Kentucky's schools: a new reality

Former Owensboro Mayor and current President and CEO of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Dave Adkisson has an Op-Ed in the Courier-Journal supporting the idea that Kentucky has indeed made progress as measured by the recent Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center study.

For the past two years, I've traveled the state and talked to hundreds of business, education, political and community leaders, and I've tried to get a handle on whether we've made progress in education and, if so, how much. That has proved to be a difficult task. I have concluded that, as average Kentuckians, we simply don't know.

A conversation about educational progress (or lack thereof) can quickly become a mind-numbing discussion of test scores, which test scores, funding, spending, accountability, governance and other matters. For the 99.9 percent of us who are not professional educators, our eyes quickly glaze over, and we end up bewildered, not knowing whether we've made progress or not.

One news story about ACT scores sounds pretty good, and then we hear how few Kentucky workers have a bachelor's or associate degree. We don't know whether to feel good or feel bad.

The recent release of a study by the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center sheds a bright light on the question of progress and, more important, offers reason for hope and optimism.

The LTPRC took 11 major national rankings that are widely accepted as important measures of student achievement, combined them into a single index and charted them from the early 1990s through 2005, the latest year for which the rankings
are available.

Dramatic findings

What the combined index reveals is dramatic. Kentucky has made impressive progress in education, and we have clearly moved out of the bottom tier and toward the middle of the pack of all states. Overall, we moved from 43rd in 1992 to 34th in 2005. The move is even more impressive when we look at what happened to some other states, especially those who shared the basement with Kentucky in 1992: Alabama moved from 48th to 46th.

Mississippi moved from 50th to 48th.

North Carolina -- often cited as an example of what Kentucky should try to be -- began in 42nd place and moved up to 35th, one slot below Kentucky.

Other recent reports support the positive conclusions about Kentucky: Our fourth and eighth graders are performing above the national average in science and reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called the nation's report card. Education Week's Quality Counts 2007 Achievement Index ranks Kentucky at 34th, and the Morgan Quitno 2006-07 Smartest State Index ranks Kentucky at 31st.

This is huge!

Kentucky's schools have made major gains in less than one generation. And we have proved that with a concentrated and sustained public effort to help all students learn at high levels, our schools can -- and do -- improve.

The gains are even more impressive when considered against the backdrop of Kentucky's high poverty level, the influx into our public schools of thousands of immigrants (many of whom are still learning English) and the low education levels of our adult population. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently gave Kentucky a "B" in its national report card for "return on investment."

In other words, for the tax dollars we're investing into education, we're getting a good dividend in student achievement.

Are there areas that still need attention?

Absolutely. I don't think many of us are going to rush out and paste "We're No. 34!" bumper stickers on our cars to celebrate our new rankings.

CLASS PROJECT GONE WRONG

Thanks to my baby sis for sending this one from NY.

An elementary school class started a class project to make planters to take home to their parents.

They wanted to have a plant in it that was easy to take care of, so they decided to use cactus plants. The students were given green-ware pottery planters in the shape of clowns which they painted with glaze. The clown planters were professionally fired at a class outing so they could see the process.

It was great fun!

They planted cactus seeds in the finished planters and they grew nicely, but unfortunately, the children were not allowed to take them home.

The cactus plants were removed and small ivy replaced them and the children were then allowed to take them home instead.

The teacher said cactus seemed like a good idea at the time!

KY BOARD OF EDUCATION CALLS SPECIAL MEETING

(FRANKFORT, Ky.) – The Kentucky Board of Education will hold a special meeting Friday, November 9, beginning at 9 a.m. in the State Board Room of the Capital Plaza Tower in Frankfort.

The board will enter into closed session to discuss personnel. The board also will consider the selection process for the position of commissioner of education.

A full agenda follows.

AGENDA
KENTUCKY BOARD OF EDUCATION
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2007
9:00 A.M. (EST)

STATE BOARD ROOM
FIRST FLOOR, CAPITAL PLAZA TOWER
FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY

BUSINESS SESSION – FULL BOARD

I. Call to Order
II. Roll Call
III. Closed Session to discuss personnel
IV. Consideration of commissioner’s selection process
V. Adjournment

SOURCE: KDE press release

Beshear questions education hiring, Gov.-elect wants meeting with board

Can Governor-elect Steve Beshear shake the Kentucky Board of Education loose from their plans to name a new Kentucky Education Commissioner next week?

Previously the board has shown a remarkable ability to hunker down and fend off good advice in favor of ... well ...whatever will get them past the Barbara Erwin mess. While Joe Brothers has adopted a more open and conciliatory tone, the move to search for a new commissioner this fall was ill-advised from the start and said more about the painful past than it did a brighter future.

When Al Smith and the Courier-Journal renewed their call for Ernie Fletcher to change course, and restart the commissioner's search, yet again, in the spring, it did not appear likely that Fletcher would suddenly become more responsive than he has been in the past.

Now, there may be light on the horizon.

This from Antoinette Konz at the Courier-Journal:

Less than a week before the Kentucky Board of Education plans to appoint a new education commissioner, Gov.-elect Steve Beshear said yesterday he has some concerns over the hiring.

"I plan on contacting the state Board of Education here in the next day or so and sitting down and discussing that issue with them," Beshear said during a press conference in Frankfort. "I have some concerns, and I want to express it to them at that time."

When asked what those concerns were, Beshear said through his spokeswoman that he had no additional comment.

Joe Brothers, chairman of the Board of Education, said that as of yesterday evening, he had not yet been contacted by Beshear to schedule a meeting.

"We'd be more than happy to talk with him; we always want to work with the governor, whether he is new or not," Brothers said. "As of right now, we plan to interview the candidates (as scheduled) and should everything come together, we could name someone as early as next week." ...

...Under state law, Kentucky's governor appoints members to the state Board of Education, but the governor has no control over action taken by the board. ...

...Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who appointed each of the current 11 members to the board, indicated yesterday he is willing to work with Beshear. ...

Ken Winters as Education Cabinet Secretary?

This morning the Herald-Leader reports, "With five weeks to form a government, Gov.-elect Steve Beshear plans a series of announcements starting today on key appointments in his administration." Ryan Alessi's article does not mention the Education Cabinet Secretary but did mention GOP state Sen. Lindy Casebier of Louisville and Sen. Tom Buford, R-Nicholasville as being receptive to discussions.

Yesterday, a Frankfort insider told KSN&C that Beshear was talking to Ken Winters about the education post. Senator Winters (R) presently serves in District 1 which includes Calloway, Carlisle, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Trigg, & Lyon counties an area Fletcher failed to carry.

From Governor-elect Steve Beshear's perspective, this is a good move. First, the Education Secretary is one of those "best jobs in Frankfort." Long on meetings and speeches; short on actual responsibility.

The source also opined that Winters has had about enough of Senate President David Williams' stranglehold on the Senate and would be open to moving on; thus opening a vulnerable seat in west Kentucky.

The move reinforces Beshear's promise to run a bipartisan administration, and in the process, lays the groundwork for a more cooperative legislature. Republicans presently hold a 21-16 majority in the Senate.

The Courier-Journal reported that Beshear, who defeated Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher by a margin of 18 percentage points in Tuesday's election, said repeatedly during the campaign that he planned to help find and support good Democratic candidates to run for Republican-held seats in the General Assembly.

Asked about that ...Williams said that if Beshear meddles in legislative races, he'll face problems.

"The governor will find it a very complicating factor if he wants to sit down with you and at the same time plot your imminent demise," Williams said...

Of course, Williams will spend every waking moment trying to cling to power no matter what Beshear does.

Draud apparent front-runner for education

FYI - Pat Crowley posted this at his N Ky politics blog:

"Several sources in Frankfort are telling me that state Rep. Jon Draud, R-Edgewood, has a strong chance of being named commissioner of education."

C-J asks, What's the hurry? Pre-emption?

I missed this last week, from the Courier-Journal.
~
There's no question the state Board of Education has the power to rush selection of a new education commission for Kentucky, before a new governor can take office. The question is, should it do that?

The answer is no.

It's not that whoever is elected governor should have veto power over the choice of someone to fill this post. Indeed, the legal and organizational structures now in place are supposed to prevent just that. The idea, and it's a good one, has been to insulate such choices from dominance by partisan politics.

However, a new commissioner can't, and shouldn't, isolate his or her office and its work from the agenda of the governor, be it a re-elected Ernie Fletcher or his challenger, Steve Beshear...

...Presumably, the Fletcher administration wants ... partnership and teamwork to continue, even if Mr. Beshear is elected. So why doesn't the board wait to see what happens on Nov. 6, before naming a new commissioner? If it's Mr. Beshear, as all the polls suggest it will be, what's wrong with the board at least hearing from him on goals and priorities?

If there's a rush to name a commissioner before then, it will be a clear signal that the board, controlled by Fletcher appointees, wants pre-emption, not cooperation.

Larry Vick article in the Messenger-Inquirer

Owensboro Public Schools superintendent

in seventh year at city schools

Larry Vick, in his seventh year as superintendent of Owensboro Public Schools, is one of five finalists for Kentucky education commissioner...

... "I'm honored to be selected as a finalist," Vick said when contacted ... at home.

"I'm looking forward to talking to the state board about my ideas for moving the state forward to that 2014 goal."

... "We've had good results in Owensboro, and I feel like I could share some of our methodology that could be employed by the state," Vick said...

...[Regarding the Erwin selection:] "I felt like I couldn't let that happen again," he said. "But if I didn't think I could do the job, I wouldn't have applied."

Two or three superintendents that Vick would have liked to have seen apply for the job did not, and that opened the door for him, he said.

The state board sent two to three e-mails encouraging Kentucky superintendents to apply, Vick said.

That was a signal to him that board members would take a strong look at candidates from those ranks...

...Before coming to Owensboro he was superintendent of the Paris (Tenn.) Special School District, a K-8 public school system. Owensboro has about 4,300 students in preschool through 12th grade.

The district is meeting all of its No Child Left Behind goals. For the last two years, it has been identified by Standard & Poor's School Evaluation Services as one of 18 "outperforming" districts from 171 in the Kentucky comparison group.

This from the Messenger-Inquirer. (Subscription)

'Dropout factory' unacceptable

This Editorial from the State-Journal.

We're certain it came as a shock to parents to read that Franklin County High School is one of 28 high schools in Kentucky labeled a "dropout factory" by the Associated Press based on FCHS's failure to retain and graduate most of its entering freshmen.

...Over a three-year period " 2004-2006 " FCHS had a retention rate of only 60 percent, which translates into only 60 percent of entering freshmen went on to graduate four years later.

That's simply shocking " and wholly unacceptable.

Even given that some of those entering freshmen may have moved to other cities and schools in the period, when three out of 10 freshmen don't graduate, clearly action must be taken. And to its credit, the county school system has taken action to address this shocking statistic...

...But how did FCHS become a "dropout factory" in the first place while Western Hills and Frankfort High School did not? That's a question school board members and top administrators need to answer to avoid the same retention problems from spreading.

School Calendar crunch

Demands grow as options shrink

When the 1990 legislature scrambled education decision-making roles in Kentucky, it left district leaders in charge of setting the school calendar. Nearly 18 years later, school boards and superintendents are watching their options shrivel as pressures on their choices mount.

It’s frequently a tough balancing act between conflicting community priorities and the desire to maximize instructional days before critical assessment testing. And it can leave local leaders feeling boxed in.

"I’m furious about it. I’m just livid," said Bowling Green Independent board Vice Chairwoman Deborah Williams of a state education department directive to change the district’s traditional two-week spring break schedule. "In my opinion, they’ve overstepped their bounds again." ...

...The Department of Education lists 12 testing periods for 2007-08, starting in September for on-demand writing and running through the Kentucky Core Content tests next spring. But a 2006 state law requiring all high school juniors to take the ACT has created problems for a few districts, including Bowling Green.

In an e-mail to Superintendent Joe Tinius, interim Education Commissioner Kevin Noland noted that Kentucky was given only two days for ACT testing in 2008, adding that district assessment coordinators surveyed favored March 11 – right in the middle of Bowling Green’s traditional spring break.

"We implemented the alternative calendar about seven years ago. We surveyed our parents and it’s five to one who want the calendar with a two-week break in the fall, at Christmas and in the spring," said Williams, the board member. "During the extra week, we offer concentrated remedial courses for those who need it and enrichment for those who want that. That’s much better than staying an hour after school because you have a whole week of intense subject matter for those students who need it.

"This is a matter of local control. To tell us when to have school is just wrong." ...

...Silver Grove Independent Superintendent Danny Montgomery also sees calendar and test timing issues.

"The most important issue we face in developing our calendar is the number of instructional days available before the CATS testing window," said Montgomery. "It is imperative that we find a way to move the testing window into the first two weeks of May. For better or worse, it is much more difficult for everyone to have the same focus after the testing is completed." ...

This from Brad Hughes at KSBA.

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.

Autism Epidemic May Be All in the Label

ATLANTA (AP) — A few decades ago, people probably would have said kids like Ryan Massey and Eddie Scheuplein were just odd. Or difficult.

Both boys are bright. But Ryan, 11, is hyper and prone to angry outbursts, sometimes trying to strangle another kid in his class who annoys him. Eddie, 7, has a strange habit of sticking his shirt in his mouth and sucking on it.

Both were diagnosed with a form of autism. And it's partly because of children like them that autism appears to be skyrocketing: In the latest estimate, as many as one in 150 children have some form of this disorder. Groups advocating more research money call autism "the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States."

Indeed, doctors are concerned there are even more cases out there, unrecognized: The American Academy of Pediatrics last week stressed the importance of screening every kid — twice — for autism by age 2.

But many experts believe these unsociable behaviors were just about as common 30 or 40 years ago. The recent explosion of cases appears to be mostly caused by a surge in special education services for autistic children, and by a corresponding shift in what doctors call autism...

...In the 1990s, the autism umbrella expanded, and autism is now shorthand for a group of milder, related conditions, known as "autism spectrum disorders." ...

This from the Associated Press.

Al Smith's Modest Proposal on the Education Commissioner

Friday night long-time journalist and host of KET's Comment on Kentucky Al Smith went off on the original commissioner search, the present commissioner non-search, and the lacklustre quartet of finalists it produced. (KET video)

The result: "four write ins" of social security age.

Smith tailored his language a bit for a similar Op-Ed that ran in this morning's Herald-Leader.

He cited the weak effort to recruit candidates. "... just a few notices in education journals under Help Wanted and that we are an Equal Opportunity Employer (wink, wink), but Kentuckians preferred." And suggested, "The two men running for governor could stop this charade."

Next week, after the election, Gov. Ernie Fletcher can render a signal service to the state with a proposal to his appointees who dominate the board to do two things:

• Have a joint public meeting with him and his Democratic rival, Steve Beshear -- a civil discussion of educational issues from three perspectives: the two candidates and the board.

• Halt the hiring process until whoever has been elected governor can consult with his advisers and the legislative leadership about the maximum prospects for helping education with a bipartisan approach in the 2008 session of the General Assembly.

The board has no known reason to doubt that the interim commissioner, Kevin Noland, who has guided the department for almost a year, can carry on until spring.

At that point, the governor and the General Assembly should be positioned to forget the mishaps of 2007 and cheer the state board if it embarked on a truly professional national search to find the best qualified person worthy of Kentucky's modern educational legacy, which is the most sweeping effort ever made by any state to improve its schools.

The last time Smith's advice was ignored was mid July. That's when the board was going to hire an interim commissioner while searching for a permanent commissioner. Leon Mooneyhan was hung out to dry and Keith Travis learned that he did not have the full board behind him.

Smith has the right idea, but I think we can count on him being ignored again. At least, it's hard for me to imagine that Governor Fletcher, presently asking Kentuckians to ignore the polls which show him woefully behind, will make the 12th hour magnanimous gesture Smith suggests.

If he did reach out to Steve Beshear and the board on behalf of Kentucky's children, he would deserve great praise.

If things stay the way they are - Jon Draud should be the choice.

More from the Shameless Promotions Division: The Maximum Contribution

Rita and I had a nice road trip yesterday afternoon. The trees were a gorgeous palate of rusts, greens and golds; the air crisp. Our destination was the Crestview Hills' Border's Book Store to join Rick Robinson, and my top advisors, for one of his recent book signings.

In the interest of full-disclosure, Rick is my second semi-cousin 4 times removed, or something like that. His mother, my aunt... nothing that would hold up in court. We spent five years in the early 80s working in a branch of the Kentucky Jaycees sometimes called the "northern Kentucky mafia" with Steve Miller, Jeff & Ruth Eger, Gary Moore, Jim Parsons... Fun times; learning how to advance policy, speak in public and count votes.

He's signing this...

The Maximum Contribution

by Rick Robinson

ISBN 0929915690

224 pages, 6 x 9, hard cover

Retail Price $24.95

Rick's first effort is an insider's political thriller in the tradition of other slightly more famous politician/authors Newt Gingrich, Jimmy Carter, Benjamin Disraeli & Gary Hart.

Small town [Ludlow] Kentucky councilman, Richard Thompson gets hands-on
experience into the world of D.C. politics.

From heady ideals to sexual blackmail, it makes one wonder—when do they have time to govern? The fine line between fact and fiction quickly blurs and you may think you have picked up today’s headlines instead of one of the best new novels to break onto the political scene.Thompson has the chance of a lifetime when his political mentor dies in office and he becomes the nominee for a seat in the House.

With Washington’s premiere campaign consultants at the helm, Thompson is riding a well-oiled political machine to Election Day success. His victory is in sight when he stumbles upon an issue that places him in the cross-hairs of power-hungry politicians, corrupt lobbyists, gun-running union officials and an on-going FBI sting operation.

Rick was recently interviewed by Pat Crowley on his ICN 6 cable show.

And The Hill took notice of the book.

"Robinson swears the book is a work of fiction, not based on Bunning or any politician. What “real” people do exist in the book have all assumed fictitious roles with made-up names. “Names are changed to protect the guilty,” Robinson says...

Robinson paints a sinister Washington...

One night after dinner at The Palm followed by drinks at the hotel bar, Thompson wakes up with a red-headed stripper named Amber. He remembers none of it, but pictures are taken...

Robinson says he based the book on his 30 years working in politics. He worked for Bunning between 1987 and 1993 when the senator served in the House, handling the congressman’s banking issues on the Finance Committee. Robinson worked for several campaigns and ran for Congress in 1998 for the Ketucky-4 seat...

Robinson left Capitol Hill when President Clinton was sworn in. “The town wasn’t big enough for the both of us,” jokes Robinson...

Rick Robinson is "a paragon among Capitol Hill staffers and maybe the only person on Earth who both understands the civics book chapter on "How a Bill Becomes a Law" and knows how to get good seats at the Kentucky Derby," writes P.J. O'Rourke, author of Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government.

For a good time, try to get Rick to tell you the story of riding around DC in P. J. O'Rourke's 2-seater sports car with P J, and his girlfriend.

Look for The Maximum Contribution at your favorite bookstore or online at http://www.themaximumcontribution.com/ and/or Amazon.com.

Nothing new on Cunningham's distinguished chair, but there is this...

Judge Says Curlin Has New Owners

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Breeders' Cup Classic winner Curlin has more than 400 new owners, and is up for sale, too.

A state judge has given the plaintiffs, in a lawsuit against three lawyers, the right to claim part ownership of the 3-year-old colt who has earned more than $5.1 million on the track.

Judge William Wehr said the plaintiffs can make the claim through Midnight Cry Stables, the company used by attorneys Shirley Cunningham Jr. and William Gallion to buy the horse for $57,000.

Cunningham and Gallion own a 20 percent stake in Preakness Stakes winner Curlin, who won the Classic on Saturday under Midnight Cry Stables' blue and black colors. Curlin was third in the Kentucky Derby and second in the Belmont Stakes. and is likely to voted Horse of the Year.

The attorney for the 400-plus plaintiffs said the horse is now for sale, which prompted the move to claim Cunningham and Gallion's assets...

This from the Associated press.

Senate punts on NCLB, Law remains in force

This from the Associated Press

Senate Not Considering New Education Law

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top two lawmakers on the Senate Education Committee are putting off consideration of a new No Child Left Behind law until next year, congressional aides said Friday.

Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., have decided that there's not enough time this year to complete work on the legislation, which has not yet been formally introduced...

...[The aides] spoke on condition of anonymity because negotiations over the content of the legislation are ongoing and sensitive...

...There is broad agreement that the law should be changed to encourage schools to measure individual student progress over time instead of using snapshot comparisons of certain grade levels.

There is consensus, as well, that the law should be changed so that schools that miss progress goals by a little don't face the same consequences as schools that miss them by a lot.

Deep divisions remain over some proposed changes, including merit pay for teachers and whether schools should be judged based on test scores in subjects other than reading and math.

No Diversity among Kentucky's Education Commissioner Finalists. Should we care?

At the risk of inciting the anti-diversity police:

The good news about the selection of Barbara Erwin was always that she would have become Kentucky's first female Education Commissioner. Granted, Alice McDonald preceded her as an elected Superintendent of Public Instruction in the early 1980s, before KERA. As it turned out, both women ended their associations with Kentucky education in disgrace, of one kind or another. But I'm relatively certain that being a woman had nothing to do with the related foibles, shortcomings or crimes. Perhaps the board felt differently.

Of course, it doesn't really matter if the education commissioner is a man or woman - except for this one fact.

In a field that has historically been dominated by men - first by white male Protestant ministers, and later by white males of broader descriptions - it's good to think that the best person for a given job will always be selected. It is only a problem when particular identifiable classes of persons are systematically excluded time and time and time again; either through lack of equal opportunity, or by systematic political manipulation.

That makes an interest in diversity important for Kentucky - right up to the time when it isn't anymore; when we can point to ample examples of folks being selected for top positions from both sexes and various races.

So how did our board of education do with their selection

of the finalists for Kentucky's Education Commissioner?

Well, we don't really know.

OK. There is the obvious. The finalists are four white guys; so we're not going to break any new ground this time around.

But I say that we really don't know how the board did because we don't know who the other applicants were. We don't know their qualifications; how they interviewed; what they would do in the position... We know some names that have been "out there:" Marcum, Sanders, Snodgrass, Winters...but that's all.

We just have to trust the judgment of Governor Fletcher's appointed board of education that they have selected the four best qualified candidates for the job. Maybe it will all work out fine. But following the Erwin mess, and now with the board's hurry-up offense on the field, it gives me the willies.

Another aspect of selecting a diverse set of candidates has to do with the diversity of the applicants. No applicants of color - no women: no diversity.

A KSN&C reader from The ville told me the other day that the "old girls" noticed. So I asked Kentucky Department of Education Communications Director Lisa Gross to do a little digging. She got some personnel folks to pull the applications and do the best they could to describe the field of candidates the board had to choose from among.

I say, "do the best they could" because this is not quite as easy as one might suspect. The applications do not specifically ask for a person's gender - as sex is a Constitutionally protected class. So how do you know if an applicant is a boy named Sue, or if Sam is short for Samantha?

Lisa says, "Here's what we know:

48 total applicants:

28 males (58.3%)
15 females (31.2%)
5 unknown (10.4%)

Similarly, although the applications do provide a place to indicate ethnicity, it is completely voluntary and a notation on the application says so. Apparently, everybody read the notation.

1 African American
4 Caucasians
43 unknown

Maybe the board got what it wanted. If you start out looking for a candidate from Kentucky, the 8th whitest state in the nation last time I looked, you're pretty likely to get a white candidate.

Now as far as the woman thing goes...there are more old gals out there than there are old guys....but for some reason, none made the cut.

High Noon at the ol' Haunted Mansion

Halloween is a great childhood memory.

That's the time when, as kids, we would dress up and act all spooky; trying to become afraid of goblins we knew weren't there. Lurking in the shadows just down the street, past the imaginary graveyard, were witches and ghosts galore.

Approaching the dimly lit home where "the crazy lady" lived we'd ask, "Didn't she hack up her husband with an axe?" Down the narrow sidewalks, through the rusty gate, up the porch steps past cobwebs and spiders, and into the shadows...

There were shadows yesterday, too.

Unfortunately, the shadows weren't cast by candlelight, but by the bright setting sun. No mystery. No spooks. Just kids in costume running through the front yards of Chevy Chase.

I really liked the new daylight savings time, until last night. It sure ruined the first half of Halloween.

Meanwhile, at that spooky ol' Governor's Mansion in Frankfort, Abby, the head-witch-in-charge greeted Kentucky school children, some 1,600 of whom had selected her costume for the year.

Always on the lookout for anything spooky, the PolWatchers blog took notice.

"Throughout the investigation of state hiring in his administration, Gov. Ernie Fletcher said Attorney General Greg Stumbo was conducting “a political witch hunt.”

Last night “a witch” could be found by anyone checking out the Governor’s Mansion.

During October, children across the Commonwealth were invited to participate in an online contest to choose Abby’s Halloween costume. The contest included pictures of Abby dressed up as a pumpkin, a witch, and an angel. With more than 1,600 total votes, the witch costume won.

No contest.

Reminiscent of Hester Prynne, Abby's Puritan-styled witches hat may have baffled the folks at PolWatchers, but it was "vintage" conservative craft.

Now, it just so happens that KSN&C has special insight into Abby's brain. You may think we're lying- but it's true. And you can be assured, that sunshine or shadows, Abby was very happy with the whole affair.

Trick or Treat: At least he wasn't trolling for children.

Principal allegedly loitered in alley

for prostitution

-in drag -

to attract...

...straight guys?

A Bardstown Catholic high school principal was cited for loitering for the purpose of prostitution while he was dressed as a woman. (Criminal citation from The Smoking Gun)

Louisville police allegedly spotted Paul A. Schum, 50, of Louisville, in an alley. At 9:20 p.m. Tuesday, officers pulled Schum over in his vehicle at 22nd Street and Plymouth Court after they had watched him hanging out in his car, said Officer Phil Russell, a police spokesman.

When asked why he was in the area, Schum gave several reasons, but none seemed legitimate, Russell said, "So [the officers] presumed that the ... reason was for prostitution purposes, Based on his clothing and some other statements he made to them."

According to the citation, he was wearing leather, fishnet stockings and fake breasts.

Russell said officers routinely patrol the area because a high level of drug trafficking and prostitution is known to take place there.

Schum is the principal at Bethlehem High School. He has degrees from Centre College, the University of Louisville and Spalding University, according to his profile on the school’s Web site. Schum previously worked for 26 years at St. Xavier High School in Louisville.

Schum denies the allegation, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Louisville, which oversees the school. The statement said he requested personal leave from his post pending the outcome of the investigation. He is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 27.

Under Kentucky law, loitering for the purpose of prostitution is a violation for the first offense, and a class B misdemeanor for subsequent offenses.

Father Bill Hammer, pastor of St. Joseph Church in Bardstown, spoke to WAVE TV (video) in Louisville on behalf of Bethlehem High. "[Schum] discussed some of the background, why he thought it was appropriate for him to take a leave at this point, and I supported his judgment in that," said Hammer. "I was caught by surprise, but again, I have confidence in Dr. Schum and his leadership skills he has demonstrated thus far," Fr. Hammer said.

When asked if that's something that sounds like Schum, Fr. Hammer said, "no it doesn't. But again, we're in the Halloween season.

But Halloween or not, parents like Jim Brooks say the news is shocking and disturbing.

"We put leaders of our schools -- particularly of schools -- we call then to a higher standard. So yeah, I would go along with that --- that he should resign if that's the case," said Brooks.

Schum is scheduled to appear in court on November 27th. The assistant principal at Bethlehem will be taking over the principal's duties.

This from the smoking gun.

This from the Courier-Journal.

A New Historical Marker

This from 21st Century Citizen.