Plan Would Link Kentucky Schools' Performance, Funding

This from Diverse Issues in Higher Education:

A proposal by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education would link performance by Kentucky's public universities to extra state funding. The plan, put forth Thursday, is part of an effort to boost Kentucky's low national rankings in educational attainment. The council will include it in a $2.4 billion budget request for the next biennium, which begins July 1.

The council's senior vice president for budget policy, John Hayek, said the measure will put pressure on institutions to improve.“I think that is what the state wants from its investment,” Hayek said. “I think most taxpayers would want us channeling funds to institutions that are helping students graduate.” University of Kentucky Provost Kumble Subbaswamy told The Courier-Journal that the school welcomes the accountability sought by the measure (http://cjky.it/t6avbg ).

It would establish performance-based standards for allocating tax dollars to state universities a strategy that officials hope to expand in the future. The council plans to finalize details of the program in February. In general, it would set aside $25 million in state funds during the second year of the biennium for the public universities and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.

Universities would receive money from the fund based on how well they improve graduation rates and degree production. They also would be called on to close the achievement gap for underprepared students and raise the number of student transfers from the community and technical college system to the four-year universities. The new funding totals about 2.5 percent of the state's annual appropriation to public universities, which Hayek said is enough to get attention without creating financial instability...

CPE sets tuition ceilings for Ky universities

This from H-L:

The Council on Postsecondary Education has set maximums for tuition increases at state-funded colleges and universities.

The panel met Thursday in Elizabethtown and set a maximum tuition and fee increase of 6 percent for the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, 5 percent for comprehensive universities and 4 percent for the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.

The six comprehensive universities are Eastern Kentucky University, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University and Western Kentucky University.

Council officials said in a statement that the tuition increases were necessary to help offset cuts in state funding and expected increases in operating expenses and maintenance.

ACT: Not the Only Measure of College Readiness

Council on Postsecondary Education honcho Bob King recently argued in the Herald-Leader that CPE's High School Feedback Report allows the state "to look more deeply into actual performance measured by an external, unbiased resource — the ACT exam."

King suggested that the ACT, by itself, was superior to predictions of college-readiness derived from combinations of data. Discounting graduation rates and average GPA in favor of a single test prompted our resident testing expert to retort.

NOTE: H-L seemed to struggle editing Skip's piece, so here's the unadulterated article the paper titled:

ACT not key measure of college readiness

By Skip Kifer

If I were to assert that a player who cannot make 56% of his free throws is not "ready" for the NBA, a fan would point out that there is much more to basketball than shooting free throws. An astute fan with a historic prospective would point out that Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O'Neal and a bevy of other current players would not be "ready" using that arbitrary standard. One facet of basketball does not make or break a player's "readiness."

Bob King, president of Kentucky's Council on Postsecondary Education, in a recent op-ed piece applies the council's arbitrary standard of using a single test score to determine whether a student is "ready" for regular course work in Kentucky's public universities. He implies a test score is a better predictor of grades in college than is a high school record. He then presents results from one high school that lump higher performing students (those with above average high school records) with lower performing ones in a misguided approach to justify his position. A test score, however, does not make or break a student's "readiness" for higher education.

Decades of research indicate: performance in academic courses in high school is the single best predictor of success in higher education; a combination of the high school record and test scores predict better than the high school record alone; and, how good the prediction is and how the components are combined vary depending on the institution. Although there is a general pattern of the primacy of the high school record, there is no one-fits-all model to predict grades in different courses or different institutions.

In addition to the thoroughly suspect notion of labeling a test score readiness, the council's use of a single score for placement purposes violates standards for the proper use of tests. Those standards include the following:

In educational settings, a decision or characterization that will have major impact on a student should not be made on the basis of a single test score. Other relevant information should be taken into account if it will enhance the overall validity of the decision.

In addition:

When test scores are intended to be used as part of the process for making decisions for educational placement, promotion, or implementation of prescribed educational plans, empirical evidence documenting the relationship among particular test scores, the instructional programs, and desire student outcomes should be provided. When adequate empirical evidence is not available, users should be cautioned to weight test results accordingly in light of other relevant information about the student.

Apparently, the council determines readiness by doing statistical analyses of ACT scores and grades in first year courses without regard to institution. A certain ACT score produces a 50/50 chance of getting certain grades, say C, or better. I could find no information about this or other investigations done by the council. And, although it is possible to present information about how good a model is, I could not find any information of that kind either.

To give a sense of the power of statistical models to predict first year grades I report analyses conducted years ago on University of Kentucky student samples. The question was whether results of KIRIS, the first commonwealth assessment related to school reform, could be used for admission and placement in a university.

If a model exactly predicts grades one can say that the model accounts for 100 % of what could be known. If a model cannot at all predict grades, one can say that 0% is accounted for. One way, then, to talk about the power of a statistical model is determine what percent the model predicts.
The table below gives those percents for different courses at UK for three different statistical models: High school record only, High School record + ACT scores and High School record + KIRIS scores.

The first thing to recognize is that the models are not particularly powerful. They rarely account for 25% of what could be known leaving 75% to be explained. That 75% may be differences in students' study habits, class attendance, interests, any of a thousand other variables or simply things not explained statistically.

The pattern of results, however, is clear. Adding an ACT score to a model containing GPA makes the prediction better but not greatly so. The same is true for KIRIS scores, too. Incidentally, that was without including the KIRIS writing sample.

These are not unusual results. They point, obviously, to gathering more information about a student before making a placement decision. Here is what ACT says:

ACT offers a variety of tools to ensure postsecondary students are quickly and accurately placed in courses appropriate to their skill levels. Assessment tools from ACT offer a highly accurate and cost-effective basis for course placement. By combining students' test scores with information about their high school coursework and their needs, interests, and goals, advisors and faculty members can make placement recommendations with a high degree of validity.

To that, I would add, for obvious reasons, it is desirable for an educational agency to use tests in exemplary ways.

The op-ed piece goes on to exhort parents to ask right questions, asks an undefined "we" to fear international test results, says admissions offices should align themselves with the council's readiness standards, and the still undefined "we" to serve teachers more effectively. Such exhortations would be more convincing if, in the first instance, the council could propose placement procedures based on a robust notion of "readiness" that in addition did not violate test score use standards.

@ CPE SoTL

Historic Cooperation

Kentucky First to Accept Core Academic Standards

SOURCE KDE: In joint meeting this evening, the chairs of the Kentucky Board of Education, the Council on Postsecondary Education and the Education Professional Standards Board signed a resolution directing their respective agencies to implement the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and mathematics, formalizing Kentucky’s agreement to integrate the standards into the state’s public education system.

(Smiles all 'round after signing the resolution.

L to R pairs:

Philip Rogers and Lorraine Williams from EPSB;

Terry Holliday and Joe Brothers from KBE;

Bob King and Paul Patton from CPE.)

Archived video and audio from KDE:

Downloadable audio podcast:

The draft Common Core State Standards at the Council on Postsecondary Education website:

More on Common Core Standards at Nat'l Gov's Association:

"Now it is critically important that we provide
our schools and teachers with the support and resources
they need to make sure these standards do
what they are designed to do -
ensure the success of students in every part of Kentucky,"

--- Bob Sexton

(Bob Sexton looks on with Roger Marcum in background.)

With this action, Kentucky becomes the first state to formally accept the standards. Higher, clearer and more in-depth academic standards are required by Senate Bill 1, passed by the 2009 Kentucky General Assembly and codified as KRS 158.6451.

(Patton with Brothers and Williams.)

“This is an historic moment for Kentucky,” said Kentucky Board of Education Chair Joe Brothers. “With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, teachers and administrators will have a blueprint to move the state forward in P-12 education. This is just the beginning of Kentucky’s next chapter of education reform, and it reflects the mandates of the state’s legislature – specifically, Senate Bill 1 -- and our application for federal Race to the Top funding.”

(KBE member Billy Harper looks on)

“The Common Core Standards come at an opportune time for us at EPSB as we forge ahead to meet the charges set forth by Senate Bill 1,” said EPSB Chair Lorraine Williams. “To truly make a difference in Kentucky’s students’ ability to demonstrate what they know and are able to do and to make them more competitive in the marketplace, it is a refreshing move to narrow the number of standards taught at each level. ESPB is excited to be part of this cutting edge initiative and looks forward to working with our university partners to ensure that our undergraduate and graduate teacher preparation programs embrace the Common Core Standards and prepare a stronger workforce capable of teaching the curriculum to a deeper, more rigorous level.”

(King and Patton listen to Holliday)

“Kentucky is once again at the forefront in education reform,” said CPE Chair Paul Patton. “I am very pleased with the level of cooperation and commitment by Kentucky’s policy and education leaders in the development of these draft content standards. Consistent academic standards, aligned to college and work expectations, will help our students reach higher levels of success.”

(Governor Steve Beshear)

Launched in 2009, the Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). Governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states (no Texas; no Alaska), two territories and the District of Columbia committed to developing a common core of state standards in English/language arts and mathematics for grades K-12.

(Former Lexington Mayor Pam Miller)

CCSSO and NGA plan to release the final version of the standards in early spring.

The action by the three Kentucky boards is the beginning of the work of integrating those standards into the state’s curriculum guidelines, teacher preparation programs and higher education activities.

(Ed Cmte chairs, Sen Ken Winter and Rep Carl Rollins)

This action meets the mandate of Senate Bill 1, passed by the 2009 General Assembly, to revise Kentucky’s academic standards to:

• focus on critical knowledge, skills and capacities needed for success in the global economy
• result in fewer, but more in-depth standards to facilitate mastery learning
• communicate expectations more clearly and concisely to teachers, parents, students and citizens
• be based on evidence-based research
• consider international benchmarks
• ensure that the standards are aligned from elementary to high school to postsecondary education so that students can be successful at each education level.

(The Three Amigos)

These standards are the "best of the best” of state academic requirements. They focus on knowledge like multiplication, equations, reading comprehension, language rules and more. But, they also require that students learn how to solve problems and think creatively. To help teachers successfully implement the standards, state agencies and partner groups will provide support and training starting in the summer of 2010.

(Frequent Commish Kevin Noland and Ed Sec Joe Meyer)

Teachers will begin to provide instruction related to the standards in the fall of 2011. Students will be assessed on the Common Core Standards beginning in the spring of 2012.

(KBE Vice Chair Dorie Combs..all pensive)

The Common Core State Standards will enable participating states to:

• articulate to parents, teachers, and the general public expectations for students
• align textbooks, digital media and curricula to the internationally benchmarked standards
• ensure professional development for educators is based on identified need and best practices
• develop and implement an assessment system to measure student performance against the common core state standards
• evaluate policy changes needed to help students and educators meet the common core state college and career readiness standards

(KBE Deputy Commish Ruth Webb with Sexton)

This from the Prichard Committee:

Kentucky's adoption of new academic standards is an exciting development that could signal the beginning of unprecedented progress for the state's schools, the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence said Thursday.

"These standards strengthen our education system in several ways," said Robert
F. Sexton, executive director of the statewide citizens' organization.

"First, they have real-world relevance - reflecting the knowledge and skills that young people need to succeed in both college and work and to compete in the global economy. Second, they give students, teachers, parents and administrators a shared understanding of what students are expected to learn, but they let teachers decide how to help students reach the standards. Finally, they ensure collaboration between K-12 and postsecondary education - something we haven't seen before in Kentucky."

(ESPB staffer and "old" FCPS colleague Mike Carr)

This from Jim Warren at the Herald-Leader:

...Kentucky educators expect state test scores to fall initially when the new standards kick in with the 2011-2012 school year. But they say scores will rebound as students and teachers adjust to the tougher new requirements.

The state estimates that implementing the standards, preparing teachers to use them, and developing a new student testing system could cost about $15 million over the next two fiscal years. But officials say the payoff — generations of Kentucky youngsters fully prepared to succeed in college or careers in an increasingly competitive global marketplace — would be well worth that investment.

(Another former colleague from Meadowthorpe, KDE's Michael Miller)

The Kentucky Board of Education, the state Council on Postsecondary Education and the state Education Professional Standards Board each voted unanimously to adopt the new standards Wednesday night in a joint session at the Kentucky Community and Technical College System headquarters. The audience included a virtual who's who of Kentucky education.

(Our host, KCTCS Pres Michael McCall)

Gov. Steve Beshear and others on hand touted the standards adoption as a "historic step" to toward a "new era of education," calling it perhaps the most important education reform initiative since the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act.

"These standards will move us closer to our ultimate goal, a K-12 system that positions our children for success," Beshear said. "They will require not only knowledge but skills, like thinking creatively, solving problems, thinking analytically. In short, they will help our teachers teach, and our students study more effectively and more competently."

(Dailey with CPE staffers Lee Nimocks and John DeAtley)

Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday called the new standards an attempt to "harness the winds of change."

"We must create the future for our children," Holliday said. "I think this is the first wave of the next wave of change for the future of our children, and it is securing that future."

Wednesday night's action is a major step in the implementation of Senate Bill 1, which the General Assembly approved last year calling for new, more demanding state education standards aligned from preschool to college. Now that math and language standards have been adopted, the next step will be preparing new standards for other subjects. The Kentucky Department of Education plans to do that in-house.

(Winters with new UK Ed Dean Mary John O'Hair)

Charlie Newquist, a math teacher at East Jessamine Middle School who participated on a panel that reviewed the new math and language standards last year, predicted that they will do much to boost education in the state.

"The standards are rigorous, but reachable," said Newquist, who spoke at Wednesday's session.

"I think students and parents will be excited because the standards are very clear. We know what the kids need to do. We know what they need to understand. And we know how to get there at every grade level."

We missed Susan Weston last night, but she weighed in telling H-L's Warren, "We now say that a child is reading at grade level, and that sounds reassuring. But in fact, that isn't strong enough for us to keep pulling in the good jobs, and competing with the rising nations of Asia and Europe. We need to be stronger than our current average...Standard research on the countries that have been beating us in math says that they all do it the way these new standards are set up.

Weston referred to the new math standards, which are designed to match up well with the Singapore math program that nine Fayette County elementary schools have instituted this year.

Warren reports theat a key piece of the reform effort is the state's application to the federal Race To The Top program, which was filed last month. Kentucky hopes to get up to $200 million from the Race program, which would be used for implementing SB 1 and the new standards. The state should learn in April how much it will money it will get.

Holliday told the assembly that "if you want to know where Kentucky is going, read our Race to the Top application."

If you want to know where Kentucky's application is headed and the chances for funding, check out the NCTQ Race to the Top Scorecard.

(EKU Math Prof Sue Cain on loan to CPE)

This from WKYT (VIDEO):

It’s still not certain what exactly the new standards will be…as only a rough draft of them is available.

“It may mean scrapping all their lessons..it may mean only a lesson or two,” said Sharron Oxendine with the Kentucky Education Association.

Yet Oxendine welcomes the new standards.

“I really think it’s a good thing…because we’ve been talking for years about the standards…have been way too broad,” said Oxendine.

“Which will allow us to go deeper into the content, rather than trying to spread it out so far,” said Franklin County Schools Superintendent Harrie Buecker.

One concern has been that teachers don’t have enough time in each year…to adequately finish the large amount of lessons they’re required to give students.

“What we’re looking at….is making sure that the lessons we can teach in the time that’s available…is going to be appropriate,” said Oxendine.

(CPE VP Aaron Thompson)

Training teachers on the new changes could cost in the millions of dollars. Kentucky education officials hope federal funding will take care of that expense.

The standards Kentucky adopts will mirror those in 48 other states.

“So I think it will better prepare all of our kids for work, for college, for whatever happens after school,” said Oxendine.

The new standards will be used to develop a new test that most Kentucky students will begin taking in the spring of 2012.

(My favorite pen pal, KDE's Lisa Gross. I'm probably "in trouble" for posting this one.)

Coverage from the News-Enterprise here:

This from Ed Week:

...Kentucky’s move is part of what is known as the Common Core State Standards Initiative, spearheaded by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National
Governors Association. The K-12 standards crafted as part of that initiative are still in draft form, with a final version expected by early spring. ("Reviewers Urge Standards Fixes," Feb. 3, 2010.)

In making their decisions, the Kentucky boards relied on late-stage drafts that have been circulating among state officials for review. But their decisions direct their staffs to implement the final version of the common standards once it is completed. The state will also wait for the final version to begin the normal 30-day regulatory-review period, officials said.The state education department plans to train teachers on the common standards this summer so they can begin teaching to them next fall. It plans to administer assessments designed for the common standards in spring 2012...

The unusual level of cooperation among the three boards is required by a bill passed last year by the Kentucky legislature. A sweeping revision of the state’s standards and accountability system, the measure mandates, among other provisions, that the education department, the Council on Postsecondary Education, and the Education Professional Standards Board collaborate on new standards that are narrower and deeper, and better aligned with college expectations...

Hat tips to Prichard and KSBA.

It was great to see so many former and current colleagues in one place at one time. The first guy I ran into last night was Roger Marcum, then Michael Miller, then Mike Carr...... There was a great feeling in the room; a concerted effort I haven't sensed in a long time.

Special shout outs to Roger, Mike, Dorie, Aaron, Michael, Bob, Cindy, the other Michael, Sally, Lee, Becky Sagan, Lisa, Kevin, Nancy McKinney, Sue, Pam, and fellow correspondent Jim and fellow blogger Terry.

All photos by Richard Day for Kentucky School News and Commentary.