Rollins Remains Skeptical on Charters

“I’m not going to guarantee I can be convinced

that charter schools would be a good thing.”

-- Rep Carl Rollins

This from C-J:

...[Education Commissioner Terry] Holliday said Tuesday that he has been discussing charter schools with education groups to see if a compromise could be reached. He said Kentucky probably won’t win Race to the Top money without charter schools.

“We’ll look at what we can do,” he said before a meeting with [Governor Steve] Beshear and representatives of the Kentucky Education Association and Jefferson County Teachers’ Association.

KEA, JCTA, House Democrats and many local superintendents oppose the charter school concept.

KEA President Sharron Oxendine said her group is open to working with the governor and House and Senate leaders to make a charter schools bill more palatable to teachers.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to be in love with a charter schools proposal, but we understand the state desperately needs funds,” she said.

Oxendine said KEA wants a bill that requires more local control over charter schools and a requirement that teachers be certified.

Rep. Carl Rollins, the Midway Democrat who is chairman of the Education Committee, said he’s willing to discuss the idea, but “I’m not going to guarantee I can be convinced that charter schools would be a good thing.”

Rollins said he isn’t certain legislators can come up with a charter schools proposal that would be palatable to teachers’ groups.

Oxendine told the Ashland Daily Independent,

A bill passed in the Senate in the just concluded session allowed local boards of education to charter such schools, but wants more assurance that the schools would have to employ certified teachers. “We feel like every child deserves a certified teacher,” Oxendine said. “If you’ve got a 100 kids and there’s one teacher and four or five teaching assistants, that would be a key for us.”

Oxendine said KEA will never be enthusiastic about charter schools but doesn’t want to impede the state’s ability to secure the federal funding. She said KEA is most interested in general funding for education and teacher pay and benefits...

...Beshear continued Tuesday to say he wants a special session sooner rather than later to pass a new state budget and would consider calling it before the May 18 primary election if legislative leaders could agree to a budget in advance. “I would certainly look at (May 10) if the House and Senate leadership would come to an agreement by that time,” said Beshear. He said he needs a budget by June 1 in order to re-finance bonds in the general fund and road funds to save about $170 to $180 million dollars which both House and Senate budgets counted on to balance...

Principal Hiring Change Reconsidered in House Ed Cmte

Bill to give superintendents more say in principal hiring fails

This from KSBA:

The House Education Committee failed Tuesday morning to pass an amended version of the principal hiring bill that would have given superintendents a stronger role in the selection of building principals.

One version of House Bill 322 passed the committee Feb. 9 but was recommitted after strenuous objections by the Kentucky Education Association. ... Discussion among the committee members became acrimonious over the negotiations between Feb. 9 and today. KEA President Sharon Oxendine testified against the bill at the committee hearing...

More from KSBA:

Legislative unhappiness over negotiation process a big factor in defeat of principal hiring bill Measure to give superintendents a more signficant role now faces uncertain future

Amid questions about whether school groups and legislative proponents had negotiated in good faith, the House Education Committee Tuesday morning defeated a measure that would have given Kentucky superintendents more say in the selection of school principals...

“I see compromise made by the superintendents. This bill offers fairness in that the superintendent needs to be at the table and have a voice,” said Rep. Jeff Greer of Brandenburg. Greer, a former Meade County school board member, repeatedly asked if there had been compromise by KEA representatives in the negotiations since the measure’s original passage out of the committee.

Committee Chairman Carl Rollins said, “All parties worked in good faith. KEA did not want any limit on the number of applicants that could be reviewed. That was a stopping point. We’ve had several meetings trying to negotiate this bill (but) you get to a place where you have to have a solution if you want to have a bill.”

Rep. Harry Moberly of Richmond countered that KEA “was more conciliatory than I’ve ever seen. Nothing could be further from the truth that only superintendents made compromises. I think KEA has accommodated very much in this. Now we have this committee substitute that’s a sort of a jumble. I know we can do better than this.”

A major point of debate among the legislators was over the fact that after an initial meeting of education groups on both sides to seek a compromise, negotiations then took the form of suggested amendments passed back and forth between the groups by Rollins and the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Kent Stevens of Lawrenceburg, a retired principal, and Rep. Wilson Stone of Scottsville, a former Allen County school board member and KSBA president....

Charter Debate to Continue on KET

Charter schools will be debated on

KET’s “Kentucky Tonight” show

at 8 p.m. Monday, January 18.

Scheduled guests include:

• Rev. Jerry Stephenson, chair of the Kentucky Education Restoration Alliance
• Jim Waters, director of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions
• Sharron Oxendine, president of the Kentucky Education Association
• Superintendent Sheldon Berman of Jefferson County Public Schools

Charter schools are public schools contracted out to the private sector. In 1992, the first two charter schools operated in St. Paul, Minnesota. By September 1999, almost 300,000 students attended 1,682 charter schools operating in 33 states. By 2000, 38 states had laws allowing charter schools and a year later there were 2,372 such schools in America.

More recently the heat has been turned up on states lacking permissive charter school laws because Education Secretary Arne Duncan tied billions of federal dollars to state acquiescence. Pass a charter school law and better your chances in the Race To The Top sweepstakes.

WFPL reported that several Louisville pastors have been working with Republican Rep. Brad Montell of Shelbyville who filed a bill to allow charter schools in the state. Rep. Stan Lee of Lexington filed a similar bill in July. Both would have permitted charters to operate in competition with successful schools. The vote on Montell's bill was tied in committee, so lacking a majority, died. But supporters sense they are close and vow to push on.

• Expect Stephenson to say that the greatest need for charter schools is in inner city Louisville where a number of schools are failing.
• Expect Waters, the BIPPS communications director, to swear by Carolyn Hoxby's widely discredited study and offer it as proof of charter school effectiveness despite substantial evidence that charter performance is as varied as that of the public schools they would replace.
• Expect Superintendent Berman to defend JCPS's continued efforts to turn around their most challenging schools despite years of stagnant results.
• Expect Oxendine to question the need for charter schools based on their mixed performance nationally.

The data on charter schools is far from conclusive. Taken as a whole it's impossible to conclude that they are any better, and are sometimes worse, than the public schools. But in places, they have shown success. As I have said before, if education were a natural science, it would be like meterology; highly-localized and ever-changing. Successful charter schools seem to focus on the success of each child, building relationships, and a high quality faculty working their butts off - like in successful public schools.

As early as 1999, Arizona researchers found "evidence of substantial ethnic segregation," and that charter schools "were higher in white enrollment than other public schools." (Cobb & Glass)

In "Does Choice Lead to Racially Distinctive Schools?" Weiher and Tedin (2002) found "that race is a good predictor" of the school choice families make. Whites, African Americans, and Latinos transfer into charter schools where their groups comprise between 11 and 14 percentage points more of the student body than the traditional public schools they are leaving.

In "Decade of Charter Schools: From Theory to Practice, Bulkley and Fisler (2003) at Rutgers
found that "although some successes are evident, there is still much to learn about the quality of charter schools and the experiences of charter school stakeholders. There is strong evidence that parents and students who remain in charter schools are satisfied and that charter schools are more autonomous than other public schools. But the jury is still out on some of the most important questions, including those about innovation, accountability, equity, and outcomes."

In "The effect of charter schools on charter students and public schools ," Bettinger (2004) at Case Western Reserve found that "test scores of charter school students do not improve, and may actually decline, relative to those of public school students," but charters had no significant effect on test scores in neighboring public schools.

In "Charter Schools and Student Achievement in Florida," Florida State's Tim Sass (2006) found achievement to initially be lower in charters. However, by their fifth year of operation charter schools "reach a par with the average traditional public school." Charters targeting at-risk and special education students demonstrate lower student achievement, as do their public counterparts. He found no difference between charters managed by for-profit entities than charters run by nonprofits.

In "Skimming the Cream" West, Ingram & Hind (2006) of the London School of Economics and Political Science found evidence suggestive of both "cream skimming" and "cropping off" educational provision to particular groups of students. "It is concluded that the introduction of market oriented reforms into public school systems requires monitoring and effective regulation to ensure that autonomous schools do not act in their own self-interest."

In "The Charter School Allure: Can Traditional Schools Measure Up? Bowling Green State's May (2006) found that "urban school districts are losing significant resources to charter schools" and that "despite the lack of statistically significant evidence of academic gains, parents perceive an enhanced educational experience." The author surmises that the chasm between perceived charter school success and traditional school failure is a "perception gap"

In "The Impacts of Charter Schools on Student Achievement: Evidence from North Carolina," Bifulco at U Conn and Duke's Ladd (2006) found that "students make considerably smaller achievement gains in charter schools than they would have in public schools" and say there is "suggestive evidence" that "about 30 percent of the negative effect of charter schools is attributable to high rates of student turnover."

Then came the study that defined the debate.

It was the first peer-reviewed detailed national assessment of charter school impacts since its longitudinal, student-level analysis covers more than 70 percent of the nation’s students attending charter schools. In “Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States,” reasearchers at the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found that "there is a wide variance in the quality of the nation’s several thousand charter schools with, in the aggregate, students in charter schools not faring as well as students in traditional public schools."

While the report recognized a robust national demand for more charter schools from parents and local communities, it found that 17 percent of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools, while 37 percent of charter schools showed gains that were worse than their traditional public school counterparts, with 46 percent of charter schools demonstrating no significant difference.

Then, something unusual happened.

Education Week reported Stanford colleague Caroline M. Hoxby, an economics professor, issued a memo critiquing the CREDO study in tandem with results from her own study of charter schools in New York City. That study showed that charter schools in the city were having the opposite effect on their students’ achievement as the CREDO researchers found.

In a memorandum titled "Fact vs. Fiction: An Analysis of Dr. Hoxby’s Misrepresentation of CREDO’s Research," the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, (CREDO), fired back.

The memo, "A Serious Statistical Mistake in the CREDO Study of Charter Schools," by Caroline Hoxby, does not provide any basis whatsoever for discounting the reliability of the CREDO study’s conclusions. The central element of Dr. Hoxby’s critique is a statistical argument that is quite unrelated to the CREDO analysis. The numerical elements of it are misleading in the extreme, even had the supporting logic been correct. Unfortunately, the memo is riddled with serious errors both in the structure of the underlying statistical models and in the derivation of any bias.

This is all going on at Stanford University, the same campus where the conservative Hoover Institution does its work with such notable conservatives as Condolesa Rice and Donald Rumsfeld. It the same place where Eric Hanushek tries to prove that money doesn't matter in education. One gets the distincitive au de political bias from the place. Turns out that Hoxby works there too. What a surprise.

“I don’t think the field of education research or policymakers are well served by scholars going back and forth with dueling memos, without peer review and without ample time to think it through,” said associate professor of education and sociology Sean F. Reardon, a colleague of both scholars at Stanford told Ed Week. “But I don’t think either side got it right,” he added.

Neither study has been published yet in a peer-reviewed journal. But that won't stop political operatives from citing them as definitive evidence.

KEA says Yes to Gov's Budget Plan

This from WHAS (now manned by Joe Arnold):

Kentucky Education Association President Sharron Oxendine today praised Governor Steve Beshear's plan to balance the state budget. "Despite record state funding shortfalls and a state economy that does not yet show signs of recovery, the Governor is maintaining his commitment to K-12 schools, students and school employees, and to keep Kentucky learning." Oxendine said.

KEA urges members of the Kentucky General Assembly to maintain school funding, either by passing Beshear's plan or creating one of their own that prioritizes education equally...

"We are heartened that the Governor literally is willing to put his money where his mouth is," said Oxendine.

According to the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center, Kentucky children face more educational obstacles than children in all but three other states. The center's research also indicates that Kentuckians get better results than almost any other state for their investments in public schools...

KEA also praised President Barack Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and increased levels of federal reimbursement for Medicaid expenses. Oxendine said, "Without this federal stimulus funding, the Governor would almost surely have had to make deeper cuts to school funding." ...

Oxendine went on to say, "Of course, we are not satisfied with a budget that makes no increases to school funding. At the same time, KEA recognizes the difficult position the Governor and legislators are in with a projected deficit of nearly one billion dollars in the fiscal year that begins next month. Our children and our schools, however, continue to have real unmet needs."

KEA supports comprehensive tax reform to create a system that sustains important government functions like public schools through good times and bad. KEA supports a tax system that grows with the economy and taxes Kentuckians in proportion to their ability to pay. KEA supports legislative action to create such a system.

Oxendine said, "No one really likes taxes, but everyone wants good public schools, good roads, and safe communities. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, 'Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.'"

Does the Tight School Budget Threaten Experienced Teachers?

Budget constraints appear to be leading some superintendents and principals to non-renew more experienced teachers in favor of cheaper, less experienced teachers. Given the volume of data underscoring the relationship between highly trained teachers and student achievement, this is a concern.

And the councern has reached the ears of some members of the state board of education.

I have been very pleased that over a 31-year career in Kenton and Fayette Counties, most of that as a principal, I was never once encouraged to hire a less qualified "cheaper" teacher. So such rumors, if true, are bothersome - particularly if they indicate a trend that leads to Kentucky children being taught by less capable folks.

It could also mean that Kentucky is leaning into a punch that's yet to be delivered.

In an effort to run down this rumor, KSN&C contacted KEA President Sharron Oxendine to see if she had received any such complaints. Oxendine reports,

“In the last three or four years we’ve heard this, particularly in eastern Kentucky.” A number of teachers are being let go “at the end of their fourth year” to save money.

This comes at a time when researchers are warning of a tsunami of baby boomers about to retire. USA Today reports that,

More than half the nation's teachers are Baby Boomers ages 50 and older and eligible for retirement over the next decade, a report says today. It warns that a retirement "tsunami" could rob schools of valuable experience.

The report by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future calls for school administrators to take immediate action to lower attrition rates and establish
programs that pass along valuable information from teaching veterans to new teachers.

"We face a tsunami in the shift of the future of the teachers' workforce," says Tom Carroll, president of the commission, who co-wrote the report. "Over the next five or six years, we could lose over a third of our teachers." ...

More than 40% of Kentucky's teachers are over the age of 50.

To make matters worse, retention rates for young teachers is pitiful. Schools lose about a third of their youngest teachers. A sufficient number of teachers are recruited at colleges and universities, but many leave the field within five years, Carroll says. "We're trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom, and we have been for decades," he says.

Oxendine also says she's concerned about rumors that in Fayette County this year, special education students “are being moved into collaboration and instructional assistants are being used to monitor” IEPs.

If true - this too would be bothersome. If fewer teachers are hired, in favor of more instructional aides who would work under the direction of regular classroom teachers, it's hard to imagine an improved situation for the district's neediest students. In addition, "are being moved" sounds like a district intervention rather than an independent decision made by each ARC.

FCPS spokesperson Lisa Deffendall told KSN&C that the rumor is "not true."

But that's not to suggest that the district is satisfied with the state of affairs in special education. Perhaps this is what lead to the rumor Oxendine heard.

Deffendall says that some other districts seem to be doing a better job with special needs students than Fayette County. To find out why, several schools have sent principals and teachers to study how other schools are achieving higher results. Many of those districts seem to be collaborating more than Fayette.

"If people are moving students to collaboration, it's kid by kid," Deffendall said. Regular education teachers are still responsible for developing, implementing and monitoring the students' Individual Education Plans.

The Cost of Teacher Turnover

When teachers leave their schools and districts, new teachers must be recruited, hired, and trained. NCTAF created a calculator to help estimate the cost of teacher turnover to a school or district.

There are two versions of the calculator; one for the general public and the second for school and district personnel, who may have specific data on teacher turnover and its costs.

Plug in some numbers. Read 'em and weep.

CATS Reaction Across the State

Senate Bill 1 could be signed into law today as across the state folks are coming to grips with what all this means.

"I believe there are several positive elements that could represent an important step forward in our ongoing efforts to reform primary and secondary education. Most significantly, this legislation will create a new system for statewide accountability and assessment that will, for the first time, measure individual student progress over an extended period of time. That is critically important,” Beshear said in a statement.

Politically, some wonder anew if House Speaker Greg Stumbo's rookies should be faulted for the surprise abandonment of accountability over the next three years. Was this a phantom provision, dropped into the free conference report at the last minute? If so, how, and by whom? Or was it a provision that all conferees agreed to with eyes wide open?

"It's an outstanding bill that will make great improvements and will honor the input that we've received from our educators," Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond [told the Herald-Leader].

Republican Sen. Dan Kelly of Springfield, a longtime proponent of changing Kentucky's assessment tools, said the bill would strengthen Kentucky's education system, not weaken it. "This is not the death of reform," Kelly said.

By all accounts, there was a great deal of input from teachers who had had enough....of something. Some clearly reacted to the amount of time they were being "asked" to commit to assessment at the expense of instruction. After all, you don't fatten a calf by weighing it. Some claimed that district personnel and principals had pushed teachers to the edge of some ethical cliff, and they pushed back.

Kelly's assurance that this does not mark the death of education reform in Kentucky is a welcome acknowledgement for those of us who believe a strong system of public schools is essential to our ability to compete as a state. But not all conservatives are buying it. Over at vere loqui, Martin Cothran declared that with the removal of the testing system KERA is officially dead and asked,

Will the last person out of Kentucky's Education Reform Headquarters please turn off the lights?

At KentuckyProgress, David Adams noted "the end of a disastrous episode in education 'reform'" and "got a kick out of "the Courier Journal referring to Bluegrass Institute as merely a "right-wing think-tank" (when everybody knows they are so much more). He thanked the Herald Leader for the "big laugh and free mention" when they referred to "conservative enemies" which Adams correctly assumed meant BIPPS, even though H-L didn't say.

None of the conservative groups came right out and said that Kelly was wrong. But they apparently believe he was.

The Herald-Leader lamented that as "lawmakers were dismantling Kentucky's school-accountability system last week, researchers were holding it up as a national model" citing Kentucky as one of five states that stand out for increasing high-school graduation rates while reducing schools that are "dropout factories." "It's impossible to not credit the Kentucky Education Reform Act for improvements in graduation rates," the H-L wrote.

Secretary of State Trey Grayson issued a statement voicing his dismay over the reduction of emphasis on social studies.

“By suspending the state accountability index and following the federal accountability requirements, we run the risk of marginalizing civics education,” he said in the statement. “With no accountability system in place for social studies, schools will naturally place a greater focus on those subjects that are part of accountability standards of No Child Left Behind.”

It now falls to the Kentucky Board of Education to guide KDE's response to Senate Bill 1. They start chatting on April 1st.

In the interim, some school districts, like Fayette County, are going to "make public its own 'academic index' based on this spring's testing, whether the state publishes a performance index or not." State education department spokeswoman Lisa Gross told the Herald-Leader the interim provisions in SB 1 might lead to widespread confusion until the new assessment system starts. Wayne Young, executive director of the Kentucky Association of School Administrators told H-L, "Some districts are going to go ahead and finish their portfolios. But you could get a bit of everything. There's no pattern that I would describe."

This morning outgoing President of the Council for Better Education Roger Marcum told state education leaders in an email message that Kentucky "chose the path of least resistance and the high risk of lower expectations for the immediate future."

His opinion echoed that of Prichard Committee head Bob Sexton who wrote an open letter posted on the Prichard blog,

It was decided that, for the next three years starting this spring, Kentucky schools should have no accountability except for student test scores on math and reading as required by No Child Left Behind. This means that the results of testing for writing (portfolios included) science, history, geography, economics, civics (i.e., social studies) and the arts won't be counted. The Kentucky Department of Education is also prohibited from publishing an overall school improvement score (accountability index) so schools won't know whether they are better or worse than the previous year - and neither will parents or other taxpayers.

Sexton quoted KEA President Sharron Oxendine as saying, "we should 'just give everybody a breather' from most accountability until we have a new system in three years."

The problems with that, according to Sexton include:

1. For the next three years schools won't have a way of telling parents and other taxpayers how they're progressing with student learning except in math and reading required by NCLB.
2. A likely result will be to de-emphasize writing, science, social studies (history, economics, geography, civics) and the arts.
3. Strong accountability ... and making the case for adequate or superior school funding are joined at the hip.

This last point has some serious legal implications for schools. Kentucky's constitution requires the General Assembly to provide an efficient system of common schools throughout the commonwealth. The Supreme Court has ruled that that means schools must be adequately funded to reach their goals. The absence of state accountability makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for a court to determine whether the General Assembly has fulfilled its obligation. How is a court to determine whether the system is sufficiently funded to reach its goals if the state has no justiciable standards by which the court might measure the efficiency of the system?

Ding Dong...

This from Ronie Ellis in the News and Tribune:

House passes bill to replace CATS test

Differences with Senate version

must be ironed out before final passage

FRANKFORT — The widely detested CATS school accountability test isn’t officially dead just yet – but it’s close.

The state House on Wednesday approved legislation to narrow the focus of the test, allow teachers to concentrate on fewer standards and students to gain a deeper understanding of those standards, according to Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond. The test will cost less, take less time, and match up with Kentucky college and university expectations for incoming freshmen.

It removes writing portfolios from the accountability index, although they will continue as an instructional tool. Some open response questions will be retained, although fewer than in the CATS test. And it must be administered during the last two weeks of the school year.

The bill is largely the product of negotiations between the House and Senate over differences between the two chambers’ approaches to school testing. On Wednesday the House education committee inserted into Senate Bill 1 language reflecting those negotiations, although committee Chairman Carl Rollins, D-Midway, said there are a few differences still to be worked out.“

Basically, this is what we proposed,” said Sharron Oxendine, president of the Kentucky Education Association. “You can hear teachers cheering all over the state. They know it’s going to be a better day for instruction.” ...

Legislators differ on how CATS should be revamped

This from C-J:

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Kentucky's current system of school testing may be on the way out, though House Democrats aren't sure that Senate Republicans have the answer for replacing it.

Senate Republicans have long favored abolishing the state's Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, known as CATS. They contend that it's costly and time-consuming and doesn't provide students with information about their academic progress.

Others are now joining them, saying that the system should be scrapped or at least changed.

"If I were going to paraphrase our members' feelings, it would be that CATS testing needs a complete overhaul," Sharron Oxendine, president of the Kentucky Education Association, said in an interview.

A Senate bill sponsored by Education Committee Chairman Ken Winters would replace the current test with a national test such as the ACT and would supplement it with a locally created multiple-choice test that matches Kentucky's curriculum. It also would de-emphasize writing portfolios required under state law.

"It's time for a change," Winters, R-Murray, told the committee yesterday. "It's time we begin to adjust."

The committee didn't vote on the bill, but Winters said he expects it to win approval next week...

...House Education Committee Chairman Carl Rollins said in an interview yesterday that there is widespread agreement that changes are needed in the test. But he said he doesn't like the Senate solution.

"I think the bill needs work," said Rollins, D-Versailles.

He also said an overhaul of the test may need to be done as part of a broader attempt to revisit KERA.

"The Senate plan tries to do this in short order, and I don't think it can be done in short order," he said...

Beshear calls on pension systems to reform investment practices

Calls for plan to be implemented in concert with

key stakeholders; Kentucky Chamber of Commerce

FRANKFORT, Ky. – Gov. Steve Beshear today announced a series of recommendations to reform the investment practices of the state’s two major public pension systems, the Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System (KTRS) and the Kentucky Retirement Systems (KRS). The recommendations are in response to the report of Gov. Beshear’s bi-partisan Public Pension Working Group, which was chaired by Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary Jonathan Miller.

The working group found the systems had significantly trailed the average investment returns of their peers, to the tune of approximately $5 billion over the last decade.

After weeks of intense study and discussion, Gov. Beshear brought together key stakeholders and representatives of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce late Wednesday to forge a final set of recommendations for the pension systems.

The recommendations include:Adding four investment experts to the investment committees of each of the two pension boards, enabling them to better formulate allocation policies to net better investment returns; Requiring all public pension board members to receive continuing education on current investment practices;
Conducting an immediate study to determine the proper allocation of the systems’ investment portfolios; and Reviewing administrative regulations and eliminating those that impair the pension systems’ ability to implement efficient investment portfolios.

Gov. Beshear today also announced the appointment of Henry Clay Owen, retired long-time treasurer of the University of Kentucky, to the board of KRS. Owen is the governor’s second appointment of an investment expert to the KRS Board. This spring, he appointed Chris Tobe, a Chartered Financial Analyst from Louisville to the board. By statute, the governor does not have the authority to appoint members to the board of KTRS.

“We appreciate and respect the hard work that each of our public pension board members does to ensure a safe and secure retirement for all of our teachers and public employees,” stated Gov. Beshear. “But since every dollar of investment earnings translates into one less dollar that taxpayers need to contribute to these funds, it is essential that we have the involvement of investment experts. That is why I have appointed Mr. Owen and Mr. Tobe, and that’s what we hope the systems will accomplish through enacting our recommended actions.”

"We support the changes embodied in this proposal and applaud the governor's leadership on this issue,” stated David Adkisson, president and CEO of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. “Adding a majority of members with investment experience to the public employee pension investment committees is a step in the right direction to ensure confidence in the ongoing performance of these plans."

“In a time of economic uncertainty, it is imperative that we as constitutional officers act in the best interest of our fellow Kentuckians,” stated State Treasurer Todd Hollenbach, who Gov. Beshear appointed chair of the Investments Subcommittee of the Public Pension Working Group. “To that point I want to thank Gov. Beshear for tackling the issues most important to the people of the commonwealth.”

Sharron Oxendine, president of the Kentucky Education Association (KEA), a statewide membership organization made up of more then 40,000 teachers, classified employees, education students and retired school employees, said:

“KEA appreciates the work of Gov. Beshear, Finance Secretary Miller and Treasurer Hollenbach to bring together concerned parties to work together to improve the investment returns. The governor's leadership in creating a consensus is exactly what the commonwealth needs in these troubling economic times. While the agreement addresses investment returns, it also protects the independence of the retirement systems, important to protect them from political influence like that seen in the Transportation Cabinet during the previous administration." ...

SOURCE: Governor's press release

Senate calls for smaller raises for teachers

This from the Herald-Leader:

FRANKFORT, Ky. --Teachers would receive smaller pay raises under a budget proposal being considered by Senate lawmakers.

The Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee was preparing for a vote on the two-year spending plan on Monday, then sending it to the full Senate for consideration.

The proposal calls for 1 percent wage increases in each of the next two fiscal years for public school teachers. A proposal approved by House lawmakers earlier this month would provide raises of 1 percent in the first year of the budget and 3 percent in the second.

Kentucky Education Association President Sharron Oxendine said she is hopeful the larger raises can be restored before lawmakers give final approval to the budget.

"It's not just bad for teachers, it's bad for public education," Oxendine said. "When you have school employees having to go out and take second and third jobs to make ends meet, that's a detriment to education."

Oxendine was also critical of a Senate promise to increase teacher salaries later, if state revenues were to grow.

"You can't make ends meet on a promise," she said...

KEA pushes for some kind of revenue increase

This from PolWatchers:

The Kentucky Education Association kicked off a Friday of tax and budget plan wrangling with a press conference urging lawmakers to do something -- anything -- to provide more money for schools and teachers.

Sharron Oxendine, ...KEA president, said the teacher's union was heartened by separate plans Gov. Steve Beshear and House Democrats are pushing. Both are aimed at raising between $750 million and $800 million over two years to help fill in deep gaps in Beshear's originally proposed budgets....

...Overall, KEA members have been urging lawmakers to bolster the budget during a series of "at home lobbying meetings" that so far have been held in more than 60 of the 100 House districts and about half of the 38 Senate areas.