This from cn/2 Pure Politics:
House Minority Floor Leader Jeff Hoover, R-Jamestown, sent a letter to Gov. Steve Beshear Friday questioning plans to offer incentives to school boards that choose to raise the drop out age to 18.
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday offered $10,000 to passed the General Assembly in the 2013 session.
each of the first 57-school districts in the state to implement the increased drop out age. Increasing the drop out age from 16 to 18 has been a long standing goal of Beshear’s, and a bill allowing that
In the announcement earlier this week, Holliday offered the money as planning grants. But Hoover asked Beshear in a two page letter just how much money he has laying around to offer and why legislators were never told it existed.
“I find it disturbing the Commissioner of the Department of Education is offering more than $500,000 in public education funds to advance this agenda while tens of thousands of children in Kentucky are desperately in need of textbooks,” Hoover wrote to the governor. “Where is the money coming from? If KDE has, all the sudden, $500,000 dollars for this graduation initiative, how much other money is ‘laying around’ over there? If there is $500,000, all of a sudden, why hasn’t the money been used previously for essential expenditures and unmet needs such as textbooks?”
Hoover urged the governor to work with the legislature during the 2014 budget cycle and asked him to disclose the full funding available to the Kentucky Department of Education.
The governor sent Pure Politics a statement saying he respected Hoover’s concerns but supports Holliday’s efforts “to encourage school districts to adopt policies to increase the allowable drop-out age to eighteen.”
“Some school districts have expressed concerns about the coordination and planning necessary to implement the change and these small grants can help address those concerns. I understand that the money identified by the Commissioner for these grants comes from appropriations made by the General Assembly for drop-out prevention efforts, and is not money that would have been available for other purposes for schools.”
3 comments:
Same old tactics, wave a few dollars at the first schools or states to jump onto your educational agenda. Just bribing them and like the states that didn't cash in or Race to the Top dollars, the rest still have the same challenges but none of the dollars.
Just bribing schools with some flimsy justification that it is to help set up programs. Heck, one ten grand check isn't going to set up squat for this type of problem. So if your school #58, your drop out kids don't deserve or need state funds?
How in the world did we ever start down the track where states and counties are suppose to be competing for one another for dollars based upon political agendas instead of student need and available resources?
Actually, we started down that road when the south refused to desegregate schools. LBJ used the Civil Rights Act and Green v County Board to begin denying federal funds to school districts that refused. It must have seemed like a good idea to succeeding presidents because they've all used the tactic ever since.
So I guess we should expect national guard to start taking over classrooms in JCPS. What is government is doing to education today embodies neither the ideals nor practical applications that Civil RIghts Act of half a century ago. Providing equal rights has become expecting equal results. I don't know any profession or skill that gets that result through such a diverse set of operational conditions.
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