Kentucky's school based decision making - 2 - Some background

Our first blog in this series raised the need for some serious changes to Kentucky’s School Based Decision Making law.

As we wrote in 2018 in our report about Kentucky’s School Based Decision Making Policy, A Closer Look, School Based Decision Making (SBDM) is arguably one of the most unusual and controversial features in the massive public education system restructuring created by the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA).

At the time of KERA’s enactment, the national education newspaper, Education Week, reported that the legislation “is the first in the country to mandate site-based management in every district,” and “the bill's mandate for site-based management appeared to evoke the most apprehension among educators.”

Under KERA, virtually every Kentucky public school had to install a “School Council” by the end of 1996. The law directed that many important responsibilities formerly held by local school boards and their superintendents were transferred to these new, school-based councils. Some of the powers KERA transferred to the school councils included final authority to select curriculum and make staffing decisions and final decision-making regarding actual expenditures of money received by the school. 

Flash forward to the present and the SBDM program has now been in place in virtually every standard Kentucky public school for the better part of three decades. And, Kentucky remains the only state using such an awkward governance system statewide.

Given the pivotal role the law requires school councils to play in education in Kentucky, one might expect a considerable amount of ongoing research has been conducted on council effectiveness. That expectation, however, would be incorrect. Although many issues regarding SBDM functioning and effectiveness remain in serious question today, it appears virtually all research into the impacts of SBDM in Kentucky came to a halt after 2001.

Imagine that. While Kentucky’s current academic performance includes such shockers as only a 35% fourth grade reading proficiency rate and a more abysmal eighth grade math proficiency rate of just

29% as of 2019, and, as I wrote a few days ago, the state hasn’t made nearly as much progress compared to other states as some claim.

Meanwhile, the school councils, which have absolute control over the selection of curriculum, just plod on with essentially no one paying any attention to such disturbing results.

It’s time for a change. The teacher-controlled SBDM approach clearly isn’t working. Let’s get some accountability in the school system again where locally elected officials can fairly be held accountable if schools continue their current, unacceptable levels of performance. We can do better, but something other than the current form of SBDM is required if that is to actually happen.

https://bipps.org/blog/kentuckys-school-based-decision-making-some-background-2

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