C-J calls Draud "pathetic" "wimp"

Here's the problem:

CATS is the right idea, sometimes done badly.

Keeping a reasonable amount of pressure on the schools to perform is a good thing for children. We need a uniform, accurate and stable accounting of student progress over time - including improved accounting of dropouts. There is a place for normative assessment within CATS, mostly because parents need it. But we should never surrender Kentucky's curriculum by outsourcing it to an out-of-state vendor. And, anytime schools have to derive one of their two scores from a concordance table - to see what they would have scored on a test their students didn't take - look out! CATS still needs work. There is much to talk about.

Senate Bill 1 doesn't fix the problem and should be scraped in the House.

C-J is correct to suggest that grandstanding against school reform has become a cottage industry in Kentucky. Citizens should remain aware that many critics of school reform have as their abiding motivation the desire to siphon off public funds for private school efforts like charter schools and vouchers. In that sense, they are anti-public schools. Every negative data point, no matter how minuscule, is apparently blown into grand proportions in their minds. Not exactly high-minded - it 's just their best chance to get their hands on the cash.

So, where does that leave the state assessment?

It needs study and revision - and that is exactly what Commissioner Draud (who cautioned against the partisan politics that has now emerged) advocated and gets taken to the woodshed for in today's editorial in C-J. They seem to like the idea of a "task force involving all the stakeholders," but it sounds like C-J would feel better if they knew the deck was stacked. The process should not be poisoned in advance.

We need a public conversation, but let's keep it real.

This from the Courier-Journal:

Stalwarts and wimps

What a difference a new administration makes. Does anyone doubt that Ernie Fletcher would have signed something like Senate Bill 1, if Majority Leader Dan Kelly and Senate President David Williams had managed to get the thing passed?

It's supposed to be the Senate GOP honchos' top priority, although they have treated it like just another opportunity to grandstand against school reform. It's a favorite of those who would like to discredit the public schools and de-legitimize teacher organizations, in order to open the way for publicly financed private school vouchers.

The good news is that Steve Beshear, not Ernie Fletcher, is governor now, and he promised to veto any such bill. He could have done a David Williams number and sniffed that he "found little interest" in SB 1. Instead, he laid out the specific reasons -- shared broadly in the education community -- for opposing this very bad bill.

Taking a stand with him was House budget chairman Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, who predicted after the Governor's press conference that the legislation won't make
it out of the House.

Also standing tall was Education Secretary Helen Mountjoy, a widely admired advocate whom Mr. Williams has treated shabbily. Alongside, figuratively, stood Robert Sexton, head of the Prichard Committee, who warned the Senate was heading toward "lower standards."

Also standing up against SB 1 was Roger Marcum, president of the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents, who sensibly says educators should be involved in solving any problems with the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS), which SB 1 would replace with cheaper, off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all testing that isn't based on Kentucky curriculum, doesn't get at the range of critical
thinking skills and capacities, and would subvert the teaching of the all-important capstone skill, writing.

Teacher groups stood up, too, and a spokesman for the Kentucky Education Association would have testified strongly against SB 1 yesterday, but the committee "just ran out of time" to hear from the organization that includes most of the state's front-line educators. Just outrageous. Shame on Senate education committee chairman Ken Winters, D-Murray, and the leaders of his caucus.

Which brings us to Education Commissioner Jon Draud -- conspicuous in his refusal to take a position. He had an opportunity to show he's not a Senate leadership flunkie or a right-wing plant. Instead, he took refuge in an "on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand" wimp out. Just pathetic.

There are ways to approach improving the Kentucky school reform, such as House Joint Resolution 165's mandate for a study of teacher pay, or a gubernatorial task force involving all the stakeholders. But SB 1 is a joke, and that's how Senate leaders have treated it.