Haycock to Visit EKU Today

This morning at 10 and again at 1:30 PM, Kati Haycock will be addressing EKU faculty and students on the ways schools enhance student success according to national data. The 1:30 session is open to the public and will be held in SSB O'Donnell Auditorium.

Haycock is one of the nation's leading child advocates in the field of education. She currently serves as President of the Education Trust, a 501 (c) (3) public charity with approximately 50 employees. Established in 1992, the Trust speaks up for what's right for young people, especially those who are poor or members of minority groups. The Trust also provides hands-on assistance to educators who want to work together to improve student achievement, pre-kindergarten through college.

A 2006 study identified the Education Trust as America's 4th most influential education policy organization just behind Congress, the US Department of Education and the powerful Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a major benefactor of the Trust.

Most recently, Haycock commented on the latest NAEP scores saying,

Since 2007, all student groups and the nation as a whole made modest gains in reading at the eighth-grade level on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Some other results are troubling, however:

Performance among America’s fourth-graders—where the strongest and most consistent growth has occurred over the past decade—appears to have flattened.

Achievement gaps did not narrow at either the fourth-grade or eighth-grade level.

Only one state—Kentucky—improved its overall scores in both grades.

Fourth-grade scores in four states—Alaska, Iowa, New Mexico, and Wyoming—actually declined.

Given these trends—which are nearly identical to those from the 2009 NAEP mathematics assessment—it is more important than ever for educators and policymakers to identify and scale up the strategies that powerfully improve student learning.

Haycock on Race to the Top:

The great promise of Race to the Top—and the unprecedented resources it will distribute—is the opportunity to drive meaningful and powerful change for students. That promise will be squandered if reviewers and federal officials aren’t willing to say, “Sorry, this plan just isn’t good enough,” to states that fail to focus squarely on equity for all students or that lack the capacity to implement a strong application. America’s students need and deserve the best education reform plans possible. Any proposals that don’t shoot for the moon need to be left in the dust.