College/career-readiness for ALL – Part I

As I reflect on the last six years of working with educators in Kentucky, one of the most successful strategies has been the focus on college- and career-readiness.

Recently, the Education Commission of the States recognized the Kentucky Board of Education for the innovation of the Unbridled Learning accountability model, which has college and career readiness as a primary focus. The board’s recognition highlights the terrific job that our educators in Kentucky have done over the last six years helping more students reach college readiness.

The focus on college readiness was a result of Senate Bill 1 in 2009. At that time, only 30 percent of our high school graduates were able to enter credit bearing courses at the postsecondary level without the need for remediation. That number came from ACT results, the only measure we had at the time.

Thanks to a strong collaboration with our postsecondary partners under the leadership of Bob King at the Council of Postsecondary Education, Kentucky colleges developed several other measures of college readiness. Kentucky colleges expanded the use of the ACT Compass and the Kentucky-developed placement tests for math and language arts – KYOTE.

Many of our Kentucky colleges offered college remedial courses at high schools so that seniors who had not met the ACT benchmarks for college readiness were able to successfully complete the remediation during their senior year at no cost to parents. By utilizing multiple measures of college readiness, high schools and colleges were able to help more students reach the postsecondary-defined college-readiness levels for language arts and math.

Kentucky has been recognized nationally for this work in many publications due to the strong collaboration between K-12 and postsecondary. It is critical to note that the measures for college readiness were not defined by K-12. ALL measures for college readiness were defined and agreed upon by Kentucky colleges. What this means is that any student who reaches college readiness as defined by Kentucky colleges on the ACT, Compass, and/or KYOTE can be placed in a credit-bearing college course upon being enrolled in the college. Since Kentucky began this work, the college readiness rates have moved from 30 percent to more than 60 percent.

It is estimated that students and parents have been able to save more than $1,000 per student by avoiding non-credit bearing remedial course tuition at the college level. With almost 15,000 more students reaching college readiness for the class of 2015 compared to the class of 2009, Kentucky families have realized an estimated savings of almost $15 million. On top of that, high school graduates who reach college readiness levels are more likely to return to college for a second year, take more credit-bearing courses, and have a higher GPA.

I am extremely honored to have worked in a state with such a focus on student success. The partnership between K-12 and postsecondary is a model for all states. Kentucky teachers are the envy of the nation. Kentucky students and families have benefitted. Thanks for letting me be a part of such important work.

Next week, I will focus on the tremendous work done in career readiness.

The Need for College Credit for High School Students

In past blogs, I have written about the work of the Governor’s Transforming Education in Kentucky (TEK) Task Force. In reviewing our progress toward implementing the recommendations from that task force, I found that the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and partners have accomplished almost every one of the recommendations.

The most recent accomplishment was the implementation of the Executive Order that merged career and technical education within KDE. One of the big recommendations left to work on is ensuring that every student has an opportunity to earn college credit while in high school.

Recently, KDE did a survey of school districts to ask about dual credit issues. Here are some of the results.

·         Over 32 percent of school districts do not offer dual credit for career and technical courses.

·         Over 97 percent of school districts do offer dual credit for college general education courses.

·         Over 60 percent of the districts require parents/students to pay for tuition costs.

·         Over 60 percent of districts require parents/students to pay for textbooks.

·         Only 30 percent of districts utilize virtual learning for dual credit.

As I visit school districts across Kentucky, I find many variations in the cost of dual credit. In some locations, the postsecondary institution has funding to offer dual credit at no cost to students. In other locations, students pay the full tuition costs that a college student would pay.

The results of our survey and my personal visits reveal a number of concerns about equity of opportunity across Kentucky for students to have equal access to dual credit courses. Why is dual credit a good idea?

A recent study from Jobs for the Future – Taking College Courses in High School: A Strategy for College Readiness – studied the impact of dual credit courses in Texas. Texas has had a strategy around college readiness and dual credit for a number of years. Here are some of the findings

·         Students who take dual credit courses were 2.2 times more likely to enroll in higher education.

·         Students who took dual credit courses were two times more likely to return for a second year of college.

·         Students who took dual credit courses were 1.7 times more likely to complete a college degree.

While Kentucky is making terrific progress in the number of students graduating from high school who are college/career-ready (from 34 percent in 2010 to 47 percent in 2012), and Kentucky colleges seeing significant increases in the number of students who obtain two- and four-year degrees, we have much work to do.

There is a strong correlation between economic levels of a state and individuals with the education level of the workforce and individuals. It appears that the Governor’s TEK Task Force was right on target with recommending that EVERY student have access to college-level credit courses while in high school. It is time to make certain that we ensure access is equal in cost, number of courses and quality.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Heat Index is Rising on Unbridled Learning

The hot days of July and August have always been a period of excitement for me. As a former high school band director, this was time for band camp and preparation for the upcoming football and marching band season. As a principal, it was time for finalizing schedules and completing the hiring of teachers. As a superintendent, it was time to make certain that school facilities and grounds were ready and that budgets were ready to meet the needs of our students and teachers.

This July and August I am experiencing excitement about the implementation of the Kentucky Unbridled Learning – College/Career Readiness for ALL plan. This plan is an outgrowth of 2009’s Senate Bill 1 and the Governor’s Transforming Education in Kentucky Task Force.

The Unbridled Learning – College/Career Readiness for ALL has a metric of increasing the percentage of college/career-ready graduates of Kentucky high schools from the current 34 percent to 67 percent by 2015. We have been communicating this goal and strategies to reach this goal for months. During the 2011-12 school year, we will begin to see the strategies implemented and begin to see if our strategies yield the results for our students.

As I speak to educators, parents and community members across the Commonwealth, I focus on the three key strategies for Unbridled Learning. During the 2011-12 school year, we are implementing the Kentucky Common Core Standards in English/language arts and mathematics. On August 1, we are launching a software program – the Continuous Instructional Improvement Technology System (CIITS) -- that will provide educators with full access to the standards and resources to support the standards. This software and the resources were developed and aligned based on the work of more than 1,500 educators from Kentucky schools.

Also, we are now providing training and resources for educators in Kentucky that support the new assessments, which are based on the new standards. Just this week, we had educators from across Kentucky working on understanding of the new end-of-course assessments in English II, Algebra II, U.S. History and Biology. Many teachers will receive training and support over the coming months to gain understanding of the new assessments in grades 3-8 and high school courses.

Finally, the excitement comes from a new accountability model that goes into place this school year. While we are hoping that Kentucky will be granted flexibility to replace federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability with the Kentucky accountability model, we will be implementing the Kentucky model either way.

My July/August excitement has not waned as I enter my 40th year of education. If anything, this year is even more exciting. Why? I work with great teachers and leaders across Kentucky who are excited about the future of our children. While the work ahead will be exhausting, and there are never enough resources to do the work, Kentucky educators are dedicated to a singular focus of success for ALL children. If you see an educator over the next few weeks, give him or her a pat on the back and share your wishes for much success in the year ahead.

Staff Evaluations: Performance and Process

Having been a teacher, principal, superintendent and commissioner, I have experienced the evaluation process at every level. My two key principles for evaluation are that all instruments should be aligned and that all instruments should be growth instruments.

I realize that employment decisions must eventually be made; however, I have always adhered to W. Edwards Deming’s principle that up to 95 percent of an organization’s performance is related to the processes in the organization, and most people want to do a great job. I always push for continuous improvement and growth of individuals while also working to improve processes in the organization.

The alignment principle takes some work. In Kentucky, we have 174 different versions of principal, teacher and superintendent evaluations. As I travel the state, most administrators tell me that we need to address this broken process. We are addressing this through two state committees that I have written about in numerous blogs. The Kentucky Department of Education’s (KDE’s) teacher and principal effectiveness committee work can be found at http://kyprofessionalgrowth.webs.com/.

The superintendent and school board evaluation process is work that properly resides with the Kentucky Association of School Administrators and the Kentucky School Boards Association. To ensure alignment, I hope that these groups will include the following components:

Learning Conditions/Environment – We expect every teacher to create positive conditions for learning in every classroom. We measure that by observation, discipline records, student input, parent input and many other evidences. We also should expect principals, superintendents and school boards to create a positive learning environment in the school or district. One possible measure for learning conditions is the TELL Kentucky survey that we initiated this year. Of course, the evaluation process should include the data from the survey only as a starting place to set priorities for improvement. The actual evaluation should be focused on setting goals and then working to improve processes such as facilities, empowerment, budgeting, resources and more.

Student Learning Results – Most teachers I talk with agree that student learning results are important; however, proficiency on standardized tests is not always the best way to measure teacher impact. A more valid and reliable method is growth. Most teachers agree that evaluations should include student growth from multiple measures (formative and summative). Also, most teachers agree that evaluations should include what teachers do to improve the instructional processes in the classroom, and again, there are multiple evidences of this improvement. Superintendents and principals also should be evaluated on student growth in learning. These evaluations should come from agreed-upon goals and evidences that are directly linked to the district’s strategic plan or school improvement plan.

Finally, as commissioner, I believe my evaluation process is a good model for local superintendents. The Kentucky Board of Education and I agree upon yearly goals that include student learning and improvement of key processes such as communications and support processes (e.g., budgeting, personnel, working conditions). The evaluation process happens mid-year and end-of-year and is done in public.

The ultimate goal that I want to be measured by is the college and career readiness of graduates from Kentucky public schools. The goal is a 50 percent increase in the number of graduates who are college- and career-ready. There are yearly goals that measure the progress and yearly goals for the processes that support the college and career readiness goal.

It is my hope that every board will work with their superintendents to include this key goal in the evaluation process, and then every superintendent will work with their principals to include measures that predict our success toward this goal. Finally, every teacher should know how their work is aligned to this goal of college and career readiness.

Evaluation systems should be driven by the student learning goals and learning conditions at each level. We have a lot of work to do in Kentucky, and I know our boards, superintendents, principals and teachers are all committed to this work that so directly impacts our children’s future.

College and Career Readiness

The Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) has spent considerable amounts of time deliberating the proposed college and career readiness measures that are a component of the Senate Bill 1 (2009) accountability model.

Over the past few weeks, I have read numerous reports concerning the college and career readiness issue and how we as states and the nation must work to improve the readiness of our high school graduates -- or our nation faces loss of productivity and competitiveness. Of course, those of you have been in education for 40 or more years (like me) know that these challenges are not new. This issue has been around since the early 1800s, when Horace Mann was debating the purpose of schools. What is different now is the alignment of P-12 educators, businesses, government and higher education in promoting the agenda from one of access to opportunities for education to the new goal of universal SUCCESS for ALL children to reach proficiency and be prepared for success.

Some of the publications that I would recommend to readers are:
* Time magazine published an excellent group of articles in the January 17, 2011, issue entitled “Where the Jobs Are.”

* The Harvard Graduate School of Education published Pathways to Prosperity, which was released in early February. This report would seem to support the KBE focus on defining not only college-ready, but also career-ready.
http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/features/2011/Pathways_to_Prosperity_Feb2011.pdf

* From ACT, Inc. last week, there was Breaking New Ground: Building a National Workforce Skills Credentialing System. This report also strongly supports the work of KBE in defining career-ready as well as college-ready.
http://act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/BreakingNewGround.pdf.

Some statistics from the Time article caught my attention:
* Detroit currently has a 13.3 percent unemployment rate; however, businesses cannot find mechanical engineers to fill jobs.
* General Electric has a major expansion of jobs at Appliance Park in Louisville that will require postsecondary skills and training for the new “green” refrigeration systems.
* Consulting firm Deloitte is currently scouring college campuses for tax specialists, lawyers and auditors.
* Who is currently out of work? This recession has not impacted all segments of the population equally. The currently unemployment rates are 5 percent for bachelor’s degree holders, 10 percent for high school grads and 16 percent for those with less than a high school diploma.
* As the jobs are coming back, they will not be spread equally across all levels of education. More than 80 percent of new jobs will require some education beyond high school whether a one-year certificate or two- or four-year degrees. These jobs will be heavily located in professional/business services, education and health services, and most will have strong technology requirements.
* Who will get the existing jobs? Bachelor’s degree holders will get 38 percent; associate degree holders or higher, 10 percent; those with some college, 18 percent; and high school grads will get 26 percent. That means we need about 92 percent of the students who are currently in 8th grade to obtain a high school diploma, and we need at least 68 percent of current 8th graders to achieve education beyond high school.

These statistics highlight our challenges for Kentucky.
1. If we do not do something different in Kentucky, about 25 percent of our current 8th graders will not graduate from high school in 2015. That is more than 12,000 students who will not graduate and will be competing for about 8 percent of the jobs available -- and those jobs will most likely not pay a living wage. We NEED the dropout prevention bill that raises the compulsory attendance age and provides students with alternative programs and a stronger focus on career and technical education.

2. Currently, we project that only 34 percent or 17,000 of our current 8th-grade class will meet college and career readiness measures. That means our employers will be like Detroit -- they will not have a supply of workers with the skills needed for the jobs available. We have already heard this from the Chamber of Commerce in northern Kentucky and other business leaders across the Commonwealth.

3. The future of the Commonwealth and the future of our 8th-grade class and all subsequent groups of children is that we need to improve our percentage of high school graduates who are college and career ready from the current level of 34 percent to at least 65 percent by 2015. That means we need to better prepare at least 17,000 more students in our current 8th-grade class and subsequent groups of students.

We cannot wait until these 8th-grade students become high school seniors. We cannot ignore the students who are currently in high school. We cannot ignore students who are in preschool through 7th grade.

Over the next few months, the Kentucky Department of Education will have a “laser focus” on college- and career-readiness strategies. We will provide one strategy every two weeks that we are either implementing or plan to implement during 2011-12 school year. What is unique about our effort is that we will connect the strategies to the districts, schools, classrooms, teachers, students and parents.

I hope readers will help spread the word that Kentucky is focused on our children’s future and the future of our Commonwealth.