As Kentucky School News and Commentary reported last week, a recent Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center study said that Kentucky has moved up from 43rd to 34th nationally in education over the last 13 years driven primarily by increases in 4th and 8th grade science scores and 4th grade reading, along with a steady decline in the dropout rate .
But not everyone is impressed with the report. Absent a uniform interstate data set, the study cobbled together available data to make it's determination. This might be upsetting if there was a better tool present, but there isn't. There ought to be. Even if states continue to shy away from national standards we would have a more precise idea of how America's students were progressing if states could agree on how we measure progress.
And in Kentucky, there is progress.
As it is, the KLTPRC report only serves to verify two previous studies. This morning's Herald-Leader reported, "Kentucky was 34th in Education Week's Quality Counts 2007 Achievement Index and was 31st in the Morgan Quinto 2006-2007 Smartest State Index."
H-L also collected some quotes:
Robert F. Sexton, Exec Dir of the Prichard Committee: Called the report convincing. "To an older generation, the saying about education in Kentucky was always, 'Thank God for Mississippi'...This is far from the case now...the challenge is how to move forward...The frustration is so many people don't understand where Kentucky started and how far we've come...This is by no means victory, but we're better off than the last generation."
State Sen. Majority Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield: "I think everybody recognizes we've made progress in Kentucky, but obviously not at the rate we anticipated or hoped for. There's still lots of work to do." (One can only wonder how much faster Kelly expected gains to be made based on the bargain basement dollars being contributed to the effort.)
Brad Cowgill, interim president of the state Council on Postsecondary Education: "This report is good news for Kentucky. It represents a more comprehensive way of understanding education progress at all levels in the commonwealth." He warned against complacency.
I am certain Cowgill understands Kentucky's historical tendency toward education - to 'fund it and forget it.'
This from the Herald-Leader.
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