Kentucky education chief takes stage Friday with Obama for announcement about tests
This from the
Herald-Leader:
Kentucky Department of Education Commissioner Terry Holliday was on the stage
with President Barack Obama on Friday morning to announce a new waiver program
for the 2001 federal No Child Left Behind law.
The program means, among other things, that states will not have to set
targets to have all children reach proficiency on the federal test by 2014.
In exchange, Kentucky and other states will have to make "serious state-led
efforts to close achievement gaps, promote rigorous accountability and ensure
that all students are on track to graduate college- and career-ready," Gross
said in a news release.
During the announcement, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arnie Duncan
said the program is open and states have seven weeks to apply for the
waiver...
And this from the
Courier-Journal:
Kentucky’s top public education official said Friday the state is ready to reapply for a waiver to parts of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Terry Holliday, the state education commissioner, told reporters in a teleconference that Kentucky will need to “tweak” its application “but we do not see anything major that we have to do.”
Holliday and a handful of education leaders from other states joined President Barack Obama when he formally introduced a waiver plan allowing states to ignore some key provisions of the Bush-era law if certain conditions are met...
Kentucky is already ahead of other states in terms of school reform, said Brad Hughes, spokesman for the Kentucky School Boards Association, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Frankfort that represents all public school districts in the state.
“It would appear that Kentucky has a leg up and maybe even two legs up, first because of the higher standards that are being put into place, the Common Core Standards, but also because of the emphasis that’s being put on college- and career-readiness all across the state,” Hughes said.
Brent McKim, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Assocation, the state’s largest teacher’s union, said the 5,600-member group supported the current waiver request but hoped there aren’t too many new strings attached, such as any requirement that legislators enact legislation allowing charter schools or provisions that would take away local control.
McKim said Kentucky’s new assessment guidelines are “a much better system for judging schools than the cut score approach that NCLB uses because it recognizes growth and multiple factors.” ...
4 comments:
Don't make promises you cannot keep. Without parent accountability, without a stable, supportive home, all students will NEVER be able to learn at high levels. But this is the USA, and it sounds good to make promises of this nature....
A silk purse made from a sow's ear. Go ahead, Dr. Holliday, make our day!
I agree, without Parents being held accountable for their own children regardless of their of financial status nothing will ever change. Discipline and repsect cost nothing. I believe you would see higher learning going on in the classroom if schools(Teachers) did not have to deal with so many discipline and disrespect issues in the first place. I would like to know how showing more customer service in the schools will promote the education of our students. Lets get back to the basics, the bottom line is you have to go to school (it is the law),follow directions, show repect to all adults. If a student has behavior issues let the Parents deal with it. Stop making excuses for the Parents, education is also their responsibility
Same old broken record with education reform.
(1) Create standards and meassure
(2) Refine assessment due to cost
(3) Change vendor due to state contract
(4)Change curriculum
(5) Create new assessment
(6)Get lower than hoped performance on assessment
(7)Intervene with low performing schools
(8) Get only marginal gains which won't reach goal.
(9) Blame curriculum, teachers and assessment instrument
(10)Return to #1.
By the way, why is my commissioner in Washington, DC? I thought all those new core curriculums, webinars and toolkits were going to do the trick for us?
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