Historic Snaps

Patton: Still a long road for Ky. education

Yesterday's history forum is now history. Whew. Many thanks to many folks for their participation. The associated press covered the event and posted this story.

This from the Houston Chronicle:

Education reform in Kentucky has come fast and furious in the past 20 years, but the state's public schools still have a long road as they embark on a new path, former Gov. Paul Patton said Thursday.

"We have made tremendous progress," Patton told an audience of education officials and educators at Eastern Kentucky University. "But we started at a very low point."

Patton, governor for two terms from 1995 to 2003, was instrumental in creating Kentucky's community college system. He is now president of the University of Pikeville, formerly Pikeville College.

He was the keynote speaker at a forum looking at the history of education in Kentucky that also featured school experts, lawmakers, superintendents and the president of the state's teachers' union. 

His speech, like much of the discussion, heaped praise on the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act, which overhauled the state's school system, as the foundation for a new set of reforms that began this school year. Senate Bill 1, enacted in 2009, required educators to do away with some KERA mandates such as writing portfolios and certain assessments and focus instead on a new set of criteria designed to ensure passage of benchmarks for college and career success.

Patton said Kentucky historically lagged behind in public education because the state's earliest settlers were farmers and coal miners who lived in isolation and whose livelihoods did not depend on education. The state's earliest education champions spent decades trying to initiate meaningful reforms, but their pleas fell on deaf ears, he said.

"That legacy haunts Kentucky today," Patton said.

Kevin Noland, former deputy commissioner of the state Department of Education, said KERA transformed public education into a system that focused on the end result, rather than on "bean counting" such items as how many hours were spent on a particular task. He and others also praised KERA's creation of school councils that make on-site hiring decisions, public preschool programs and Family Resource Centers, which assist low-income students with things like new shoes and school supplies.

He reminded the audience that there was no "magic bullet," and that KERA had been tweaked over the years.

Teachers received considerable praise for being on the front lines of education reform.

"People are working their fingers to the bone," said Stu Silberman, former superintendent in Daviess and Fayette counties and now executive director of the nonprofit Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. "It's a complex issue. Educating our children is extremely complex."

State Rep. Ruthanne Palumbo said teachers do much more than teach; they play the roles of social worker, pastor and nurse for their students.

"The toughest job is ... being a teacher," she said. "I cannot imagine what full-time teachers experience," Palumbo said.

"I think sometimes ... (teachers) take a hard rap because teaching and learning is not where it should be in this state," said Sharon Oxendine, president of the Kentucky Education Association.

But she added that after "governor after governor after governor would propose" school reforms, the state has been focused like a laser for the past two decades on making lasting improvements.

"It will take a few generations to make that become a reality," she said.

Noland said in the future, he sees teachers playing more of a "coaching" role, guiding students who come up with their own projects to learn their lessons.

Terry Holliday, commissioner of the education department, reiterated his message that the state is entering a new era in public education.

"The challenge for the next 20 years is the same challenge we had for the last 20 years," Holliday said.

He added that specifics of the latest reforms are still being hammered out, saying he had an afternoon conference call with lawmakers to discuss how some subjects, such as arts and humanities, will be measured under the new system.

The EKU forum was organized around a new book, "A History of Education in Kentucky," by EKU history professor emeritus Bill Ellis.

And this was posted the day before at the Washington Examiner:

Forum to look at history of education in Ky.

As Kentucky's public schools embark on new reforms this year, a forum at Eastern Kentucky University will look at the history of education in the state.

The forum is scheduled for Thursday on the EKU campus in Richmond.

It will feature state education leaders, historians and journalists. Also on hand will be Bill Ellis, foundation professor emeritus of history at EKU, who recently released a book on the subject.

Among those expected to speak will be former Gov. Paul Patton, who is now president of the University of Pikeville; Bob King, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education; Terry Holliday, Kentucky's commissioner of education; and Stu Silberman, former Lexington schools superintendent and now executive director of the nonprofit education group the Prichard Committee.

On Charter Schools

Around the time charter schools first began to appear in Minnesota, Kentucky was neck-deep in KERA, the most sweeping set of school reforms undertaken by any state at any one time. As a result, there was little interest on the part of the legislature, or the press for that matter, in allowing Kentucky schools to veer from KERA's path. Everybody's hands were full. The new law was already being attacked from the right and supporters worried there might not be enough votes to sustain KERA in 1996. Meanwhile the Patton administration took the position that “Kentucky is not ready for charter schools.”

The idea for charters began around 1988 with Albert Shanker, then president of the American Federation of Teachers. Shanker proposed that teachers who believed they had a better approach for helping the toughest students, ought to be able to get permission from their districts to try. Such experimental schools would directly target dropouts, and likely dropouts. The schools would be given a specific charter - a mission, if you will. Their successes would improve equity in the school system.

Since charter schools would experiment with new approaches, regulations governing curriculum and instruction would have to be waived. Any improvements that could be validated would be shared. Thus, charter schools were seen as an effort to strengthen the public schools, not to make “losers” of them. That idea came later, and from others who were much less interested in the public schools' success.

While the American economy soared in the early '90s, Bill Gates was becoming the world's richest man. To his credit, he made retirement plans that included spending 90 percent of his personal wealth by supporting important causes, including education. The $43 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent hundreds of millions on public schools. The foundation's first effort - to make inner city high schools excellent by making them smaller - was an admitted failure. But undaunted, Gates nimbly moved on to new ideas, one of which was promoting charter schools.

As more charters arose, a new and more opportunistic breed of charter operator began to shift attention away from the original mission of improving the public schools while helping the least among us, to providing parents with public funds they could use to escape them both. Charter schools were starting to re-segregate as birds of a feather exercised school choice.

When Shanker first saw such developments, he renounced his own idea. He came to believe that charters, once established, turned into a form of privatization that was indistinguishable from vouchers and he began to fight against charters as a threat to public education.

Conservatives argued that charter schools provide “school choice.” They claimed that the public schools were bad and - forgetting recent lessons from Wall Street - that deregulated competition was inherently good. In Kentucky, the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions (BIPPS) went further, promoting the addition of vouchers, and the subtraction of the Kentucky Education Association.

Interestingly, BIPPS found an unlikely ally in Rev. Jerry Stephenson and the equity-minded Kentucky Education Restoration Alliance. Apparently fed up with certain persistently low-performing schools in Jefferson County, and perhaps lacking faith in Superintendent Sheldon Berman - who in 2004, sued to stop charters in Massachusetts - the Alliance sought to create better schools for inner-city kids and locked arms with BIPPS to promote charter schools. One wonders if they stood together while BIPPS opposed President Obama's healthcare plan; a plan that surely will benefit many of the children Stephenson sought to help.

Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday says that he is no great fan of charters, but supports them under the right circumstances and with sufficient community oversight. He has 175 million reasons to give them a try. But he wisely insists that all publicly supported schools, charter and otherwise, must be accountable for results.

Hoping to avoid the lax oversight that has existed in other states, Kentucky's HB 109 places primary oversight with the local school boards. But the bill fails to specify the conditions under which a charter might be granted. Governor Steve Beshear is considering a special session to give the bill the public vetting it needs.

During a recent appearance at Eastern Kentucky University, Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust put the charter school issue into perspective. She told the audience that there are people in the charter world because they want to make a difference for kids - and there are wonderful examples of charter schools. But there are others in the charter movement who are just about freedom from regulations and whose results are worse than some of the worst traditional public schools.

“There is a battle going on for the soul of charter schools. It is very important who wins that battle,” Haycock said.

Both Sides Agree on Appalachia's Future: It's all about Education

This from Al Cross at the Rural Blog:

Institute examines

competing economic visions

for East Ky.,

in first of series on Appalachian economy

...competing visions [of Appalachia's future] are exemplified by UK historian Ron Eller, author of ...Uneven Ground, and former Gov. Paul Patton...

Their views are the centerpiece of a story published this week by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and being reprinted in Appalachian Kentucky newspapers.

"Though they have different visions of Appalachia’s post-coal potential, when asked to identify the biggest impediment to economic development, Eller and Patton both responded with a single word: 'education'," writes John James Snidow...

His story is the first in a series about the Appalachian economy. To read it, click here.

Rethink State Board of Education Terms

This editorial from the Messenger-Inquirer by way of KSBA:

As the Kentucky Board of Education wades through the process of selecting a new state education commissioner, most of the public’s attention has focused on the fact no in-state applicants were selected as finalists.

What has been absent from the discussion so far is that most of those responsible for choosing the next state education head will have a very short relationship with the candidate they select.

Seven of the 11 members of the Board of Education likely won’t be reappointed once their terms end in April, yet they are intimately involved in selecting a candidate who could serve for years to come.

As political appointees, board members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the House and Senate to serve four-year terms. Terms are staggered to create continuity across time, but changes in the governor’s office decrease the likelihood of reappointment.

In April 2008, Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, appointed four new members to the board, replacing four members put in place by his Republican predecessor, Ernie Fletcher.

Fletcher made the same type of wholesale change after he came into office in 2004 by selecting seven replacements for those board members selected four years earlier by former Gov. Paul Patton, a Democrat.

Recent changes in the state education commissioner’s post and the governor’s office have put the board and the governor at odds in recent years. The search in 2007 to replace departing Commissioner Gene Wilhoit, who had been in the post for six years, created a such a conflict.

At that time, the board — all appointed by Gov. Fletcher, who was on his way out of office — ignored a request by newly elected Gov. Beshear to restart the selection process. Beshear contended the board’s search was not broad enough and the state would benefit from making a fresh appeal for applicants.

Now in the midst of another commissioner search, the majority of the board likely won’t work longer than a few months with the new commissioner.

That’s not to suggest outgoing board members would sabotage this process because they were appointed by a governor from a different political party.

But this does create another possible political conflict over a position that this state has attempted to make less political.

With four-year appointments for board members staggered by two years, a governor can have a board filled solely with his appointees by just more than midway through his first term in office. That might allow for the creation and implementation of a cohesive educational policy, but it can create conflict and disjointedness with a change in administrations.

One solution to be considered would be lengthening board member terms. States with appointed boards of education have varying term lengths, with some board members serving terms as long as nine years, as is the case in Mississippi and Tennessee.

Longer terms could help avoid the frequent turnover that Kentucky can see with changes in the governor’s office.

Extending the terms to six years and staggering appointments every two years would create more continuity. A governor could leave an imprint on the board without the body being overhauled every time a new governor takes office.

With the Kentucky Education Reform Act, the state made the education commissioner position an appointed instead of elected position to help remove politics from the process. Lengthening the terms for members could accomplish the same goal for the board.

Kentucky could welcome its next education commissioner when the Board of Education meets next week. But the end of this selection process should begin an examination of how to avoid these types of conflicts in the future.

Charter School Promises Fall Short in Texas

So far as I know, I was the first principal in Kentucky to ask the Governor for permission to turn Cassidy School in Lexington into the state's first charter school.

My goal was simple - to focus only on Cassidy - and offload some of the burdensome state and local initiatives (ie. primary program) that I believed were actually making it harder for us to meet our goals.

Ed Ford, who was Secretary of Governor Paul Patton's cabinet, told me that Kentucky was not ready for charter schools. End of story.

So I don't have any particular antipathy toward charter schools in and of themselves.

But what I didn't know (or care about) at the time was that the state constitution requires the General Assembly to provide quality schools across the state. Making Cassidy even better while others floundered did nothing to meet this goal.

Viewed from the state level, any law governing the schools must work toward providing quality schools for each Kentucky student regardless of where children live or the wealth of their parents.

Some say charters are the way to accomplish this. The argument is that business opportunity will bring out entrepreneurs and competition will raise the quality of instruction for all kids. But so far, everything I read about charter schools tells me that, where they exist, they are performing about as well as the public schools - and no better.

Some are great. Some are terrible. Most are somewhere in between.

Where we do find success (in either setting) - we either find a highly supported (or select) student population; or a strong principal, a longer school year, and a faculty that is working their butts off.

But counting on charters to fix broken schools across the state is not likely to produce the promised long-term benefit. As more and more entrepreneurs understand how difficult the work is, and how narrow the fiscal margins, they're looking for better opportunities to make money.

This is the circumstance in Texas where entrepreneurs were invited to step in and establish charter schools - but nobody showed up.

This from the Dallas Morning News:

Failing Texas schools face dwindling options

AUSTIN – Fixing the worst schools in Texas is about to get harder.

A 2006 law meant to spur improvements at low-rated schools gave the state two options for campuses that rack up five consecutive years of "unacceptable" ratings – closure or the use of outside managers to run them.

In practice, though, there's just one choice.

The state did not attract a single bid – from either a private company or a nonprofit entity – after soliciting proposals for several months for an outside manager.

"At this point, we have no one to call on," said state Education Commissioner Robert Scott. "Because there are no takers, we are left with just one option – closure" for chronic underachievers....