Taking Stock of Unbridled Learning Results

The Unbridled Learning accountability results have been out for a few days now, and we are seeing lots of articles, board presentations, parent workshops and discussion about the accountability results.

Early reports seem to focus on the overall drop in proficiency (which was predicted) and the new emphasis by the state to provide a percentile rank for schools and districts. However, there has not been much discussion about the significant increase in the percentage of graduates who are college- and career-ready. This is somewhat disappointing, since college and career readiness is the underlying principle for the accountability model and was the key requirement from 2009’s Senate Bill 1.

Other key issues we are hearing about include the usefulness of the tools provided. While there are massive amounts of data in the new School Report Card, schools are reacting very positively to the data being in one place and the user-friendly nature of the School Report Card. The report card gives a quick and easy snapshot of performance of schools and districts and also provides a multilevel, complex view of the components that make up the overall score for schools and districts. 

The percentile rank system has been well received by most, since it provides an easy way to understand how your school/district performance compares to other Kentucky schools. This percentile system is similar to what parents receive from testing reports. Parents may not understand the test score from the state or national test; however, they do understand and want to know how their child's performance compares to other children across the state and nation.

The release of the accountability model has also given the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) an opportunity to receive constructive feedback on concerns with the model. Among these concerns are:

• complexity of the system
• science and social studies scores -- too high, compared to math and reading
• comparisons with national assessments
• understanding student growth
• understanding student gap group results
• perceived lack of consequences for low-performing schools

KDE will share these concerns and others as we present the Unbridled Learning accountability results to the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) at the December board meeting. Most of these concerns can be addressed by clarification of the model and how the results are reported.

There will be those that call for immediate action to address concerns. I want to close with some of the state and national issues that will certainly impact any immediate or long-range changes to the model.

The Kentucky Board of Education has certainly stated a clear intent to improve the accountability model as we get feedback from the field. The first issue we must consider is that schools and districts entered the 2012-13 school year knowing the "rules of the game" for accountability, and we should not change the rules in the middle of the game. Therefore, I would recommend to KBE that no major changes be made to regulations governing the model until we have at least two years of data from the model. Also, we are governed by the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) waiver, and any changes to our accountability model would require federal review. Finally, all states are hoping for  reauthorization of ESEA (No Child Left Behind), which most certainly will impact the Unbridled Learning model.

As we close out November, parents across Kentucky now know if their child is on target to be college- and career-ready. From 3rd grade through 12th grade, every student and parent has the information to know the status of a trajectory to reach college/career readiness by graduation. This information provides students, parents and educators with the information needed to take action to ensure more of our students reach college/career readiness and have a positive impact on the economy of Kentucky.

Improvement in College and Career Readiness

In 2011, I challenged all superintendents and school board chairs to sign the Commonwealth Commitment to College and Career Readiness. Prior to this, Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) President Bob King had gotten the support of every public and private postsecondary president to also sign the commitment.

We had similar success in that all 174 superintendents and board chairs signed the commitment. We then began publishing the percentage of Kentucky graduates who met the CPE benchmarks for college/career readiness (CCR) with the class of 2010. The first report showed 34 percent of Kentucky graduates met the CCR benchmarks.

Fast-forward to the most recent release of CCR rates, and we find more than 47 percent of graduates met the CCR benchmarks. This is remarkable progress and means a lot to graduates and their families. 

The average size for a graduating public school class in Kentucky is estimated at 42,000. Using this estimate, we had 14,280 graduates who met CCR benchmarks in 2010, and we had 19,740 graduates meet CCR benchmarks in 2012. This means over 5,400 more students graduated ready to enter credit-bearing courses at any of our postsecondary programs or enter careers that pay a living wage. This represents a huge savings for students and families of over $5 million that they will not have to pay for remediation and developmental courses that do not give college credit.

This blog serves to highlight the early success of the Unbridled Learning accountability model. I want to provide recognition to those students, parents, schools and districts that are leading the way with CCR.

Top Ten Districts for CCR Percentages

Beechwood Ind.          88.8%

Ft. Thomas Ind.           70.2%

Hancock County          68.8%

Hickman County          77.6%

Oldham County           70.6%

Paintsville Ind.             74.1%

Pikeville Ind.                68.8%

Walton-Verona Ind.    79.8%

Williamstown Ind.       79.7%

Top Ten Districts for Growth in CCR Percentages

Augusta Ind.                33.7-point increase

Clinton County            32.8-point increase

Cumberland County    32.3-point increase

Danville Ind.                27.3-point increase

Eminence Ind.             34.7-point increase

Fleming County           25.7-point increase

Lee County                  25.3-point increase

Paintsville Ind. 2          9.1-point increase

Pulaski County             26.8-point increase

Wayne County             33.7-point increase

Congratulations to these districts. I also want to recognize the overall growth in CCR of the vast majority of our districts. This year, 100 districts met their CCR goals, and 46 districts improved by over 10 percent.

Check out the CCR map, and make certain to give a pat on the back to those schools and districts who are helping more students be prepared for their future.

Career and Technical Education in Kentucky

On October 16, pursuant to an executive order issued by Governor Steve Beshear, the Office of Career and Technical Education was merged with the Kentucky Department of Education’s (KDE’s) Carl Perkins branch to form the KDE Office of Career and Technical Education (CTE). Associate Commissioner Dale Winkler will head this new office. I am personally very excited about the potential to elevate and integrate career and technical education within the department.

Why is this so important to education and the economy in Kentucky? Here is one example.

Governor Beshear recently proclaimed October 5 as Manufacturing Day in Kentucky. The National Association of Manufacturers, the Manufacturing Institute, Kentucky Association of Manufacturers and the Foundation for Kentucky Industry have designated the day as a launch point to emphasize the many values of manufacturing.

Governor Beshear stated that “manufacturing is a wonderful career path for highly skilled workers within a crucial sector of the economy. The manufacturing community is a key economic driver in the Commonwealth, representing $27 billion, or 17 percent, of Kentucky’s GDP, with more than 215,000 people working in manufacturing in Kentucky.”

This week, I had the opportunity to tour an exciting program that is focused on manufacturing. I visited the Toyota Advanced Manufacturing Technician Program (AMT) at the Toyota Georgetown manufacturing plant. The AMT program has become a national model of how business can collaborate with education to create bright futures for students. In collaboration with numerous school districts in the region, Bluegrass Community and Technical College and other local businesses, students are offered a two-year intensive program that combines the technical, work and academic skills to prepare students for manufacturing jobs.

Of interest to me was the statement that over 600,000 manufacturing job openings are available in the U.S., and industry is having a hard time finding workers with the technical skills and work skills to fill these jobs that pay a living wage. What great news for students in this program and other similar programs across the U.S. It also was exciting to hear that there is significant interest to expand this type of program in Kentucky.

In talking with the students and instructors, I heard several suggestions for the new Office of Career and Technical Education. Among these suggestions was the expansion of our Project Lead the Way program, integration of more rigorous academic skills in career and technical courses, focusing instruction on projects and application of academic and technical skills in an integrated fashion, allowing communities to focus on specific job sector courses rather than one-size-fits-all courses, and heavily involving business and industry in career and technical programs.

Kentucky has focused on elevating and integrating career and technical education. Our Unbridled Learning accountability model gives equal weighting to college and career readiness with bonus points for students who graduate with both. Jobs are available for students who graduate with career and technical skills, as evidenced by the number of job openings in manufacturing.

Over the next few years, I hope our CTE program -- through the integration of academic and career/technical -- will provide numerous opportunities across the state that are similar to the Toyota Advanced Manufacturing Program.

Restoring Faith in Public Education

A good friend and professional colleague, Malbert Smith, sent me this article from Education Week. Malbert co-authored the article and the white paper that supports it. Malbert is research professor for early childhood, special education and literacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I encourage readers to review the article, but here are a few highlights.

The premise of the article is that America is losing faith in public education. Gallup’s June 2012 Confidence in Institutions survey shows confidence in public schools has eroded from 58 percent who have a “great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence” in public schools in 1970 to 29 percent in 2012. Of course, the good news is that public schools rank much higher than the U.S. Congress, but, that is indeed a low bar.

Malbert shows the interesting paradox between public confidence and actual school performance. Measures such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show significant gains in math and reading scores since 1970. Dropout rates are down, and graduation rates are up. While many think that our international rankings were once among the top in the world, this assumption is incorrect, and actual international rankings have actually improved in a few areas and remained flat in others. Certainly, there are many who debate the international rankings and the national test scores; however, the bottom line is that public faith in public education has eroded as has public faith in most institutions. The real question is what can we do to restore public faith in education? Malbert suggests a couple of strategies.

1 – To remain economically and politically relevant, our high school graduates must be prepared for the demands of a global economy. Adoption of college- and career-ready standards for all graduates is a good first step. Kentucky has led the way in these efforts with Common Core State Standards.

2 – Implementation of the Common Core Standards will help restore confidence. Again, Kentucky has led the way with the implementation of Common Core in 2011-12 and with testing and accountability models implemented in 2011-12. Readers should look to the results of our measures for college and career readiness to be released at the end of the month.

3 – Our leaders of both political parties have to take responsibility for restoring confidence in public education by being clear about priorities and strategies to improve public education.

4 – Educators must improve outcomes for children, and we must share not only our areas for improvement but also our success stories.

From my experience this week at the Kentucky Board of Education meeting, I would add another strategy. The media has to become more balanced.

This week, the Kentucky Department of Education reported the results from our field test of a common kindergarten screener and estimates of the number of 2012 graduates who reached college- and career-ready standards. The media only picked up on the kindergarten screener results, since the numbers indicated that only one in four students are ready for kindergarten. The media completely ignored the great news that we had seen double-digit gains in students graduating college/career-ready.

We increased the number of high school graduates who met college/career-ready standards by over 4,000. We helped parents and students save more than $5 million in cost avoidance for developmental courses. We doubled the chances of these students to graduate from a two- or four-year college. As we prepare our communities for the release of the new accountability results, hopefully this article will help you in addressing public confidence in public schools.

Kentucky Focuses on Career and Technical Education

This week, Governor Steve Beshear signed an executive order that brings the Office of Career and Technical Education (OCTE), located in the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet, into the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) as a new office. The new Office of Career and Technical Education will be led by Associate Commissioner Dale Winkler, Ed.D. The merger is effective October 16.

This merger is the result of several years of work. The concept surfaced during meetings with the Governor’s Task Force on Transforming Education in Kentucky, and there were several key recommendations from the task force that led to the formation of a Career and Technical Education advisory group to work through the steps needed to complete the merger. Staff from KDE and OCTE worked behind the scenes to coordinate the necessary steps to make the merger a reality.

The OCTE has 54 Area Technical Centers across Kentucky, and the KDE career and technical education staff work with all high schools that offer local centers and high school course offerings. The merger builds on the excellent collaboration that has been happening between OCTE and KDE over the past few years and is a reflection of the outstanding staff we have in both areas.

Superintendents, principals, teachers and students will not see a lot of immediate impact from the merger. Much of the collaboration has already happened. The adoption of a new accountability model based on 2009’s Senate Bill 1 that is now called Unbridled Learning elevated the focus on career and technical education through a measure called college- and career-readiness. Through collaboration with the Workforce Investment Board, the Governor’s Office, and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, we have a focus on “work-ready” communities across Kentucky. Work-ready communities provide additional leverage and support to ensure that high school graduates are prepared for job, military and citizenship opportunities available in the future. The Education and Workforce Development Cabinet has developed industry sectors that the state will focus on to bring jobs to Kentucky citizens.

Our immediate concern is to find efficiencies through the merger in order to offset reductions in career and technical teachers that were a result of recent cuts in the state budget. Through the merger, Dale Winkler and staff have identified a number of efficiencies that have led to replacing teachers in critical career and technical centers across Kentucky. Throughout the early stages of the merger, this will continue to be the number-one focus.

There will be several additional areas that Associate Commissioner Winkler will be leading as a result of the merger. The integration of the Kentucky core academic standards with career and technical courses will continue. Also, we will continue to work on identification of nationally recognized industry certifications that are aligned with the 16 career pathways. The implementation of Senator Jack Westwood’s career pathways bill also will be a high priority.

Thanks to the leadership of the Governor, General Assembly, Kentucky Association of Manufacturers, Kentucky Farm Bureau, Toyota and other business and education leaders, Kentucky is demonstrating to the nation our continued leadership in helping all high school graduates to meet the standards required for college and career readiness. Our high school graduates will have a brighter future thanks to this merger.

Finding Excitement and Focus Throughout Kentucky’s School Districts

One of my goals as commissioner is to visit all 174 school districts in Kentucky. To date, I have visited 150 districts and over 400 schools. My target date for completing all visits is December 2012.

During the past few weeks, I have visited schools and districts from east to west and north to south. The excitement level is very high during the opening weeks of school. During my visits, it is important for me to talk with administrators, teachers and students about what is working and what is not working with regard to implementation of our Unbridled Learning strategic plan. This blog provides a few highlights of my recent visits.

The Unbridled Learning vision of every child proficient and prepared for success has reached classrooms across Kentucky. In talking with students, parents, business leaders and educators, the vision of ALL students graduating with the skills needed to be successful in college and career has captured the imagination and actions of individuals across the Commonwealth. Educators, parents and business leaders tell me that they understand the vision and think it is the right one for the future of our state and the future of children. Career and technical educators are very excited about being part of the vision, and schools and districts are integrating career and technical options with academic programs.

When I visit schools, I enjoy talking directly with teachers. What I am hearing from teachers is support for the Common Core Standards. Teachers of language arts are especially excited about the increasing rigor of writing and research. Also, they are excited about the increase in the use of non-fiction materials. Math teachers strongly support the math standards; however, they are concerned about the learning gaps that students have and feel that it will take 3-4 years to close those gaps and see significant progress on assessments. Science teachers are very interested in the new science standards that have been recently developed for review. Social studies teachers are anxiously awaiting new social studies standards. Every teacher I have talked with at the high school level supports the new end-of-course assessments and strongly support student accountability for the assessments.

Educators are very concerned about a couple of things. The major concern is continued budget cuts. In the face of whole-scale education reform, our state budget has not funded textbooks and resources for four years. Professional development has been reduced from $25 per pupil to less than $4 per pupil. Increasing costs of health care and pensions have had an impact on local funding. Educators also are concerned about the results from the new assessments. They support the assessments, but are worried that parents and community members will not clearly understand the significant change in the results.

The visits to schools and districts are important strategies. By listening to teachers, administrators, parents, students and the business community, I can bring back to the General Assembly, education department and the Kentucky Board of Education the “realities” that our teachers are facing. I am humbled every time I visit a school by the positive and “can-do” attitude that I find. It is indeed an exciting and challenging time for education in Kentucky. Hats off to all our educators, and best wishes for a successful school year

Setting Standards and Moving Past Basic Skills

This week, the Kentucky Board of Education reviewed the steps for the standard-setting of the Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (K-PREP) system of assessments. (See background on this item and the related presentation for more details.) Many readers may think of this as a rather boring statistical process; however, the standard-setting process has significant long-term effects on students, parents, teachers, schools, school districts and the state.

The standard-setting process is necessary due to the implementation of the Kentucky Core Academic Standards (KCAS) that are based on the Common Core State Standards that were adopted as required by 2009’s Senate Bill 1 (SB 1). The implementation of these standards required new assessments (also a requirement of SB 1). With new assessments, states have to go through a standard-setting process to determine cut points for classifications of student results. In Kentucky, we have historically used the terms novice, apprentice, proficient and distinguished (NAPD) as the classifications for students.

In determining the cut points for NAPD for the new assessments, Kentucky is changing from our historical focus on proficiency to a focus on college and career readiness. We will compare 8th-grade students’ performance on the college readiness benchmarks for the EXPLORE test to student performance on the K-PREP 8th-grade reading and math. In other words, the proficiency cut score on the 8th-grade K-PREP will be set at a similar level to the percentage of students meeting the EXPLORE benchmarks.

What does this mean for students and parents? For the last 20 years, proficiency scores in Kentucky have steadily improved to the point where, in most grade levels (3-8), 70-80 percent of students receive proficient/distinguished scores. With the new tests, this will change dramatically. For grades 3-8, the percentage proficient/distinguished will drop to between 35 and 50 percent.

Why the big change? The expectation has changed from simply proficient on basic skills to college/career-ready. The analogy I use is one from golf. I enjoy playing golf on occasion, and sometimes I play from the senior tees. My score is usually pretty good, since the course is shorter. However, I have a few friends who like to play from the professional tees, which make the course much longer, and since I do not hit the ball that far, the course is much tougher. So my score gets worse.

That is what we are doing in Kentucky. We are asking teachers and students to raise performance from basic skills proficiency to college/career readiness. We are fully expecting our scores to look worse for a few years; however, we have full confidence that if we provide our teachers and students with the supports they will need, then we will see more students rise to the challenge.

Every parent wants their child to graduate from high school ready to succeed at college/career opportunities. Every teacher, school and community wants more children to graduate from high school ready to succeed. I encourage all readers to not panic when the new assessment results are announced. I hope everyone will rally to support our students and teachers as they work to meet this new challenge, which in turn will improve employment opportunities and have a positive impact on the economy of the Commonwealth and ensure a brighter future for every high school graduate.

Operation Preparation

The latest count of districts participating in Operation Preparation is 119. I know several more districts have plans to implement college- and career-ready advising strategies later this spring.

As a reminder, Operation Preparation is part of our Commonwealth Commitment to College and Career Readiness. This commitment was signed by every higher education institution, school superintendent and school board chair in Kentucky. This commitment has the potential to be the most important strategy for economic development that we could put in place for Kentucky.

College and career readiness for all students who graduate from Kentucky high schools is part of our vision of the Kentucky Department of Education and the Kentucky Board of Education. This vision was heightened by the passage of 2009’s Senate Bill 1, which required a focus on improving the percentage of students who graduate from high school college- and career-ready. As a matter of fact, the college/career-ready concept has caught the attention of the entire nation through the Common Core Standards initiative, Race to the Top grants and the No Child Left Behind waiver process.

As we were developing strategies to improve college and career readiness rates, advising students came to the forefront. In Kentucky, our students are provided with college/career-ready measures through the EXPLORE, PLAN and ACT assessments. Also, many of our students get additional information through ASVAB, COMPASS, KYOTE, Work Keys and Kentucky Occupational Skills Assessments. Also, every student in Kentucky has to complete an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) beginning in 6th grade that helps plan for college and career.

However, quite often the students and parents are not fully aware of how to use the college/career-ready measures and the ILP. Operation Preparation asked schools and districts to provide advice to every 8th and 10th grader in the state. The advice was driven by the students’ college/career-readiness measures and the students’ ILPs. Governor Steve Beshear proclaimed March 12-16 as Operation Preparation week, and thousands of volunteers worked in our schools to advise students on how to reach college/career-ready status.

During Operation Preparation week, I had the honor of working with several students at Gallatin County High School. I also had the opportunity to visit with Wayne County as that district kicked off the week. I went to Dayton Independent, which had a “signing day” to highlight each senior who had made a commitment to attend a postsecondary institution. The Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative (KVEC) and Green River Regional Educational Cooperative (GRREC) collaborated with Forward in the Fifth to create career guidance videos that can be distributed to all schools and districts. These are just a few of the events in which I participated; however, I have heard from many school districts about the great activities that happened in their schools.

I encourage readers to visit the Operation Preparation page to see many of these great activities. If your school district did not participate this year, I hope you will encourage leaders to participate in Operation Preparation for 2012-13. Our students’ future and the future of Kentucky depend on our collaboration and focus on college/career readiness.

Health Care Costs vs. Spending for Students

When I came to Kentucky in 2009, one of the first reports I read was the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s presentation on the state budget, The Leaky Bucket. In July 2011, the chamber updated the initial report with A Stronger Bucket.

The original and follow-up reports have lots of interesting statistics concerning the state budget and recommendations for improving the budget. In this blog, I want to discuss a key issue in the state education budget that was highlighted by the chamber reports – increasing health care costs.

The Kentucky Department of Education’s budget includes the annual appropriation for health care costs for school and district employees. In 2002, the appropriation was $286.7 million. Governor Steve Beshear’s budget proposal for FY13 shows health care costs projected to be $627 million and for FY14, $639.6 million. From 2002 to 2013, the increase in health care costs is $340.4 million, or 118 percent. From 2002 to projected FY14, the increase is $352.9 million, or 123 percent.

Another way to look at the challenge that health care costs present to state budget writers is to see the overall reductions proposed for education funding. In FY13, it’s $12.5 million. This reduction will impact Family Resource and Youth Services Centers, Extended School Services, textbooks, professional development, Read to Achieve, the Mathematics Achievement Fund, vocational schools and many other programs. The average reduction for each program will be 4.5 percent. The increase in health care costs from FY12 to FY13 is $12.5 million. Simple logic shows that if we were able to contain health care costs at FY12 levels, then we would be able to maintain many important education programs at FY12 levels.

Another issue that is directly impacting school districts is the 2010 agreement to provide additional dollars to support health care costs for retirees in the Kentucky Teachers’ Retirement System (KTRS). Beginning in 2010, all school districts were required to make a contribution on behalf of each active employee on payroll of 0.25 percent, increasing steadily to 2.25 percent in 2014. The estimated costs to school districts were $16 million in 2010-11 and $33 million in 2011-12. The costs will at least double for FY13 and FY14.

As an employee who benefits from the health insurance, I certainly am very interested in maintaining an excellent benefit for me and my family. I certainly understand that health care and pensions are important benefits to recruit quality teachers into education. However, the current path is not sustainable.

We are funding health care costs and other benefits at the expense of education resources that teachers and students need in order to reach college and career readiness for all students. We have asked teachers to implement more rigorous standards and reach a higher expectation – college and career readiness for all – and we have eliminated all dollars for instructional resources and greatly reduced the professional development and support for teachers.

The answer to this dilemma is well above my pay grade. I don’t envy the members of the General Assembly or the Governor as they struggle with increasing demands and scarce resources. The purpose of this blog was to create awareness and hopefully encourage some dialogue about the challenges we face in funding education in the Commonwealth.

Kentucky’s Work Banishes the Winter Doldrums

It was my honor this week to represent Kentucky at the White House press conference announcing the states who received the first-round waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB). From the announcement of the waiver process in September, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) team and partners have worked many hours to prepare and negotiate the waiver and flexibility from the rigid requirements of NCLB. I especially want to thank Mary Ann Miller and staff in the Commissioner’s Office for pulling together all the components of the waiver and editing the entire application. Also, I want to thank Associate Commissioners Kevin Brown, David Couch, Ken Draut, Hiren Desai, Dewey Hensley, Felicia Smith and their staffs for the extra efforts in preparing the waiver application.

The waiver process actually began in April 2009 as KDE and partners began to plan for the implementation of 2009’s Senate Bill 1 (SB 1). The goal from the beginning has been to have one accountability system rather than two -- state and federal. Having two accountability systems was confusing to parents and schools. Also, the federal system began to lose credibility due to the details of NCLB.

Since April 2009, hundreds of meetings have been held with all stakeholders to gain feedback on the key components of SB 1 that also ended up being the key requirements of the NCLB waiver. These requirements are adopting new college/career readiness standards, implementing a more rigorous accountability model, implementing support for teachers and principals, and increasing flexibility with funding.

The NCLB waiver will have an immediate impact in Kentucky. This year, teachers and students are working with the new college/career-ready standards in mathematics and English/language arts. Schools and districts are planning for the accountability measures of college/career readiness, cohort graduation rates, student growth, closing achievement gaps and Program Reviews in arts and humanities, practical living/career studies and writing. Teachers and principals are working to develop new models for teacher/principal effectiveness. Educators are now supported by the Continuous Instructional Improvement Technology System (CIITS) that is the envy of many states. Our partners at the Prichard Committee and Kentucky Chamber of Commerce are helping spread the word about the new standards and accountability system.

Over the coming weeks, we will be working with schools and districts to implement the funding flexibility requirements. This flexibility comes at a very important time. State budgets for education have been reduced, and schools/districts will be looking at ways to redirect existing dollars to address the components of Senate Bill 1.

I am very proud to be education commissioner of a state that is leading the nation in education reform efforts. My thanks to Governor Steve Beshear and the General Assembly for setting the expectations in Senate Bill 1 that provided the path to the NCLB waiver and assured Kentucky’s position as a national leader in education.

More Options, Opportunities for Students

The last few days have seen significant action around implementation of recommendations from the Governor’s Transforming Education in Kentucky (TEK) task force. For a full listing of the recommendations, go to http://kytech.ky.gov/TEK_final_report_draft.pdf.

During the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) meeting on December 7, Tom Vanderark with Open Ed Solutions and David Cook, director of the Division of Innovation and Partner Engagement with the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE), presented the actions to follow up on the TEK recommendations concerning virtual learning and earning dual credit. The three key actions that we asked KBE to focus on are:

1) changing the role of KDE from being a provider of digital learning to being a regulator/broker of digital learning
2) addressing the legislative changes necessary to change from a traditional textbook approach to a focus on instructional resources that would include not only traditional textbooks, but also digital resources
3) addressing the legislative changes necessary to have funding for digital courses follow the student


These three actions follow closely with the recommendations from the Bluegrass Institute and the Digital Learning 2020 report. We are currently working with legislative staff to draft legislation to address these key actions. While we certainly want to move forward to provide our students with equity and access to dual credit courses and high-quality content, we also want to be very careful to avoid some of the pitfalls highlighted in an article published by the New York Times this week: http://nyti.ms/rrJsED

Also this week, Office of Career and Technical Education Director Dale Winkler presented recommendations of the Career and Technical Education committee, which also were follow ups to the TEK report. His PowerPoint presentation may be accessed here. We look forward to working with the House and Senate Education Committees during the legislative session to put these recommendations in place.

Governor Steve Beshear appointed the Transforming Education in Kentucky Task Force in the fall of 2009. The task force presented its report in February 2011. It is exciting to see many of the recommendations coming into focus for the 2012 legislative session. Stay tuned for updates on our progress.

Given the upcoming holiday season, there will not be blogs for December 23 or 30. We will return on January 6. I hope readers have time over the coming holidays to enjoy activities with family and friends.

Partnering with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce on the Three “Es”

This week, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce President Dave Adkisson and I started a 10-city tour to promote education improvement in Kentucky. The theme of our tour is that education drives employment, and employment drives the economy.

The future of Kentucky depends heavily on our ability to improve the educational attainment and outcomes for ALL Kentucky children. My comments for the first stop on the tour – Paducah -- may be found here. These comments focus on two major requests for local Chamber of Commerce members:


1. As the state implements more rigorous standards, we will need business and community leaders to clearly support the need for increased rigor and expectations of college and career readiness for all Kentucky children. There will be push-back that the standards are too rigorous and the assessments are too rigorous for Kentucky children and teachers. We must stand united in our expectations.


2. Schools alone cannot accomplish college and career readiness for all Kentucky children. Business and community leader involvement is specifically requested for Operation Preparation. This program is set for March 12-16, 201,2 and every 8th- and 10th-grade Kentucky student will meet with an adult volunteer who will advise the student on preparation for college and career. The Kentucky Department of Education will provide training and resources for volunteers. Since there are almost 50,000 8th graders and over 45,000 10th graders, we will need many adult volunteers.



My thanks to Dave Adkisson and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce for their support of education. Education is the number-one item on the chamber’s legislative agenda and its strategic plan.

In our visits, we will also talk to local editorial boards and media outlets, and we hope to see extensive coverage of the college- and career-ready expectations and Operation Preparation.

NCLB Waiver Update

Last week, I had the honor of participating in the announcement of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver process by President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Also, I was honored to participate in a media call after the announcement with Sec. Duncan and Georgia State School Superintendent John Barge.

I applaud President Obama and Sec. Duncan for listening to governors, state superintendents, local superintendents, parents, teachers and students who have asked for NCLB flexibility. While we all would prefer that Congress reauthorize NCLB (currently four years past due), we certainly appreciate the President and Sec. Duncan for allowing states to generate innovation and reform to establish higher levels of performance for students, schools and districts.

For interested readers, the U.S. Department of Education has lots of information concerning the waiver process at www.ed.gov/esea/flexibility. The flexibility and waiver do require states to respond to four major areas – college/career ready standards; differentiated accountability and support; improving instruction and leadership; and state review of regulations to allow local districts flexibility from NCLB requirements.

Thanks to 2009’s Senate Bill 1, Kentucky is in a strong position to address these major areas. For over two years, Kentucky has been engaged in developing a differentiated accountability model based on college/career-ready standards and individual student growth. The staff at the Kentucky Department of Education are working overtime to prepare our waiver application, and we believe that Kentucky has an excellent opportunity to meet the requirements for the waiver.

Our timeline for the waiver application is very short; however, we do not anticipate any problems in meeting the deadline. We have to submit by November 14. We will have a statewide webinar on October 19 and meet either face-to-face or through webinars with all advisory groups. Our final draft will be reviewed by our teacher, principal and superintendent advisory groups in late October, and we will provide a public review of our application prior to submission.

I want to assure readers that the waiver process is not an attempt to lower standards or expectations. It is just the opposite. Senate Bill 1 raised expectations to college and career ready for all students AND proficiency for all students. Our waiver request will push for the innovation and flexibility to meet these increased expectations.

As the President stated in his announcement, we cannot wait another generation to get this right. Our children’s future and the economic future of our state and nation are dependent upon our improvement in getting more graduates ready for college and career.

Career and Technical Education: Innovation and Integration

In 2009, Governor Steve Beshear created the Task Force on Transforming Education in Kentucky (TEK). Over a 15-month period, the TEK Task Force met 10 times and hosted a statewide community forum in which more than 1,500 Kentuckians shared their views on improving education in the Commonwealth. On February 21, 2011, the TEK Task Force released a report, Breaking New Ground: Final report of the Governor’s Task Force on Transforming Education in Kentucky, which contained 35 recommendations derived from this process.

One of the recommendations made in that report called for the Secretary of the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet and the Commissioner of Education to establish a steering committee to develop a comprehensive statewide plan to implement a new model of secondary career and technical education (CTE) with an emphasis on innovation and integrating core academics, 21st-century skills, project-based learning and the establishment of full-time CTE programs. This plan was intended to be implemented by the 2012 General Assembly.

This week, the steering committee reviewed the first draft of a discussion paper that addresses the recommendations from the TEK Task Force. The discussion paper included the recommendations from six study groups. These groups were focused on sector strategies; curriculum and programs; assessment and accountability; professional development; operations; and Perkins fund management. The study groups included stakeholders from across the CTE spectrum.

Recently, I had the opportunity to review CTE programs in China and Brazil. These countries are among the fastest-growing in jobs that have a positive impact on the economy. In Brazil, I was particularly interested in the rapid decision-making process to implement CTE programs that meet the sector needs of the country. Given that Brazil is hosting the 2016 Olympics, there is a huge unmet need for construction workers and other skilled workers to address infrastructure needs for the Olympic games. Through this focus on career and technical education and alignment with the jobs that are needed, Brazil is enlarging and strengthening its middle class.

While traveling to Brazil, I read Tom Friedman’s new book – That Used to be Us. Friedman promotes the theory that many of the countries (China, Brazil, India and Russia) have taken a page from the U.S. in promoting education, infrastructure and innovation, while the U.S. seems to be mired in a political quagmire of inaction. As I was watching the excitement and commitment to career and technical education in Brazil, I could not help but think Friedman got the title of the book right.

I hope that our General Assembly will follow the recommendations from the CTE committees and integrate/elevate career technical education in this state so that Kentucky graduates are prepared for the world that they will face and the jobs of the future.

What is Proficiency?

From the annual National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) analysis of state proficiency standards compared to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scoring scales:

“NCLB required states to develop their own assessments and set proficiency standards to measure student achievement. Each state controls its own assessment programs, including developing its own standards, resulting in great variation among the states in statewide student assessment practices. This variation creates a challenge in understanding the achievement levels of students across the United States.”

Since 2003, NCES has supported research to compare the proficiency standards of NAEP with those of individual states. The latest report was recently released and is available http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/statemapping/.

What did this year’s report tell us about Kentucky’s and other states’ assessments as compared to NAEP results?
· In grade 4 reading, 35 states have proficiency cut scores that are below the basic cut score on NAEP. Fifteen states have proficiency cut scores between basic and proficient. No state has a cut score for proficient that equals the NAEP proficiency cut score. Kentucky has the 17th-highest cut score on this comparison, and it is slightly below the basic level on NAEP.
· In grade 8 reading, 16 states are below NAEP’s basic level, and 34 states are between basic and proficient on the NAEP scale. No state has a proficiency score equal to or above NAEP proficiency levels. Kentucky ranks 12th among the states, and the Kentucky proficient level is between the NAEP basic and proficient levels.
· In grade 4 math, seven states have proficient cut scores below the NAEP basic level; one state (Massachusetts) has a proficient cut score at or above NAEP proficient cut score; and 42 states are between basic and proficient. Kentucky ranks 22nd and is between basic and proficient.
· In grade 8 math, Kentucky ranks 15th and is between basic and proficient. Massachusetts is the only state with proficient cut scores at or above the NAEP proficient level.

What does this mean? Kentucky’s cut scores for our state assessments are, for the most part, in the top third of states, and when compared to NAEP levels, our cut scores are between basic and proficient levels.

As we implement the new accountability system, the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) will set student performance levels for novice, apprentice, proficient and distinguished. The KBE will receive guidance and advice from many groups of stakeholders. Our National Technical Advisory Panel for Assessment and Accountability (NTAPAA) and our School Curriculum, Accountability and Assessment Council (SCAAC) will play key roles.

My recommendation to the KBE will focus on establishing levels that are linked closely to college/career readiness. We have hired experts to establish these levels from 8th grade back to 3rd grade. Our high school end-of-course assessments already have these levels linked to PLAN and ACT results.

What does this mean to parents, students, teachers, principals, superintendents and the public? They will see proficiency levels in Kentucky move from 70 percent or higher in many grade levels to proficiency levels more closely aligned to NAEP and college readiness results.

Many states are moving in this direction. Recently, Tennessee took this major step. Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia and others are moving to proficiency levels that predict college/career readiness.

This is the right thing to do for our children and their future. The percentages of proficient students may drop, and readers should understand the reasons why. The key will be communication that there are new standards and new expectations, and it will not be appropriate to compare results from the spring 2012 assessment to those from the 2011 assessment. Hopefully, our media representatives will get that message. Now is the time to start the conversation at the state and local levels.

Operation Preparation

This week, Kentucky was host to the annual release of ACT results. The annual data release is usually held in Washington, D.C. This year, ACT, Inc. wanted to highlight the national focus on college and career readiness.

When ACT staff called to ask me if they could coordinate the national release with our state release, they said Kentucky was one of the leading states in implementing the college and career readiness agenda in the nation. We chose the Jessamine County Career and Technical Center to highlight the work of Superintendent Lu Young and her community in implementing the Commonwealth Commitment for College and Career Readiness. While we did have to choose one location for the announcement, the location represented the tremendous work that all schools and districts in the Commonwealth are doing to implement the Commonwealth Commitment.

ACT President Jon Erickson highlighted the areas where the nation and Kentucky have improved and also offered several suggestions for improvement at the state and national levels. We were informed that, of the four states who have made significant progress on ACT results, Kentucky ranks second.

Rep. Carl Rollins and Sen. Ken Winters made remarks about the importance of Senate Bill 1 and Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS) legislation. Council on Postsecondary Education President Bob King also highlighted the legislative history and the tremendous partnership between P-12 and higher education in Kentucky.

As we celebrate the national-level attention that Kentucky is receiving due to Senate Bill 1 and the subsequent implementation of our Unbridled Learning strategic plan, I wanted to focus on why this is important to all Kentucky citizens. Senate Bill 1, while focused on education, was also the most important economic development legislation passed in recent history.

Why? Education equals employment, which in turn equals an improved economy. The research is very clear. A more-educated populace will mean improved opportunities for Kentucky citizens with health care, jobs that pay higher wages, less dependency on social programs, improved tax receipts and a safer community.

Senate Bill 1 also raised the expectations for ALL Kentucky children and improved the chances that ALL Kentucky children would receive an education that prepares them for their future. With our focus on administering the ACT to 100 percent of Kentucky public high school juniors, we have seen a dip in our overall scores. This was to be expected, as evidenced by the 11 other states that have more than 90 percent of students taking the ACT.

However, we are seeing slow and steady trends of improvement. The key number for me is the number of test takers in Kentucky. In 2008, we had 31,728 students take the ACT. In 2011, we had 46,428 students take the ACT. This is an increase of more than 14,000 students.

In 2008, slightly more than 6,000 students in Kentucky met all ACT college-ready benchmarks. In 2011, over 7,400 Kentucky graduates met ACT college-ready benchmarks. By assessing all students, we have discovered more than 1,400 students who are college- and career-ready and that normally would not have taken the ACT. As we continue to focus our college and career ready agenda on all children, we will continue to find more children who did not believe they had the capacity to attend college.

As we find more and more children who have the ability, we will need to find ways to support them academically and financially. A key support for these students is college and career advising. We announced a statewide project, Operation Preparation, this week. This is an effort to provide advising to all 8th and 10th graders in Kentucky during the week of March 12-16, 2012.

Our school counselors have a student-to-counselor ratio of one to over 500. It is impossible for our counselors to individualize college/career advising, so we are asking our many partners across the state to assist. We are asking PTAs, chambers of commerce, Workforce Investment Boards, higher education and business to assist in Operation Preparation.

While there are many details to work out with regard to volunteer screening and training, we are announcing the initiative now so volunteers can start planning their schedules. The Kentucky Department of Education will coordinate this project and provide a toolkit for implementation of Operation Preparation. Look for many more details in the near future.

It is our hope that volunteers across the state will dedicate an hour or two next spring to improve the future of the Commonwealth and the future of a child.