Kentucky lawmakers gave final passage to another round of major education reform Wednesday which is aimed at changing how schools are held accountable for student achievement and how teachers are evaluated.
Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, will eventually replace Common Core academic standards with standards developed by Kentucky educators and approved by the state board of education.
New standards will be developed by local and state educators with help from postsecondary educators and guidance from political appointees of the governor and legislative leaders. Common Core will continue in use until the new standards in each discipline are adopted.
This bill will increase the post-secondary readiness of Kentucky graduates, and it significantly impacts every classroom and future generations of Kentuckians, according to Wilson.
It also gives more control to local school boards in devising plans to turn around poor performing schools and training teachers. Another aim is to align curriculum in public schools with postsecondary education and revises and simplifies accountability assessment.
Wilson often refers to the bill as the “let teachers teach bill” and contends it will significantly reduce paperwork, reporting and testing preparation for teachers so they can concentrate on instruction.
Wilson has tried to pass earlier versions of the measure in previous legislative sessions only to see it pass the Republican-controlled Senate but die in the Democratic-controlled House. But two things changed: Republicans captured the House in the November elections and Wilson reached out to education groups for their input on changes to the bill this year.
Ultimately, the latest version of the bill gained the support of the Kentucky Education Association, the Kentucky School Boards Association and others.
The bill requires regular review of the academic standards and assesses school success on data such as graduation rates.
A web-based destination for aggregated news and commentary related to public school education in Kentucky and related topics.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Lawmakers pass comprehensive education reform bill
This from Ronnie Ellis in the Richmond Register:
Kentucky's Charter Challenge
This from Sara Mead at US News and World Report:
Earlier this week, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin signed legislation enacting the state's first charter school law – making the state the 44th in the country to allow establishment of these independently operated, free public schools of choice. National charter advocates hailed the legislation, which will allow districts in the state to begin considering applicants from prospective charter operators starting in the 2017 to 2018 school year. The new law is the result of years of advocacy and legislative efforts: Bills to allow charter schools have been filed in the Kentucky General Assembly since 2008. But the passage of this legislation doesn't mean the fight is over – in fact, the hard work is just beginning.
In the increasingly polarized debate over public education in the United States, supporters and opponents of charter schools alike often speak in broad generalizations, hailing charter schools as creating high-quality options for students, or criticizing them as opening the door for creeping privatization. The reality, however, is far more complex.
Experience and research in the 43 states that already have charter schools illustrate that charter schools can live up to both the best of what their proponents promise and the worst of what their detractors fear. Moreover, what charter schooling looks like varies tremendously across states and communities. Stanford University researchers found Rhode Island charter school students gained 86 days more learning in reading than peers in traditional public schools, while those in Nevada learned 108 days less.
What determines whether a state's charter schools perform like those in Rhode Island or those in Nevada – and what might this mean for future charter schools in Kentucky? As I've learned in researching and working with charter schools in several states over the past two decades, it's complicated.
Clearly, public policies – particularly but not exclusively state charter laws – play a role. Kentucky's charter law incorporates some lessons from the past 25 years' experience with charter schooling that may help support charter quality. For example, it requires charter school authorizers – who play a crucial role in approving charter applicants and holding them accountable for their performance once approved – to adhere to policies and procedures consistent with national professional standards for authorizing. It also prohibits creation of virtual charter schools, whose performance has been disastrous in many states.
But a review of charter school performance across states and cities suggests that laws and policies alone can't account for variation in results – nor are they sufficient to ensure charter school quality. Other factors, such as the quality and will of charter school authorizers; the presence of strong human capital pipelines; the ability to attract and cultivate great school leaders and operators; and the presence of robust ecosystems of philanthropic funding and support services for charters, also play a crucial role – as do idiosyncratic features of state and local contexts that are hard to quantify.
Some conditions in Kentucky, such as a history of commitment to standards-based education reform, could support creation of quality charters. Other conditions are more mixed. A requirement that charter schools employ only certified teachers, for example, could make it difficult for charters with innovative models – such as Montessori, bilingual, and personalized learning-focused schools – to attract or cultivate the talent they need. The state's law gives primary responsibility for authorizing charter schools to local school districts, while also providing for repeal of district decisions to the State Board of Education. This approach has enabled charter growth in places like California, but relies on districts' willingness and capacity to be good authorizers – which can be hard if districts have limited capacity or view charters as competitors. The law also allows Mayors in Louisville and Lexington to choose to become authorizers. Partisan polarization around charter schools could also create challenges.Ultimately, ensuring that Kentucky's new law actually creates great schools for kids will require a combination of actors to work together, including talented educators and leaders with vision to create new, high-quality schools; district leaders and mayors committed to being quality authorizers; philanthropic funders willing to invest in cultivating new school, authorizer and sector capacity; and advocates willing to maintain pressure for charter autonomy and quality. Most immediately, the legislation charges the State Board of Education to promulgate regulations to support implementation of the new law, and what those regulations look like will influence how statute plays out in practice.
Numerous advocates and organizations, including the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, the Kentucky Pastors in Action Coalition, Greater Louisville Inc., the Foundation for Excellence in Education, the Campaign for School Equity, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, worked to enable the passage of Kentucky's charter legislation. These organizations can't afford to rest on their laurels now, however. Now they must keep working to cultivate and attract great school founders for Kentucky; support authorizers in implementing quality practices; and broaden the coalition of support for charter schools.
First charter school applications could come in early 2018
This from Brad Hughes at KSBA:
Kentucky Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt has a goal to have the regulatory
process on House Bill 520 – the charter school law -- completed by the end of this year, allowing applicants to begin approaching local boards of education and/or the mayors of Lexington and Louisville in early 2018.
Pruitt and staff of the Kentucky Department of Education will give district officials insights into the law and its related procedures during an April 4 webinar. Other laws passed by the 2017 legislature also will be addressed during the event.
As HB 520 had no emergency clause, the new law signed by Gov. Matt Bevin on Tuesday didn’t take effect immediately. However, Pruitt told the KSBA eNews Service this week that KDE staff already are at work on the complicated regulation-writing process.
“We won’t wait until the law takes effect in July. We’ll start developing the regulations now, but the formal regulatory process can’t start until a little later,” Pruitt said.
“We’re still working on the timeline of the regulatory process, but obviously we can’t afford to let grass grow under our feet, so we’re going to get going as fast as we can,” the commissioner said. “It takes about six months to get a regulation passed, but when that time frame starts depends on how long it takes us to get (the draft regulation) written.”
Along the way of the six-month process to final regulations, the department must conduct a public hearing, allowing questions to be raised or sections to be challenged. KDE staff consider the comments and produce an analysis for the Kentucky Board of Education. The KBE must have two readings on the proposed regulation, which also must be considered by the General Assembly’s regulatory review committee and the Interim Joint Education Committee.
Pruitt said, “Our goal will be to have the regulation completed by the end of 2017, so applications could be considered next spring if any charters are to open in the fall of 2018.”
The commissioner said the April 4 webinar will be designed to give district officials a solid foundation of understanding about the new law.
“It’s just going to be about what’s in the bill. We want to make sure that the accurate information is out there about HB 520,” Pruitt said.
Typically, KDE records its statewide webinars and archives them on the agency’s website for viewing by those unable to participate live.
Friday, March 24, 2017
Betsy DeVos’s “School Choice” Fallacy
“Undermining public education is not a choice,”
---Senator Patty Murray
This from the New Republic:As Senator Patty Murray tells it, Luke was a middle-school boy who used a private school voucher program to attend Manatee Learning Academy in Bradenton, Florida. He did well at Manatee, but when he tried to switch schools for tenth grade, he realized his credits wouldn’t transfer since Manatee—unbeknownst to him and his family—lacked accreditation.
Patty Murray (L) and Betsy DeVos (R)
“For all those glossy voucher program brochures,” Luke’s grandmother Nadell Northrop wrote in a Medium post for the American Federation of Teachers, “nobody running the program bothered to mention that schools taking voucher students didn’t have to be accredited, and their teachers didn’t have to be certified.” And so, instead of repeating a grade, Northrop’s grandson simply dropped out of school altogether.
“Luke was a good student,” Murray said Wednesday in a speech at the Center for American Progress. “We failed him.”
Murray’s point, as she also explained in a Wednesday memo to her Senate colleagues, was that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s school privatization agenda will hurt lots of students like Luke. And the senator, a Democrat from Washington state and the ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wants her colleagues to start making this case more aggressively, as DeVos ramps up her advocacy for school vouchers nationwide.The central appeal of DeVos’s school privatization agenda is the notion of “school choice”—that students trapped in failing public schools, many of whom are minority kids, should have the opportunity to choose a public charter or private school that will, ostensibly, provide them a better education. It’s a powerful narrative for President Donald Trump and Republicans, allowing conservatives to cast their policies as a form of social justice—the free market in service of civil rights.
But Murray pointed out that the path to privatization ultimately hurts the very students it’s intended to help. “On its face, providing students with more choices sounds great,” Murray said, “but that is not what their plans would do. By diverting taxpayer funds from public to private schools, we are taking away parents’ and students’ choice to go to a quality public school.”
“Undermining public education is not a choice,” she added. “It means forcing students to either attend an unaccountable private school or an underfunded public school.”
On accountability, Murray pointed out that opting for a private school over a public school can often mean a choice no student should have to make—foregoing federal civil rights protections, including those provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. As excellent as many private schools are, others aren’t held to the same standards of accountability and transparency as public schools, such as standardized reports to parents about their child’s performance.
Murray also noted that vouchers and other privatization efforts are especially detrimental to students in rural America, home to many of President Donald Trump’s own voters. In these areas, there are less likely to be private options anywhere near public schools, rendering the notion of “choice” irrelevant to families. Murray also stressed the fundamental problem with all privatization schemes: They divert funding from public schools, which educated 90 percent of American students.
Advocates of the DeVos agenda point to polling showing “school choice” is popular with Americans in the abstract. Democrats must explain that vouchers typically fail to provide better educational opportunity and undermine a vital public institution. By following Murray’s lead, they can make clear that the choice provided by privatization ultimately isn’t a very good choice at all.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
JCPS: $40M 'mistake' found in salary study
This from Allison Ross at the Courier-Journal:
Jefferson County Public Schools said Tuesday that it has discovered that a controversial salary study that was released in April has a major mistake that made it seem that the district was paying a lot more in "premium" salaries than it is.
In April, the state's largest school district released information from an outside contractor that said in part that JCPS was paying between $52 million and $66 million in "premium" salaries for certified administrators and classified staff – non-teachers – when compared to similar school districts around the country.
But on Tuesday, Superintendent Donna Hargens said that Virginia-based Management Advisory Group International Inc., which conducted the salary study, had "grossly overestimated" the salaries that JCPS paid to non-teacher employees compared to other benchmark school districts.
Instead of spending $50 million or more in "premium" salaries for non-teachers, the figure is closer to $10 million to $14 million, Hargens told the school board Tuesday.
"To say that this district is outraged is an understatement," Hargens said. "This study caused employees to feel unvalued and underappreciated. It also caused significant stress between employees at different levels. A $40-million mistake by MAG is unacceptable. MAG owes the district, its employees, this board and this community an apology."
The release of the salary study in April —as well as a district discussion about the idea of not giving step raises or cost of living increases in the 2016-17 school year for any employee making more than $14 an hour as "market reconciliation" — caused immediate outrage among JCPS employees and others in the community.
JCPS employees staged massive "walk-ins" at numerous district schools in the spring to show their outrage over the salary study and other issues.
JCPS paid MAG $192,000 for the salary study. It is unclear whether JCPS will be getting any refund. The salary study began in December 2014 and was made public in April 2016.
Hargens on Tuesday referenced communication between the district and an attorney for MAG — even quoting part of a letter from MAG's attorney that she said showed that MAG takes responsibility for the error.
A JCPS spokeswoman on Tuesday evening said she did not immediately have a copy of the letter that Hargens referenced.
"We are exploring our legal options regarding MAG," spokeswoman Allison Martin said.
JCPS has known about the error since January, Chief Financial Officer Cordelia Hardin said, saying that the district has been going back and forth with MAG since.
When asked if the error was contained to non-teacher salaries, Hardin said she wasn't sure and that her focus was on the non-teacher part of the study.
"We're not going to make any changes based strictly on that report," Hardin said.
Board member Chris Kolb noted that "prominent voices in our community" have been using the numbers in the salary study to push for policy changes — an apparent reference to former board chairman David Jones Jr., who has been saying JCPS could free up money for roughly 1,000 more teachers or employees by revamping JCPS' salary structure.
Board chairman Chris Brady said that he is "deeply disappointed" to learn of the mistake, saying he believes it did "real damage" in the district. He thanked the district for finding the error.
However, Brady said that a salary study was needed for the district, which had not had such a comprehensive compensation review since 1979.
Brady said the district is looking at its options in its contract with MAG, but noted that "it may cost more than it's worth to seek some kind of restitution."
Brady said he was "almost not surprised" by the discovery of the error, because the numbers in the salary study didn't seem right to him.
Brent McKim, president of the county's teachers union, had the same sentiment, saying he had long been saying that it didn't seem feasible that JCPS was so significantly paying employees above the averages of comparable markets.
"The math just didn't make sense for $50 million," McKim said. He added that "What's surprising is they make an error this big and take this long to find it. ... This has disrupted many people's lives and caused a great deal of stress."And this:
JCPS contractor: Study still good despite error
The contractor that compiled a salary study for Jefferson County Public Schools admits its error made it seem the district was paying a lot more in "premium" salaries than it actually was, but said the error was limited to a supplemental report and does not negate the entire study.
"There was one error in one report, and we took responsibility for that," said Carolyn Long, vice president of Virginia-based Management Advisory Group International Inc., which conducted the salary study.
Long said the roughly $40 million error was in some extra information her firm provided as a courtesy in an addition to the original report on salaries that JCPS had requested. She said that JCPS has "conflated the error in the ancillary" file with the more than year's worth of work her company did for JCPS.
"It's a very long study and it was a very detailed and complex undertaking," Long said. "There were a lot of moving parts to it."
Still, the revelation of the error on Tuesday caused a new round of furor this week over the controversial salary study that was originally released in April.
"That salary study hurt us during contract negotiations," said John Stovall, president of the local teamsters union. "(Is JCPS) going to come back and renegotiate raises because this salary study was flawed?"
In April, the state's largest school district released information from Management Advisory Group that said in part that JCPS was paying between $52 million and $66 million in "premium" salaries for certified administrators and classified staff – nonteachers – when compared to similar school districts around the country.
But on Tuesday, Superintendent Donna Hargens said an error meant that MAG had "grossly overestimated" the salaries that JCPS paid to nonteacher employees compared to other benchmark school districts.
Carolyn Long, Exec VP
Instead of spending $50 million or more in "premium" salaries for nonteachers, the figure is closer to about $14 million, Hargens told the school board Tuesday.
At issue was apparently a miscalculation — which MAG said was caused by a "computational error" — that caused some employees' annualized salaries to be misrepresented.
For instance, a spreadsheet given to the Courier-Journal by JCPS Chief Financial Officer Cordelia Hardin shows the example of an intervention specialist whose annualized salary was calculated at $164,563 instead of $117,816.
When the salary study was initially released in April, the findings —as well as a district discussion about an idea of not giving step raises or cost of living increases in the 2016-17 school year — caused immediate outrage among JCPS employees and others in the community.
In the spring, JCPS employees staged massive "walk-ins" at numerous district schools to show their outrage over the salary study and other issues.
Stovall said the initial release of the salary study caused employees to feel undervalued and underappreciated for the work they do. He said that now, his members feel like the error is a "slap in the face."
Ron Richmond, political director for the regional chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, agreed.
Richmond said more than 4,000 of his union's members were "directly impacted by this miscalculation" and said he hopes JCPS will take action over the flawed results.
JCPS paid MAG $192,000 for the salary study. The salary study began in December 2014 and was made public in April 2016.
In a Feb. 22 letter, an attorney for MAG told JCPS that the company "completely, professionally and credibly completed the contractual requirements at issue," saying that the report with the error was provided to JCPS as a courtesy.
JCPS on Tuesday said it was exploring its legal options regarding its contract with MAG.
The question now is on what, if anything, JCPS plans to do to alter its salary structure. Hargens said that the error in the MAG calculations was found in January as the district was working on figuring out options for a future compensation structure.
Angie Moorin, a member of the community advisory team that looked over and provided recommendations based on the salary study, said it is hard for her to wrap her head around the error found in the report "because I think about the fallout that came about because of that (study)."
She said the discovery of the error "changes the urgency of addressing" the issue of restructuring JCPS salaries. She said that she still thinks there are better ways to allocate some of JCPS' money, but said the initial numbers provided by MAG about the "premium" salaries made it sound like "there was this spigot that was wide open that needed to be addressed."
Moorin noted that "you can't make good decisions with bad numbers" and wants to learn more about any other potential issues with the study.
Former JCPS board chairman David Jones Jr., who has been saying JCPS could free up money for roughly 1,000 more teachers or employees by revamping JCPS' salary structure, said he was "appalled that there could be an error of this magnitude."
But it doesn't change the fact, he said, that JCPS needs to do something different in restructuring to find more money to put in classrooms.
"There is some very very hard work ahead on restructuring the organization and on finding the resources that are required to get the (district's) strategy funded," Jones said.
Matt Bevin signs charter schools bill into law
This from the Courier-Journal:
Over at the Prichard Blog!, Susan Weston has been ferreting out the budget for charters and estimates (using 2106-17 numbers) that the average per student allocation would be somewhere around $7,178.
RELATED:GOP blindsides Democrats with surprise bill to fund charter schools
► Kentucky, stand up for your public schools | Ravitch
► Why I was wrong about charter schools | Hornbeck
► Charter schools equals a lack of control
► Charter schools bill has 80% shot of passing, lawmaker says
► JCPS board: Mayor Greg Fischer 'blindsided' us with charter schools stance
► School boards group opposing current charter bill
Gov. Matt Bevin signed the hotly debated charter schools bill into law on Tuesday, according to the online legislative record.
Bevin's signature on House Bill 520 comes as no surprise, because the governor made the bill authorizing charter schools in Kentucky his top priority in the latter part of the legislative session, testifying for it before both the House and Senate education committees.
The bill was vigorously debated throughout the legislative session and in its final form ultimately passed the Senate 23-15 and the House 53-43.
It will allow local school districts as well as the mayors of Louisville and Lexington to authorize an unlimited number of charter schools, the first of which are not expected to open until the 2018-19 school year.
Proponents say charter schools will give some parents the choice to send their children to a school that better serves their children's needs and can boost the performance among poor and vulnerable students. But opponents say the new law will take money from underfunded traditional public schools and does not explicitly require charter schools to target underprivileged students.
The General Assembly also passed a bill which would transfer state and federal education funds to cover the costs of students at charter schools. But that bill, House Bill 471, was not yet signed by Bevin, according to the online legislative record as of mid-day Wednesday.
Over at the Prichard Blog!, Susan Weston has been ferreting out the budget for charters and estimates (using 2106-17 numbers) that the average per student allocation would be somewhere around $7,178.
- $4,672 as the average per student from SEEK base and add-ons
- $758 as the average per student from categorical programs
- $1,603 as the average three particular benefits listed below*
- $7,178 as the average per student combining all those sources
- *$1,027 per student for school employee health insurance
- $574 per student for certified employee retirement
- $2 per student for employee life insurance
- $1,603 per student for the three kinds of benefits
RELATED:GOP blindsides Democrats with surprise bill to fund charter schools
► Kentucky, stand up for your public schools | Ravitch
► Why I was wrong about charter schools | Hornbeck
► Charter schools equals a lack of control
► Charter schools bill has 80% shot of passing, lawmaker says
► JCPS board: Mayor Greg Fischer 'blindsided' us with charter schools stance
► School boards group opposing current charter bill
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
KY law would allow student groups to discriminate against LGBT people
This from The Hill:
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) has signed legislation that would allow student organizations at the commonwealth’s public schools and colleges to bar gays, lesbians and transgender people from joining, opening a new front in a national battle over so-called religious freedom laws.The law, Senate Bill 17, will allow students to engage in religious activities and to express religious views in public schools and in their assignments. It would also allow teachers to include lessons about the Bible in discussions of religion and history.The legislation stems from a 2015 decision to remove references to Jesus Christ from a student production of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”But LGBT rights groups assailed the new law, which they say codifies legal discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. One provision of the law allows student religious groups to set their own rules for membership, which LGBT rights groups say is a path to discrimination.“No student should fear being excluded from a school club or participating in a school activity because they are LGBTQ,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal director at the Human Rights Campaign. “While of course private groups should have the freedom to express religious viewpoints, they should not be able to unfairly discriminate with taxpayer funds.”The bill passed both the state Senate and state House with broad bipartisan support. Just three state senators and eight House members voted against the new law.The Kentucky law is one of about 100 measures advancing in legislatures across the country that gay rights groups warn would allow discrimination. Kansas legislators passed a similar measure granting student groups the right to limit membership last year.Kentucky is one of a handful of states that is considering an ordinance similar to North Carolina’s controversial H.B. 2, which prevents transgender people from using the restrooms of their choice. Other states, like Arkansas and Alabama, are considering measures that would permit adoption agencies to block gay and lesbian couples from taking in children.
Educators take governor to task for criticizing motives of “those who have failed to deliver in schools”
This from Brad Hughes at KSBA:
More than 600 people have signed an online petition calling on Gov. Matt Bevin to apologize for saying opponents of charter school legislation were lying and questioning their motives during testimony earlier this month before the House Education Committee.
Dottie Miller, a retired Kenton County teacher and former president of the Kenton County chapter of the Kentucky Education Association, created the petition using the Change.org website. As of noon today, the petition has collected 657 signatures.
“The teachers and the retired teachers of Kentucky demand an apology for your tirade against us, our professional organizations and legislators who stood up for public education,” Miller said in describing the petition. “Calling us liars and making unfounded accusations about our motives while testifying to the House Education Committee is beyond the limits of civility.”
The petition may be seen here.
During a March 3 House Education Committee hearing on House Bill 520 – the charter school enabling legislation that passed both houses of the General Assembly last week – Bevin blasted opponents of the bill – without ever using the word “teachers.”
“The argument that this is somehow a threat to our public education system is a lie. It is not correct. It is a scare tactic. It is meant to preserve the status quo,” the governor said.
“I’m personally disgusted by the fact that the people who oppose this so adamantly continue at every turn – in between texting – to be passionate about what? About power. About money. About the transfer of dollars. It’s not about the students to any of those who are opposing this bill. This is not a threat to anything except failure. It is a threat to those who have failed to deliver in certain school districts and in certain schools in particular. Those who think that they are beholden to the very unions that are trying to desperately to maintain power and are answering to those people who are trying to curry favor, that is not what this is about,” Bevin said.
Miller’s petition came to the attention of eNews Sunday while examining dozens of comments in response to a letter to the editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader from Wolfe County Schools Director of Pupil Personnel Ernie Whisman.
In the letter, titled “Bevin insulted teachers,” Whisman also takes issue with Bevin’s characterization of educators for their opposition to House Bill 520, which awaits the governor’s signature.
“Gov. Matt Bevin, a fanatical proponent of charter schools in any form, responded angrily to educators across the state who opposed House Bill 520. He accused them of being opposed because their focus is on money, not their students,” Whisman said. “How incredibly insulting.”
“Perhaps Bevin is unaware that countless educators across the state routinely spend their own dollars to feed hungry students at school events, pay for school supplies or buy Christmas presents for needy children. Judging by his comments, it seems unlikely that Bevin knows that countless educators serve as community volunteers, often spending their own dollars to buy sports equipment, tickets for trips or pizzas for a group dinner. It is just as unlikely that he is aware that educators spend countless hours after school working at basketball games, chaperoning dances or volunteering for youth league sports,” he said.
“I worked in public education for more than 22 years and have witnessed more acts of making kids’ lives better with no expectation of return or reward by teachers, staff and administrators than I could list. Bevin’s remarks are not only rude and offensive but also totally out of touch with reality. I am not sure which is worse,” Whisman concluded.
As of Monday afternoon, Whisman’s letter was among the top trending articles on the Herald-Leader website, with approximately 90 almost exclusively supportive comments posted in reaction.
Thursday, March 09, 2017
Clock running out on neighborhood schools bill
This from the Courier-Journal:
Time is growing very short in the 2017 General Assembly for the controversial bill to allow children to attend the public school closest to their home.
Although Sen. Dan Seum, the champion of the so-called "neighborhood schools bill" in the Kentucky Senate, said earlier this week a new version of the bill would make compromises – primarily that the bill would apply only to grade schools – some key senators said Wednesday they still have concerns.
And the bill is not on the agenda to be considered at Thursday's meeting of the Senate Education Committee.
"I think the feeling is that bill is going to languish. I don't think it will move," said Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr, a Lexington Republican who is on the Education Committee. "There's a feeling that we need to be concentrating on the charter schools bill, I know my thinking is that we ought to keep our focus on charter schools."
Sen. Dan Seum
But Seum said Wednesday he's working to secure votes for the bill in the committee. "I think we still have a very good chance of that happening," he said.
House Bill 151 passed the House on a 59-37 vote two weeks ago. Since then it has been awaiting consideration by the Senate Education Committee. Sen. Mike Wilson, the Bowling Green Republican who chairs that committee, said Wednesday only that the bill is not on his committee's agenda for Thursday, and he referred all other questions about the status of the bill to Seum.
The bill would require school boards across Kentucky to give priority for school assignments to students who live closest to a particular school starting with the 2019-20 term, although it includes exceptions for certain situations and for places like magnet schools. If the nearest school is full, the district would give that child priority for assignment to the next-closest school.
Several senators said they've heard from a huge number of opponents of the bill from Jefferson County who say it could harm black and low-income students, give rise to the return of segregated schools and cause a logistical nightmare.
The Education Committee is comprised of three Democrats and nine Republicans. And it takes seven of the 12 committee members to approve a bill and send it to the Senate floor.
Most Democratic legislators oppose the bill, but support among the committee's Republicans is uncertain. Kerr said she is "probably leaning against the bill." And Sen. Max Wise, a Campbellsville Republican on the committee, said he is opposed.
Six Republican members of the committee said they had not taken a final position on the bill, most of them noting that they had yet to see the substitute bill that Seum described in interviews early this week as restricting the bill to apply to only grade schools.
"I hate to comment on a bill I haven't seen," said Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon. "...If nothing else comes out of this, it has at least started a lot of conversation about the need for change in Jefferson County."
Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, said, "I see both sides of the issue. We had busing to desegregate – and that was good and helped with the constitutional issues Louisville had at one time. But there's something to be said for a child going to the closest school and not having to sit on a bus for two hours."
Wednesday was the 26th day of a legislative session that can last no more than 30 days. Seum said if the committee does not take up the bill Thursday, he hopes the committee will meet Monday to do so.
"We still have about four or five working days to get this thing on the agenda. It ain't dead yet," he said.
Wednesday, March 08, 2017
Bye Bye to a Bad Regulation
Quite possibly the worst idea to come out of corporate school reform was the notion that teacher education programs could be scientifically evaluated based on the performance of their "grandstudents" - that is to say, the test scores of students who were never taught by the college faculty and who never attended the teacher education program being evaluated, but rather the students of former students from the teacher prep program.
I can say with certainty that there is absolutely nothing a college could have taught one of my new teachers that, as the principal, I could not trump on the very first day of employment. Teachers in our schools are not responsive to their former professors, but they had better follow the dictates of the school administration.
The desire to understand the value added by Teacher Ed programs is certainly understandable. But there is no one-to-one-to-one correspondence that exists here. If teacher education programs were in charge of a particular school, and its principal, then perhaps. But short of that, measuring the performance of grandstudents is a totally invalid approach and endorsing it is on some level, anti-scientific. When we know that particular piece of data is unreliable and invalid, we ought not use it. But CAEP pressed ahead with its Standard 4.1 anyway, and the Obama administration adopted it in its teacher prep rules.
Now it appears the Republicans are poised to get rid of the rule. They've got this one right. Good riddance.
This from Morning Education:
I can say with certainty that there is absolutely nothing a college could have taught one of my new teachers that, as the principal, I could not trump on the very first day of employment. Teachers in our schools are not responsive to their former professors, but they had better follow the dictates of the school administration.
The desire to understand the value added by Teacher Ed programs is certainly understandable. But there is no one-to-one-to-one correspondence that exists here. If teacher education programs were in charge of a particular school, and its principal, then perhaps. But short of that, measuring the performance of grandstudents is a totally invalid approach and endorsing it is on some level, anti-scientific. When we know that particular piece of data is unreliable and invalid, we ought not use it. But CAEP pressed ahead with its Standard 4.1 anyway, and the Obama administration adopted it in its teacher prep rules.
Now it appears the Republicans are poised to get rid of the rule. They've got this one right. Good riddance.
This from Morning Education:
Two Obama-era education regulations appear to be going the way of eight-track tapes and pay phones. The Senate is expected to pass measures today that would scrap one regulation designed to hold schools accountable under the Every Student Succeeds Act, and another that governs teacher preparation programs. Republicans have long claimed the regulations are examples of federal overreach in education. They are using the Congressional Review Act to get rid of them, and President Donald Trump has indicated he will sign the measures.
Not all Republicans are united in the effort to get rid of the accountability rule. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio said he wants to keep it. And the business-friendly Chamber of Commerce joined civil rights groups in defending it. Supporters of the regulation say getting rid of it now would disrupt work already being done in states to develop plans under ESSA.
But the teacher preparation rule never had many cheerleaders on Capitol Hill. It was supported by the Council of Chief State School Officers, however, and some members of the education reform community. They said improving teacher training was needed to boost the quality of the nation's teaching corps. The rule would have rated teacher training programs based in part on how well students taught by the program's graduates performed on tests.
Pruitt to host Town Hall meetings on school accountability
This from KDE via press release:
Kentucky Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt will be hosting a series of regional Town Hall Meetings across the Commonwealth to gather feedback from Kentuckians on a new accountability system that has been under development for the past year.
“This system goes beyond compliance, focuses on students and truly reflects Kentucky’s values,” Pruitt said. “The comments collected at Town Hall Meetings last year, such as we need to educate the whole child, go beyond test scores, and ensure opportunity and access to a quality education for all, informed the development of the system.”
Under the as yet unnamed system, schools would be evaluated on how well they perform on five indicators: Proficiency, Achievement Gap Closure, Student Growth (elementary and middle school only), Transition Readiness and Opportunity and Access. Each indicator includes multiple measures. Some will be reported only; others will figure into a school’s overall accountability rating. Data will be reported online in a dashboard format that better illustrates school/district progress or deficits than a single number. Data will be reported by student group where available to create more transparency on where gaps may exist.
The work was driven by the congressional reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). ESSA shifts much of the oversight and responsibility for schools from the federal government to the state – including how accountability is determined and how to define and improve low-performing schools.
Approximately 3,500 Kentuckians, including superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, business and community members and education partners have participated in the accountability system’s development thus far, either through Town Hall Meetings, by providing online feedback or by serving on one of the groups that worked on drafting the system.
“This has been a collaborative effort from the get go,” Pruitt said. “I want to stress that the collaboration doesn’t end here. This round of Town Hall Meetings is just as important as the ones last year. I hope parents, community members, teachers, students, legislators, business owners and concerned citizens will come to these meetings ready to share their thoughts and ideas,” he added. “It’s in everyone’s best interest to create a system that will prepare our students to be successful, productive citizens of the Commonwealth.”
The first Town Hall Meeting will be on Monday, March 13 at 6:30 p.m. local time in northern Kentucky at Simon Kenton High School in Independence. In all, 10 Town Hall Meetings are scheduled. A Virtual Town Hall Meeting also is being planned, with details to be released at a later date.
The full listing of Town Hall Meeting dates, locations and times follows.
TOWN HALL MEETINGS
Kentucky Education Listens: Accountability Development
All meetings are 6:30 – 8 p.m. local time.
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Date
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City
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Location
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Monday, March 13
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Independence
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Simon Kenton High School Theatre
11132 Madison Pike
Independence, KY
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Wednesday,
March 22
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Louisville
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Kentucky School For the Blind Auditorium
1867 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, KY
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Monday,
April 10
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Paducah
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McCracken Co. High School Auditorium
6530 New Highway 60 West
Paducah, KY
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Tuesday,
April 13
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London
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Laurel County Schools Center for Innovation –
Main Presentation Room
1100 East 4th Street
London, KY
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Monday,
April 17
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Morehead
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Rowan County Senior High School – Performing Arts Center
499 Viking Drive
Morehead, KY
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Tuesday,
April 18
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Elizabethtown
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Hardin County Schools Early College and Career Center
200 University Drive
Elizabethtown, KY
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Thursday,
April 20
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Glasgow
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Glasgow High School Auditorium
1601 Columbia Avenue
Glasgow, KY
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Tuesday,
April 25
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Lexington
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Bryan Station High School Auditorium
201 Eastin Road
Lexington, KY
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Thursday,
April 27
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Prestonsburg
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Mountain Arts Center
50 Hal Rogers Drive
Prestonsburg, KY
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Monday,
May 1
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Henderson
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Henderson County Schools Professional Development Center
631 North Green Street
Henderson, KY
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Those planning to attend a Town Hall Meeting and requiring interpretive services for the deaf or hard of hearing are asked to contact Susan Palmer at the Kentucky Department of Education, susan.palmer@education.ky.gov or phone at (502) 564-3141, ext. 4805, at least a week prior to the meeting to request services. Interpretive services for the Kenton Co. Town Hall Meeting will be provided if requested by the close of business on Friday, March 10.
Kentuckians who are unable to attend the meetings, still will have the opportunity to submit their feedback. Details can be found on Kentucky’s ESSA webpage, http://bit.ly/KYAcccountability, starting March 10.
KDE will provide updates on the meetings on its Facebook page and Twitter account @KyDeptofEd. A dedicated hashtag, #KyEdListens, also is being used for the events.
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