The Hunt for Missing School Children

An interesting chat at the Prichard blog; Susan Weston has been hunting missing school children.

Weston has been looking for about 3,000 Kentucky students who, sometime after middle school, seem to disappear from the count of graduates and dropouts each year.

The issue matters. Tracking attendance and computing graduation rate tells us whether the opportunity to obtain an adequate education is distributed across the citizens of the Commonwealth, as the constitution requires. Writ large, the K-12 system has only recently become equitable in terms of fiscal support. Similarly, the system has a strong basis to claim advances in student achievement since the Rose decision in 1989. The system is better socially; not perfect.

Anyway, Weston thinks she's found good news - that state information systems are performing better.

the added accuracy is coming from the improved student information system that moved into full implementation two years ago, designed to track students individually from year to year and from school to school across the state.

Overall, though, it looks like a good sign: it looks as though we're getting closer to counting the students who don't collect diplomas accurately, and like we're also getting better at getting many of them through to high school graduation.

She says it could also mean KDE is ...

• Keeping better track of public school eighth graders as they move through to graduations than we did a few years ago 
• More private schools students moving into the public schools than we was a few years ago
• More students who repeat grade 9 nevertheless persevering to graduation.

School Board to School Council Members: "Sue You"

Imagine that you are a member of your local board of education. Ponder your responsibilities. Think about how you are going to enlist all of the help you are going to need in order for your school district to be successful. You can generally count on all of the principals and most of the teachers being on board, if for no other reason than it is their job. Most will be strong supporters of improving the schools.

But what about the parents?

When schools and parents work closely together we get the best results for the kids. We see that over and over again. It is an important attribute comon to the best public schools, charter schools, and private schools.

Think about what kind of message you'd want your school board to send to the parents who serve at the school council level. Are you all partners on the same team? Or do we only want parent involvement when its convenient? And what's the board's message to the parent and teacher council members when things go wrong?

Believe it or not, this issue was touched on yesterday in the Kentucky Court of Appeals during oral arguments. It was a question of who should be held responsible if a personnel matter at the school level brought allegations of wrong doing, such as the racial discrimination claim in Petrilli v Silberman.

While representing his clients, Fayette County Schools Superintendent Stu Silberman and the Board of Education, attorney John McNeill argued yesterday that it was inappropriate to sue the superintendent or board. Instead, he suggested to the court that an aggreived person should sue ... individual school council members!?

Now, as I'm sure KSN&C readers know, school council members select their school's principal from a list of qualified candidates provided by the superintendent. In the case of teachers, council members are consulted before the principal selects. In both cases, the superintendent completes the hiring process. After that, the personnel responsibilities of school council members are a big honkin' ZERO. Nothing. School council members do not consult, advise, observe (formally), evaluate, or discipline any teacher or principal who gets out of line. They have no authority to do so whatsoever. So the suggestion that these are the folks who should be sued in such cases left me bewildered.

Wondering if I was the only person who found McNeill's argument to be stunning, I went looking for a second opinion from another attorney. I happened to find one who used to run the Kentucky Association of School Councils, Susan Weston.

Weston opines,

The school-based decision making statute, KRS 160.345(2)(f), says in so many words that school councils "shall not have the authority to recommend transfers or dismissals/" School councils have a specific role in hiring: they select principals and are consulted on other vacancies. They have no role with individual personnel once they are hired. They do not evaluate, do not set evaluation rules, do not discipline, and do not terminate. And, as the law I just quoted makes clear, they don't even get to recommend that employees be removed from their current positions. Since a council has no legal role at all in a process that leads to a principal ceasing to be principal, I am mystified about how a council could be sued over activity it could not
control.

Yeah. What she said.

Now I'm betting that neither the superintendent or board of education got together to make this suggestion their unofficial policy or their legal gameplan. Tempting as it might be, I doubt our board members would really want council members to be held responsible for things beyond their control. Still, it is troubling to think that this argument is out there, before the Kentucky Court of Appeals.

What if the court agrees with McNeill? Who would want to serve on a school council then?

Unbridled Learning Summit

I knew I could count on her.

I chose advisees over the state's Unbridled Learning Summit that happened in Louisville Monday. I secretly hoped that Susan Weston would post a story on it over at the Prichard Blog. I even bet a colleague a nickle that she would. She did. : )

The Highlights:

• Regional networks, one set for mathematics and another for English/language arts, will include several teachers sent by each district.
• Superintendents, principals, and instructional supervisors will participate in separate, but related networks.
• Overall, network participants will make a three-year commitment to eight meeting days a year, plus study before meetings and on-line discussion between meetings.
• All the networks will study a sequence of core issues: how to break down the new standards, develop classroom assessments, and organize instruction to move all students to college-and-career-readiness.
• Over the same three years, the network participants from each district will design and implement the district effort to move those same practices into district-wide classroom application.

Now, go read the rest.

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.

Big Effort - Not Enough

From Kentucky experience, we accept that

an inadequate system takes time to rebuild,

but the process ought to be expected

to raise measurable student outcomes

to the needed level within a single generation.

--Weston & Sexton

A new paper on Rose and political mobilization in Kentucky from Susan Weston and Bob Sexton just came out.

At first read, it appears the authors argue a Kentucky judiciary that was "both bold and restrained" and that "the system could not be made constitutional without lasting legislative monitoring."

Justice Robert Stephens thought of himself as a judicial activist but he did demonstrate restraint by not exceeding the court's authority according to the separation of powers - a decision that would have later benefitted the plaintiffs in Young v Williams. Stephens struck down Judge Ray Corns' idea of a committee to monitor the legislature for the same reason, but made it clear that it was the General Assembly's responsibility to monitor the continued constitutionality of the system - something the legislature has almost never done very well.

This from Prich:

"Substantial and Yet Not Sufficient" provides an analytic overview of the origins, impact and implications of Kentucky's landmark educational adequacy litigation, Rose v. Council for Better Education. It provides important new material and insights regarding the political mobilization for school reform, legislative action, statewide implementation, and recent fiscal difficulties that have occurred over the past 20 years since the case was decided. The authors make their case that Kentucky's 1989 court ruling and 1990 legislation unquestionably led to substantive improvement for all students in the state. Based on their experience, they also share a set of thoughts about what counts as successful work to build school systems that serve all students well.

Our experience illustrates that a restrained judicial ruling, at least in the context of lasting political mobilization, can yield quite major legislative steps forward.

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.

Little Marty Cothran's Magic Dragon

Over at the Prichard Blog, Susan Weston goes all literary on Martin Cothran, spinning a tale of magic elixirs and a dragon that ate teachers, set fire to an entire Kentucky village and lived forever.

By living in the real world, Weston just doesn't see imaginary dragons; but not so little boys. To Cothran, the dragon is real.

In simply doing her best to "build up the public schools of our beloved commonwealth," Weston is totally lacking in an evil enemy to slay.

In Martin’s looking-glass commonwealth, the KERA-dragon cast educational spells far beyond the skills of the left-wing sorcerers of Berkeley, California, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In our real state, our elected leaders (from places like Richmond, Prestonsburg, Liberty, Burkesville, and Danville) voted in the Kentucky Education Reform Act. KERA delivered stronger and fairer school funding, reduced political corruption, and vastly improved facilities and technology. It nurtured more focused teachers, better instructional leaders, and a big step up in justified pride in public education.

House plan to reform CATS unveiled

This from the Herald-Leader:

FRANKFORT — A House bill to revamp Kentucky's controversial CATS student testing system got its first public airing late Thursday before the House Education Committee.

House Bill 508's many provisions include: replacing the CATS system, but not until after the 2010-2011 school year; revising all state academic standards in a phased process starting next year; and aligning core content at all levels, as well as aligning high school academic core content with college requirements.

While the current testing program would continue through 2011, writing portfolios would be removed from accountability this year. Portfolios would be retained, however, as instructional tools from primary through 12th grade.

The measure is the House's response to Senate Bill 1, which would rework CATS by eliminating open-response questions and taking out portfolios. The Senate has already passed SB 1.

Most of the Education Committee session was devoted to a detailed explanation of HB 508 by its lead sponsor, state Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond.

Moberly said he would have preferred to leave CATS unchanged through 2014, when all Kentucky students are supposed to achieve proficiency status. But he said there had been "such a hue and cry" over CATS that he thought change was necessary...

Over at the Prichard blog, Susan has a workup of the bill and opines that HB 508 is a strong step forward. Notice Ben Oldham's argument for a blended assessment in the comments section.

I maintain an almost complete lack of faith in program reviews as an effective solution to the Writing Portfolio + Arts & Humanities problem. I seriously doubt the muscularity of the approach and predict that, if adopted, within five years program reviews will be abandoned as useless.

I hope the House will find some middle ground during negotiations.

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?

P-12 Cuts a Giant Step Backward with Staff Reductions, Larger Class Sizes

Steve Clements and Susan Weston have an article in last week's Business Lexington:

...The governor's worst-case scenario for 2008-09 would undo much of the recent improvement.

Leaving aside health benefits, planned state funding was $471 million higher for 2007-08 than it had been two years earlier, but the proposed cuts could undo $290 million of that growth in 2008-09. If inflation stays high into next year, the rest of any real increase could disappear.

Local funding growth may be able to offset a fraction of the state cuts. In past years, while added state dollars have gone heavily to benefits, district growth has been able to fund some positive developments.

For example, all-day kindergarten has become common, and average class sizes have dropped from 26 to 23, and down to 20 for kindergarten through third grade. School districts have added around 4,600 additional certified employees in the last decade, staffing the kindergarten and class size changes along with other efforts that include expanded preschools, new alternative schools, and intensive reading interventions.However, districts may find it harder to raise their contributions in coming years.

The tax legislation known as House Bill 44 limits districts to annual increases of 4 percent in revenue on their "existing" tax base. That allowed real growth in years when inflation was below 4 percent, but the recent higher inflation could make them unable to keep up with growing costs. That 4 percent limit does not apply to "new" property — such as farmland converted to residential neighborhoods — so growth zones like Fayette and Jessamine counties may still be able to outpace inflation, but an economic slowdown could also hurt there.Nor is federal funding likely to relieve those difficulties: those dollars are a small portion of Kentucky's total education spending, and there's little momentum in Washington for a big increase.How will declining funding affect our schools?

Since more than 80 percent of district spending goes to payroll, a cut anything like the governor's worst-case scenario will likely require staff reductions and increased class sizes. Salary schedules will probably not keep up with the cost of living, so most educators who keep their jobs will see their buying power decline. As in any workplace, those changes can damage morale, and even professionals as dedicated as Kentucky educators may find it hard to bring their fullest energy to classrooms for a while.

State funding for specific programs may decline for things like textbooks, school technology, after-school tutoring and staff professional growth. Some districts may have to return to half-day kindergarten and reduce funding to schools for supplies and other needs. Valuable extracurricular programs or some course offerings that exceed state requirements — such as foreign languages and most math classes beyond Algebra II— may no longer be possible.

The losses will surely affect Kentucky's future. Younger students who receive weaker preschool and have larger primary classes may have a tougher time throughout their school years and on into adulthood. Older students may enter college or the workforce weakened by the losses to their middle and high schools.

Schools with the lowest scores and slowest improvement have been identified as a top priority for state intervention. It may be especially difficult to give those schools the added help they need to catch up and meet state goals for 2014.

State cuts could also have an immediate impact on how Kentucky is perceived nationally. Our historic education failings are well known, but our reform work has given us a credible claim to be a state that is moving steadily forward. These funding losses could change that. For national corporations, that could immediately make Kentucky a less appealing location...

HONEY! Our Little Scholar is Home with his Report Card !

The folks over at the Bluegrass Institute drew my attention to the fact that Junior's Report Card is out. And there's a bad mark.

B+
B-
3 Cs
and a D+

D+ ! Wait until your mother gets home!

So the Bluegrass Institute's research guy reached out and gave a little tweak to those of us who have noted Kentucky's increasing rank among the states in student achievement in recent years.

The inference is that those of us who engaged in the hoopla, were somehow misleading the public -and we all know how bad that would be. As Austin Powers might say, "Ouch, Baby. Ouch."

The facts are these:

• Kentucky has made progress in recent years relative to the 50 states.
• Three separate 2007 reports showed Kentucky at 34th, 31st and 34th.
• But in-state data is also unequivocal - Kentucky's student achievement progress is not yet sufficient.

Those are the facts. But what is the spin?

Now, Quality Counts is the kind of cobbled together assessment BGI might otherwise criticize, if the results were less to their liking - but true to its mission one supposes - BGI went straight for the lowest score and dismissed the rest.

Now, I may not like it, but that's actually OK with me. Whatever data Kentucky produces, I say, let's see it. But let's not misinterpret the meaning.

As BGI knows whenever the states are ranked in any category, it it teaches us nothing about the strength of a score. Arguably, every state in the union is lacking in student achievement. In fact, the 2007 NAEP student achievement leader, Massachusetts, scored - B for student achievement.

All a rank does is to compare relative standing.

So how does the Quality Counts (subscription required) report card deal with that? Why, for every score Kentucky gets, Quality Counts tells us the the national average score.

Chance for Success: Kentucky = C; Nation = C+

K-12 Achievement: Kentucky = D+; Nation = D+

Stnds, Assesmt & Accountability: Kentucky = B+; Nation = B

Transitions & Alingmt: Kentucky = C; Nation = C

Teaching Prof: Kentucky = B-; Nation = C

School Finance: Kentucky = C; Nation = C+

Now, we're able to compare (if very roughly) Kentucky's relative standing in student achievement. And since we know our student achievement score matches the national average - low as that may be - in terms of state rank, Kentucky falls among those states at the 50th percentile?

Isn't that wonderful news?

So here's my new headline:

Quality Counts Report Shows Kentucky now tied for 25th
in K-12 Student Achievement !!!

BGI applauds the jump from 34th.

But seriously folks...

It is readily apparent that one should not place too much weight on any one study. Better to set up as good a system as one can, and let it work. The trending data over time teaches us much. The important thing is that we are all working to make the schools better - not abandon them.

What I see from the study is some confirmation that our ultimate chances for success aren't on par with our competition (neither are they out of reach) and that less than optimal support for the system probably contributes to that circumstance.

For a more serious assessment of Kentucky's situation check out, "Substantial And Yet Not Sufficient: Kentucky's Effort to Build Proficiency for Each and Every Child," By Susan Weston and Bob Sexton. It was presented at Columbia University's conference, Campaign for Educational Equity, in November.

Draud tells schools to get ready for possible SEEK cuts

Below is the complete Email message sent to all state superintiendents yesterday:

From: Draud, Jon - Commissioner, Dept. of Education
Sent: Monday, January
07, 2008 9:29 AM
To: All State Supt
Cc: KDE Planning Committee
Subject: Budget situation
Importance: High

I have been notified by the Governor’s administration that the budget outlook for 2008-10 is extremely bleak. As a result, the SEEK formula is being considered for a
possible reduction. In my opinion, a reduction in the SEEK formula would be devastating for elementary and secondary education.

It is important that each school district superintendent start estimating how a 7% reduction in the SEEK formula would impact your school district. I will be in touch with you as more information comes forward but I wanted you to know what we may be facing.

Here's the H-L story.

Public schools told to brace for cuts ahead
7 PERCENT REDUCTION IN SEEK FUNDS 'POSSIBLE' IN 2008-09

...Beshear will make his budget proposals for both the 2008-09 and 2009-10 fiscal years public on Jan. 29.

"We are not touching SEEK this fiscal year (2007-08)," Beshear said. "We have not made a determination for the next budget."

SEEK funding totals about $3 billion a year, and a 7 percent cut would be about $205 million, said Susan Weston, an independent education consultant focusing on school funding and a former director of the Kentucky Association of School Councils.

"At least since 1990 and the Kentucky Education Reform Act, K-12 has never faced a cut in funding of anything like this scale," Weston said. The possible cut would mostly affect districts with little property per pupil.

"In general you're talking poor Eastern Kentucky, and then some of the very rural districts," she said. Those districts "don't have that much they can tax." ...

A half adequate education in Kentucky?

The Prichard Committee recently released a report that looked at funding for education in Kentucky since 1990 and the impact of benefit expenses on the delivery of educational services to students. The study suggests that the rising insurance and benefit costs for school employees have eaten into that funding that might have otherwise gone for programs that directly impact children.

The report authored by Susan Weston and Steve Clements offers a review of major trends in state funding from the earliest implementation of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in fiscal year 1991 through the budget recently enacted for fiscal year 2008.

Susan Perkins Weston, an attorney, is the former executive director of the Kentucky Association of School Councils, now doing some consulting. Stephen Clements is the director of the University of Kentucky's Institute for Educational Research and a faculty member of the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation.

Weston and Clements note the resurgence of public conversation surrounding the funding of Kentucky’s public schools in recent years; a conversation that had languished for the previous decade and a half.

They also point to the state’s fiscal and budget crises from 2002 to 2005 and its impact on school funding: Cuts to extended school services and textbooks while regional service centers and school rewards were axed.

In 2004, teacher protests forced a special legislative session to commit extra funding to health insurance for state and school district employees.

In 2006, after state revenues had recovered, the General Assembly increased school funding substantially, targeting teacher salaries and adding two days to the calendar.

Their analysis revealed:

• Kentucky took a major step in state support for education efforts from 1990 to 1992.


• Those efforts continued from 1992 to 1996, completing start-up investments and adding funds to ongoing initiatives with limited additional dollars.


• New initiatives and an extra investment in technology were added from 1996 to 2000.


• Funding took a step backward from 2000 to 2004, reflecting overall state fiscal difficulties.


• An important recovery from 2004 to 2008 served mainly to keep up and catch up with growing costs for existing efforts.


• In every period since 1992, inflation and faster-than-inflation growth in benefit costs consumed a major portion of the total increases.

The study focused mainly on state funding since state dollars cover the bulk of P-12 schooling costs and are directly controllable by Kentucky’s lawmakers.

Funding is not the only element needed to provide academic excellence for Kentucky’s children, but it is one essential component deserving of steady attention and wide participation. And it is especially important to know how much of Kentucky’s education-directed resources are being spent on programs to improve student achievement and how much are being consumed by such areas as rising health insurance and benefit costs.

In the end, expanded services need to reach the children who need them, if all are, indeed, going to achieve proficiency.

Weston and Clements chose the metaphor of a half-full glass (or was it half-empty?) to illustrate their view of Kentucky's school funding circumstance. I have tended to think of it as how much gas you have in the tank, because reaching any goal always depends on how far you want to go.

So what is an "adequate" education? Well...that depends, because it changes.

When Kentucky began its system of schools in 1837, a Kentuckian could be considered "educated" with a 4th grade skill set. The goal of the common school movement was free public grammar schools.

The industrial revolution needed more skilled workers, and by 1900, it became obvious that the new goal needed to be a high school education for Kentucky citizens. It took more funding to get there but with the new century came high schools in every county and a "nornal school" in every region. Americans were uncommonly proud of their schools; schools upon which a great democratic society was being built.

Kentucky is at a crossroads once again. The level of education among the workforce needs to be advanced if Kentucky is to continue to prosper. The global imperatives of the information age make the new basic level of education a college degree.

Anything less will be inadequate to keep pace with our competition.

Kentucky must travel the road that leads to more college graduates. But do we have the fuel to get us there?

At the p-12 level, we talk about this in terms of each and every child reaching "proficiency;" which opens the door to a college education for all.

Weston and Clements talk about adequacy this way:

Adequacy

Ultimately, the big question is: do Kentucky schools have the financial resources they need to deliver proficiency for all students?

Proficiency is the short definition of what an “efficient system of common schools,” as explicated by Rose v. Council for Better Education (the 1989 state Supreme Court decision that preceded KERA), should deliver.

Naturally, the question could be broken down into several parts: What efforts are needed to deliver proficiency? Are there special efforts needed for students with unusually intense learning challenges, including those with exceptional disabilities, those with grave poverty challenges and those with limited English?

What will it cost, on an ongoing basis, to deliver that mix of services?

What transitional costs are required to get there, such as added professional development, added or reconfigured facilities, and other help to retool in preparation for using use new approaches? Are the most appropriate mechanisms in place for ensuring that schools and districts make decisions that will most effectively lead to proficiency?

Is that revenue, in fact, being provided?

The Rose Opinion reads, "The system of common schools must be adequately funded to achieve its goals. The system of common schools must be substantially uniform throughout the state. Each child, every child, in this Commonwealth must be provided with an equal opportunity to have an adequate education."

"Proficiency" is indeed a short definition for an efficient system. Among the essential, and minimal, characteristics of an "efficient" system of common schools Chief Justice Robert Stephens included,
1. The establishment, maintenance and funding of common schools in Kentucky is the sole responsibility of the General Assembly.
2. Common schools shall be free to all.
3. Common schools shall be available to all Kentucky children.
4. Common schools shall be substantially uniform throughout the state.
5. Common schools shall provide equal educational opportunities to all Kentucky children, regardless of place of residence or economic circumstances.
6. Common schools shall be monitored by the General Assembly to assure that they are operated with no waste, no duplication, no mismanagement, and with no political influence.
7. The premise for the existence of common schools is that all children in Kentucky have a constitutional right to an adequate education.
8. The General Assembly shall provide funding which is sufficient to provide each child in Kentucky an adequate education.
9. An adequate education is one which has as its goal the development of the seven [enumerated] capacities...

SOUREC: Rose v. Council for Better Education, 790 S. W. 2d 186.

Several 2003 studies found that Kentucky’s 2002 education funding was falling short of needed levels, and a lawsuit brought by the Council for Better Education used those findings and data on student achievement progress to seek new legislative action. In 2007, the Franklin Circuit Court ruled that student progress was rapid enough to preclude a court ruling for more funding— but added that a suit might be proper if progress slowed down.

I find this analysis somewhat incomplete, particularly as regards the separation of powers argument. Franklin County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate said it was not the court's role to dictate to the legislature a specific method for determining whether the schools are being adequately funded. In the Rose case, lead attorney Bert Combs carefully avoided seeking a specific remedy for fear the whole case might fall - as it did in Wingate's court. Instead, Combs sought only a declaratory judgment that left solutions to the legislature.

The CBE leadership chose not to appeal the decision. Whether in or out of court, the
debate on funding sufficient to support adequate education is sure to continue into the future.

Whatever the next steps in the academic debate, adequacy is also an issue for Kentucky’s citizens. However complex it may be to work out what our children need and however strenuous it may be to fund those needs, it is our shared duty to seek understanding and to work together to provide the learning that is right and good for the next generation.

Schools across Ky see big jumps

Experts debate effect of changes

The numerous changes to the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System this year weren't supposed to have much of an effect on test scores for the state's 1,183 public schools.

But according to a Herald-Leader analysis, scores that were adjusted to accommodate the changes showed big jumps at nearly every level.

Across the state, the number of schools scoring between 90 and 99 between 2006 and 2007 went up 35 percent. The number of schools that surpassed 100 rose nearly 50 percent. And the number of schools that scored less than 60 decreased 63 percent.

The big jumps are part of a confusing maelstrom for educators and parents, as state officials try to bring the statewide test more in line with federal requirements. Scores were supposed to be released Sept. 26, but the changes -- in the test and in how it's graded -- resulted in a delay...

Quotes:

~

Skip Kifer, director of the Advance Study on Assessment at Georgetown College, quoted a famous maxim in testing circles: "If you want to measure change, don't change the measure," he said. "When you change so many things over the years, it's hard to know what you're comparing."

~

"It meets the technical expectations," said Susan Weston, former director of the Kentucky Association of School Councils and a testing analyst. "But you need public understanding and respect, and the public is struggling. I certainly hear the sounds of axles that really need some oil." ..."I can't tell yet whether we've got an equally difficult test and we're just grading it easier, or whether the test itself is easier," Weston said.

~

"You worry that it's an easier test," said Kati Haycock, president of Education Trust in Washington, D.C. "If you've got way more at the top, and way fewer at the bottom, either it's an easier test or a lower cut score."

~

Keith Travis, a member of the state board of education, said he's not concerned about the boost being a result of an easier test or altered scoring system. "Any time you change testing modes, there's always going to be a concern that you've diminished the rigor of the test to enhance the scores," Travis said. "That's a valid question and one that people ought to be asking."

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"It's a little early to be panicking," said Sen. Jack Westwood, R-Crescent Spring, who said he received phone calls about the boost in scores. "I don't want to suggest at this stage that there is something amiss ... . On the surface, it seems a little disturbing to me. We need to make sure that the spike in the scores are in fact accurate examples of where our kids are."

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Starr Lewis, a former associate commissioner with the Kentucky Department of Education and now a professor at University of Louisville, said she would advise parents to look at other data, such as National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP, scores, to see whether Kentucky is improving overall. "This is real progress, and it's not a matter of smoke and mirrors and changing performance standards on a state test," she said.

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Bob Sexton of the Prichard Committee said "It's complicated every place because the nature of testing is that you have to change things as you go along because ... you have to respond to legislatures and the federal government," he said. "School systems have accepted the notion that accountability can drive change, so it's the state's obligation to help school systems understand the data. Right now they can't tell what it tells them."

This from the Herald-Leader.