Equality of access and opportunity for all

As we begin the 2013-14 school year, there is much to be proud of with regard to Kentucky P-12 education.

Since the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act and more recently with Senate Bill 1 of 2009, Kentucky has made significant improvements in raising graduation rates, lowering dropout rates, increasing college- and career-readiness rates and improving rankings on national assessments. However, as I look to challenges facing our educators, parents and students, I am concerned about state and federal budget cuts damaging educator morale and limiting the resources our children are able to access. Perhaps the most concern I have is the continuing gaps in equality of access, opportunity, and performance among our schools and our communities.

On a daily basis, I do a quick scan of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, state newspaper highlights, and education highlights from around the state, nation, and globe. Over the past few months, I have seen an increase in articles that deal with the challenges of equality of opportunity and the income inequality facing our country. 

Recently, the Equality of Opportunity Project released a major report. This report measures the likelihood of children from families who are in the bottom fifth of income averages being able to rise to the top fifth.

Courtesy: The Equality of Opportunity Project

Of course, education in the United States has always been touted as the way to level opportunity and achieve equality. As educators, we always look to education as the means for children to rise out of poverty and break the cycle of impoverishment into which they were born.

As an educator, this report causes me great concern. Looking at the largest 100 cities, what researchers  found was that there is less than an 8 percent likelihood that children of families in the bottom fifth for family income averages would likely escape poverty and rise to the top fifth. Louisville is our only Kentucky city in the top 100 and the rate there is 6.2 percent.

An editorial from Rebecca Strauss posted June 16, Schooling Ourselves in an Unequal America , talked about the “unequal America.” Ms. Strauss’ premise is that the wealthiest 10 percent of children in America receive some of the best education in the world and the quality keeps getting better.

However, our rankings among other industrialized countries show that America is losing ground. America is not getting worse, by most measures we are improving. The reason our rankings are slipping is due to the dramatic gains made by other countries and huge increases in poverty and widening equality, opportunity, and access gaps in America.

Ms. Strauss further suggests that money is not necessarily the issue. Her position is that other countries that have surpassed America spend about the same or less on education. She provides evidence that other countries make different choices in spending. She shows that other countries spend MORE on disadvantaged children and LESS on advantaged children.

As we watch our legislators and policy makers make decisions about funding and addressing equality of access, opportunity, and performance of ALL children, we should all be aware of these trends and the increasing gaps highlighted by the two sources referenced in this blog. These are extremely complex issues and some would even call them “wicked” problems. These issues will not be solved by reading a list of talking points prepared by a right or left leaning think tank. These issues can only be solved through honest and open dialogue between decision makers and higher expectations for equality from our communities.

Poverty: Helping to Succeed vs. Believing in Success

Last week I was struck by the title of a blog entry that I saw on my Twitter account – “The Poverty Myth Persists.” That blog can be found at http://educationnext.org/the-poverty-myth-persists/. What really caught my interest were the first few lines of the blog.

Every time I see a “poverty and education” story I think of the famous line from the New Testament in which Jesus says, “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want.”

So, with education. Want a convenient scapegoat for our problems? Poverty. It’s there, it’s handy.

The author, Peter Meyer, makes the case that quite often, educators and politicians blame poverty as the reason why schools in large urban and rural settings are failing to educate children. The achievement gap between students who don’t receive free and reduced-price meals and those who do receive free and reduced-price meals has widened in the last decade. Historically, education has always been seen as the path to the “American Dream.” Education is the great equalizer. However, our ability to provide an education to children in poverty is going in the wrong direction.

As Commissioner of Education, I believe there are two reasons for our inability to close achievement gaps based on poverty. It is either we do not know HOW to help children in poverty achieve at high levels or we do not BELIEVE that children in poverty can achieve at high levels.

If we do not know how, then that is something we can work hard to address. We can engage parents and communities in developing social capital that will help the community to value education and support educators. We can provide professional development to help teachers and administrators understand the challenges of homelessness and poverty. We can provide professional development on how to be more culturally responsive to the needs of students. We can provide resources needed to help children reach success. We know the HOW, and there are many examples of schools all across the nation and world that are helping children in poverty achieve at high levels. If educators make excuses for poverty and do not BELIEVE that children in poverty can achieve at high levels, then there is really nothing we can do other than coach these educators into other professions.

While I do not always agree with the positions of the Fordham Institute or the author of the blog, I thought the blog and articles cited were very thought-provoking. I also was reminded of the wonderful work that organizations like our own Prichard Committee, the Education Trust and the Children’s Defense Fund do in showing the HOW of helping children in poverty achieve to high levels.

The final sentence in the blog was perhaps the most thought-provoking – “Let’s resolve to quit blaming the poor for the poor education they receive.” Indeed, in Kentucky, let’s commit to never blame the poor, but commit to work with parents, communities, educators and government to collaborate on closing the achievement gaps and ensuring that education is the pathway to a brighter future for our children and the Commonwealth.

Closing the Achievement Gap

NOTE: This posting was originally published in October 2011. It is being posted again in honor of the holiday recognizing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.



Last Sunday as I was returning from the airport, I listened to the CNN coverage of the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial dedication. I listened to President Barack Obama’s remarks as part of the dedication ceremony, and I listened to the entire “I Have a Dream” speech played as part of the dedication.

I could not help but reflect on the past 50 years. As a student in a segregated school until 10th grade, I can vividly remember the activities around integration in our local school system. Then as a college student, I recall traveling with the Furman University band in Washington, D.C. during the riots in the late 1960s. Then as a teacher, I recall the integration of the Gaffney, South Carolina schools and the student walkouts and near-riots related to forced integration.

Throughout my 40-year education career, I have watched our nation and our schools struggle with issues related to integration and helping all children succeed. Our nation began the path toward equity with the Brown v. Board of Education case. One of the cases that was combined into the Brown case came from a school district in South Carolina (Clarendon 3). I visited that school district as part of a team assigned to support the school district in the 1990s. I was saddened to see that not much had changed. The system was still segregated. The public schools were almost 100 percent minority, and white parents sent their students to private academies. The local board was still controlled by local land owners who would not support raising taxes to adequately fund the needs of students.

This system and others were highlighted in a documentary that aired a few years ago called Corridor of Shame. President Obama even highlighted a student who had written about the need for improved schools in this area, and if my memory is correct, there were substantial changes to the school where she attended in a Dillon, South Carolina district.

All of this reflection comes back to a couple of core questions – are we providing equity in access and outcomes for ALL children? Have we closed achievement gaps? These are questions that certainly have clear answers based on the data across the nation and across Kentucky. Look carefully at the achievement gap data in your school and school district. Look carefully at the suspension and discipline rates for minority students in your schools. Look carefully at the percentage of minority students that graduate from high school that are college/career ready, attend postsecondary and graduate from postsecondary. How many minority teachers, principals, superintendents and board members serve in our local school districts?

Almost two years ago, I revitalized the Commissioners Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps Council (CRACGC). This council recently published recommendations to ensure equity in access and outcomes. The recommendations from the council will become a required component for a new group of schools and districts that will be identified as part of our No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver request.

This new group of schools will be called “focus schools.” The Kentucky Department of Education will identify those schools that have the largest achievement gaps. These schools will be required to address achievement gap issues through school and district plans. Targeted interventions will increase with each year that the school or district does not meet targets to close achievement gaps.

My biggest fear is that, even with our best efforts through state accountability, a commissioner of education will be writing an article in another 40 years documenting that not much progress has been made ensuring equity of access and outcomes for ALL children.

What will the collective WE do differently over the next 5-10 years? The collective WE must involve communities in addressing poverty and access. The collective WE must address early childhood education, since that is where the gap can best be closed. The collective WE must address jobs and hope in our most challenged communities.

We cannot rely solely on teachers and schools to make a difference (we tried that with No Child Left Behind). We cannot mandate equity. Equity must be a belief that a community holds dear and then takes action to accomplish.

You are part of the collective WE. What will YOU do?

National Assessment of Educational Progress

This week seemed to focus on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), particularly the release of reading and mathematics scores. A few months ago, I was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to fill one of the two chief state school officer positions on the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). This board was established by Congress in 1988 to oversee the NAEP assessments and procedures. I am one of 26 members. The membership includes teachers, principals, business, parents, legislators and governors. The group meets quarterly to address the statutory requirements of the 1988 legislation. This group is different than most groups I serve on, because the group is a governing body and not solely an advisory body.

An interesting issue with which the NAGB is dealing is the participation rates of 12th graders. In order to make the 12th-grade assessment more meaningful to students, teachers and school districts, the NAGB is working on linking the 12th-grade results to college and career readiness. This will be very important to Kentucky and the nation as we move our accountability models toward college and career readiness.

Kentucky has seen significant progress in 4th- and 8th-grade NAEP results in reading and math. Kentucky also performs very well in science as compared to the nation. It is great to see Kentucky reading scores in 4th and 8th grades above the national average. Also, it is good to see 4th-grade math scores above the national average and 8th-grade math scores closing the gap to the national average, where we are now only one point below the national average. It is also good to see continued improvement as a nation in both reading and math.

There was certainly good news in the NAEP results; however, there is much work left to do as a nation and a state. My biggest concern for our nation and state is the achievement gaps based on poverty and race. In 4th-grade math for Kentucky, there is a 19-point gap for poverty and an 18-point gap for race. While both of those gaps are better than the national gaps, and we have closed the gaps since 2000, we must redouble our efforts for children in poverty. In 4th-grade reading, the Kentucky gaps are 20 points for poverty and 16 points for race. Again, we are better than the national gaps and have improved since 2000. The 8th-grade gaps tell a similar story.

Readers may want to refer to my October 21 blog for my thoughts on actions we are taking and need to take as individuals and collectively as a state to make progress on closing achievement gaps.

Closing Gaps – What Progress Has Been Made?

In 2002, there was much fanfare when the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act was passed. Who could argue with such a lofty goal? The Kentucky legislature was working on similar legislation during that time that eventually led to passage of the “closing the achievement gap” bill, KRS 158.649.

Fast-forward eight years, and let’s see if we have made any progress at the national and state levels.

I recently read a report that compared National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results in the last four decades. The report documented that we made significant gains in closing gaps during the ‘60s, ‘80s and mid-‘90s; however, we have made little if any gains in closing gaps since the passage of NCLB.

In Kentucky, we also have made some progress; however, the gaps remain very large. For 2010 testing, the combined reading/mathematics proficiency gap between all students and several student groups is as follows:
All to African American – 20 points
All to Limited English Proficient – 22 points
All to Students with Disabilities – 22 points

Regardless of the assessment (ACT, NAEP, Kentucky Core Content Tests, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills), the gaps are usually in the low to mid 20-point range.

While NCLB and the Kentucky legislation set the expectations and require action, I believe we have lost focus over the past few years. Last fall, I reconvened the Commissioner’s Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps Council. This group worked to develop several key recommendations. Those recommendations and brief highlights of our work in Kentucky follow.

Recommendation #1: Provide information about the overall academic and social status of Kentucky schools and districts in a format that is useful and accessible to the general public.
The Kentucky Board of Education is working to implement an accountability and report card model that will include more useful and accessible information to the general public. Recently, KDE released all assessment data and college/career readiness data with the new Open House link on the KDE Web page.

Recommendation #2: Ensure that all students, regardless of race, gender, ethnic background, disability or socioeconomic status, have access to a rigorous curriculum and get the support necessary to be successful in a rigorous curriculum.
With the passage and subsequent implementation of 2009’s Senate Bill 1, we have started the work on this recommendation. Kentucky was the first state in the nation to adopt the Common Core Academic Standards. More than 1,000 teachers and principals are working monthly in a collaborative effort to develop a model curriculum framework that provides suggestions on the supports necessary for student success.

Recommendation #3: Create an environment of high expectations, with administrators, teachers and staff taking ownership for meeting the needs of all students.
This is the difficult recommendation. It is easy to establish the goals, the strategies, the curriculum, the supports and the rewards/consequences. It is quite something else to ensure EVERY district, EVERY school, EVERY classroom, EVERY parent, EVERY communication, EVERY teacher and staff member are committed to high expectations and ownership of meeting the needs of EVERY child.

You can see more details on these recommendations here, at the bottom of the page.

My biggest concern is that we tend to focus on the adults rather than the children. When looking at implementing practices that we know will close achievement gaps, we tend to focus on the reasons the adults are not able to implement the practices, rather than focusing on what the children need. I hope that we can do both, but we need to first focus on the children!

College- and Career-Ready Students: More Work to Do

Last week, I highlighted projections for the Class of 2010. This week, I want to do a follow-up concerning the results of the ACT for the Class of 2010.

I know many of you heard reports this week that fewer than one in four high school graduates across the nation met benchmarks for college readiness. Through this blog, I hope to explain what those benchmarks measure.

Kentucky is one of a few states that require all 8th, 10th and 11th graders to take the components of ACT, Inc.’s Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS). In 8th grade, students take the EXPLORE assessment ,and then in 10th grade they take the PLAN assessment. At 11th grade, students actually take the ACT. EPAS reports results at each grade level showing whether or not students are scoring at the college-ready level for the specific grade. The reports are based on assessments of English, mathematics, reading and science.

At the 11th grade, the benchmark scores predict that a student has a 75 percent chance of making a C or better in a college entry-level course such as English 101, College Algebra, College Social Science and/or College Biology. Each subject-level component of the ACT has a separate benchmark score. ACT also reports on the percentage of students who score college-ready for all four areas. This is what is often reported in the media. Nationwide, 24 percent of students met benchmarks for all four areas. In Kentucky, 14 percent did.

Readers need to know a couple of things as they interpret the scores. Kentucky’s scores include all public school 11th-grade students. Most states do NOT assess all students, and the percentage assessed can range from 100 percent to less than 4 percent, depending on the state. In 2006, only 24,930 Kentucky 11th graders took the ACT, compared to 41,227 in 2010. So, comparing results from 2006 to 2010 is not appropriate, and comparing Kentucky results to other states who have significantly smaller numbers of students taking the ACT is inappropriate.

However, as Commissioner of Education, I am extremely concerned for our state and our nation. As I reported last week, our state’s and nation’s futures are tied to our level of education due to the increasing demands for higher levels of skills by employers. From 1970, when more than 80 percent of jobs in our state and nation only required a high school degree or less, we are now moving toward an economy that will have 80 percent of jobs that require training beyond high school, and 63 percent of those jobs will require a postsecondary degree. The ACT demonstrates one measure that reveals we have a large gap in our high school graduates’ readiness for college and career.

Another component of the ACT results that is worrisome to me is the HUGE gap between white students and African American students in our public schools.
* In English, 56 percent of white students met the benchmark, and only 30 percent of African American students met the benchmark.
* In math, 27 percent of white students met the benchmark, and only 9 percent of African American students met the benchmark.
* In reading, 41 percent of white students met the benchmark, compared to 18 percent of African American students.
* In science, 21 percent of white students and 6 percent of African American students met the benchmark.
* For all four benchmarks, 15 percent of white students, compared to 4 percent of African American students, met all four benchmarks.

In 2009, the Kentucky General Assembly passed and Governor Steve Beshear signed Senate Bill 1, which focuses the state on improving the college and career readiness of our high school graduates. Governor Beshear has followed up with the Transforming Education in Kentucky (TEK) Task Force, which will recommend specific strategies to improve the outcomes of our public school graduates. The Kentucky Board of Education, Council on Postsecondary Education and the Education Professional Standards Board are all working closely together to improve the student learning outcomes. Many partners in the business community and private foundation community have joined in the call to action.

This week, the TEK Talk community forums held across Kentucky sought the input of citizens for this important work. The eyes of the nation were on Kentucky in 1990, when we were the first state to implement major finance and school reform. The eyes of the nation are once again upon Kentucky as we lead the way in improving the college and career readiness of our public school graduates. No one in the Commonwealth should sit on the sidelines for this major initiative. Thank you in advance for what you will do to support the children and the future of Kentucky.

Priorities for School and District Accountability

Last week I shared the vision for the state strategic plan and the goals and measures for the state. This week, I am sharing the vision for a new accountability system and school/district report cards.

There will be four strategic priorities with specific strategies and annual indicators of progress. These priorities, strategies and indicators are based on federal guidance provided by Race to the Top, State Fiscal Stabilization Funds and proposed reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The priorities, strategies and indicators also are based on state guidance provided by 2009’s Senate Bill 1 , 2002’s Senate Bill 168 (KRS 158.649) , 2006’s Senate Bill 130 (KRS 158.6453) and other state statutes.

Over the coming year, we will begin working with advisory groups to more clearly define the district and school indicators that are reflected in the listing below. There is much work to do in defining the new common core assessments that are due by 2012. We must define growth to the student level and match with classrooms and schools. Also, we must develop an index that reflects school and district performance in closing gaps among groups of students. Perhaps once of largest challenges is clearly defining what “career-ready” means.

We are excited to announce that the Teacher and Principal Working Conditions Survey will be initiated in the spring of 2011, and Program Reviews will be piloted in 2010-11. With support from Race to the Top funding, we hope to be able to develop clear definitions of effective teachers and leaders with the support of steering committees comprised of teachers, leaders and other partners.

Finally, we will revise district and school report cards to match the indicators in the strategic plan.

This is multi-year work and will require a tremendous amount of collaboration between all partners. However, with fewer priorities (four), very clear strategies (six) and indicators that are aligned between state and federal requirements through our strategic plan, I feel very confident that we can meet and exceed the expectations of Kentucky citizens.

Through Senate Bill 1, citizens have mandated that we must have a greater percentage of high school graduates prepared for college and career. Failure to meet this goal impacts our state economy; however, even more importantly, failure to meet this goal impacts the lives of our children.

Proposed Strategic Plan Components for 2010-2014 Kentucky P-12 Education


Strategic Priority: Next-Generation Learners
Strategy: Common Core Standards and Balanced Assessments
Indicators: proficiency, growth and gap rates in literacy, numeracy, science and social studies on common core assessment; career readiness

Strategic Priority: Next-Generation Professionals
Strategy: Effective Teachers and Leaders
Indicators: percent of effective teachers; percent of effective leaders

Strategic Priority: Next-Generation Support Systems
Strategy: Data systems that Inform Instruction and Policy Decisions
Indicators: Working Conditions Survey; Program Reviews

Strategic Priority: Next-Generation Schools and Districts
Strategies: Turn Around Low-Achieving Schools; Create Innovative Schools and Programs for Next-Generation Learning
Indicators: effective schools and districts per state report card

Focusing on Post-High School Life and Achievement Gaps

Recently, I attended the annual legislative meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in Washington, D.C. We spent time talking about our responses to the Blueprint for Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). As Kentucky’s Education Commissioner, I took time while in D.C. to drop by the offices of our senators and met with Rep. Brett Guthrie, who serves on the House Education, Labor and Pensions subcommittee where the ESEA will be reviewed. I wanted to personally let him and the committee members know of my support for several key components of the legislation reauthorization plan.

The two major components I support are the change of adequate yearly progress (AYP) from an all-or-none proficiency rate to a focus on more students graduating from high school who are ready for college and career. The other component is the continued strong focus on closing gaps between student groups.

In Kentucky, we have Senate Bill 1 and other legislation that focus our work on both of these goals. We are required to reduce the college remediation rate by 50 percent by 2014. This translates into more students graduating high school ready for college. Currently, the percentages of Kentucky high school juniors ready for college in the four areas measured by ACT - English, mathematics, reading and science – are low. The numbers range from more than 40 percent ready in reading to 16 percent ready in science, with fewer than 21 percent ready for college-level algebra.

The overall readiness is a concern, and the gaps also are a concern. If we look closely at the data, we find gaps between white students and other student groups. While we did receive some great news this week that our National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores are improving, we continue to have large gaps between whites and other student groups.

This week, the Commissioner’s Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps Committee met to work on possible recommendations for an accountability model that will focus Kentucky schools and districts on proficiency rates, growth rates and closing gap rates. The early work of the committee recommends a state report card that provides parents and other interested stakeholders with access to information that is easy to read, with depths of data about how well all student groups are doing with proficiency, growth and closing gaps on state assessments, graduation rates and college readiness rates. Hopefully, based on that data, schools and districts would then make certain that all of the student groups receive a focus on growth, proficiency and closing gaps.

The recommendations will be presented to the Accountability Task Force, various advisory councils and eventually to the Kentucky Board of Education. The Kentucky Department of Education is required to have a new accountability process in place by the 2011-12 school year. It appears that our work around readiness and closing gaps will align closely with the reauthorization of ESEA. These are exciting times in Kentucky.

Investment in Early Childhood Education Pays Off

While we have a lot of discussion going on in Frankfort about budgets, facilities, jobs, economy and Race to the Top, I don’t want us to forget the best investment we could make in the long term. That investment is certainly education; however, I want to focus this blog on closing the achievement gap through investment in early childhood education.

Our friends at the Prichard Committee have shown through numerous reports that a dollar invested in early childhood can repay the state between $5 and $6 in the long term. Let us not forget the future while we are trying to balance the present.

Researchers have well-documented the achievement gap that exists between advantaged (average and above income) and disadvantaged (poverty-level income) children by as early as age 3. Researchers have documented that advantaged children have a vocabulary of more than 1,100 words by age 3, while disadvantaged children have a vocabulary of 525 words. Parent utterances to their children in advantaged homes average 487 per hour. Parent utterances to children in disadvantaged homes average 178 per hour.

Not only do advantaged children’s parents talk to them more and read to them more, they also provide more encouragement than parents of disadvantaged children. Children in advantaged homes average 500,000 words of encouragement overall and 75,000 words of encouragement from their parents by age 3. Children in disadvantaged homes receive 80,000 words of encouragement overall and 200,000 words of discouragement by age 3. Researchers documented that disadvantaged children not only hear fewer words from their parents, the words they do hear are mostly discouraging words. Researchers further documented that this vocabulary and encouragement difference impacts the children’s IQs. Children from advantaged homes had an average IQ of 117, and children in disadvantaged homes have an average IQ of 79.

All of this research points to one thing – disadvantaged children enter kindergarten at least two grade levels below their advantaged peers. These numbers are based on extensive research and represent averages. Individual parents do make a difference and can certainly create conditions better than or worse than the research averages.

However, schools have to deal with the achievement gap that already exists for children when they enter school. The option of slowing all children down until the disadvantaged students catch up is not one that schools should or will consider. The key to addressing this achievement gap comes from addressing preschool programs and addressing the vocabulary and encouragement gap.

I recently heard a CNN report that California spends more than $45,000 per year for each prison inmate. Most states spend more than $30,000 per year. The research is very clear. If we do not close the achievement gaps with our most disadvantaged students, then the odds of dropping out of school are tripled or even higher. In most of our prisons, the majority of the population are high school dropouts. Let’s connect the dots and invest now in our most precious resource – the children – and save future generations from bearing the burden of ever-increasing justice costs.

Closing Achievement Gaps

During my first few months in Kentucky, there have been a number of initiatives spurring me, as Commissioner of Education, to act on certain concerns with education. One of these concerns is the persistent achievement gap in student learning. We have revitalized the Commissioner’s Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps Council. The council met this week and had a spirited conversation about the achievement gap in Kentucky. I wanted to highlight a few of the key learning items from the meeting.

What do the data tell us about the achievement gap?

- We learned that student academic success goes down the longer students are in school. In Kentucky and most states, any measure we look at will reveal that, as students progress through school, the average percentage of those proficient in mathematics, reading, social studies, science, satisfaction, discipline and other areas gets worse.
- We learned that we have reading achievement gaps for students with disabilities as high as 40 percent in high school.
- We learned that we have 20- to 30-point achievement gaps for African-American students in reading and math.
- We learned that Kentucky’s achievement gaps are close to the national average.

This issue was addressed by the Kentucky legislature in 2002 through requirements that districts and schools report achievement gaps, set goals to close achievement gaps and develop plans to close the gaps. The question then becomes, if we report the gaps, if we set goals and we develop plans, which schools and districts have actually closed gaps? KDE does have a process to highlight schools that have successfully closed achievement gaps, and last year, we highlighted 23 schools for their great work. However, we do not have a sufficient focus on this issue. We must confront the brutal facts and create a sense of urgency in the Commonwealth to close achievement gaps.

I will be communicating on this issue through many venues -- through our Race to the Top application, Senate Bill 1 deployment plans, the Kentucky Board of Education’s strategic plan and a revised state accountability model, we will be addressing the achievement gap.

Our council will reconvene in March and begin to develop specific recommendations for communication, accountability and sharing best practices. I have asked the council and the KDE staff not to think of this in the abstract. I have asked them to picture a specific child and focus their work on what they would do if that child were one of those who had a significant achievement gap.

The time for talk and planning are fast coming to an end. We have talked and planned for years without major changes in the results. It is now time for a focus on the children and for the future of our Commonwealth, and that focus will need strong leadership from superintendents and principals and strong support for our teachers. I have yet to meet anyone in Kentucky who does not want all children to be successful. The key is providing the support, resources and accountability to ensure all children reach success.