FCPS Invites 3 Finalists to Interview for Supt

Names to be released Wednesday Morning

This from Lisa Deffendall at FCPS:

Board of Education members voted unanimously May 31 to invite three applicants to interview to become the next superintendent of the Fayette County Public Schools.  Names of the finalists will be released Wednesday after they agree to interview for the position. 

Interviews will be next week, and the board could select a new schools chief as early as June 10.

The school board decision came after a roughly two-hour closed-door session, during which the six-member superintendent screening committee and a pair of professional search consultants presented their recommended candidates. 

The board reconvened in open session and directed Tom Jacobson, owner and CEO of search consulting firm McPherson & Jacobson, to call the three finalists and schedule interviews for June 7, 8 and 9.

“Once we confirm that the applicants have accepted the interview, their names will be made public,” Jacobson said. “We’re confident the community will be impressed with the quality of the candidates.” 

The board plans to meet at 7 a.m. June 10 to begin deliberations and possibly name a superintendent that day. 

The three finalists were selected from among 14 applicants representing 10 states, including Kentucky, and representing a diversity of gender, race and professional experience.  Based on input from the community and school board, applicants were evaluated in the areas of leadership and transparency, as well as their commitment to making students a top priority, focusing on student achievement, eliminating disparities, moving the district forward and maintaining fiscal stability. 

“We certainly appreciate all the input we’ve had from our stakeholders, the thorough review of the applications by the screening committee members, and the committee’s recommendations,” said Board of Education Chair John Price. “Based on that input, the board has selected to interview the candidates that we feel best meet the needs of our students.” 

Next week, each candidate will spend a full day in Lexington meeting with seven focus groups representing students, parents, community members and employees.  The day will also include a daily news conference and public forum where all local citizens are invited to meet the candidates and hear their answers to questions submitted by the community. After the forums, the board will conduct its formal interviews. 

The board hopes to have a new superintendent seated by July 1. Current Superintendent Stu Silberman is retiring after seven years with the district. He will become the next executive director of the Prichard Committee.

What the Survey TELLs

Over at Prichard, Susan Weston has broken down some of the TELL survey results. Just as it should be, it's a good news, bad news story. A huge percentage of Kentucky teachers responded, some would say bravely, to a set of questions on their working conditions. So the results can be seen as representative of the teachers at large.

Here's a good snippet:
and a bad snippet:
Check it out.

Gov. Beshear encourages community support of education

TEK Talk community forums will discuss Transforming Education in Kentucky

FRANKFORT, Ky. (July 13, 2010) – Recognizing the value of public support of education throughout the Commonwealth, Gov. Steve Beshear will host TEK Talk community forums on Aug. 17, 2010. Kentuckians are invited to gather at 10 locations across the state to discuss Transforming Education in Kentucky (TEK). The governor created the TEK initiative last fall to focus current education programs toward the unified goal of better preparing Kentucky students for the challenges of the 21st century.

“The success of our education system in Kentucky is dependent upon the involvement of our communities,” said Gov. Beshear. “Local participation and support reinforces our united commitment to improving educational opportunities statewide.”

Gov. Beshear is working in partnership with the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet, the Kentucky Department of Education, the Prichard Committee, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and Kentucky Educational Television to provide this opportunity for the public to share its concerns and ideas. The local events will take place in Paducah, Owensboro, Bowling Green, Elizabethtown, Louisville, Lexington, Northern Kentucky, Somerset, Prestonsburg and Ashland.

In addition to the local discussions, KET will stream a live panel discussion with the Governor, First Lady Jane Beshear, Education Commissioner Terry Holliday and Council on Postsecondary Education President Bob King. The panel will address questions posed at the community forums and discuss issues that emerge from local events. Bill Goodman of KET will moderate the panel for his program, “Education Matters.”

Last October, Gov. Beshear formed the Task Force on Transforming Education in Kentucky to study school improvement efforts currently underway and to help develop new strategies.

Members of the task force include education advocates, parents, teachers, superintendents, lawmakers and business and community leaders who have been handpicked for their commitment to education and to Kentucky.

Meetings have focused on improving college readiness; providing every student with the opportunity to earn college credit during high school; assessments that measure what employers value and making high school more relevant; expanding the use of technology for learning; improving teacher recruitment and retention; boosting academics in career and technical education; and improving transitions between preschool to K-12.

The group is preparing to recommend ways to channel all of these efforts into an integrated and comprehensive system of education in Kentucky. The goal is to formulate recommendations by the end of 2010 for consideration during the 2011 legislative session.

Governor Beshear and the TEK Task Force will use the public input from TEK Talk as guidance for the work of Transforming Education in Kentucky.

More information about the TEK initiative and about the local TEK Talk events, here.

SOURCE: The Gov

The College and Career Readiness Act of 2010?

Thanks to Susan Weston over at Prichard for doing what I didn't do this weekend.

Friday, the U.S. Department of Education announced its "Blueprint" for revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I didn't read it for religious reasons. It's March and I'm in Kentucky.

Forced to choose between reading the Obama administration's plan for school reform through the reauthorization of NCLB - which has the potential to affect the lives of millions of American children forever - and watching UK and a bunch of bracketology which I enjoy, I chose badly. Heck of a game though, wasn't it?

In three parts this morning, Susan outlines the plan President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan hope will gain congressional consensus and become the "College and Career Readiness Act of 2010," or whatever they end up calling it.

In Replacing NCLB Part 1, Susan says that "College and career readiness by 2020" may soon replace proficiency by 2014" as the main goal of the federal P-12 education programs.

States will have will two options for reading and mathematics standards:

First, they can “upgrade their existing standards, working with their 4-year public university system to certify that mastery of the standards ensures that a student will not need to take remedial coursework upon admission to a postsecondary institution in the system.”

Second, they can adopt standards in common with other states.

Kentucky chose door # 2.

In Replacing NCLB Part 2, Susan reports on the $350 million part of the RTTT fund which Secretary Duncan held out for assessemnt.

The blueprint expects those assessments to allow reporting on students' growth from year to year, and it proposes federal grants to support improvements in assessment methods. Beyond that, though, it's hard to find details on what "high quality" will mean.

Everything I see suggests continued movement toward a value-added system.

And in Part 3, Susan finds that,

Accountability will be tougher on a few schools and easier under most if the U.S. Department of Education's approach to revising the Elementary and Secondary Education Act becomes law.For the five percent of schools with the weakest growth, states will be required to use one of four aggressive interventions:

• closure
• restart under outside management
• turnaround by replacing the principal and half the staff
• transformation that includes a new principal, strengthened staffing, a new instructional program, and other steps ...

At the opposite end of the spectrum, schools with the strongest student growth will receive some type of recognition and reward. The recognition could play a valuable role in spotlighting schools that "beat the poverty odds" and building public confidence that high goals really are in reach even for students who have often been allowed to underperform.

And as long as you're there, check our Prichard's take on the House budget proposal in $59 million in cuts to state support for current P-12 students.

Comparing the original budget for this fiscal year to the budget the House just approved for the 2012 fiscal year shows a reduction of roughly $59 million in planned state spending for current educational services. $103 million in reductions to specific programs is only partly offset by $44 million in increases to other efforts.

Susan's got the itemized list of cuts.

Carpe Diem

On Sunday, Prichard Committee Chair Sam Corbett penned an outlook for Kentucky schools that is optimistic and evokes the excitement of a new day. It is also a recalibration of some of the committee's prior views.

That the committee can be nimble is a testament to a new way of thinking about school reform, and cause for optimism.

Gone are the days when KERA was untouchable; for fear that to change any part of KERA might push the whole effort down the slippery slope toward ruination. Now KERA is up for a total review by a Democratic governor.

Gone are the days when complaining about the lack of training available to teachers to properly implement KERA's ambitious programs would brand one a dinosaur, or worse. When despite pleas from the field, education leaders held the course and "assumed our educators were already equipped to respond...[when] in reality, they needed more direct and robust support." The Prichard Committee is talking more and more about the vital importance of effective teacher training these days.

Gone are the days of most of us fighting tooth and toenail against Senate Bill 1. It passed unanimously.

And apparently gone are Prichard's reservation about Terry Holliday. In July, the committee lamented that the commissioner pool was "not the level you would expect for one of the top education commissioner posts in the country."

But this week Corbett writes,

[S]tate leadership is now unified on education in a way we have rarely seen. Leaders in both parties and both houses of the legislature backed SB 1, and they and Gov. Steve Beshear intend to see it succeed. Terry Holliday, our new commissioner of education, is off to a great start, as is Bob King, the new president of the Council on Postsecondary Education.

Together, Commissioner Holliday and President King have already launched major collaborations, including a longitudinal student data system to track students' progress from pre-K to college and beyond.

It's is remarkable how much things have changed in such a short time.

And, the newest thing of all may be the short distance between mainstream R's and D's which measures about two inches, if one ignores the extreme fringes, as one should. New teaching standards and a new assessment are in the works. And Corbett thinks,

...these developments offer Kentucky a great opportunity. If we seize the day, working together with great energy in the coming months, we can ensure that our new standards translate into new teaching strength in every classroom and new levels of achievement for all our children.

Not too long ago an interesting thing happened to P-12 education in Kentucky. King, "the lofty" CPE president, started attending "the lowly" Kentucky Board of Education meetings. And he stayed past the first break. Then when interviews were held for education commissioner, he surprised folks by staying some more and, by accounts, he participated fully.

Once Terry Holliday was selected the two leaders began to look holistically at the public education system, and work cooperatively, and launch initiatives, and speak publicly. They unified behind the bully pulpit and the effort appears to be gaining momentum - and some who railed against change now proclaim its liberation.

Graduate Kentucky

This from Cindy Heine at Prichard:

I am happy to announce that First Lady Jane Beshear and Education and Workforce Development Cabinet Secretary Helen Mountjoy have invited the public to participate in Graduate Kentucky: A Community Approach. This initiative will focus on raising awareness of the dropout problem in Kentucky, instigate a community discussion about the issue and develop an action plan to address the problem.

In Kentucky, more than 6,000 students dropped out in 2008, and nearly 26 percent of adults have less than a high school education.

These numbers have real consequences for the Commonwealth: High school dropouts are four times more likely to be unemployed than college graduates; one in four resorts to public assistance; and crime rates soar among those who have dropped out of school.

The dropout problem is affecting not only individual dropouts, but also our communities and society as a whole. And this is why communities and organizations like ours must be part of the solution.

On September 11-12, Mrs. Beshear will host a statewide summit at the Convention Center in Frankfort to begin this effort. Following the statewide summit, six regional conferences will be held throughout the year.

I encourage you to participate in both the statewide summit and the regional summits. If you are interested in attending the statewide summit or need more information on the broader initiative, please visit www.graduate.ky.gov or contact one of the individuals below.

Cindy Heine: Prichard Committee; cheine@prichardcommittee.org; Office: (859) 233-9849 x222

Colmon Elridge: Governor’s Office; Colmon.Elridge@ky.gov; Office: (502) 564-2611

Kate Wood: Governor’s Office; Kate.Wood@ky.gov; Office: (502) 564-2611

We are all needed to address this critical issue in the Commonwealth. As you are well aware, education is the key to success for an individual, a community and our shared legacy.

SIURCE: Prichard Communication

Budget Bill Cuts SEEK $55 per child, or $31.5 Million

Susan Weston's got the story at Prichard.

In 2008-09, the average district share was $1,399, so the state paid $2,467.

In 2009-10, the average district share will be $1,454, so the state will pay $2,412.

That's a $55 cut per pupil in the state share, translating to $31.5 million cut in total state spending on the base guarantee.

But there's a twist. House Bill 1 does not cut total SEEK funding. So, what happens to the dollars that aren't going to the guarantee, and to the other parts of SEEK that are calculated from the guarantee? Weston ventures a guess.

What SB1 Taketh. School Administrators Giveth Backeth.

Arguably, the most bothersome part of Senate Bill 1 for most school administartors, was its removal of accountability during the intervening three year period while the new test is being constructed. A remedy offered by the Council for Better Education, the Kentucky Association of School Councils, and the Prichard Committee is a "transition index" calculated, roughly, along the same lines as the previous CATS assessment, minus writing portfolios.

Instead of KDE publishing the results,

From KASC's website, you'll be able to download lists showing all schools, with their 2007 through 2009 results and their 2014 projections, plus separate files showing the disaggregated information. We'll handle district data the same way, and add a summary report describing statewide trends. Once KDE lifts the embargo, we'll complete our work as quickly as possible, and we expect to share everything within two weeks.

Susan has the weights and calculations over at the Prichard Blog.

Weston's Graduation Pie Bake-off

Susan Weston thinks that,

Public and nonpublic graduates and nongraduates, when combined, should add up to a credible estimate of that year's eighteen-year-olds...

[M]ost approaches to public school graduation rates make the same big mistake. Specifically, they assume that many students who spend two years in ninth-grade can across the stage with their first freshman class and with their second freshman class, collecting diplomas both times. Those approaches either result in implausibly low nonpublic school numbers or implausibly high numbers old enough to graduate.

So she's gone into the kitchen to bake up some illustrative graduation rate pie graphs for your consumption. Yum.

SEEK Base Basics

Support Education Excellence in Kentucky (SEEK) is Kentucky's school funding program. It reduces financial gaps between districts with the most and least property per pupil and defines the amount of money Kentucky public school districts receive. At the Prichard Blog Susan Weston provides an overview of how the SEEK formula will provide basic funding in 2009-10, using state forecast numbers.

Please Raise Your Hand and Repeat After Me

Over at Prichard, Susan posted "The Learning Pledge" penned by the Kentucky Association of Assessment Coordinators. The pledge is intended to address "concerns about the testing transition and its instructional implications."

Teachers are asked to "proclaim and steadfastly adhere to" the pledge of learning.

Regardless of test measures, instruments, or accountability features I will provide each individual child with the highest level educational opportunity possible.

And will

• Teach all core subjects whether they are tested or not.
• Provide authentic writing instruction while compiling student work.
• Be held accountable whether there is an accountability system or not.

FLUNKED

This form the Paducah Sun:

Few lament the quietus of CATS

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and when politics is intertwined with education reform, you never know who you might wake up beside.

Take CATS, the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System. On one side you’ll find the independent Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and the editorial pages of Kentucky’s two largest newspapers.

On the other side you’ll find the liberal Kentucky Education Association, conservative public policy advocacy groups, every Democrat in the Kentucky Legislature, along with every Republican. Oh, and The Paducah Sun.

Both houses of the general assembly unanimously — unanimously! — backed Sen. Ken Winters’ bill to ditch CATS in Kentucky’s public schools. According to the Associated Press, both chambers erupted into applause after the vote.

The test could be more accurately called CUTS, for Commonwealth Unreliable Testing Sham. The ineffective test does less to measure student progress than give an illusion of progress whether genuine or not. It should have been deep-sixed long ago.

The legislation calls for replacing CATS, which includes open-response questions and writing portfolios, with a national norm-referenced test, still administered at the end of the school year. Scoring open-response and essay questions is necessarily subjective, making it impossible to accurately measure progress or compare Kentucky students’ scores with scores from other states. Replacing CATS is long overdue.

But the (Louisville) Courier-Journal called norm-referenced tests “outmoded, ineffective” in a blistering editorial Friday railing against “conservative, educationally revanchist Republicans,” aided by “lazy” Democrats and a backward Kentucky Education Association opposed to “new ideas.” The editorial lumped the state’s public teachers together, saying they are “grateful for being allowed to escape real accountability.”

Ouch. Sounds like the editorial writers in Louisville are not playing well with others.

The editorial even lamented “the tragic evisceration of (CATS) writing portfolio provisions.” Tragic? Hardly. Tragic describes a fatal car wreck or tornado, not a policy change.

Those writing portfolios, by the way, will be retained as a teaching tool in grades 5-12, as they should be, just not as part of the assessment.

The Lexington Herald-Leader echoed its rival paper Sunday, adding Gov. Beshear and House Speaker Greg Stumbo, both Democrats, to the list of bad actors, accusing them of caving to “the worst impulses of both the teachers union and conservative enemies of public schools.”

That’s called painting with a broad brush.

The self-evident escapes CATS’ defenders on the two editorial boards: For any testing instrument to be useful in tracking progress and comparing performance, it must use objective and measurable criteria. If anything is “outmoded,” it is the trendy educational philosophy behind subjective testing methods, designed to elevate self-esteem above actual achievement.

Ironically, those states that consistently exceed the national averages in norm-referenced tests don’t complain that the tests are ineffective.

We admit we don’t always, or even often, agree with the Kentucky Education Association. But they’re right this time. CATS was a time-consuming exercise in futility, yielding little information useful for tailoring education plans to address individual student deficiencies.

The KEA supports the planned CATS replacement. The legislation calls for a test to allow both the schools and parents to better track student performance. A side benefit is that it will help identify teachers whose classes consistently exceed expectations and those that regularly fall short. Administrators can prescribe remediation for under-performing teachers — peer coaching, additional coursework — just as teachers do for under-performing students.

Only a few will mourn the demise of CATS. The rest of us dinosaurs — teachers, legislators and proponents of public school accountability, whether liberal or conservative — are happy to say “good riddance” to CATS.

Prichard Launches Campaign for HB 508

House Bill 508 – the new assessment bill under consideration right now in the House Education Committee – needs your support. This bill answers concerns about CATS with substantive, constructive steps forward, and it avoids the elements of Senate Bill 1 that could take Kentucky education backward. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity to strengthen Kentucky education.

That's the opening salvo in the Prichard Committee's call to action for its members and friends who are aksed to contact the House Education Committee in support.

HB 508 begins with content standards revisions to get us the lean, globally competitive focus we need. The new test of those standards will allow Kentucky students to exhibit their problem-solving and communication skills while also showing how well Kentucky's kids match up against others in the nation...

An element that makes the bill especially strong is a requirement that what students learn in high school is what they need to know to succeed in college. These "alignment requirements" mean that the state's Council on Postsecondary Education must affirm that the new standards match college readiness requirements and monitor results of efforts to lower remediation rates.

In addition, the state agency that oversees teacher preparation – the Education Professional Standards Board – must ensure that teacher preparation programs at colleges and universities equip teachers to meet the standards.

A fast, responsible timetable calls for the new tests and program reviews to start in 2011-12, with CATS ending after the 2010-11 school year.

That's the good part of the bill.

Some areas, such as the arts and writing portfolios, will no longer be part of a school's accountability test scores. But the bill requires that schools continue to emphasize those areas and that "program reviews" of these programs require both the districts and the state to check quality regularly.

And that was the bad news. But the committee offers some assurance.

The bill's sponsor has stressed that writing will still be taught and that student portfolios will continue to follow them from year to year to track progress. HB 508 also calls for the program review results to be discussed during principals' annual evaluations.

Given that the weight of public sentiment in recent years has even gotten Democratic Governor Steve Beshear calling for a review of KERA, it's awful hard to predict that no bill will come out of the General Assembly this time around. If that's the case, maybe the Coureir-Journal said it about right. House Bill 508 isn't good - but it's better than Senate Bill 1.

To their credit, the Prichard Committee statement deals directly with HB 508's greatest weaknesses:

We are quite concerned about the writing portfolio and the effect of removing student scores from accountability. Will the program review standards be rigorous? Will the state put its weight behind compliance? Will monitoring be funded by the legislature? We're looking for ways to improve the legislation and will pay very close attention to implementation if the bill passes.

That's some consolation.

Wanna add your voice? Prichard tells you how:

Please contact members of the House Education Committee today. Click here to e-mail a letter or call the Legislative toll free message line at 800-372-7181.

Tell members of the Committee to VOTE YES on HB 508.

Members of the Committee include: Rep. Linda Belcher; Rep. John "Bam" Carney; Rep. Hubert Collins; Rep. Leslie Combs; Rep. Jim DeCesare; Rep. Ted Edmonds; Rep. C. B. Embry; Rep. Bill Farmer; Rep. Tim Firkins; Rep. Jim Glenn; Rep. Derrick Graham; Rep. Jeff Greer; Rep. Jimmy Higdon; Rep. Reginald Meeks; Rep. Charles Miller; Rep. Harry Moberly; Rep. Rick Nelson; Rep. Marie Rader; Rep. Jody Richards; Rep. Tom Riner; Rep. Carl Rollins; Rep. Charles Siler; Rep. Dottie Sims; Rep. Kent Stevens; Rep. Wilson Stone; Rep. David Watkins; Rep. Alecia Webb-Edgington; Rep. Addia Wuchner.

SOURCE: Prichard Committee release

Superintendents Separate Wheat from Chaff in SB 1

On behalf of the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents, Susan Weston outlined a response to Senate Bill 1 over at the Prichard Blog.

In the report Weston outlines the superintendents' agreement and concerns over the piecemeal SB 1 proposals.

So what do they see as WHEAT?

• a substantive redesign of the state assessment system
• one coherent testing and reporting system (state and NCLB)
• shortened time for testing
• an accountability “package” that includes a combination of assessments: norm-referenced
  and criterion-referenced, formative and summative, college readiness,
  program evaluation, and varied testing formats including multiple choice, open
  response, on-demand, writing portfolios at grades 7 and 12, and end-of-course
  tests
• increased student accountability
• narrowed standards, especially in mathematics
• requiring any other component required to comply with No Child Left Behind
• requiring core content assessment to be administered during the final seven days of each
  district’s school year, and to take no more than five days
• requiring all test results to be reported to schools and districts to no more than sixty days
  after testing

But the superintendents would also get rid of the CHAFF in SB 1 and oppose:

• the elimination of open response questions
• the elimination of accountability for writing portfolios at the 7th & 12th grades

KASS advises:

Rather than eliminating the criterion-referenced test, the Department should consider
using a carefully designed NRT that can be converted soundly into a criterion-referenced
test that would measure state standards and use open response along with multiple choice
formats.

KASS members strongly support more student accountability than provided in the current
version of SB1.

They note that changes in math standards identified in SJR 19 are not included in SB 1 and that SB 1 has no plan for changes in standards in the other content areas, including who will conduct the evaluation process and how often.

With the strong probability of significant changes in NCLB under the Obama administration, is action now to make significant changes in KY’s assessment and accountability system wise in regard to future compliance with NCLB?

Poor Little Think Tank

When he's not muscling the government bureaucracy for being bad for us, or extolling the virtues of a free-market idealism that made the American economy what it is today, it turns out that the Bluegrass Institute’s David Adams has a softer side.

Writing at Kentucky Progress, Adams seemed to be sad about a lone anonymous commenter on the new PrichBlog. "Anonymous" hoped that the new Prichard Committee blog would be “a welcome alternative to the Bluegrass Institute.”

Obviously hurt by this, Adams took the single comment and exprapolated a conspiracy theory claiming,

protectors of the status quo have, instead of making a case for the efficacy of their programs, made a habit of taking potshots at The Bluegrass Institute and anyone else who dares to threaten their base of power.

Poor Bluegrass institute. I had no idea it was so tough being in a think tank.

Adams apparently thought he would open a meaningful conversation with the Prichard folks. As is his wont and right, he started with a little name-calling,

The Bluegrass Institute has tried for years to engage KDE sychophants like Prichard Committee in a meaningful debate.

Sychophants?! Adams followed by describing the Prichard Committee as

“the chief protector of failed bureaucratic education policies that have held Kentucky back for decades.”

One wonders how the conversation with the Prichard Committee is working out.

Adams defends his name-calling with this:

I consider calling someone who uses my own money against me a name or two well within my rights as a taxpayer.

The problem is the Prichard Committee is not a government agency. They don't spend anybody's tax dollars. ...for or against anyone. And if the taxpayer bill of rights includes a name-calling provision, I missed it.

So I fear Adams may have hampered his own effort to engage the Prichard Committee in meaningful debate by choosing an opening gambit that was both disrespectful and off-the-mark; regrettably, an increasingly disappointing Bluegrass Institute trait.

I remain confounded by the Bluegrass Institute's apparent lack of concern over its own credibility. But as David puts it,

I'm not too concerned about my credibility with those who refuse to hear well-documented complaints about the KDE.

In fact, some of BIPPS's complaints are better documented than others. And some of BIPPS's arguments are known to be exaggerations, but remain unacknowledged by BIPPS - further undermining its cerdibility.

Adams's persistent loyalty to BIPPS's principles is unflinching no matter the documentation, or lack thereof. He serves the BIPPS leadership, apparently takes his cues from other BIPPS analysts and, promotes them and their ideas; and has, by that means, advanced personally. I don’t believe I’d be calling anyone a sycophant if I were him.

But the blogosphere would be less fun without Adams's occasionally prescient insights. Take this one for example:

No one in Kentucky is going to freeze to death living indoors this winter. We are going to have to get past the point of these feel-good appropriations should times really get
hard in America.

Oh wait. That wasn't prescient at all, was it?

But it was surely a public service when Adams offered advice to the non-rich on how to be poor while facing problems of college affordability.

And he does produce funny headlines from time to time.

By contrast, BIPPS education analyst Richard Innes reached out the left hand of welcome to Prichard by pimping one of his own blog posts, and inferring that Prichard had arrived late to the party.

Then on January 21, 2009 4:14 PM he wrote the funniest thing of all.

“Note that I linked back to the Prichard Blog, as we really do want to engage in productive conversation.”

What some think of as following copyright law, Innes offers as an olive branch.

I predict that the Prichard Committee will tire of the BIPPS good-cop/bad-cop routine fairly quickly.

Four big ideas for Kentucky testing

The Prichard Committee blog has launched. The main author will be Susan Weston with contributions from Executive Director Bob Sexton and Associate Executive Director Cindy Heine.

So, let's get this party started with Bob Sexton's views on CATS.


Sexton doesn't specify how, but says he isn't opposed to altering CATS. However, he is "concerned that we make changes at a responsible pace, one that involves educators, allows good design and permits teachers to implement classroom adjustments well, and one that does not jeopardize our federal funding.

In Four Big Ideas for Kentucky Testing, Sexton states,

I believe that the CATS assessment is better for children than an off-the-shelf
norm-referenced test, but I do not think it is the best it can be. Four concepts
seem to me to hold special promise for creating a stronger test and promoting
higher student achievement.

His ideas include:

• aim for balanced assessment
• international benchmarking can help
• end-of-course testing may be the right way to go
• set program standards and monitor implementation

Welcome to the Blogosphere!

Change is Coming to KSN&C, Prichard to Launch Blog

Since February 2007, I have made 2,700 posts - all from my perspective. News stories, occasional commentary and a few personal items populate the archives. This has been good for me - to develop my voice on Kentucky school issues - but KSN&C may not serve the overall effort to continually improve Kentucky schools as well as it might.

So, I'm opening the doors - a crack - and inviting a few selected individuals in. My New Year's resolution was to add more "voices" to Kentucky School News and Commentary. The process has started. I have dropped the moniker "The Principal" and my use of "we" will be less literary.

In the not-too-distant future, KSN&C readers will notice a group of new contributors. So far, I have two "takers" who have committed to writing commentary at least monthly, and hopefully more frequently, if they choose.

I hope these contributors will reflect a range of opinion on the issues facing our schools and that KSN&C will provide a forum for them to work out their ideas.

The general tone of KSN&C will remain the same: respectful, fact-driven and well-written. While I will continue to try to show both sides of issues by providing a cross-section of news stories, the opinions expressed on the blog will be those of the individual contributors who will write under their own names. And, I am inviting a diverse set of individuals who do not already have a commentary website or blog.

I am also thinking about two categories of new bloggers: Seasoned professionals who have worked to improve Kentucky schools throughout their careers; and some of my students (current educators) who want to develop their leadership skills by writing commentary and contributing to policy-development.

Also adding to the conversation will be Susan Perkins Weston the main author of the new Prichard Blog which is set to launch...later this week....if all goes well.

So stay tuned. The conversation is about to expand.

Draud asks Districts to Plan for 4% Cut

I had a great off-the-record chat with Education Commissioner Jon Draud yesterday. Draud was chipper despite a recent health scare and increasingly bad budget news for Kentucky schools.

The state budget director has asked Draud to submit a plan to meet a $132 million cut (4%), as well as a description of the impact of the cuts on the Kentucky Department of Education and Kentucky's school districts. This cut's gonna hurt.

It must be particularly frustrating for Draud who sought the Commissioner's position to advance Kentucky schools only to be thwarted by worsening economic conditions.

How districts attack their budget problems will vary but the principle ought to be the same for every district - don't cut programs that touch children. That may be impossible for many districts to avoid. But if decisions must be made between programs then - cut support programs before cutting direct instructional programs.

For example, (and I'm not making a specific suggestion here) if a district had to choose between classroom teachers and, say, a Family Resource Center - the center's gotta go.

This from the Herald-Leader:

State Education Commissioner Jon Draud Wednesday gave Kentucky's public school superintendents until noon Dec. 3 to report how a 4 percent budget cut would affect operations in their districts.

Draud said the cuts could be "devastating" for many districts.

He said he will use the district reports in preparing the education department's plan for achieving a 4 percent across-the-board budget cut as Gov. Steve Beshear has requested.

Beshear said Tuesday that he wants such reports from all state agencies and public universities by Dec. 5 to counter a growing revenue shortfall.

State budget cuts would be "nothing but bad news for Kentucky kids," said Robert Sexton, executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.

He said the timing is especially bad because school budget already have been weakened by earlier cuts.

"This cut will be the hardest of all because school budgets have been cut down to bare minimum in previous years," Sexton said...

Prichard Committee Celebrates 25th Anniversary

I suppose it was too much to hope that John Deasy would attend. I'm sure he would enjoy visiting Louisville - perhaps for the first time.

But seriously... congratulation Bob, Cindy, Bev, et. al.

National speakers to include Gates Foundation,

Education Week officials

The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence will hold its fall meeting on Friday, October 24, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., at the Kentucky Center in Louisville. Featured speakers include:

· Vicki Phillips, Director of Education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

· Ginny Edwards, Editor & Publisher of Education Week

The committee will also discuss its new goal for Kentucky schools to achieve a top 20 national ranking by 2020.

That goal has been set to commemorate the committee’s 25th anniversary, which will also be celebrated at a reception to be held on Thursday evening, October 23, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., also at the Kentucky Center in Louisville.

Media representatives are welcome at both events.

SOURCE: Priochard Committee press Release

State's goals in education can be met

This from the Kentucky New Era:

By Brent Yonts

Looking for Kentucky at the top of any list that ranks states by educational achievement would have been like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack 20 years ago. Our state was nowhere to be found. Not so today. Education in Kentucky has changed so much in recent years that within the next 11 years our state could possibly be ranked among the top 20 states in school performance. A recent report by one of the state’s leading education advocates, the Prichard Committee on Academic Excellence, explains that the state now has the foundation to move from the bottom to the top of the national rankings and be in the company of top tier states by 2020!

We are already pretty close to being in that elite group in some areas, having already surpassed or met the performance of these states in science and 4th grade writing. Plus we are only a few points behind Top 20-ranked Iowa in 8th grade math performance, catching up with top-tier Delaware in the number of students earning AP college credit in high school and almost tied with Illinois in the area of preschool enrollment for three and four year olds. The reason for this success has much to do with our work in 10 areas that the report calls the “Ten Steps Forward.” Improved performance by Kentucky students on state and national tests, better classroom performance, an increase in high school graduates and increased college enrollment and graduation rates are among the 10 areas, which are as follows:

* National ranking. We have the nation’s 34th best education system, based on a 2005 index developed by the Kentucky Long Term Policy Research Center. A matching index had us ranked 43rd in 1992.

* Science education. Kentucky students’ have the highest science test scores in the nation. They are also tied with the nation in reading, 4th-grade writing and 8th-grade mathematics.

* State tests. Every student group in Kentucky improved their accountability test performance from 1999 to 2006.

* AP exams. Students across the state making passing scores on Advanced Placement exams rose by 76 percent since 2000, a growth rate surpassed by only 7 other states.

* Preschool. Before 1990, there was no state-funded preschool in the Commonwealth. Today, more than 21,000 children attend free preschool statewide.

* Technology. Our state is a leader in school technology, tying for fourth place among all states in the 2008 ranking of “Technology Counts”, an annual report of the national newspaper Education Week. Our individual technology score was a B+ compared to a C+ national average.

* College enrollment. Over the last decade, college enrollment at our four-year colleges and universities has increased 40 percent. At the community and technical college level, the increase in enrollment has soared 106 percent. Of the individuals included in those enrollments, the number receiving bachelor’s degrees annually increased 28 percent while associate degree holders increased 53 percent over the period.

* High school graduates. The number of adults under age 25 who are high school graduates in Kentucky has risen to 80 percent, up 10 percent since 1980. Up by five percent over the 28 year period are the number of adults under age 35 who hold at least a bachelor’s degree.

* Investment by the state. Over the past 18 years, the state of Kentucky has invested over $2 billion in the replacement and renovation of school buildings to give our children a safe, modern study environment.

* Return on academic investment. In 2005, Kentucky ranked 8th nationally in the return we received on our investment in education from preschool through 12th grade. The ranking was based on reading and math performance versus spending and student challenges.

Other achievements that the Prichard Committee celebrated in its report —although they cannot be tracked statistically—are changes in state law made by the Kentucky General Assembly that affect school governance. By changing the culture of education, we lawmakers believe that we can make our schools a better place. And indeed, that seems to be true.

What is also true is we have much work to do. We still need to raise teachers’ salaries, we have a student “achievement gap” to bridge, the CATS test is still an issue, and we need to prepare more students for careers in the math, science and technology fields. I will speak more about the challenges next week, along with other challenges that the Prichard report has flagged. Have a great week ahead.

BRENT YONTS (D) is a state representative from Greenville.