Last night approximately 1,100 citizens gathered in ten locations around the state seeking a unified vision for education in Kentucky and to reenergize reform.Reminiscent of the Prichard Committee's Town Forums of 1984 which jump started KERA, Transforming Education in Kentucky (TEK) is Governor Stever Beshear's effort to gain consensus on a wide range of school improvements that will be presented to the General Assembly in 2011. As the governor said when he kicked off the initiative in October, I’m calling on our state and our people to recommit ourselves to ensuring the future of our children.” Last night, he called for "a fresh look" at education in the state.
If the 100 people in attendance at BCTCS in Lexington is any indication, the participants were a mix of prominent citizen advocates in education and health care, along with parents, policy wonks, college professors, teachers, school administrators and interested citizens.
Newly elected Kentucky Board of Education Chair David Karem, told the Courier-Journal the Jefferson County session “affirmed my belief that each student must be seen as an individual and that learning must be tailored to each child.”
Students with a strong elementary through high school education were twice as likely to earn a college degree, Bob King told the television audience. “That’s true even with all the interventions and remedial programs we have to help (poorly prepared high school graduates).”
In Paducah, facilitator Tom Prather said 87,000 new jobs in Kentucky are expected for college graduates by 2018.“But only 12,000 jobs are expected for students with only a high school degree,” Prather said.
The statewide forums should garner important concerns from local districts, according to Morehead State University dean of education Cathy Gunn, who co-chaired the Ashland forum with ACTC’s dean of advancement Louise Shytle. “These are your schools, the districts affected by decisions in Frankfort,” Gunn told the Daily Independent.
Joe Overby, a former Daviess County Public Schools educator and board member praised the effort. "This is the way you build a movement. It's a great way to start people talking about the same thing. It helps me understand that my concerns are a part of many," Oveby told the Messenger Inquirer (subscription only).
The largest single crowd (250 participants) gathered at Northern Kentucky University. When learning about this, Governor Beshear quipped, "I don't know what they did. They must have offered steak."
But the turnout at NKU is very likely the product of substantial momentum that began to gather in November, 2007, around the Vision 2015 Education Summit during Commissioner Jon Draud's tenure.Audience estimates are as follows: Paducah, 90; Owensboro, 100; Bowling Green, 100; Elizabethtown, 140; Jefferson, 85 (C-J estimated 100+); NKU, 275; BCTCS, 100; Somerset, 80; Prestonsburg, 50 and Ashland, 70.
TEK was also the new season's first topic on Education Matters, Kentucky Educational Television's educational policy program hosted by Bill Goodman. Goodman's guests included Governor Beshear along with First Lady Jane Beshear who spearheads the community-based Graduate Kentucky program, Education Commissioner Terry Holliday and Council on Postsecondary Education President Bob King.
Did you miss the program? Watch it here, at KET.
KET aired the program live and the panel fielded questions from participants and KET viewers while a feed of the program streamed in each location. Goodman bounced a few of the early questions off panel members to see who would best address which topics. The only question I noticed that drew little response from panel members had to do with the teaching of foreign languages in elementary schools, something Kentucky is not heavily involved in.
Afterward, the Commissioner expressed some surprise that "no one brought up the C-word." [charter schools] Goodman added, "and I didn't either... And you know what, we didn't have a question about it."
But perhaps the panel benefitted from a little administrative intervention. A staffer responded, "Well, there are some out there on the table." (Lots of laughter)
The staffer added, we were just swamped with questions from all over the state."
Beshear: "That's good."
Commissioner Holliday told the group, "We'll get all of the questions answered."
Then the staffer said, "There are a few political questions in there."
And feigning surprise, the Governor laughed and said, "No." (more laughter)
The TEK Task Force is seeking public input - from YOU - focusing (but not exclusively) on the following topics:
- Improving college readiness
- Providing every student with the opportunity to earn college credit during high school
- Creating a system of assessments that measure what employers value
- Ramping up academics in career and technical schools
- Using technology to improve teaching and learning
- Improving teacher recruitment and retention
- Improving transitions between preschool and K-12
Let the governor know what you think:
Following the program the panel took a few questions from KSN&C.
KSN&C: Reminding the governor of similar successful past efforts by state leaders to engage the public - most recently the Prichard Town Forums - "I assume this was not an accident, to set this up in the same way as the Town Forums in 1984."
Beshear: "You don't try to reinvent the wheel when something has worked you tend to utilize it again. Particularly the Prichard Forums, that we all recall, played such a vital role in energizing the population all across the state. The parents, and you know, getting outside the education establishment, and energizing the public in general and the parents in particular. It played such a vital role in actually making all of that happen. I'm very hopeful that this kind of thing is going to play the same kind of role as we move forward and try to take this whole system to the next level.
KSN&C: I was talking to Bob Sexton the other day, and he said one of the main things they learned was how hard the work is and how long a haul it is to maintain that energy. So after 2011, when the Task Force presents its recommendations to the General Assembly, what's next? How do you maintain that momentum?
Beshear: As these fellas will tell you, a lot of this effort is just in the beginning formative stages, it's going to take a continuous effort and continuous work to make these things happen ...
KSN&C: So you think you guys will be out there again?
Beshear: Oh, we'll be out there a number of times as we go along. And as Bob - we were talking today - some efforts in other states that have, sort of, dissolved.
KSN&C: Which is actually the more common thing....
King: Well I think the challenge for us is to get some early success. If we can do that, it drives more, you know? The concern I've had - and we talked about this from the very beginning, right after Senate Bill 1 was passed - what you saw in the other states, such as Arizona, they set higher standards, or tried to. In the first round, so many kids flunked the exams that the parents went nuts because they didn't understand it. They put pressure on the legislature, the legislature commanded that everybody get retested. They lowered the cut scores. They made the questions easier. Then they allowed the kids to take the test multiple times. Then, if it still didn't work after six administrations of the exam, you could supplement the kids' record with, literally, attendance and gym class, even though the kid couldn't read or couldn't do mathematics. The pressure that I fear is that if we don't get the parents educated about what's going on that that pressure will come on to Terry and come on to the legislature and it will be really brutal. And the worst thing you can do is succumb to it, but it'll be there. The more we can do now to let families know what's coming and why it's important will serve us well in the future.
Jane Beshear: I think that as long as you've got the desire from the top, from the governor's office, to make sure you move forward, and you've got the collaboration between K through 12 and higher education, you've got the prefect storm. And that's not going to, hopefully, go away at any time in the near future. Once you get the programs going and people start to see the results through the testing scores and everything else, and the change of attitudes in our schools. You've started the engine and it just keeps going and going.
KSN&C: As you know I'm hopeful about Race To The Top too, but if we don't get funded, what other kinds of opportunities are out there? Does the Gates Foundation ...
Holliday: Yes. There's tons of foundation interest in Kentucky right now especially with our leadership on standards and our parent communication about standards and our work on assessment with Gates...
KSN&C: You feel we'll get enough to get the job done?
Holliday: We won't get $175 million, but we'll get enough to get the job done.
KSN&C: But you can build the test and make the change?
Holliday: Yeah. Nationally, we're part of all the consortia of the national assessment...
Helen Mountjoy, a former state education cabinet secretary and leader on the TEK initiative, co-chaired the Owensboro event with Daviess County Superintendent (and Council for Better Education President) Tom Shelton. Mountjoy said involvement must come from local businesses and community members, not just educators.
"Our teachers and students are able to meet expectations when they know what those expectations are," Mountjoy said. "I think there are two things I hoped would come from this: The first was a sense of where Kentucky is. The second was to involve people and talk about their hopes and dreams for education and rebuilding their enthusiasm from 20 years ago (when the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 laid the foundation for this effort)."
The scene at BCTCS:
Behind the scenes at KET, KDE staffers collect input from around the state.
Back stage before the show.
