of students (No, it isn’t supposed to be provision of cushy, high paying jobs to adults!).

Page 20 of the report pretty much says it all by itself:

“In recent years, achievement has declined. The percentage of students achieving the Kentucky standard of proficiency in reading in spring of 2011 was 63.25 percent, which was actually lower than the percentage achieving proficiency four years earlier in 2007, when achievement proficiency of students was 63.79 percent. By all indications, the initiatives to improve student achievement have failed over the past four years.”

As a note, the Kentucky Department of Education’s 2011 NCLB Expanded Data File (an Excel spreadsheet) actually shows the reading proficiency rate in Jefferson County was 63.79 percent in 2011, not 63.25 percent (which WAS the proficiency rate in 2010, however). However, the fact that at best there has been no improvement in reading in Jefferson County since 2007 is still depressing.

Whether stagnant or in decline, Jefferson County’s reading progress, or lack thereof, since Sheldon Berman signed on as superintendent certainly indicates no-one was paying adequate attention to the school system’s true, primary mission (which WAS NOT busing kids all over town).

By the way, this stagnant or slightly declining reading performance stands IN SHARP CONTRAST to the nonsense the Louisville school system is telling the public about the performance of its Every1Reads program. The home page for Every1Reads claims:

“The number of children reading below grade level is now approximately 8.5 percent – down from nearly 20 percent before the Every 1 Reads initiative started.”

That is deceptive bunk. It is based on calling any kid reading above the level of Novice on the Kentucky Core Content Tests a success story.

Clearly, the auditors would not buy into this deception that there has been reading progress where it counts (getting kids to read at the proficient level).

Getting back to the audit, the report also cites these telling comments from administrators in the Jefferson County system:

• “Our scores have gone down since 2007 when we got the new Superintendent. (During the last) four years there was no focus on assessment or accountability.” (Maybe there is an update to the Excel file mentioned above)
• “In the last four years, the schools have become a distraction and a detriment to the community.”
• “The (district) failed to act (to fill the vacancy of) a Title I Director for four years which may have been in violation of Federal Law.”
• “We don’t use our evaluation process to improve student growth—we find generic evaluations, no walk throughs to monitor teaching that are specific and growth focused. No system to evaluate effectiveness of what we do.”

There is still more. If your stomach allows, you can check it out for yourself in the report, but the comments above nicely outline the problem. Jefferson County is sick academically. Even administrators in the system know it. Let’s hope that this first step, getting a hard-nosed audit of the problems, will now be translated into real action that helps Jefferson County perform its primary mission a lot more effectively (and, NO, that isn’t busing or creating a great, good old boy/girl place to work for adults!!!).

Note to Jefferson County superintendent Donna Hargens: You can generate some quick credibility by changing the deceptive progress reporting for Every1Reads. The basic idea of this program is good, but the metric is pure deception. Sheldon Berman had a chance to make this right in 2007 and flunked the test. You now have a chance to get this program on a new and more accurate footing that might also help you make the case to potential volunteers that many more of your kids need help.

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Still Another Jefferson County Public Schools ‘follow the money’ adventure!

January 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A new audit on operations in the Jefferson County School District’s central office, “Final Report of a Study of the ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CENTRAL OFFICE STAFFING, FUNCTIONS, AND OPERATIONS,” says on page 28 that “Transportation services were found to be very expensive, amounting to $54,648,585 in 2008-09, $57,085,703 in 2009-10, and $62,544,974 in 2010-11.”

That’s a 14.4 percent increase in just a two-year period. This is different from earlier transportation cost figures for Jefferson County, which the audit says were inaccurate.

Some other interesting points:

• 70.7 percent of all students in Jefferson County are bused.
• Nationwide, only 49 percent of the country’s students are bused.
• Real cost to bus in Jefferson County in 2010 was $902.85 per student.
• An earlier, erroneous, report by the Council of Great City Schools said the per pupil busing cost was only $650 per student.

The auditors did not specifically identify the reasons for the disparities, saying:

“It will take considerable work and study to determine what the problems and issues are in achieving an adequate and efficient transportation system.”

Why hasn’t this obvious and important work already been accomplished? Well, it seems that such management hasn’t been a priority despite the huge sums being spent. Why do I say this? The auditors also say:

“Incredibly, the number of pupils bused is apparently not monitored or tallied by the JCPS transportation department.”

Good grief! How can this incompetently run school bus system not even know how many students it is serving? How can you possibly budget and plan when things are this chaotic.

Is ANYONE paying attention to anything in Louisville?!!!

Jefferson County superintendent Donna Hargens clearly has her work cut out for her.

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More Jefferson County Public Schools ‘follow the money’ adventures

January 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You can’t lose money – if you’re an educator in Jefferson County

The table below shows what happened to the first nine principals to be removed from the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools in Jefferson County. This table tells a very unsatisfactory tale.

All of the principals were removed from these schools for cause (each principal had been in place at least three years before removal). Never the less:

• The vast majority remained employed (one retired) and
• Most of the transferees got jobs that appear to be lower responsibility positions (3 to assistant principal positions, three to staff jobs).

But, despite the demotions:
• Only one individual experienced a slight loss in these very high salaries after transfer to other positions in the Jefferson County system.
• One person was demoted from principal to assistant principal and got a nine percent pay raise!

The auditors said:

“Why the transfers occurred, despite the substantive failure in remediating achievement deficiencies in the previous school, was not explained to the reviewers.”

The audit also says:

“The practice of moving some principals from failing schools to jobs with lesser responsibilities but with the same salary (raises) serious questions about hiring practices. Moreover, the transfer to a new position without competing or even interviewing, does not assure that the most qualified person available obtains the position.”

Why should the taxpayer have to continue paying six-digit salaries to people who have been demoted? Were other, more qualified, individuals bypassed for jobs?

This highly disturbing information appears beginning on page 13 in the new “Final Report of a Study of the ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CENTRAL OFFICE STAFFING, FUNCTIONS, AND OPERATIONS” from the Jefferson County audit.

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Another Jefferson County Public Schools ‘follow the money’ adventure!

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Oh, Boy, is teacher ‘Professional Development’ fun in Louisville!

Professional Development is what educators call continuing education for teachers.

Check this comment:

“(An administrator has in the past provided) professional development (off campus) with a corkage fee for alcohol showing on the invoice for payment, and rebuked financial services for questioning the expenditure.”

In other words, the taxpayer picked up the tab for alcoholic beverages served during a teacher “professional development” activity. Sound incredible?

This gem comment appears on page 31 in the new “Final Report of a Study of the ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CENTRAL OFFICE STAFFING, FUNCTIONS, AND OPERATIONS” from the Jefferson County audit.

The auditors also took issue with $1.56 million being spent on feeding adult employees in the school system. The auditors said this money “should have been directed to the students.”

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Finally, Jefferson County Schools will try different school turn around model

January 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Will tie teacher pay and evaluation to improved student performance

It has taken several years, but with final begrudging approval of the teachers union in Louisville, at least four of the city’s many Persistently Low-Achieving Schools (PLA schools) will use the “Transformation Model” to try to turn chronic low performance for students around.

Under this model, teachers won’t be transferred from the school, but they will receive more intensive professional development and other supports to try and improve educational performance. Teachers who do well in successful turn-around schools under this model also can earn incentives like extra pay and forgiveness of student loans. Actual student performance will be used as part of the evaluation of teacher performance.

Up until this time, the only turn-around option that has been tried in Louisville is called the “Staff Replacement Model.” This model is supposed to result in replacement of the principal and half or more of the teachers in a PLA school, but for various reasons the actual replacements in Jefferson County’s PLA schools has generally run lower than 50 percent. A real problem with this model is that teachers who get replaced don’t leave the school system, but generally get transferred elsewhere. That can result in simply moving a problem around as the transferred teacher isn’t likely to get any special professional development to improve.

Outside of Louisville, so far the Transformation Model has been the method of choice to turn around PLA schools in Kentucky.

I took a look after the first year of results from the PLAN and EXPLORE tests for PLA schools became available back in March of 2011.

The Transformation Model schools (all those outside of Jefferson County) did notably better on high quality tests from the ACT, Incorporated than the schools from Louisville, which were all using another model known as the “Staff Replacement” model.


As you can see, the results were mostly positive or at least neutral for the non-Jefferson County schools using the Transformation Model.

In notable contrast, performance fell in the majority of the Jefferson County schools, was neutral in one, and only increased in one.

I want to stress that the information in this table provides only preliminary evidence. The picture could change as we get more years of data, but it does provide encouragement that using the Transformation Model for school turnaround in Louisville is a worthwhile trial project.

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Jefferson County Public Schools – No wonder school costs are so high

January 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A ‘follow the money’ adventure!

Go ahead, set your own salary!!!

I got a tip recently that the number of Jefferson County Public Schools employees earning over $100,000 annually is way out of line with similar sized school districts around the rest of the country. While I am still researching that, I now know one reason why this is so, and the reason is shocking.

A new report says administrator salaries in Jefferson County Schools are indexed to the teachers’ union contract salaries. When the union gets a raise, so do all the administrators.

But, it gets MUCH WORSE!

Apparently, “…the key individual who represented the JCPS board in negotiating teacher salaries” is in the group of administrators whose salaries are indexed by that contract.

This is an outrageous betrayal of the taxpayer’s trust. The person negotiating the union’s contract on behalf of taxpayers stood to personally benefit from letting the union get as high a raise as possible.

Sound incredible?

Read about it on page 37 in the new “Final Report of a Study of the ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CENTRAL OFFICE STAFFING, FUNCTIONS, AND OPERATIONS” from the Jefferson County audit.

The auditors concluded:

“This practice presents a major issue for a potential conflict of interest always being a factor in the negotiations process.”

Well, I guess so!

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Departing state auditor regrets leaving “one rock unturned” – School district efficiency

January 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Former two-term Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts “Crit Luallen said the one area she didn’t get to thoroughly investigate was the efficiency of Kentucky’s 174 local school district administrations.”

Ryan Alessi has the details on CN|2.

Luallen’s comments are particularly ironic given a new audit released just before Christmas on Jefferson County Public Schools, the largest system by far in the state. The audit found massive operational problems that raise very serious questions about how our tax dollars have been spent in Louisville’s school system.

It is extra ironic as the usual group of school booster organizations have announced that they will start to ‘put the arm’ on the legislature tomorrow to send even more money to a system that needs to first work much more efficiently with the massive proportion of state tax dollars it already receives.

And, Crit Luallen knows it.

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Kentucky finally lands Race to the Top money

December 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Will fund two worthwhile efforts

The federal government may be sending us a message about our public education system – focus!

The Courier-Journal announces in “Kentucky to get $17 million in federal aid for education reform” that Kentucky will receive $17 million in Race to the Top funding from the federal government to target in on two important projects: investment in implementing Senate Bill 1, which was enacted during the 2009 regular legislative session, and more money to add additional schools to a Bluegrass Institute favorite program, the AdvanceKentucky effort to put more high-quality Advanced Placement courses in our high schools.

While the Bluegrass Institute is always concerned about federal intrusion into the states’ rights area of public education, at least if this money is to be spent here, it will likely result in some real benefits for our students.

Senate Bill 1 implements a number of important educational improvements such as establishing much better education standards and a much better assessment and accountability program, but our teachers have consistently said that they need more help and information about how to teach to the new standards. The new federal funding will help provide professional development to those teachers.

Meanwhile, any investment in AdvanceKentucky strikes us as dollars well spent. We have commented for several years about this exciting program’s contribution to the overall statewide improvement in course offerings and passing scores on AP courses in the science, math and English area.

The new money will enable AdvanceKentucky to serve 20 more high schools across the state, including breaking a logjam in Louisville where participation up until now had been blocked over union squabbles that AdvanceKentucky provides incentive awards to teachers for each student who gets a 3 or higher score on AP exams.

Now, we will finally get to see how AdvanceKentucky works in one of our state’s highest concentrations of challenging high schools.

Overall, this looks like a nice Christmas present for our state and our children.

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