Changing the 1990 education law
Gov. Steve Beshear is right: After almost 20 years, it is time for a thorough review of the landmark Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990.
But taking another look at the law is not the same as gutting it.
In their rush to change things they don’t like about the law, legislators must be careful not to scrap the many good things KERA has done for public education in Kentucky.While far from being the perfect law, the positives of KERA outweigh the negatives.
KERA needs to be fixed, not abolished.
While his comments about KERA during last week’s State of the Commonwealth address were brief, Beshear’s call for the “thorough review” of the 1990 law have generated much interest from both KERA’s supporters and its opponents. The former see the governor’s comment as an opportunity to improve the law; the
latter see it as a chance to scrap the law.
But the governor has the right idea on KERA when he said, “Let us now bring education, business and legislative leaders to not only check our course and see if any corrective steering is necessary, but just as important to renew and re-energize our commitment to education.”
KERA came about because of a landmark Kentucky Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional the state’s system of funding public education. The
state’s highest court rightly ruled that education cannot be equal in the state when the amount of money spent per student in poor counties is a fraction of what wealthier counties spend per student. Thus, the justices ruled, those born in poor counties are destined to receiving an education that is inferior to children born in wealthier counties.
However, in response to the ruling, the Kentucky General Assembly went far beyond simply addressing the problem of unequal funding. They used the ruling to revolutionize education in the state.
During its almost 19 years of existence, KERA has not been a stagnant law. It has been adjusted to meet changing needs.
It originally mandated ungraded primary classrooms, with all students in grades one, two and three bunched together. The only real requirement was that they would be ready for the fourth grade after three years.Well, we don’t know of any school in this part of the states that still has ungraded primaries. It was an experiment that didn’t work and was wisely abandoned — or at least made optional instead of mandatory.
Republicans in the state Senate now want to scrap the CATS tests, in favor of standardized multiple choice tests that would be taken in the final week of each school year. At least some senators believe that once the CATS tests have been completed in April, education largely ceases for the year. If that’s true, then that’s a problem with individual teachers and administrators, not CATS.Just because tests have been completed doesn’t mean learning has to stop. Teachers should fully use every day of instruction. Those who don’t show a lack of commitment to education.
The CATS test is not the first statewide exam of the KERA era. It replaced KIRIS. In fact, Kentucky has been constantly adjusting its tests in an effort to more fairly evaluate what students are learning and to get the results to schools as quickly as possible.
If Senate Bill 1 is approved by the 2009 General Assembly, it will essentially return testing in Kentucky to the pre-KERA days — and that, in our book, would be a giant step backwards.
Remember the “Lake Wobegone Effect”? That was the name critics gave standardized tests where all the children — like those in Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegone — were deemed to be “above average.”Standardized tests have the advantage of being easy to grade and of accurately and consistently presenting children’s scores. However, multiple choice tests reward guessing and tell us nothing about whether students can apply their knowledge in practical ways.
That’s what CATS tries to do, and while grading takes longer and is somewhat arbitrary, the results tell us a lot more about what students are actually learning than the standardized tests.
Former Gov. Wallace Wilkinson and legislative leaders actively sought the advice of business executives — including then Ashland Inc. Chairman John Hall — and received their private support of KERA. That same sort of input should be sought this time around. After all, employers should know as well as anyone how well Kentucky’s public schools are preparing young people for the workplace and they have a vested interest in quality schools.
An entire generation of young Kentuckians have been educated under the edicts of KERA. That makes it an ideal time to take a closer look at both the strengths and shortcomings of the law.But it need not be done before the end of this legislative session. Instead, the governor and legislators should create a task force of educators, business leaders and legislators to review the law and recommend changes to be considered by the 2010 General Assembly.
That’s the right approach.
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