Charters: neither Savior nor Satan

In the Kentucky School Advocate this month, [Page 27] KSBA Communications Director Brad Hughes wonders if school officials are listening to their customers; and whether schools failing to do so has contributed to the "claimed clamor" for charter schools in Kentucky. He challenges his KSBA readers to maintain schools that are responsive to the public.

Hughes also offers his reading of the charter school literature. It should sound familiar to KSN&C readers.

What I think I've learned [after reading numerous articles, research and op-eds] is that charter schools are neither the geat savior for frustrated parents and overregulated schools nor the great Satan against public education in the U.S. As with so many things, it's all in the details.

Advice for the New Commissioner

Over at KSBA, Brad Hughes offers some indight for the new commissioner on how to become successful in Kentucky. It is particularly important for the commissioner-select to listen to the advice since Hughes reveals how things are done around here - to an outsider.

This from KSBA:

New ed commissioner must follow summer of rumor

with fall of specifics

If its timetable holds, the Kentucky Board of Education is nearing the end of its search for the state’s fifth commissioner of education. Of course, maybe we should label whoever gets the job No. 6, considering the several times interim commissioner Kevin Noland has held that title.

Either way, the selection will end eight months of speculation, gossip and “I heard that…” since Dr. Jon Draud revealed his retirement plans last December.

Will it be Superintendent so-and-so or any superintendent in Kentucky? One superintendent confirmed his application and the rumor mill identified at least three more as having acknowledged interest. Others may have joined but kept their cards close to the vest.

Hughes reminds us of the challenges ahead:

• Cutting funds at the department, district and school levels
• A requirement for secondary schools and higher education to get together on preparing high school grads for college course work.
• A complete redrawing of the state’s assessment and accountability system.

It would be easy for the next commissioner to hunker down in the Capital Plaza Tower for the rest of 2009, working to get his or her hands around the operations of the agency, the mandates for immediate action and the preparations for legislative work come January.

It also would be the worst thing the new commissioner – and the state board – could do.

But Hughes advises Kentucky’s next education commissioner to hit the road, speaking to local and regional groups, like, coincidentally, KSBA, as well as some school board meetings, chambers of commerce, Lions and Rotary Clubs.

Hughes advises the new commish to sit down with the dwindling number of experienced education-focused journalists (and I'm sure he meant to include education-experienced bloggers) to share his or her insights and to clarify goals.

Really go out on the edge and work with the department’s communications staff to create your own Web blog or other frequent electronic communication to the elementary and secondary education community. Encourage all of the alphabet soup K-12 groups (KASA, KASC, KASS, KSBA, etc.) to distribute those communications to our members as broadly as possible.

And put some meat in your message, for gosh sakes. We all want all students to achieve at high levels. We all support a challenging curriculum that pushes the at-risk as well as the gifted-and-talented to pursue a college degree. We all want higher test scores, higher pay for teachers and higher public confidence in Kentucky’s public schools. Tell us – at least in broad terms – how you want to spend your first year pursuing those dreams.

In the history of education in Kentucky, every significant advance occurred when a strong advocate used the bully-pulpit to rally grass-roots support for better schools.

Kentucky will depend upon the new education commissioner "to help boost the only goal that really matters – giving every child in Kentucky’s public schools a life-enhancing education."

Kentucky School Districts Cut Teachers

Hey Toni. We're glad you're still out there. The education story count in Lexington has dropped like a rock.

This from Toni at C-J:

135 lost positions after budget cuts

More than 1,100 jobs were cut in public schools this year because of the state's budget crunch, according to a final survey released yesterday by the Kentucky School Boards Association.

As part of its survey, the school boards association spoke with superintendents at each of the state's 174 school districts and asked them how cutting their budgets affected their operations.

Brad Hughes, spokesman for the association, said 39 districts reported that they didn't have to eliminate any jobs, but 135 lost at least one certified or classified post before the new school year started.

The survey found 594 certified posts were eliminated, while 575 classified jobs were cut.Certified positions include teachers, counselors and administrators. Classified staff includes bus drivers, cafeteria workers, office clerks, custodians and teachers' aides.

Because of a state budget shortfall, the Kentucky Department of Education cut $43 million for professional development programs and after-school services, as well as money for textbooks. That forced some school districts to make up the difference elsewhere...

Johnson to stay on with Mercer

This from the Advocate-Messenger, photo by Charlie Cox:

Tentative budget approved

HARRODSBURG - Bruce Johnson has decided to stay on board as the head of Mercer County schools. He made his plans clear at the end of Thursday night’s special meeting of the Mercer County Board of Education, during which the long-awaited approval of the 2008-09 tentative budget also took place.

The two events would seem to provide temporary bookends for what has been a seemingly endless saga of Mercer’s fiscal problems.

Thursday’s meeting was in sharp contrast to the one on Tuesday that offered a two-and-half hour executive session and no comment or resolution of Johnson’s status or the budget...

...All eyes were on Johnson as he entered the room at Thursday’s meeting, and Chairperson Glynda Short called the meeting to order, acknowledging the sizable crowd in attendance.

She introduced two guests, Larry G. Stinson, associate commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Education and Brad Hughes of the Kentucky School Boards Association. Both men addressed the crowd and stayed after the meeting to speak with those who had questions.

Since the board has asked the Department of Education to conduct a full review of the system, Stinson said he was on-hand to explain what exactly will be looked at. According to Stinson, agents will inspect all of the financial records, attendance records, personnel records, audit reports, and examine operations not only of the current Mercer County system but of the two former school districts as well from two years before the merger...

C-J Points Fingers at...pretty much Everyone

This from the Courier-Journal:

Blame these folks

...University of Kentucky students, and eventually their counterparts at other state campuses, will be taxed. That's what a 9 percent increase in tuition is -- a tax on students and their families, made necessary by lawmakers' refusal to raise new state revenue.

As education advocates across the state, led by Commissioner Jon Draud, are warning, elementary and secondary schools will be hit so hard that they can't really aspire to reach "proficiency" by the legal due-date of 2014. Kentucky School Boards Association spokesman Brad Hughes expects more "direct impact on classroom learning than at any time in recent history." The Prichard Committee's Bob Sexton says lawmakers have failed the state's kids...

...Money has been filched from the fees paid by professionals, including doctors, nurses and dentists, which means licensing and oversight agencies won't have the money to do their job, which means the public could be endangered. And the outrage expressed by members of the 35 boards and commissions that have been robbed of funds has fallen on deaf ears.

We have directed much of our criticism for this sorry state at affairs at Senate President David Williams, and he richly deserves it.

He brushes off complaints about his control of the Frankfort agenda by airily suggesting that, instead of new state revenue, what's needed is a little belt-tightening, when in fact the belt is around the neck of those who need state government's help and support.

But David Williams is not alone to blame. He didn't hatch without help. He doesn't keep his power without enablers.

If you want to hold someone responsible, start with U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the creator of today's Kentucky Republican Party and the chief advocate of its basic operating principle: never, ever let yourself be responsible for raising taxes. Thank, also, the Republican senators...Dan Seum, Ernie Harris and Julie Denton -- for supporting Mr. Williams' leadership and letting him run roughshod over the public interest.

Thank Senate Democrats who supinely, and silently, accept the outrage that is Mr. Williams' leadership...our public university presidents, who gave him cover by praising 3 percent cuts on top of 3 percent cuts...other public stewards who failed to protest publicly...[and] yourself, for considering this politics as usual … politics as inevitable.

KSBA podcast on MRSA

Brad Hughes over at the Kentucky School Boards Association posted a one-hour podcast Q&A about schools, staff and MRSA with Dr. Kraig Humbaugh director, Division of Epidemiology and Health Planning, Kentucky Department for Public Health. Good job, Brad.

Find it at KSBA.

School funding adequacy lawsuit ends

This from Brad Hughes at the Kentucky School Board Association.

Lexington – The Council for Better Education, a group including most of the state’s public school districts, will not appeal a Franklin Circuit Court ruling in its lawsuit against the General Assembly, effectively ending the three-year fight over whether the state is providing constitutionally adequate funding for its schools.

During the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents’ summer conference in Lexington Friday, CBE President Roger Marcum and attorney Byron Leet of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, recommended the action. A quick vote not to appeal the ruling by Judge Thomas Wingate followed.

“I know we’re all disappointed in the outcome,” Marcum said, “but it’s not over. We need to continue to make our case to the public.In an interview after the vote, Marcum, superintendent of Marion County Schools, said he believes the lawsuit has produced positive results.

“There are now more resources for the children of Kentucky and in the last session, we saw evidence that (the lawsuit) has accomplished that,” he said. “It made everyone aware that funding for public education is something that we have to be continually aware of. We didn’t solve the problem in 1990 with the Kentucky Education Reform Act and the needs continue to change as we move forward. I think the council has kept that issue on the front burner.

...Leet and Marcum pointed to a bright side to Wingate’s ruling. “Judge Wingate said there is a genuine question about whether the legislature is meeting its constitutional obligation, and that’s a decision for a court to make,” Leet said. “He rejected the defendants’ argument that they were immune from being sued and left the door open for the council or someone else to come back to the court in the future.

...For now, Marcum said the council will remain active and will follow up on its recent white paper, Progress but Not Enough Progress.