The Political Bridge

WAVE-TV: Kentucky Lawmakers May Review Popular Scholarship Program

A popular scholarship program funded mainly by Kentucky Lottery proceeds may come under review during the upcoming General Assembly session.

But education leaders and key lawmakers tell the Lexington Herald-Leader that wholesale changes are unlikely to the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship program...

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NY Times: The White House Data Indicate that Schools Are Where Stimulus Funds Saved Jobs

Most (reported jobs saved by the simulus funds) were teachers’ jobs that states said were saved when stimulus money averted a need for layoffs.

Of course, counting jobs that were saved can be a squishier proposition than counting jobs that were created.  

Indiana, for example, reported saving or creating 13,232 education jobs with its stimulus money, but Cris Johnston, the director of the government efficiency division of the state budget office, said that it was difficult to say whether the state would have actually lost those jobs without the money.

Read More: Click Schools

Governor Beshear(KY) Launches New Education Initiative: The TEK Task Force Will Be Catalyst to Reinvigorate Public Support for K-12 Education

 Info courtesy of Larry Clark, Speaker pro tempore of the Kentucky House of Representatives

Commonwealth of Kentucky

Office of the Governor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Jill Midkiff

502-564-2611

502-330-1185

Cathy Lindsey

502-564-9908

502-382-7975

     

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 19, 2009)– In a move to re-energize the support of public schools that nearly 20 years ago sparked Kentucky to implement the nation’s most comprehensive school reform, Gov. Steve Beshear today launched his new education initiative, Transforming Education in Kentucky (TEK). The goal is to create a unified vision of what schools in the Commonwealth need to offer in order to better serve students today and tomorrow.

 “Our world has changed dramatically since the reforms of 1990,” said Gov. Beshear. “We must now turn our focus to the future and again to our schools to ensure that our strategies and programs are designed to meet the challenges of the 21^st century.”

 To that end, Gov. Beshear appointed the TEK Task Force to help develop new strategies while reinvigorating public and business support for K-12 education in the Commonwealth.

The members of the task force include education advocates, teachers, superintendents, legislators, business leaders and others who have been handpicked for their commitment to education and to Kentucky .

 The group will examine efforts currently underway in the state, such as the Common Core Standards Initiative, Graduate Kentucky, the Gates Foundation/SREB college and career readiness initiative, the Race to the Top competition and the Governor’s Task Force on Early Childhood Development and Education. Against this backdrop of renewed energy and activity, the panel will recommend ways to channel all of these efforts into an integrated and comprehensive system of education in Kentucky .

 In addition, the task force will explore career and technical education, expanded use of technology for learning, increased opportunities for students to earn college credit in high school and other issues that affect student success.

 The goal is to formulate recommendations by the end of 2010, for consideration during the 2011 legislative session.

 In an effort to build awareness of the initiative and to receive input from citizens statewide, Gov. Beshear is visiting 10 cities across the state for a series of press conferences and town hall forums. The Governor and the TEK Task Force will use this input as guidance for the work of Transforming Education in Kentucky .

 “This effort seeks to build off the progress of the last 20 years in order to lay the foundation for the 20 years ahead,” said Gov. Beshear. “Today, I’m calling on our state and our people to recommit ourselves to ensuring the future of our children.”

 Gov. Beshear and Kentucky Department of Education Commissioner Terry Holliday will serve as co-chairs of the task force. 

 Other members of the task force include:

• Sen. Tim Shaughnessy, D-19^th District
• Rep. Leslie Combs, D-94^th District;
• Rep. Jeffrey Hoover, R-83^rd District;
• Rep. Carl Rollins, D-56^th District;
• Helen Mountjoy, secretary, Education and Workforce Development Cabinet
• David Adkisson, president, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce;
• Sheldon Berman, superintendent, Jefferson County ;
• Mary Ann Blankenship, executive director, Kentucky Education Association;
• Karen Cash, classroom teacher, Louisville ;
• Margaret Cleveland, school board member, Woodford County ;
• Sam Corbett, chair, Prichard Committee;
• Ben Cundiff, Cundiff Farms, Cadiz ;
• Sharon Darling, president, National Center for Family Literacy;
• Betty Griffin, The Griffin Group, Frankfort ;
• Tim Hanner, superintendent, Kenton County ;
• Trichel House, classroom teacher, Russell;
• Nanette Johnson, superintendent, Hardin County ;
• Eleanor Jordan, executive director, Kentucky Commission on Women;
• Robert King, president, Council on Postsecondary Education;
• Nana Lampton, American Life & Accident Insurance Company of Kentucky , Louisville
• William Lovell, school board member, McLean County ;
• Brent McKim, president, Jefferson County Teachers’ Association;
• Bob Porter, mayor, City of Paintsville ;
• Johnna Reeder, Duke Energy, Covington ;
• Stu Silberman, superintendent, Fayette County ;
• Stephen Trimble, superintendent, Johnson County ; and
• Diane Whalen, mayor, City of Florence .

 *Gov. Beshear has asked Senate President David Williams to recommend two additional members from the State Senate and they will be added to the task force once they have been named.

Education Has Taken a Big Hit in the Great Recession of 2008-2009

From Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate in Economics and NY Times columunist

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States economy lost 273,000 jobs last month. Of those lost jobs, 29,000 were in state and local education, bringing the total losses in that category over the past five months to 143,000. That may not sound like much, but education is one of those areas that should, and normally does, keep growing even during a recession. Markets may be troubled, but that’s no reason to stop teaching our children. Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Louisville Lawyer Says He Will Drop Student-Assignment Lawsuit against The JeffersonCounty(Louisville) Public Schools

Courier-Journal, October 6, 2009

Attorney Teddy Gordon said Tuesday he will drop a lawsuit seeking to halt Jefferson County Public Schools’ new socioeconomic integration plan.

Gordon filed the suit in July on behalf of several parents who argued they were denied a school choice because of an unconstitutional use of race.

He said he plans to ask U.S. District Judge John Heyburn for a dismissal by agreement with the school district because two of the plaintiffs were granted acceptable school transfers and the third decided to home-school their child.

Louisville Public Schools: Changes proposed in student- assignment plan, reports The Courier-Journal

Superintendent Sheldon Berman wants the Jefferson County school board to postpone part of the district's new student-assignment plan for middle and high school students — hoping to avoid the busing problems that have frustrated parents of elementary pupils.

Under Berman's recommendation, the district would go ahead next fall with its plan to implement career themes and magnet programs at 16 high schools. But it would delay implementing most boundary changes for middle and high schools until the 2011-12 school year.

“We decided we wanted to wait an extra year to fully implement the plan at our middle and high schools so that we can get a better handle on transportation,” Berman said Monday.

Berman also is initiating transportation changes to the elementary student-assignment plan that began this year.

Read more: The Courier-Journal

Bucks for Brains births medical breakthroughs, reports The Courier-Journal

It sounds like science-fiction — healing the heart with stem cells from fat, curing sickle-cell anemia with bone-marrow transplants and preventing lung cancer with a vaccine.

But at Kentucky's two largest universities, researchers are trying to turn those theories in reality — and along the way transforming Kentucky into a growing center for globally significant medical breakthroughs.

A decade of public and private investment into local research has started to pay dividends, offering hope in a state with some of the nation's highest rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes.

It was jump-started by Bucks for Brains, a multi-million-dollar spending initiative launched with the state's 1998-2000 budget that has brought top researchers to state universities.

Read more: The Courier-Journal

KCTCS reverses course on eliminating tenure, reports The Lexington Herald-Leader

The board of Kentucky's community college system has reversed a decision to eliminate the possibility of tenure for new faculty.

The reversal, made Friday by the Kentucky Community and Technical College System's Board of Regents, came after an opinion released this week by Attorney General Jack Conway said the board did not have the authority to deny tenure to new hires.

Tenure is a type of job security that academics can generally pursue. The board had approved in March a plan to eliminate tenure for faculty members hired after June 30, saying it would allow greater flexibility to alter programs during a rocky economy. Opponents had said eliminating tenure could compromise the quality of education and encourage new faculty to avoid controversy.

Read more: The Lexington Herald-Leader

Rising test standards sink more Kentucky schools, reports The Courier-Journal

The federal No Child Left Behind law appears to be leaving more Kentucky schools behind — especially in Jefferson County.

For the third straight year, fewer Kentucky public schools met all their reading and math goals required by the federal accountability law, according to data released Wednesday by the Kentucky Department of Education.

Sixty percent of the state's 1,158 public schools met all their goals — down from 71 percent last year and 78 percent in 2007.

The drop is more severe in Jefferson County Public Schools, where just 37 of the district's 133 schools met all their goals (28 percent), compared with 44 percent last year.

Read more: The Courier-Journal

Statewide student test results for the No Child Left Behind program and the Kentucky Core Content Test will be released Wednesday morning, reports The Lexington Herald-Leader

Statewide student test results for the No Child Left Behind program and the Kentucky Core Content Test will be released Wednesday morning, and parents and others who have followed test scores over previous years will notice some major differences.

The old Commonwealth Accountability Testing System — popularly known as CATS — is gone, having been dropped by the state General Assembly last spring. To replace it, lawmakers mandated the creation of a new state school testing and accountability system based on more focused curriculum standards. But that program won't be ready until the 2011-12 school year.

Wednesday's results are from tests that Kentucky students took last spring under an interim testing system that will be used until the new program is in place. Under the interim system, the Kentucky Department of Education will not produce an index score for each school as it did in previous years.

Read more: The Lexington Herald-Leader