Kentucky, Uncategorized

Reflecting on 2018 and Looking Ahead

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As 2018 comes to a close and I reflect on the events of the year, I am thankful for the incredible efforts of educators, school staff, and leaders across our public education system who give their all everyday for the benefit of Kentucky students. This year has included triumphs, successes, trials, and continued challenges, yet tens of thousands of school district personnel across Kentucky get up every morning to meet our children at the bus stop, at the front office, on the school yard, in the cafeteria, in the hallways, and at the classroom door. Educators in every school district in the state push our students to be their very best. All across Kentucky, educators and school staff are positively impacting the learning and lives of our children. And for that, I am thankful.

Over the last eight months I have had the privilege of seeing some of our schools and educators at work firsthand. I saw leaders and teachers at Paris Independent and Trimble County implement strategies for providing greater personalization to the learning experiences of students. I saw leaders and teachers in Christian County preparing students for high wage, high demand careers through their Gateway Academy to Innovation and Technology. I saw the continued growth and transformation of the Four Rivers Career Academy in Fulton County as they continue to prepare more and more students for technical careers and success in college, all while their students earn more dual credit hours than most would think is possible. I saw leaders and teachers in Boyle County implementing an out-of-the-box co-teaching approach with the aim increasing student engagement and closing gaps. It’s working. I saw leaders and teachers in Jefferson County and Fayette County implementing wall-to-wall academies and providing many incredible career education experiences for students through the Academy of Louisville and the Academy Lexington. I saw leaders and teachers in Lee County experiencing firsthand the benefits of making student readiness for college and career an absolute top priority. I saw performing arts teachers at Glasgow Independent prepare students for a production of Little Women that could have been on Broadway. I saw leaders and teachers at Carter G. Woodson Academy in Fayette County successfully implement an innovative alternative model, a school of choice, which targets middle and high school boys of color. Their students told me that Carter G. Woodson is school as they have never experienced school before, and that their education experiences there are helping to mold them into strong young leaders who are prepared for whatever lies ahead. Finally, I have a daily front row seat to see the preschool teachers in Woodford County work to ensure that our youngest learners, including my daughther, are not only academically well-prepared for kindergarten, but that their social and emotional development is progressing as well. To these educators, to all those I have had the opportunity to spend time with and learn from over the last few months, and to those I have yet to meet, I am so grateful for their service and their dedication to Kentucky students, families, and communities.

In 2019 we will continue to build. While our public education system has made tremendous progress over the last few decades, in recent years at the state level, our improvement in academic achievement has stalled, achievement gaps remain constant or widen, and too many of our young people exit our system without the skills necessary to be successful in college and the workforce. For the sake of our children and our commonwealth, we must continue to improve. The most difficult part about improvement is that it requires change, and change can be hard. The advantage we have in Kentucky, however, is our education workforce. Kentucky’s teachers and leaders are some of the most talented, hardworking, and dedicated professionals in the country. So even with the challenges we face with raising achievement, closing gaps, and preparing students for transition, I know our educators, with the support of our parents and communities, are up to the challenge.

Happy New Year.

Teacher Preparation, Teacher Recruitment

Setting the Stage for Educator Preparation in Kentucky

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This week I had the opportunity to sit on a panel with friends and colleagues at the Kentucky Excellence in Educator Preparation (KEEP) Conference.  We participated in a pretty wide-ranging discussion about the state of educator preparation in the commonwealth and where we would like to see preparation heading. Here are a few of the ideas I shared concerning teacher preparation:

  • Kentucky Has Made Great Progress: Kentucky has made great strides with improving the quality of educator preparation. In fact, we are now frequently cited across the county for our efforts. That work in Kentucky is still underway, and it should be. While I believe we are doing a much better job of preparing teachers for the classroom today than in previous generations, particularly with greater use of clinical models of preparation, we are not yet where we would like to be.
  • Intentional Recruitment: The progress we have made thus far has happened in large part without much intentional recruitment of young people into teacher preparation programs. If we are to continue to progress, in addition to continuing to improve the quality of preparation programs, we must begin to be more intentional with the recruitment of high achieving students who love kids into teacher preparation programs. As well, we must do more to intentionally recruit (and retain) men, people of color, people with disabilities, and people who desire to teach in hard-to-staff schools and hard-to-staff areas like special education, mathematics, science, computer science, and technical fields.
  • Differentiated Preparation: There are many elements of teaching and teacher preparation that are the same regardless of the context where teachers work. But there are unique challenges that teachers in different contexts face as well. While teachers in any context face challenges, the challenges are often different. For example, the challenges of teaching in a high poverty urban context are different from the challenges of teaching in a high poverty, geographically isolated rural environment.  And the challenges of those contexts are different from the challenges of teaching in a middle-income to affluent suburban context. Taking teacher preparation to the next level will require that our preparation programs better prepare pre-service teachers for the specific contexts where they are likely to serve.

After spending a few weeks in Finland in the summer of 2013, I shared some thoughts and observations about the teaching profession, teacher preparation, and teacher recruitment in the U.S. You can find that content here.

achievement gap, At-Risk Students, Community College, Kentucky, Labor Force, Louisville, middle-skill jobs, Parents, Teachers, Teachers Unions, Uncategorized

It’s Time to Focus on Children

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I have now had the privilege of serving as Kentucky’s interim education commissioner for a little over a month. Understandably, I have been asked lots of questions. Most of the questions I have fielded in public settings have been similar. In fact, I can put them into two broad areas: “What is your plan for charter schools?” and “What kind of relationship do you intend to have with KEA/JCTA?”

Those questions are fine. As they are posed, I respond. But I have been disappointed with how infrequently I get public questions about students, student learning, student achievement, and student readiness. It’s no secret that student learning in Kentucky, as measured by standardized achievement examinations, has been stagnant at best, an in some cases has taken a step backward. Incredible racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps either remain unmoved or widen. And despite a pretty impressive state high school graduation rate, we continue to graduate approximately 40% of high school seniors who have attained neither college readiness nor career readiness benchmarks. Given how much work we have to do with improving student learning and how little progress we have made as of late, it surprises me and disappoints me that so little of our current discussion in public education centers on children’s learning.

Honestly, I think we forget sometimes that children and families are in fact the end-users of our public education system. Even more forgotten is the reality that for many years, we have not served large segments of our students as well as we should. According to Kentucky achievement data, students who have the best shot at success in our system are middle income and affluent White students without a disability, planning to attend a four-year postsecondary institution following high school graduation. If you are a low-income student, a student of color, a student with a disability, a student interested in pursuing a technical field that requires less than a four-year degree, or a student with some combination of those characteristics, our track record is spotty at best. The achievement gap and the skills gap in Kentucky continue to be major barriers to student success and economic development.

To all the questions about charter schools: Public charter schools are simply one of many tools to be used in our public education system to help meet the needs of students we are not currently serving well; either because traditional approaches have not been adequate for meeting students’ unique learning needs, or because there is an insufficient supply of public school options available that align with students’ interests. Even with a healthy charter school sector, district schools will continue to be the vehicle we use for educating the vast majority of students in Kentucky, even in Jefferson and Fayette counties. To the questions about KEA and JCTA: Dialogue and partnership with teachers are critically important to achieving our collective goals for students. There is no more important element of our system than classroom teachers. High quality teachers are worth their weight in gold. But we cannot forget that unions are not the end-users of our public education system; Kentucky’s students and families are. Our decision making must be driven first and foremost by what’s best for children.

As I have spent time in Lexington and Louisville over the last few weeks, the private questions and concerns parents and grandparents share with me are much different from the questions reporters ask me. Most parents and grandparents I have talked with don’t ask me about charter schools or teachers unions. Instead, they express their deep concern about the quality of education their children and grandchildren are receiving, and they ask me to do whatever I can to help ensure their children are being well-prepared for their futures. I assure each one of them that I will do everything in my power to make sure that is the case, and I will.

Let’s take this opportunity to reset our focus and our conversation on improving learning for our children. With children as our focus, together, we can move mountains.

Accountability, Kentucky

Kentucky’s Dirty Little High School Graduation Secret

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I have always loved this time of year. Commencement exercises are our opportunity to give public recognition and affirmation of the academic accomplishments of scholars. These rites of passage are significant, not only for graduates, but for their schools/institutions, families, and communities. Whether it is a ceremony celebrating the successful completion of elementary school, middle school, high school, or college, we pause to celebrate what graduates have accomplished and we look forward with optimism about what is to come for them.

Unfortunately, however, I have now come to the place where high school graduation in Kentucky saddens me. It is true that Kentucky ranks in the top five states in the South and the top ten states in the nation in graduation rates. With a state high school graduation rate of 88%, more Kentucky students are graduating high school today than ever before, and that’s positive. The results of education and workforce research are clear; having a high school diploma will very likely lead graduates to greater employment and economic outcomes than than peers who do not earn high school diplomas. But it is Kentucky’s dirty little secret about high school graduation that troubles me so much. While 88% of our students are graduating high school, many of the students we award diplomas to are neither prepared to be successful in a two-year or four-year college nor in a job with a decent wage, and we know it when we hand them the diploma. In fact, we publicize it.

In 2016, 44,756 Kentucky seniors graduated from high school. About 32% of seniors receiving a high school diploma were classified as neither ready for college nor a career. The figures are even more troubling in some school districts. In Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), of the 6,108 seniors who received high school diplomas in 2016, nearly 37% of those graduates were deemed neither ready for college nor a career. Of the 2,314 high school graduates in Fayette County, about 39% of 2016 graduates were deemed neither ready for college nor a career. In sum, while Kentucky’s high school graduation rate is now among the highest in the nation, we graduate extraordinary percentages of students who we know are not well-prepared to pursue anything meaningful after receiving their diploma.

Kentucky’s dirty little graduation secret is that while record numbers and percentages of Kentucky students are receiving high school diplomas, meeting the minimum standards for graduation in Kentucky is currently a pretty low bar. And while the state does administer end-of-course assessments in a few high school subject areas, most students fail those assessments, receive passing grades from their teachers in the courses, and go on to receive their high school diplomas without a problem. In 2016, only 42% of Kentucky high schoolers posted a passing score on the Algebra II end-of-course assessment, and only 38% of students passed the Biology end-of-course assessment. Students fared slightly better in English II (56.5% passed) and U.S. History (59.2% passed), but even scores in English and history should raise significant questions about Kentucky students’ mastery of academic content at the high school level.

To be clear, I want Kentucky to continue to post high school graduation rates that lead the nation, but our high graduation rate is meaningless if we continue to issue diplomas to students we know to not be well-prepared for careers and/or postsecondary success. Our minimum standards for high school graduation are minimal and not aligned with what we know to be minimum standards for preparing students for success in a career or at a postsecondary institution. Frankly, I would rather post a high school graduation rate that’s lower if we can assure graduates, their families, postsecondary institutions, and employers that a Kentucky high school diploma is truly meaningful. Currently, I cannot recommend putting much stock in a Kentucky diploma.

We must improve.

Accountability, achievement gap, Charter Schools, Kentucky, Parents, School Leadership, Schools

Performance Accountability for All Kentucky Public Schools, or Just Charter Schools?

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Over the last year as Kentucky lawmakers, educators, and educational leaders have debated the merits of adopting charter school legislation, demands for accountability for charter schools from the traditional public education community were heard all over the state. In fact, concerns about accountability for Kentucky’s charter schools came second only to concerns about funding following children who exited traditional public schools to attend charter schools.

Personally, I welcome and encourage public accountability for schools specifically, and government more generally. I believe tax payers, students, and their parents should expect and demand transparency from public schools and school districts, and that schools should be held accountable for their outcomes, including students’ academic performance and authentic measures of students’ career and postsecondary readiness. I have encouraged that conversation with the consideration of charter school legislation in Kentucky, and I will be a fierce proponent of performance accountability for charter schools as they are established in Kentucky.

The end result of our charter accountability conversations is that Kentucky’s charter school law will hold Kentucky’s charter schools to a very high standard, as it should. Truthfully, there wasn’t much to debate, as charter school advocates in the state were as adamant about performance accountability for charter schools as charter school opponents were. Central to what charter school advocates argued for was providing charter schools with greater organizational and governance flexibility and autonomy in exchange for increased accountability. That’s what the new law now requires. Kentucky’s charters will participate in the same assessment and accountability system as traditional public schools in the state. Additionally, because charter contracts will be granted for periods of no longer than five years, charter schools will be required to make the case to their authorizers for charter renewal and continued existence based on their performance. As well, because no students will be assigned to or required to attend a Kentucky charter school, charter schools face consumer accountability, in that a failure to attract and retain students will result in the school having to close its doors for lack of enrollment and funding.

What is unfortunate but not surprising, however, is that I’ve never heard demands for performance accountability for Kentucky’s traditional public schools with anywhere near the same intensity as I have heard from educators and educational leaders concerning charter school accountability.  I don’t believe I have ever heard the school boards association, or teachers unions, or superintendents associations demanding that traditional public schools be held accountable for their outcomes. Do Kentucky’s educator and educational leadership organizations only believe in performance accountability for charter schools? Should traditional public schools simply be trusted to work hard and do the best they can with students? Given that a healthy and successful charter school sector in Kentucky is not likely to directly serve more than 5 or 6% of Kentucky’s public school students, a focus on performance accountability for only charter schools leaves the rest of Kentucky’s public school students in a bind.

Kentucky does have an assessment and accountability system for public schools, but that system has been woefully inadequate in holding schools accountable for closing achievement gaps and preparing students for success in careers and postsecondary education. Under that system gaps have grown in some school school districts. Further, the system is far from being transparent with parents about the performance of schools. For example, one Kentucky high school classified as Distinguished in the current school accountability system posted the following assessment results for the 2015-2016 academic year:

  • 39.6% of students scored proficient or higher on the K-PREP Language Mechanics assessment (lower than state average)
  • 47% of students scored proficient or higher on the English II End-of-Course assessment (lower than the state average),
  • 49% of students scored proficient or higher on the Algebra II End-of-Course assessment,
  • 20% of its students scored proficient t or higher on the Biology End-of-Course assessment (lower than the state average)
  • 47% of students scored proficient or higher on the U.S. History End-of-Course assessment (lower than the state average)

As troubling as those numbers are, those are the averages across all students. The scores for low-income students and students of color are much worse. There is absolutely nothing Distinguished about that school’s results. And while I celebrate the progress the school has made, or any school similarly situated, we are at best misleading parents and students when we say  school performance like that is distinguished. It is not. Yet I have not heard of teachers unions or organizations of school boards or educational leaders decrying the ineptitude of a school accountability system that inappropriately labels schools as being high achieving when we know in fact they are not.

It is past time for Kentucky’s educators and educational leaders to get serious about performance accountability for our public schools; as serious as they were about accountability for charter schools. Kentucky will not move the needle on postsecondary success, degree attainment, or workforce participation until we design and implement accountability systems that center on students’ academic achievement, significant and meaningful achievement growth, and authentic measures of college and career readiness.

 

Charter School Funding, Charter Schools, Kentucky, School Choice

In Response to “A [Kentucky] superintendent’s concerns about the charter school bill”

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The State Journal (Frankfort, KY) recently published an op-ed authored by Chrissy Jones, Superintendent of Franklin County Public Schools. In the piece Supt. Jones shared her concerns about Rep. John Carney’s House Bill 520, the charter school bill currently making its way through the Kentucky General Assembly. With so much misinformation about the bill and public charter schools generally, I thought it would be helpful to her and educators and educational leaders across the state to address some of her concerns here.

  • Supt. Jones said HB 520 would “allow the formation of charter schools” in fall 2017, and goes on to suggest that public charter schools could begin admitting students in fall 2017; but she is mistaken. HB 520 states, “Beginning in academic year 2017-2018, any authorizer may authorize an unlimited number of public charter schools within the boundary of the local  school district“. That does not mean charter schools could open in fall 2017. It means charter school authorizers could begin receiving charter applications and authorizing (approving) charter schools during the 2017-2018 academic year. But even that application and approval process cannot begin until the Kentucky Board of Education promulgates regulations to guide the charter application process. The absolute earliest a Kentucky public charter school could begin serving students is fall 2018.
  • Supt. Jones said that HB 520 would “require that public school districts either transport students to charter schools or lose a portion of their transportation funds to the charter school.” That language, however, is a  mischaracterization of the requirements of the bill. HB 520 gives authorizing local school districts the option of retaining the transportation funds they receive for transporting students if they provide transportation for public charter school students who reside within the local school district’s boundaries. If a local school district chooses not to provide transportation for charter school students, it would be required to send to the charter school the transportation funds they receive for transporting those students. If local school districts will not transport students, public charter schools would be required to provided transportation to students who live within the school district.  It only makes sense that transportation funds would follow students to whatever school district or school is actually providing transportation for the student.
  • ,Finally, Supt. Jones expressed concern about public funds following students to public charter schools, and said that those funds have been “allocated for public schools”, but she is mistaken. First, if the funds in question were actually allocated for public schools all would be fine since charter schools are in fact public schools.  But those funds are not allocated for public schools; they are allocated for students. State funding for public education is disbursed to districts for public school students. That’s why Franklin County Public Schools receives funding from the state based on the number and characteristics of the students the district serves. Public charter schools would be funded in the same manner.

No Kentucky public school or school district has a right to public education funding. Public dollars are allocated for the purpose of educating students at whatever public school their parents enroll them. Franklin County Public Schools has no more right to state education funds than Starbucks has a right to my coffee money. Starbucks gets my coffee money because I choose to purchase coffee there. If I choose to go to McDonald’s, Starbucks doesn’t get a cent from me. Imagine the absurdity of Starbucks arguing that regardless of whether I purchased their coffee, they have grown dependent on my daily $2 payment and thus should have a right to receive it. Starbucks wouldn’t make that claim because they know my $2 payment is tied to my continued patronage of their shops, which is dependent on the quality of my experience there and my satisfaction with their product.  The same shall soon be the case in public education. Like private schools and public charter schools, traditional public schools must begin to come to terms with a new reality of having to compete to earn and maintain the patronage of families.

Public education dollars are for students, not school districts.

Accountability, achievement gap, Charter School Funding, Charter Schools, Kentucky, Reform, School Choice, teacher tenure, Teachers, Teachers Unions

10 Truths About Charter School Legislation Charter School Opponents in Kentucky Don’t Want You to Know

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The Kentucky General Assembly is carefully considering passage of the state’s first charter school law, and some parts of the traditional public school establishment are in a state of panic. In that panic, lots of half-truths and misinformation are being spread. Here are 10 thing you need to know about public charter schools and House Bill 520, the bill that would bring charters to Kentucky.

  1. Kentuckians want additional public school options.  Polling data from national and local groups including the Kentucky Charter Schools Association, the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and Americans for Prosperity (AFP) show that the vast majority of Kentuckians are (a) supportive of public charter schools, and (b) want additional public school options for students in Kentucky.
  2. All charter schools are public schools. Public schools are public because they are open to the public, cannot charge tuition, are funded by tax dollars, and are accountable to the public. Just like traditional public schools, all charter schools meet these criteria. Charter school opponents like to argue that charter schools are not public because they are permitted to contact with private education management organizations (EMOs). What they fail to acknowledge, however, is that traditional public schools can and do contract with EMOs as well. In fact, the state education agency in MD and local public school districts across the U.S. have enjoyed successful contractual partnership with Edison Learning, Inc., a for-profit EMO. The MD State Department of Education contracted with Edison Learning to manage five persistently low performing schools in Baltimore. Similarly, the Peioria (IL) District 150 contracted with Edison Learning to provide school turnaround services over a five year period. Just as with public charters that contract for services, these schools in MD and IL remained public schools.
  3. Because public charter schools are schools of choice, no students would be assigned to them.  If a parent likes the school her child attends, she would keep her child at that  school. The only students who would attend public charter schools would be those students whose parents believe they would be better served at a public charter. If no students choose to attend the public charter school, the school would not receive public funding and would have to close.
  4. Parents don’t take their children out of schools that are serving their children well. School districts that are meeting the needs of their students have no reason to be fearful of public charter schools. It’s the rare parent who dis-enrolls her child from a school she and her child are happy with just to try something new. On the other hand, school districts that know they are failing to meet the needs of some or all of their students should be in a panic about the healthy competition public charter schools may bring to their communities.
  5. Public education funds are allocated for students; not for local school districts. The argument that charter schools will take funding away from traditional public schools makes no sense. Public education funds would continue to follow students to whatever public schools they attend, regardless of whether that school is a traditional public school or a public charter school. What is absurd is the argument that a local school district is entitled to public funds allocated for a child who no longer attends a school in that district.
  6. Public charter schools inject competition into public schooling, forcing local school districts to work harder to meet the needs of low income students. Local school districts have always had to compete to keep middle income students in their districts. Superintendents and school board members know that middle class parents dissatisfied with public schools will move to another school district or pay tuition for their children to attend a private or parochial school. But regardless of how dissatisfied low income parents are, school districts could typically count on the public dollars that follow low income students to their districts. Why? Because low income parents don’t often have the means to relocate to a school district that better meets the needs of their kids. Public charter schools give low income families additional public school options, forcing school districts to work harder to retain those students and their accompanying state and federal dollars in their districts.
  7. House Bill 520 would make local school boards the only charter school authorizers across most of the state. Only in Lexington and Louisville would mayors also be permitted to authorize and oversee public charter schools.
  8. Kentucky’s traditional public schools need lots of help meeting the learning needs of low income students and students of color. While Kentucky’s public schools have made tremendous progress since the early 1990s, the academic performance of these low income students across the state remains incredibly low. The approaches we have tried in the past and what we are currently doing is not meeting the learning needs of these students. It’s time to try some different approaches.
  9. House Bill 520 would hold public charter schools to higher standards of academic performance accountability than traditional public schools in Kentucky. In addition to public charter schools’ required participation in the state assessment and accountability system, Kentucky charters would be held accountable to performance standards articulated in their charter contracts. Charters that fail to meet or make significant progress toward meeting those goals could be shut down by their authorizer (local school boards or mayor’s offices in Louisville and Lexington only).
  10. Teachers unions’ opposition to public charter schools is about job security for adults, not what’s best for kids. No teachers would be assigned to or required to teach at public charter schools. The only teachers who would teach at a Kentucky charter are those who apply to teacher there. Still, groups like the Kentucky Education Association (KEA) oppose HB 520 because (a) Kentucky charter teachers would be less likely to be dues-paying members of KEA; (b) charter school teachers would be held to higher standards of performance accountability and could be terminated if they fail to meet performance standards; and (c) existing collective bargaining agreements between teachers unions and local school districts would not apply to public charter school teachers.

 

 

Accountability, achievement gap, Charter Schools, Kentucky, Teachers Unions

All Parents Like School Choice, For Their Own Children

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I haven’t had the opportunity as of yet to meet a parent who would would prefer to not have school options available for their children. To be clear, I run into parents in Kentucky and across the nation regularly who argue, fight against, and curse charter schools and the expansion of other school choice policy measures, but these parents are fighting to stop the expansion of school choice for other people’s children, not their own. Even the most die-hard charter school opponent will usually tell me, without recognizing the irony, how he or she carefully selected a neighborhood, used social and political connections, negotiated as part of an employment contract, or pay tuition at a private school in order to choose the best schools for their children. And what is implied in our conversation is that they believe their middle class and/or professional status qualifies them to be able to exercise school choice.

I don’t know of an American parent who doesn’t want at least a few school options available to their kids, and you likely don’t know one either. So why are charter schools and school choice so controversial if everyone wants it for their own kids? Simple. Some of us continue to put adults and adult organizations above the needs and best interests of children.

Opposition to charter schools and school choice is usually about adults: adults’ jobs and job security; enrollment and financial stability of traditional public school districts; teachers unions and their membership rolls, dues, and collective bargaining agreements; etc. That’s the stuff that makes charter schools and school choice controversial: stability, security, and power for adults and adult organizations.

So what if traditional public school districts can’t keep up with parent and student demand for increased specialization in academic, arts, and career pathways as evidenced by ridiculously long waiting lists at the limited number of programs offered… So what if traditional public school districts have proven to be ill-equipped to meet the diverse needs of learners… So what if the instructional approach used at a particular school is simply not appropriate for engaging and/or meeting the academic needs of a whole population of students… So what if less than a quarter of the kids in a school district who qualify for free or reduced price meals meet the mark of being proficient or distinguished on state standardized examinations in reading and mathematics… That’s just how the cookie crumbles, right? Teachers unions have to fill membership rolls and collect dues. School districts can’t take the chance of parents opting to send their kids to a non-district run public school because the district is counting on the dollars the state sends for their kid (whether the district serves the kid well or not). So no, we can’t afford to deal with this school choice nonsense because the adult business of school is not set up for parents to be able to choose.

It turns out it’s not ‘all about kids’ after all, is it?

Accountability, achievement gap, Charter Schools, Kentucky, School Choice

Accountability and Choice are Central to Improving Education Outcomes in Kentucky

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Since the early 1990s Kentucky has continued to make strides in education reform. The state of education in the Commonwealth in 2017 is completely different from what it was 25 years ago. No longer is Kentucky at the very bottom of academic performance rankings of the states. By most accounts, Kentucky now sits ahead of 15 or more states in academic performance. That is progress to be proud of.

But even with that progress , significant educational challenges remain for Kentucky. Even with the strides we have made, very large percentages of students across the Commonwealth continue to make little or no academic gains . Children who qualify for free or reduced price meals, students of color, and students of disabilities continue to be shortchanged in many of our state’s public school districts. In fact in many instances, the gaps between the performance of low-income students and their middle income peers is increasing. While the performance of middle income students is accelerating in some Kentucky school districts, the performance of low-income students moves very little. While Kentucky’s school districts seem to have figured out what works for improving learning for some students, other students continue to fall through the cracks. What makes that very sad reality even sadder is knowing that it doesn’t have to be that way.

First and foremost, Kentucky’s public schools and school districts must be held accountable for the learning of each and every student they serve. There may be no more important task facing the Kentucky Board of Education in the next ten years than the current work of redesigning our school accountability system. Schools and professionals will do what we hold them accountable for; and it’s time for Kentucky to have an accountability system that holds schools accountable in very clear ways for improving the performance of low-income children and children of color. If a public school takes the public dollars allocated for the education a child, be they rich, poor, disabled, blue, red, or purple, that school must be held accountable for providing that child with the opportunity to realize his or her God given academic potential. If a school is unwilling or unable to meet a child’s academic needs, that school has no right to the public dollars appropriated for the education of that child.

Second, as many of our traditional public schools have shown themselves to be unwilling or unable to meet the needs of our most vulnerable students, we must create public school options alongside district-run schools that are willing and able to meet those students’ needs. Over the last 25 years, public charter schools, with convincing results, have shown themselves to be an effective tool for meeting the academic needs of some of the very children Kentucky’s traditional public schools have struggled with most. With that understanding, it is only logical that state lawmakers would provide a pathway for giving the parents of those children additional public school options. Hopefully that pathway will be in statute by the end of the 2017 legislative session.

Kentucky’s traditional public schools need real help with meeting  the learning needs of specific populations of students. The reality of our current system is arguably only a hair short of being criminally negligent. Traditional public schools take the public dollars allocated for the education of low income children, often lacking the intent or ability to truly meet those children’s needs. Too many of our traditional public schools have refused to create school options or use alternative approaches within their districts that would meet the learning needs of low income kids. And along with that refusal, many leaders of those districts fight as hard as they can to prevent the creation of public school options alongside district-run schools because such options, namely public charter schools, jeopardize the tax dollars they now enjoy flowing into their school districts for low income children.

Time is up for traditional public school districts taking low income children and the tax dollars that come with them for granted. Kentucky’s school accountability system must hold all public schools accountable for the learning of each and every student they take tax dollars for; and we must provide additional public school options for parents, especially low income parents. Not only is doing so a moral and ethical imperative, but it’s in economic interest of the Commonwealth.

Charter Schools, Kentucky, School Choice

Charter Schools Are Public Schools, Period.

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The Kentucky Education Association (KEA) has launched a wide ranging media campaign voicing the organization’s support of public schools. What is not explicitly stated but is implied through their messaging is a limited conceptualization of what public schools are. What I believe the organization would like to say is that it supports schools operated by traditional public school districts. If the organization’s stance was truly what the words of its campaign says, it would be supportive of efforts to expand the public school options available to parents in Kentucky through the passage of public charter school legislation. Unfortunately, however, KEA has been a barrier to the expansion of public school options for parents in Kentucky.

To be clear, charter schools are public schools in every way. There are a few criterion that make schools public: (1) They are open to public; (2) they do not charge students tuition; (3) they are publicly funded; (4) there is public accountability. That’s it. Schools don’t have to be operated by traditional public school districts to be public. Schools can contract with and purchase goods and services from both nonprofit and for-profit organizations and still be public (many traditional public schools and school districts do so now). These additional conditions that charter school opponents want to impose on charter schools to support their false claims that charter schools are not public schools are wholly inappropriate. In fact, if any conditions other than the ones I have provided here are required for schools to be considered public, many schools operated by traditional public school districts in Kentucky and across the U.S. could not be considered public schools.

In sum, charter schools are in fact public schools in every sense of the word, period. As such, those who say they love and support public schools should be supportive of efforts to expand the high quality public school options available to parents in Kentucky.