Early Intervention

One of the most important methods of closing the achievement gap is early intervention - something lacking for far too many children.

This from Education Week:

Kids Who Need Preschool the Most Aren't Enrolled

Low income and minority children could benefit most from quality preschool, but a new report finds that they're least likely to be enrolled in good early development programs.

In a report released Wednesday by the RAND California Preschool Study, researchers estimate that only 15 percent of those who could benefit most are in high-quality programs that prepare them for success in K-12.

"We can't close the achievement gap unless we close the preparedness gap before kindergarten," said Debra Watkins, founder of the California Alliance of African American Educators. "As a former high school teacher of nearly 30 years, I certainly see what happens (to students who) do not have high quality preschool by the time they reach high school, where we have a dropout problem."
...

Dems Move to Kill Reading First

Typical partisan wrong-headedness: House panel uses bad study to justify killing a good program tainted by Bush Administration schennagans - throws baby out with the bath water.

This from EducationWeek:

House Panel Would Kill ‘Reading First’ Funding

The controversial federal Reading First program would be eliminated under a fiscal 2009 spending measure approved unanimously today by a House Appropriations subcommittee.

In explaining the decision to zero out the program, Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, cited the results of a preliminary federal evaluation of Reading First, released May 1, which found that the program has had no impact on students’ reading comprehension.

Reading First “has been plagued with mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and cronyism, as documented by the inspector general,” Rep. Obey said, referring to a series of reports by the U.S. Department of Education’s watchdog that suggested conflicts of interest had occurred among officials and contractors who helped implement the program in its early years.

“Moreover, a scientifically rigorous study released by the Department of Education found that the program has no discernible impact on student reading performance,” Rep. Obey, who is also the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that handles education funding, said in reference to the evaluation by the Institute of Education Sciences, an arm of the department....

No Child Left Behind

This from Marc Murphy in C-J.

Draud, board failed early tests

Today H-L did a fair capstone piece summarizing Commissioner Draud's recent scrapes and moved toward refocusing on the work to be done. Draud may not like the implications, but it would seem he was hoist by his own petard.

Even among the many practicing school administrators who roundly supported Draud becoming commissioner, there has always been an underlying narrative that said he was uncommonly arrogant. "The car" episode only served to reinforce previously held opinions.

Let's hope Draud will continue to speak the truth about Kentucky's need to better support its legislated goals - that providing Kentucky children with a world-class education on a mediocre budget is a foolish dream that will never come true.

Let's also hope the most recent embarrassment will not prevent Kentuckians from hearing Draud's important message.

H-L says:

State schools need better leadership

In his six months as commissioner of education, Kentuckians have learned more than they ever wanted to know about Jon Draud's automotive needs.

We don't begrudge Draud his [car]....

Nor do we condemn him for seeking the 50 days in paid leave and sick days that he lost...

What is worrisome is that Draud and the board that hired him were unable to handle these mundane matters without inviting criticism and controversy.

Their performance does not inspire confidence that Draud was prepared for the job.

...he botched his response to The Courier-Journal's questions about the extras he ordered for his state car...

...The board, which had famously bungled one search, rejected Beshear's request [to search nationally] and hired Draud, a Republican legislator who had never managed anything bigger than a local school district...

...Draud and the board must get their acts together. They have important work to do and can't waste two years drifting in and out of petty controversies of their own creation.

Draud urges investment in Ky. education

This from the Murray Ledger & Times

If Kentuckians are going to overcome the challenges of the 21st century and realize the standard of living they desire, the commonwealth's leaders must realize that investment in the state's public educational system is the only way to be successful.

That was the message Kentucky Education Commissioner Dr. Jon Draud delivered as he spoke to about 300 Murray State University officials, students and visitors during the 24th annual Harry M. Sparks Lecture series at Alexander Hall Monday afternoon.

Draud, a former school teacher, coach, principal and superintendent, became the state's fourth education commissioner in December. He said the state's primary and secondary education system is facing some daunting challenges in both short and long-term academic progress that must be overcome by greater funding investment.“

Only 12 percent of our high schools, 21 percent of our middle schools and 54 percent of our elementary schools are on target to reach academic proficiency by 2014,” he said. “Education is our number one issue.

It is important that people understand that if we don't invest in education in Kentucky - and it is an investment - we will never have the standard of living that we want. The only way it's going to happen, the only way, is through education.”

Calling the Kentucky Department of Education's $4.2 billion budget for 2008-09 “inadequate,” Draud said the General Assembly's failure to provide for new revenue sources during the past biennial session will force the system to struggle.

About $500 million in tax revenues from expanded gambling and another $200 million from higher taxes on cigarettes was proposed.

“It was definitely a step backwards,” he said, pointing out the possibility of the loss of teachers and support staff, academic programs and academic progress from lack of funding. “It's devastating.”

During much of the speech, Draud outlined some of the department's success during the past six month, as well as long and short term goals to keep the state's schools on target for success. One of the primary goals is emphasizing the importance of education to lawmakers and the public.

“We must create a sense of urgency. Academic proficiency is looking at us in 2014 and a lot of schools have a long way to go,” he said. “Money is very important and we don't have enough of it in public education.”

Draud pointed to the possibility of the loss of education personnel in the next two years caused by the loss of $170 million in funding for 2008-09 and additional $190 million in 2009-10.

Other goals include addressing efficiency and productivity in reaching academic proficiency with an apparent emphasis in technology. He also emphasized the need for intervention strategies to aid struggling students and schools by studying schools that seem to be overcoming the odds and using those strategies elsewhere...

Photo by Tom Berry/Ledger & Times

Unfair and Imbalanced

Thanks to Tom Hanson at Open Education:

Federal Judge Rules Fox News “Gullible” and “Unprofessional”

The Fox News Network continuously attempts to portray itself as the ‘fair and balanced’ news outlet. That slogan is so ingrained, the network has at times sought to even derail others from using the phrase.

However, the “fair and balanced” network took a major hit last week after a judge ruled on an incident that took place in April of 2007.

It must be stated, first and foremost, that Fox’s legal team was somehow able to convince a district judge to dismiss a $75,000 slander lawsuit brought against the network by a Lewiston, Maine school superintendent.

But in the process of dismissing the suit, U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby found the Fox News network to be unprofessional in reporting false and “outrageous quotations” without confirming the accuracy of such quotes. Hornby also called the network “gullible” for reporting portions of a fake story that was “so absurd” it “should have caused them to question the accuracy” of what they were reporting on the air...

Shades of Barbara Erwin: Another Search Firm fails the Vet Test

This story sounds familiar - yet not. The Cincinnati school board apparently listened to a lowly citizen instead of trusting their search firm and avoided a big headache.

This from the Enquirer:

Schools yank contract
Consultant overlooked candidate's settlement

Cincinnati's school board voted Monday night to halt its contract with the search firm that has been helping it find a new superintendent.

It did not appear the board would keep the firm on board.

The $40,000 contract is being "suspended" for performance issues, according to the resolution the board passed unanimously.

"We really believed in the process we're using; we're just disappointed in the lack of
information we received from the firm," board President Eve Bolton said.

The firm, Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, has been advising the board and a citizen committee since the end of March.

The Glenview, Ill., search firm recently developed a pool of 29 applicants for the job. The firm presented nine recommended candidates to a citizens' advisory committee, which then scored them and recommended five, based on written application materials.

The firm agreed with their list.

Within hours, a tipster Googled the five names and discovered that Earl Watkins, superintendent of Jackson, Miss., public schools, had been sued by an employee for sexual harassment and the district had paid $805,000 to settle the suit.

Several board members expressed frustration with the search firm, which they said was supposed to have vetted the applicants...

That reminds me. Whatever happened to Barbara Erwin? Quiet retirement in Arizona?

Apparently not.

I heard from a long-time trusted source out of Illinois this week that Babs took her resume to Indiana and is now the Executive Director of the Indiana Public School/ University Partnership at IU.

Anybody else wonder what her resume looks like now?

As long as she's back at Indiana, maybe she can explain to the folks at her alma mater how she got her Indiana teaching certificate before she graduated IU. The Indiana Department of Education's Professional Standards Division couldn't figure it out.

Board Member may be in Trouble after Teen Field Party

This from the Springfield Sun:

KSP arrest juveniles for alcohol intoxication

Party was on property of school board member, police say

Kentucky State Police were called to Washington County shortly after midnight Friday to assist local authorities with a field party that was attended by nearly 100 juveniles, according to KSP Public Affairs Officer Dwaine Barnett with Post 15 in Columbia.

Deputies from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to an address about two miles out on Lincoln Park Road at 11:13 p.m., answering a call of an altercation, which was received from a cell phone, according to records at Washington County 911 Dispatch.

Deputies Wayne Bartley and Jackie Robinson answered the call, and Bartley said when he arrived at the scene, one of the parties in the alleged altercation was present, but the other was no longer on the scene. Records at the Washington County Emergency Medical Services indicate that an 18-year-old was transported from the scene at 11:35 p.m. and taken to Spring View Hospital in Lebanon. Bartley said no report was completed, but charges in the case would be a civil matter between the two individuals involved.

While on the scene, the deputies called for assistance due to a number of juveniles allegedly drinking alcohol. Barnett said he was told about 100 juveniles were at the scene when troopers were called at around midnight Friday.

Five of those juveniles were arrested and charged with alcohol intoxication and later released to their parents. In addition, two of the juveniles arrested were also charged with fleeing and evading, according to Barnett.

Washington County Sheriff Tommy Bartley said the property where the incidents took place belongs to Pat Clements, who is a member of the Washington County School Board. Bartley is looking into the incident, and said he will try to determine if the county’s social host ordinance, which was passed into law in May of 2007, will apply in this case, and if any charges will be filed against Clements. The ordinance was passed by the Washington County Fiscal Court to deter adults from enabling underage drinking by hosting or allowing the consumption of alcohol.

Clements said the party was intended to be a gathering for a small group, but got out of hand when the gathering grew.

“What was supposed to be a gathering, a bonfire and campout for 20 to 30 people, quickly got out of hand because of modern technology. I cooperated with authorities in dispersing those folks. I provided no beverages of any kind to anyone, and didn’t even leave a bottle of water over there,” Clements said.

“I want to say that deputies Wayne Bartley and Jackie Robinson acted in a very professional, compassionate and cooperative way. I was extremely impressed at
how efficiently and thoroughly they administered breathalyzers to the drivers there, and how quickly they were able to safely disperse these young adults.”

Former Marshall County Band Director Gets Probation for Sex with Student

When former Marshall County High School band director Michael Colvett got probation rather than jail time, it didn't surprise the parents of a student with whom Colvett was convicted of having a sexual relationship.

“We know the reality that we fell through a crack in the law,” the girl’s father, Jeffrey Collins told the Paducah Sun.

If he meets the terms of his probation, Colvett will not serve any prison time.

This from the Paducah Sun:

Colvett case helped change state's age of consent law

BENTON, Ky. - The Friday sentencing of Michael Colvett, the former Marshall County High School band director convicted in connection with having sex with a
student, concluded eight months of widespread publicity that drew statewide attention and sparked legislative reforms.

State police learned of Colvett’s relationship with a female student last October, when she was 16. Her father had discovered text messages and logs of late-night phone calls between them when he took her cell phone away as a punishment, police said. Because 16 is the legal age of sexual consent in Kentucky, police could charge him only with unlawful transaction with a minor, saying that he encouraged the girl to disobey her parents by seeing him outside of school.

Further investigation revealed the relationship began when the girl was 15, and police charged Colvett in December with felony counts of third-degree rape and tampering with evidence as well as associated misdemeanors.

An Associated Press investigation conducted after Colvett was charged revealed that 95 Kentucky teachers lost their certifications because of sexual misconduct between 2001 and 2005. Eighty percent of the cases involved students. Charges ranged from inappropriate comments to rape and sodomy.

In April, Colvett entered an Alford plea to two counts of second-degree sexual abuse and one count of tampering with evidence. In an Alford plea, a person does not admit guilt, but admits enough evidence exists to convict him. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped a third-degree rape charge.

Colvett’s attorneys, Mark Bryant and Emily Roark, asked to delay the sentencing until this week so Colvett would have time to sell his house. He had to move because of restrictions on where sex offenders live. He lived across the street from Star Academy, a program in which high school dropouts can earn their diploma.

Also in April, Gov. Steve Beshear signed into law a bill making it illegal for teachers, clergy and other authority figures to have sexual contact with anyone under 18.

Previously 16 was Kentucky’s age of sexual consent in all cases, even when alleged sexual contact existed between a student and teacher.

The law goes into effect July 1.

And this.

Schools cut budgets, teachers

This from the Enquirer:

'No money' as fuel rises, funding falls

...The cuts are happening in districts across the state in an array of areas, including staffing, programs, courses, textbooks, technology purchases, professional development training, athletics and new bus purchases.

Gov. Steve Beshear's plans to raise revenue through casino gambling and a cigarette tax were rejected this year in the General Assembly, and school boards are limited in the amount they can increase taxes each year. State funding for items such as professional development and extended school services has been slashed. Districts will also have to find a significant portion of the money for the 1 percent teacher pay raises each of the next two years that the Legislature has mandated.

"Never have I seen the outlook so bleak," said Ed Massey, president of the Kentucky School Boards Association and chair of the Boone County school board. "There is just no money." ...

...And then there is the fuel issue.

Kenton County has added $380,000 to its 2008-09 diesel fuel budget. Walton-Verona Schools has nearly doubled its fuel budget, from $100,000 to $190,000. Grant County Schools has tacked on $200,000, while Boone County has added $475,000, roughly 60 percent higher than this past year.

The big question now for districts is: with these rising costs and lack of increased funding - resulting in a loss of jobs, courses, programs and equipment - how do they progress and reach proficiency, which is mandated by Kentucky and the federal No Child Left Behind act, by 2014?

"That's the question we're all asking," Rye said. "There has been no change in the requirement (of reaching proficiency), but there has been a change in the availability of resources to reach that requirement." ...

Task force to review CATS

This from the Richmond Register:

State Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, will be part of a 22-member task force charged with reviewing Kentucky’s public school assessment and accountability system.

The Kentucky Department of Education’s Task Force on Assessment and Accountability, which includes policymakers and experts in education, will review the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS) and provide a blueprint for the system’s progress in the future to ensure that the system meets the best interests of public school students.

“I think it’s important because we had a challenge during the session with a Senate bill (SB 1) that basically intended to throw out our current system of assessment and accountability,” Moberly said. “We need to take a good, thorough look at the issues that were raised during the session. I was one of the ones who actually kept that bill from passing. That was because I didn’t think that an outright abolition of our system was warranted. I think it’s a very important part of our education reform, but we need to look at how it can be improved.”

The task force will seek input from teachers, administrators, parents, business people, elected officials, education advocacy groups and others. They also will analyze individual components of CATS and determine the effectiveness of those in meeting the needs of students.“

The timing is important as to when we have the results,” Moberly said about improvements that can be made to CATS. “Moving ahead with online testing is important so we can get results back sooner and they can be used for prevention and intervention.

Also, whether or not we can use the ACT in some form or fashion is important. All of that needs to be looked at.”Education Commissioner Jon Draud asked statewide organizations, partner groups and leaders of the Kentucky Senate and House of Representatives to name members to the task force.“A major objective is to achieve consensus by Democratic and Republican policymakers on the make-up of the assessment and accountability system,” he said. “All policymakers want what’s best for students, and this task force will provide the means to achieve that...

Governor's Scholars cut back

This from H-L:

Fewer students attend because of budget

FRANKFORT --An educational program that for 25 years has aimed at keeping high-performing teens in Kentucky after college is facing tight financial times because of state budget cuts.

The Governor's Scholars Program, which starts this week at Bellarmine University in Louisville, will be shy about 100 students from last year's class. The exclusive program, which operates through a mixture of public and private funding, will have to dip a little further into its financial reserves this year, organizers say...

...Kentucky's Governor's Scholars Program started in 1983 under former Gov. John Y. Brown.

What began as a program for 230 students has grown to more than 1,000 each year. Its mission is to prepare some of Kentucky's top-performing high school students for college and mold them to become future leaders in the state...

KHSAA transfer policy questioned

This from the Herald-Leader:

Power play: Teen athletes cry foul

...In more than 800 cases a year, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association decides whether kids who transfer from one school to another are eligible to play sports or must sit out for a year. The state has established one of the toughest transfer rules in the country to fight a damning history of recruiting abuses in a sports-hungry state where coaches and parents will go to extremes to get students on a team.

But the association is facing growing criticism from parents, legislators and some members of the Kentucky Board of Education, who say that the pendulum has swung too far. The KHSAA, they say, has too much power and too little oversight; its decisions are often arbitrary, take too long and, ultimately, find too many children ineligible to play.

The furor has put the KHSAA, which has overseen high school sports since 1917, at a
crossroads. The Kentucky Board of Education, which oversees it, last year created a Commission on Interscholastic Athletics that recommended that the eligibility determinations be quicker. And the legislature's Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee, which approves all agency regulations, has demanded that the KHSAA change some of its controversial rules...

Dale Brown on CATS Task Force

This from the Daily News by way of KSBA:

Brown will help review CATS test

A task force of educators from around the state, including Warren County Schools Superintendent Dale Brown, will get the opportunity to shape Kentucky’s education accountability model.

Brown will join other educators and members of the General Assembly to review the current design of the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System. Brown will be representing the Partnership for Successful Schools - a Lexington-based nonpartisan education advocacy organization - on the task force. “With any assessment, we should always be open to review,” Brown said.

The task force will seek input from teachers, administrators, parents, business people, elected officials, education advocacy groups and others. The group will be looking at each component of the accountability model - to determine the effectiveness in meeting the needs of students - and make recommendations toward the future assessment design, Brown said.The group will have its first meeting in July.

The task force is a result of years of legislators looking at ways to overhaul how tudent growth is measured, said Lisa Gross, director of communications for the Kentucky Department of Education. The testing system is key part of the Kentucky
Education Reform Act.“There are a lot of people that just don’t like CATS,” she said. “There has been criticism of the system, and there are legislators that are just not fond of it.”

After Senate Bill 1, which would have replaced CATS with other standardized tests, failed to pass the legislature this year, the Kentucky Department of Education said a statewide task force would be put together by Education Commissioner Jon E. Draud to review the student-testing system after the General Assembly ended.

CATS includes the Kentucky Core Content Test, in which students are tested in seven subject areas; nonacademic data; writing portfolios; alternate assessments for students with severe disabilities; and the ACT college entrance exam and its precursors, PLAN and EXPLORE.

While many legislators question the effectiveness of the state’s accountability model, Brown said it has worked for Warren County Schools.“We are making progress toward proficiency and some schools have already met proficiency,” he said. “But we must always be open to study and make recommendations to improve the current system.”

"School of Shock" wins Journalism Prize

Jennifer Gonnerman won Honorable Mention at The MOLLY's, the 2008 National Journalism Prize, for "School of Shock" first published in Mother Jones.

In her troubling expose, Gonnerman sheds light on the Judge Rotenberg Center, a Massachusetts-based behavior modification program that for 30 years has used an elaborate system of rewards and punishments--including painful electric shocks administered through electrodes attached to the bodies of children as young as 9 years old--in an attempt to socialize troubled teens.

Like so many six-guns, workers at the Judge Rotenberg Center carry remote controls on their belts. Kid misbehaves... Zap !

Each remote bears the face of the child to be zapped - so that they won't accidently shock the wrong kid.

But in August, one student was shocked 77 times, and another 29 times, after a prank caller posing as a supervisor ordered the "treatments." One of the boys was treated for first-degree burns.

The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons.

It is also the facility that destroyed the videotape showing showing those shocks, despite being ordered to preserve the tape.

School of Shock is reprinted here at the Texas Observer:

Home Again

Board Discusses School Calendars, Assessment

(FRANKFORT, Ky.) – At its regular meeting Wednesday and Thursday, the Kentucky Board of Education heard presentations, had in-depth discussions and made decisions on a number of items.

The board discussed the approval of innovative school calendars by the commissioner of education. The 2008 General Assembly session passed House Bill 406 (the budget bill), which gives the commissioner of education the ability to approve waivers of other requirements in the bill for school districts that have developed and implemented alternative school calendars. The board agreed to approve emergency and ordinary versions of 702 KAR 7:130, enabling the Department of Education to immediately offer technical assistance and approval of calendars.

The board also heard a presentation on the procedures for inclusion of special populations in the state-required assessment and accountability programs and on the administration code for the state’s educational assessment program.

The board agreed to appoint Bill Beasley of Henderson to the Kentucky High School Athletics Association’s (KHSAA’s) Board of Control.

Other presentations included:
· an informational session led by Selina Meyer, the 2007-08 Special Education Teacher of the Year
· status report on the KHSAA’s responses to major recommendations from the Commission on Interscholastic Athletics
· information about the Commonwealth Diploma Program
· an update on arts assessment and accountability

The board took the following actions:
· approved district facility plans for the Crittenden, Johnson, Lawrence, Martin and Todd County school districts and Danville, Russell and Williamstown Independent districts
· approved district facility plan amendments for Nelson County
· approved changes to the KHSAA bylaws and due process procedures
· approved the 2009 minimum specifications for school buses
· approved additional revisions to 702 KAR 3:270, SEEK Funding Formula
· approved a site for a proposed new preschool facility in the Harlan Independent school district
· approved requirements of 702 KAR 1:115 related to in-service training for local board of education members
· approved the certification of nonpublic schools
· approved the calendar of upcoming meetings
· approved changes to its policy manual

The board’s next regular meeting will be August 6 and 7 in Frankfort. More information about the board is available at http://www.kde.state.ky.us/KDE/Administrative+Resources/Kentucky+Board+of+Education/default.htm.

SOURCE: KDE press release

Draud to Reimburse State for Car

Problem solved. Good. Time to move on.

This from KyPost.com:

Education Chief To Reimburse State For Car Upgrades

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Education Commissioner Jon Draud says he'll reimburse the state for the upgrades he ordered on a state vehicle.

Draud said he used bad judgment in having the state buy him a Chrysler 300 car with $13,000 in upgrades.

Draud spoke at the Kentucky Board of Education meeting Wednesday morning and addressed the controversial automobile purchase. Draud said he regrets any problems he caused the board, but stopped short of apologizing for his actions. Draud said he hopes to move past the vehicle purchase.

Draud ordered a 2008 Chrysler 300 with a base price of $18,101. Options including an engine upgrade, global positioning system and a handsfree telephone pushed the price to more than $30,000.

More on the story from C-J: Mark Hebert at WHAS, and from H-L a little hatchet job that tries hard to ignore the solution in favor of rehashing the problem.

Court Documents put Petrilli on the record

This from the Herald-Leader:

Ex-principal describes resistance by parents

Alleges in court filings that Booker T. Washington

families made racist remarks

Peggy Petrilli claims that Booker T. Washington's parents wanted a black principal.

• Exhibit: Letter from Fayette school board attorney to Petrilli's attorney
• Exhibit: Petrilli's answers to the Fayette school board attorneys
• Fayette school board attorneys' motion to get more answers from Peggy Petrilli

Former Booker T. Washington Academy principal Peggy Petrilli says she encountered resistance from parents at the predominantly black elementary school the first time she met them in 2005.

After Petrilli, who is white, was introduced to a group of parents, Superintendent Stu Silberman was peppered with questions about why parents weren't allowed to have input in her hiring.

The parents wanted a black principal, Petrilli claims in documents filed in a reverse discrimination lawsuit against Silberman and the Fayette school board...

...Petrilli is demanding $11 million from the school board: $3 million for mental anguish and humiliation; $500,000 for lost wages; $1 million for Petrilli's permanent impairment to earn money; $1 million for "actual, consequential, incidental and foreseeable damages"; $500,000 for attorney's fees; and $5 million in punitive damages...

...A new principal, Wendy Brown, was hired in April. She is black...

...Petrilli says, Silberman ordered her to either resign or retire. He refused to allow her to meet with parents, she says.

Silberman "told me that he knew the complaints from the BTWA parents were not true," Petrilli said. "He told me that the instructional program was outstanding, but that this was all about perception."

A school board attorney declined to comment Tuesday. Silberman has been instructed by attorneys not to comment on the case, a district spokeswoman said.

A key question in the lawsuit is whether Petrilli voluntarily resigned...

...Petrilli's lawsuit contends the school board broke the law and skipped [required due process] steps so it could replace her with a black principal...

Task Force on Assessment and Accountability formed

(FRANKFORT, Ky.) – A task force charged with reviewing Kentucky’s public school assessment and accountability system includes policymakers and experts in the field.

The Task Force on Assessment and Accountability will review the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS) and provide a blueprint for the system’s progress in the future to ensure that the system meets the best interests of public school students.

Education Commissioner Jon E. Draud asked statewide organizations, partner groups and leaders of the Kentucky Senate and House of Representatives to name members to the task force. The members are:

• Jim Applegate, vice president for Academic Affairs, Council on Postsecondary Education
• Joe Brothers, chair, Kentucky Board of Education
• Dale Brown, superintendent, Warren County (representing the Partnership for Successful Schools)
• Paula Eaglin, Kentucky Association of Professional Educators
• Jenny Lynn Hatter, instructional supervisor, Harrison County (representing the Kentucky Association of School Administrators)
• Rep. Jimmy Higdon, 24th District, Lebanon
• Brenda Jackson, past president, Kentucky School Boards Association
• Sen. Dan Kelly, 14th District, Springfield
• Mike Lafavers, principal, Boyle County Middle (representing the Kentucky Association of School Councils
• Roger Marcum, superintendent, Marion County (representing the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents)
• Sen. Vernie McGaha, 15th District, Russellville
• Rep. Harry Moberly, 81st District, Richmond
• Helen Mountjoy, secretary, Education Cabinet
• Sharron Oxendine, president, Kentucky Education Association
• Rep. Frank Rasche, 3rd District, Paducah
• Speaker of the House Jody Richards, 20th District, Bowling Green
• Wayne Roberts, district assessment coordinator, Wayne County (representing the Kentucky Association of Assessment Coordinators)
• Rep. Carl Rollins, 56th District, Midway
• Sandy Rutledge, president-elect, Kentucky PTA
• Bob Sexton, executive director, Prichard Committee
• Diana Taylor, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce
• Sen. Johnny Ray Turner, 29th District, Drift

“A major objective is to achieve consensus by Democratic and Republican policymakers on the makeup of the assessment and accountability system,” Draud said. “All policymakers want what’s best for students, and this task force will provide the means to achieve that.

The task force will seek input from teachers, administrators, parents, businesspeople, elected officials, education advocacy groups and others. The group will analyze individual components of CATS and determine the effectiveness of those in meeting the needs of students.

The group will have its first meeting in July. A date and time for the meeting has not yet been set.

The Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS) was implemented in 1999, as the means to carry out the requirements of Kentucky Revised Statute 158.6453, which charges the Kentucky Board of Education with the responsibility to create and implement an assessment and accountability system for the state’s public schools.

CATS includes the Kentucky Core Content Tests in seven subject areas; nonacademic data, including dropout, graduation and attendance rates; writing portfolios; alternate assessments for students with severe disabilities; and ACT, PLAN and EXPLORE. The Core Content Tests include multiple-choice and short-answer questions for each subject area.

CATS provides unique goals for each of the state’s public schools and districts to meet, and schools and districts are held accountable for meeting those goals.

Data from CATS is used to inform parents, teachers, administrators and the general public about schools’ progress. Results from subject-area testing in CATS are approved by the U.S. Department of Education for use to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.

SOURCE: KDE press release