Teachers’ voices make a difference

A guiding principle for our work in Kentucky is that we do the hard work of reform WITH teachers and not TO teachers. What does this principle look like in practice?

In 2011, Kentucky implemented the TELL Kentucky Survey to allow teacher voice on key working conditions such as facilities, resources, leadership, professional development, time, etc. In 2011, more than 80 percent of teachers in Kentucky responded to the survey and in 2013 administration, more than 86 percent of teachers responded. The 2015 survey is currently open for teacher response and within the first three weeks, more than 60 percent of teachers and other school-base personnel have responded.

When Kentucky adopted the Common Core State Standards for English/language arts and mathematics, teachers were heavily involved in the process. After adoption, teachers led the way through regional networks to unpack the standards and translate the standards
into teacher-, parent- and student-friendly language. When we began to prepare assessments based on the standards, teachers were heavily involved in the development of assessment items. Teachers have continued to be involved in sharing lesson plans, formative assessment items, and professional development resources through our statewide online instructional system.

We have utilized a similar process of teacher involvement in the development and implementation of science and social standards.

Teacher voice in the revision process for standards also is very important. In August, 2014, we launched the Kentucky Core Academic Standards Challenge. This online tool is a way for teachers, parents and all Kentucky residents to provide feedback on how to improve the English/language arts and mathematics standards. We have had more than 3,000 thoughtful responses to date and more than 80 percent of the responses have come from teachers. The survey remains open through the end of April.

Teachers also provided leadership in the development of the Professional Growth and Effectiveness System. A teacher-led committee developed the components of the model and continues to monitor the implementation and results from the model. Future changes to the model will be driven by the results and teacher voice.

There are many other examples of teacher voice in Kentucky.
     • The Hope Street Group utilizes teacher leaders to communicate directly 
        with teachers and encourage teachers to voice their opinions
        concerning current education issues.
     • There is significant collaboration among education groups to support
        National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT) applicants and utilize
        current NBCTs as leaders and coaches.
     • Kentucky is working to develop career pathways for teachers to provide
        leadership opportunities that do not require a teacher to completely
        leave the classroom.
     • Teachers serve on numerous statewide advisory committees and
        provide voice for the profession when policy makers are considering
        changes that would impact classrooms.

Kentucky teachers are among the most professional and most dedicated educators I have worked with in my career and I look forward to seeing the results from the 2015 TELL Kentucky Survey. There will be reasons to celebrate, yet no doubt there will be areas that need to be addressed in order to improve the working conditions of our teachers. 

Thanks in advance to all of our teachers for taking time to complete the survey and for being leaders in Kentucky public education. Your voice is very important!

Standards on trial in the court of public opinion

Abraham Lincoln once said, "Public opinion in this country is everything." And whether you subscribe to that notion or not, the recent release of two national polls on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) would seem, at least on the surface, to be a blow to standards supporters.

The first results came from the Education Next (EdNext) poll that has been given annually for about 14 years. When asked the question about support for the Common Core State Standards the following groups responded.

EDUCATION NEXT POLL

Support for CCSS

	2013	2014
Public	65%	53%
Republicans	57%	43%
Democrats	64%	63%
Teachers	76%	46%

In another poll released last week, we saw similar results.  The PDK/Gallup poll, which has been around for more than 50 years and is one of the most respected of the polls, indicated 60 percent of respondents oppose using CCSS in their local schools to guide what teachers teach; 18 percent of respondents said the standards were too challenging; 40 percent said the standards were not challenging enough; and 36 percent said the standards were just right.

Both polls showed an erosion in support for the CCSS from the previous year. In 2012, hardly anyone in the general public had even heard of the CCSS. Why such a steep drop in such a short time and why do we see such a steep drop in teacher support?

In a pre-release media call for the PDK/Gallup poll last week, I made the following points.
     1) There has been a significant increase in media reporting about CCSS. Depending on your media source, the public has been confronted with a barrage of information, some factual, some not, that has led to a polarization of opinions with regard to the Common Core State Standards.
     2) With the rush to implement No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver requirements for standards, assessments and teacher evaluations, the general public and especially teachers have connected CCSS with federal overreach.
     3) With the rush to implement NCLB waiver requirements in some states, teachers feel they have not been provided adequate support in training or resources to implement the standards. With the rush to assess the standards and utilize the results from testing in waiver-required teacher evaluation systems, again, teachers feel they are being held accountable for implementing standards, assessments, and teacher evaluation systems without adequate support and time.

When we dig deep and go back to the PDK poll in the late 1980’s, we find tremendous support for the concept of more rigorous standards that all states would adhere to in order for more students to reach college- and career-readiness. Even in the current polling, when the term Common Core was removed, there was a majority of support for more rigorous state standards across all states.

Several positive things happened last week as the polls were being released. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that the United States Department of Education (USED) would relax the timeline for states that need more time to implement teacher evaluation systems that use test scores as part of the evaluation. Also, Sec. Duncan announced his concerns about “too much testing” in our schools. The PDK/Gallup poll indicated that the general public would support Sec. Duncan’s concerns about too much testing. More than 50 percent of those polled said standardized tests are not helpful; however, in excess of 80 percent support college placement tests, grade placement tests, and exit exams. It appears the public supports testing as long as the purpose of testing is clear.

A few other items of note from the recent polls:
     • Charter Schools – the PDK poll shows 70 percent support, EdNext shows 54 percent support
      • Vouchers – the PDK poll shows 63 percent oppose with EdNext showing 51 percent support

While the department's own anonymous survey of nearly 7,000 Kentucky teachers earlier this year showed stronger support for the standards than is evidenced nationwide, Kentucky is being proactive with regard to CCSS. This week, I announced the Kentucky Core Academic Standards Challenge, which will inform our regular review of the standards taught in our classrooms. I urge all readers, regardless of your opinion on the standards, to take the challenge.  It will be open until April 30, 2015.

Make It Real

While most of the country seems embroiled in a political fight around Common Core State Standards and their implementation, too many of our students are graduating from high school unprepared for the current workforce. An upcoming special report, No College = Low Wages, from the Kentucky Center for Education and Workforce Statistics (KCEWS) brings this issue to the forefront. The report is due out on July 25, so be sure to check the KCEWS website for the full report once it is released.

The following highlights are based on the third of the total high school graduates from 2009-10 and 2011-12 who did not enroll in postsecondary programs. Of the third, 60 percent went directly into the workforce

     • On average, Kentucky’s public high school graduates from
        2011-12 earned $7,567 the year following graduation. After
         three years the 2009-10 graduates’ wages rose to $11,511.
     • Three years after high school, more than three out of four
        graduates from 2009-10 who did not attend postsecondary
        were earning less than full-time minimum wage.
     • Female graduates who did not attend postsecondary are earning
        30 percent less than male graduates.
     • African American highs school graduates who did not attend
        postsecondary were earning 30 percent less than their white
        counterparts.
     • Graduates with 20 or more unexcused absences in their senior
        year earned up to 55 percent less than those with five or fewer
        absences.
     • About 60 percent of the high school graduates, who did not
        attend postsecondary, work in three industry groups that have
        three of the four lowest average wages.

These facts should be a wakeup call to high school students and their parents. This is clear evidence that high schools must do a better job in preparing all graduates to enter postsecondary programs (one year, two year, or four year diploma or certification) prepared for credit bearing work and with the skills necessary to succeed in careers that pay a living wage.

We certainly can continue to discuss the right wording for standards and the right assessments to measure the standards, however, we need to make the discussion REAL! Too many of our high school students are leaving high school unprepared for postsecondary and unprepared for careers. We have made excellent progress in the last four years in addressing this situation; however, we have much more work to do. Let’s not get sidetracked with the political debates around standards and assessments, let’s stay focused on the getting ALL students prepared for THEIR FUTURE and not our past.

Science standards, assessments and Senate Bill 1

Since the day Senate Bill 1 passed the General Assembly in spring 2009 and was signed into law, the Kentucky Department of Education and the Kentucky Board of Education have been working diligently to fully realize the requirements of this visionary legislation: more rigorous academic standards, new assessments, a balanced accountability system and professional development for educators in support of the new standards.

In early 2010, the Kentucky Board of Education, Council on Postsecondary and the Education Professional Standards Board took the first big step in carrying out Senate Bill 1 when they joined to adopt the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and mathematics. Teachers immediately began working to unpack and interpret the standards.  During the 2010-11 school year, educators began developing curricula and instructional materials. Schools gave the first assessments of the new standards in spring 2012. Teachers had almost two years to develop instruction and materials that were aligned to the new standards prior to the assessments.

States began working to develop new science standards in 2010. These standards went through numerous review cycles and to date, 12 states have fully adopted the Next-Generation Science Standards. Kentucky did so in 2013, and since that time, we have been working with educators to repeat the process used for implementing the English/language arts and math standards. Also, just as we did with the new standards in the first two content areas, we will delay assessment of the new standards until teachers have had nearly years to implement. Testing on the new science standards will occur in spring of 2016.

The new science assessments will be very different than any previous assessments – not confined to  paper and pencil, fill-in-the-bubble, multiple choice.  The science assessments would be taken online – similar to what is being done with the new National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) assessment in Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL).  This assessment measures not only science content, but also measures scientific process and problem solving. Early reports from the first administration of the TEL assessment are extremely positive. Students are much more engaged in the test- taking process and the data provide educators not only information on students’ factual knowledge but also their problem solving skills.

Due to the complexity of developing such a test, the new science assessment will require more funding to create than traditional tests.  However, online assessments produce savings in the long run since we are able to eliminate printing paper tests, shipping, storage and other related costs. With the need for additional funding to develop the science assessment, the Kentucky Department of Education identified a short term cost savings by not administering the K-PREP science exam in 4th and 7th grades in 2014-15. Teachers and administrators strongly supported this decision since the current K-PREP test in science assessed the old standards and starting in the fall, students would be learning the new standards.

However, this decision does not mean that we cannot track science learning  in Kentucky. In 2014-15, our students will still take science assessments as part of the Explore (8th grade), Plan (10th grade), ACT (11th grade), and Biology  end-of-course (high school) assessments. These assessments will provide a clear picture of our performance in science relative to other states and the rest of the nation. Also, Kentucky will continue to participate in and receive state-level results for the National Assessment of Education Progress science assessment for 4th- and 8th-grade students.

By 2015-16, we will have one remaining subject area to implement – social studies. We anticipate that the draft social studies standards will go out for public comment this fall and we will begin working with teachers in 2015-16 to implement the standards and develop new social studies assessments for 2016-17.

Transformation does not happen overnight. From a concept laid out in Senate Bill 1 in 2009 through actual implementation of all the requirements in 2017, will be an eight year journey that, thus far, has been very rewarding, frustrating and just plain hard work for teachers and administrators. Parents and students have also had to endure many changes and modifications to K-12 schooling during this time.

Over the next year or so, we will hear from many politicians (state and national) who were not involved in the Senate Bill 1 process. For political reasons, they will push for “education reform.” We will hear calls for new standards, new assessments and new accountability – once again.  However, we should all be persistent in asking why change is needed, what the cost will be, what impact another change would have on teacher morale, and what the impact would be for parents and students.

In support of educators and the core academic standards

This week I had the opportunity to testify before the Senate Education Committee about the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and mathematics and the Next-Generation Science Standards, adopted in our state and collectively known as the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. The hearing was on Senate Bill 224, which would abandon the standards and the work of the past four years in favor of new, yet to be written standards.  I appreciated the chance to once again publicly address the misinformation and many of the misconceptions about the standards that those in opposition have been sharing.  Joining me against SB224 were Dave Adkisson, president and CEO of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and Stephanie Winkler, president of the Kentucky Education Association.  Three of our state board members and countless other education advocates were in the audience.  I was proud to represent them and the majority of Kentuckians in favor of doing what is right for our children and staying with the Kentucky Core Academic Standards.  Below is a copy of my testimony.

Testimony to Senate Education Committee on SB 224

Commissioner Terry Holliday

March 13, 2014

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to speak against SB 224 and for Kentucky educators and students.

In 2009, the Kentucky General Assembly recognized that too many students were graduating from high school and entering postsecondary education unprepared to be successful in college level courses. Too many students had to take remedial courses in college which placed a financial strain on students and parents and decreased the likelihood of the students successfully completing a two- or four-year degree. The lack of college readiness, if not addressed, would have a negative impact on the Kentucky economy.

The General Assembly then passed Senate Bill 1 (2009) without dissent. This legislation required the Council on Postsecondary Education, Education Professional Standards Board, and the Kentucky Department of Education to work collaboratively to develop college ready standards, accountability systems, assessment systems, and professional support for educators to implement the new systems. Kentucky educators responded and led the nation in completing this work. The work was done through hundreds of thousands of hours where educators acted collaboratively to complete the requirements of Senate Bill 1. The work was completed without any increase in state funds. As a matter of fact, during the last four years there has been a significant reduction in funds for textbooks, instructional resources, professional learning, student interventions, and basic student funding.

I speak out today to support Kentucky educators and the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. Senate Bill 224 would undermine the hard work and dedication of Kentucky educators. Senate Bill 224 would demoralize Kentucky educators. Senate Bill 224 would discard all of the hours and efforts of Kentucky educators and basically tell them to start over and do it again. Senate Bill 224 would derail the significant improvements that Kentucky has made in increasing graduation and college readiness rates.

Finally, Senate Bill 224 would be an extravagant waste of tax payer money. Kentucky educators were able to implement new standards, assessment, accountability, and professional support through redirection of state dollars and the support of numerous foundations. To replicate this process would require, at a minimum, $35 million in additional state dollars. I would not anticipate that school districts would invest their local funds to replicate a process they have already completed and I know for certain that external dollars will not be available to support a replication of effort. Let me be clear. Senate Bill 224 is an unfunded mandate of at least $35 million.

I strongly encourage you to support Kentucky educators and students in the work they have already accomplished.

Easy standards and tests don’t help students reach college/career-readiness

Last week, I attended the annual Policy Forum of the Council of Chief State School Officers.  Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee delivered a wonderful speech about the importance of the arts in a balanced education.

Also, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan participated in a question and answer session with chiefs from more than 30 states. Secretary Duncan, in response to a question about the rising tide of criticism about the Common Core State Standards, said he was surprised that “soccer moms” from affluent schools were pushing back on tests over the new standards because the results showed their students may not be performing at the levels they had been used to. This comment seemed very reasonable and factual in context, however, immediately the social media universe exploded with the “soccer mom” comment. From my point of view, the real issue runs much deeper.

For years, SAT and ACT data have told us that many students who graduate from high school are not ready for college-level work or to enter a career. “Not ready” means that students who graduate from high school have to take remediation classes in college -- classes that cost parents and students a lot of money and for which students do not receive credit. Students who graduate from high school college/career-ready are more successful in college/career. They have a significantly higher GPAs their freshman year in college, complete more credit hours and are more likely to return for a second year than those students who are not college/career-ready.

The Kentucky General Assembly recognized all of these issues when it passed Senate Bill 1 in 2009 and required higher education and K-12 education to work together to increase the percentage of high school graduates who are college-ready by 50 percent by 2015. When we started measuring in 2010, the percentage of high school graduates who achieved college/career-ready status was 34 percent. The Class of 2013 had improved to 54 percent. We are well on our way to reaching the goal of 67 percent by 2015.

The work to help students reach college/career-readiness begins with early childhood programs and continues through the K-12 experience. Students cannot wait until high school to start working toward reaching college/career-ready standards. With that understanding, Kentucky and other states changed state testing to be more aligned with the results from SAT and ACT. Kentucky aligned tests in grades 3-8 so that parents will know every year whether their child was on target to reach college- and career-readiness.

What Secretary Duncan was addressing was the pushback in New York from parents who did not like hearing their elementary and middle grade students were not achieving at the highest levels. Parents were upset that in previous years, their child had been “exceptional” on state tests but under the new state tests, their child may be at the “needs improvement” level. I believe many parents do not understand the simple message that we’ve intentionally raised the bar on state tests and from the 3rd grade, the results provide a clear indication of student progress toward college/career-readiness. We know these new tests are good predictors of the percentage of students who will graduate from high school college/career-ready because the tests are aligned to the SAT and ACT results that we have seen for many years.

My concern is that much of the national debate is focusing on the politics of common core, rather than helping children reach higher expectations. I believe that every parent wants their child to succeed and reach college/career-readiness. Our challenge as educators is to communicate in ways that parents can understand and fully support parents in helping their child reach this goal.

While Secretary Duncan’s remarks may have been taken out of context, I know that his intention is to help more students reach college/career-readiness so the students will be competitive in the global job market and our national economy will remain the top economy in the world. 

Kentucky Business Supports Common Core Standards

While opponents of the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and mathematics continue spreading misinformation, the business community in Kentucky is rallying in support of the Kentucky Board of Education’s decision to adopt the standards in 2010. Kentucky Chamber of Commerce President Dave Adkisson recently wrote a column posted on the U.S. Chamber’s Free Enterprise.com.  I thought it was important to share the business and economic  perspective on the standards with you, so this week he is my guest blogger. I have added links so you can see firsthand some of the things he references.

Leading the way on Common Core Standards
by Dave Adkisson

As we look to the future and think about the economic recovery, we can see the widening of a skills gap where the education and skill levels of Kentuckians don’t meet the requirements and supply of jobs. The challenge of filling this gap will become even more acute as thousands of baby boomers retire, leaving well-paying positions unfilled.

This bottom-line reality is the key motivation behind our aggressive support for the Common Core State Standards, known in Kentucky as the Kentucky Core Academic Standards.

Kentucky, in early 2010, was the first state in the nation to adopt these rigorous new learning guidelines developed by a consortium of states under the auspices of the Council for Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. Our state’s position as the first adopter was spurred by bipartisan legislation from our General Assembly a year earlier that mandated new standards and assessments for Kentucky’s education system.

As the Kentucky Chamber became familiar with the standards –- particularly their alignment with college and career expectations and their reflection of international benchmarks – we realized how critical they would be to the development of a world-class workforce. Reflecting our strong support, the Kentucky Chamber Foundation, in partnership with the state Department of Education, has spearheaded an initiative to help employers understand the standards and their impact.

To show a united front between education and business, and to reinforce the point about the important relationship between education and workforce quality, the state education commissioner and I conducted a series of nearly 20 joint appearances across the state.

Key to our messaging was the fact that Kentucky’s students are falling short of the mark in being adequately prepared for college or career. As we began our tour, data showed that only 38 percent of Kentucky students were college/career ready based on ACT scores, college placement tests and academic or technical benchmarks. (We have seen some recent improvement; the 2011-12 data showed a level of 47 percent – an uptick that followed the state’s emphasis on college and career preparation.)

In a video distributed statewide, we also emphasized the points of view of individual Kentucky employers who are grappling with the challenges of an under-skilled workforce. One of these was Rich Gimmel, president of Atlas Machine and Supply Inc., an industrial machinery company in Louisville.

“I can buy gas from a college graduate making $8 an hour, but I can’t find qualified machinists who could make an average salary of $70,000 a year,” he said. “Right now, if I had a truckload of journeymen machinists show up at our front door, we’d hire them on the spot.”

We reinforced the video with an employers’ communications tool kit that provided messaging templates for emails, letters, staff meetings and other ways to share information about the standards at the business and community level. Thousands of these kits were distributed to Chamber members across Kentucky to broaden the impact as much as possible.

To turn up the volume on the business voice, we worked with the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence in creating the Business Leader Champions for Education. Dozens of executives from every part of the state have joined this group to deliver a consistent message of support for Kentucky schools and the tougher standards that are now in place in our classrooms.

We’ve been pleased with the results to date. When Kentucky’s first test scores were, as predicted, lower than in previous years, parents, employers, community leaders and advocates were ready for the news and showed little inclination to abandon the standards.

We do know, however, that now is not the time to rest. We are aware of misinformation being distributed about the standards across the country and want to be sure Kentucky stands firm in using this rigorous course of study to prepare our students for the challenges of the future. They deserve nothing less than the best education we can provide for them, and their success will help ensure economic and civic progress for all of us.

Kentucky Teachers Speak, Others Listen

The nation is listening to Kentucky teachers.

It was my honor to attend an event in Washington, D.C. this week that highlighted the great work of our teachers. The event was sponsored by Learning Forward, formerly the National Staff Development Council, and was titled "Advancing the Common Core: State Strategies for Transforming Professional Learning."

At the event, Kentucky was highlighted for the extensive work that our teachers have done since the inception of the Common Core State Standards.  Kentucky teachers and professors were heavily involved in reviewing the standards and providing feedback to the committees that developed the common core. 

Kentucky teachers worked on a monthly basis, in regional networks, to translate the common core standards into language that teachers, students and parents could understand. Kentucky teachers became leaders, in every district in the state, to  prepare every teacher in Kentucky for implementation of the common core standards that we now call the Kentucky Core Academic Standards.

Kentucky teachers were the center of attention at the event this week. Numerous groups asked our teachers specific questions about the professional learning needs of teachers required to implement the common core in their own states. Most of the work highlighting Kentucky's focus on redesigning professional learning can be found in the Learning Forward report, “Seizing the Moment: State Lessons for Transforming Professional Learning.” Our work with Learning Forward will continue this year through funding from the Sandler Foundation.

The goal of professional learning is to provide teachers with just-in-time learning opportunities that are differentiated based on what each teacher needs to meet the learning needs of his or her students. A key tool in meeting this goal is the use of CIITS, the Continuous Instructional Improvement Technology System. It provides differentiated learning through a technology-based model.

Kentucky teachers have worked very hard over the last four years. They share the vision of helping every child reach college/career-readiness. Kentucky teachers have led the nation in the implementation of common core standards that provide the base for college- and career-ready expectations. They have done this in spite of no textbook funding for five years, no pay raise in five years, a 75 percent reduction in professional development funds and many other budget cuts that hamper services for children.

When I ask teachers why they continue to move forward in spite of all these budget and resource problems, I get the same answer: we do it for our children; we do it to ensure our children have hope; we do it for the same reason a teacher in Oklahoma covers her students with her own body as a tornado bears down on their school.

Some in Kentucky, for political purposes only, want to undermine the work of teachers. Some want to abandon the last four years of work on implementing common core standards because they believe there is a conspiracy to control the minds of our children. I will not honor that premise with a rebuttal. I only encourage those people to talk with Kentucky teachers and to look at their work. Also, I ask that they look closely at the results of implementing the Kentucky Core Academic Standards and the improvement in college/career-readiness rates.

I will admit that, as Commissioner, I am part of a conspiracy. The conspiracy involves working with partners across the state and nation to help ALL students reach college- and career-readiness so that the futures of our children, state and nation are bright.

Common Core – Part 2

In last week’s blog, I discussed some of the misinformation that is circulating about Common Core State Standards that Kentucky adopted in 2010. This adoption was based on the requirements of Senate Bill 1 (2009) that required new standards, assessments and an accountability system for Kentucky that would improve the college- and career-readiness rates of our graduating high school seniors. I provided factual information to show that the standards were not part of a federal mandate and that the development of the standards was definitely driven by states with full and open participation by teachers and college professors.

This week, I would like to briefly review how  the Kentucky Board of Education adopted the standards as the Kentucky Core Academic Standards and how test items were developed that measure student performance against the standards.

All during the development of the common core standards, the state’s teachers and professors were heavily involved in providing feedback and edits. The final product reflected Kentucky feedback.

Once we had the final draft of the common core standards, we formalized a model to ensure teachers from every school district were involved in translating the standards into teacher- and student-friendly language. The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) worked closely with every school district in the state and the eight regional education cooperatives to establish a math, language arts and leadership network in each region that was staffed by coordinators both from KDE and also colleges across Kentucky. Every school district was asked to send three math teachers, three language arts teachers, three principals, and three central office leaders who would be charged with developing a plan to implement the standards in their district and schools. Special care was taken to ensure we had representation from teachers of special education and English Language Learners.  These networks met monthly to translate the standards and develop models for implementation.

The network members then returned to their schools and districts and helped plan for implementation at the local level. These networks have continued to meet to develop resources for teachers and leaders to use as they implement the standards. Kentucky has been recognized at the national level by many sources as having an excellent model for implementation of the standards. Many states have utilized the model that we developed in Kentucky. The key driver of the model was the continued collaboration of teachers and professors to ensure alignment of expectations for college and career readiness from K-12 through postsecondary.

Once teachers translated the standards, Kentucky procured the services of Pearson through a competitive bid process to develop grades 3-8 assessments in English/language arts and mathematics aligned to the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. In addition, ACT had an existing product that we procured for high school courses. From the bid to writing test items, teachers in Kentucky were involved and continue to be engaged in the process of refining standards implementation.

I am extremely proud of Kentucky teachers and leaders for their work. They have shown the nation that Kentucky is focused on college- and career-readiness for all students and the results are certainly starting to show great promise. Look at scores for ACT, NAEP, WorkKeys, and any other assessment of college/career-readiness and you will see our children are making progress.

Do we have a ways to go? Absolutely.  However, I know Kentucky educators are up to the challenge and will stay the course on the Kentucky Core Academic Standards and fully implementing Senate Bill 1.

Common Core – Part 1

Over the last few weeks, there seems to have been a lot of misinformation being pushed by folks who are not supportive of more rigorous standards for students that will enable our high school graduates to compete on an international level and also achieve readiness for college and careers. These standards were developed by teachers, college professors, and national education organizations. The standards were called the Common Core State Standards and were eventually adopted by 45 states with Kentucky leading the way. I thought my blog this week and next might help provide accurate information from someone who was actually in attendance at many of the national meetings and also in attendance at all of the state meetings when decisions were being made to adopt the common core standards.

In Kentucky, the main driver for adopting the Common Core State Standards was Senate Bill 1 passed in 2009 by an overwhelming vote of the Kentucky General Assembly.  When I came to Kentucky to interview for the commissioner's position in late spring of 2009, the key questions from the Kentucky Board of Education related to Senate Bill 1 implementation. Once I was appointed commissioner, I worked closely with Sen. Ken Winters and Rep. Carl Rollins and other key legislators to form a Senate Bill 1 steering committee. Bob King, President of the Council on Postsecondary Education, and Phil Rogers, then Executive Director of the Professional Standards Board, were also key partners on the steering committee. From the very first meeting with the steering committee and with the Interim Joint Education Committee, it was very clear that Senate Bill 1 had been passed with the expectation that Kentucky would adopt the standards being developed by the National Governor's Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers which eventually became the Common Core State Standards. So, let me be clear. Anyone who says the General Assembly did not support or was not aware of the standards that were being developed and eventually approved by the Kentucky Board of Education is either not aware of the events that transpired in Kentucky or is trying to deceive the public.

Another myth that seems to be circulating is that the standards were developed in secret. Again, this statement is either made by someone who was not aware of the actual events or by someone purposefully trying to misinform the public. The standards were developed with significant input from Kentucky teachers and college professors. There were several iterations of the standards that were publicized for teacher and public feedback. Kentucky teachers were very positive about the standards and felt that their collective voices had been heard.

My final note for this week is the myth that this is a national curriculum and the federal government is trying to control what is taught to our children. This accusation is so ludicrous that it really does not deserve an explanation, however, let me make two key points. The standards were developed by teachers, college professors, and national education organizations by analyzing what the top countries in the world education rankings are expecting of students in order to ensure college/career readiness and international competitiveness of their high school graduates. From the summer of 2009 until present day, I have been present at all national meetings between National Governor's Association and Council of Chief State School Officers where the standards were reviewed and finalized. At no meeting was there anyone from the federal government dictating or even suggesting what should be included in the standards. My second point is that, the federal government is barred by law from dictating a national curriculum. The Kentucky Board of Education and the Kentucky Department of Education are barred by state law from requiring a certain curriculum. All curriculum decisions rest with schools and districts.

Next week, I will review the actual steps taken in Kentucky to ensure teachers, parents, and communities were prepared for the standards -- which in Kentucky are called the Kentucky Core Academic Standards.  Kentucky teachers actually took the Common Core State Standards and interpreted the standards for teacher use.

The ultimate measure of whatever standards we implement per Senate Bill 1 will be the percentage of students who graduate from our high schools that are college- and career-ready. Since the implementation of the Kentucky Core Academic Standards in our state, we have moved from 34 percent of our graduates who are college/career- ready to 47 percent of our graduates reaching college- and career-readiness.

Kentucky citizens may want to know the real facts rather than listen to a bunch of misinformation from people who either are not aware of the real events or who are attempting to deceive the public. A key question might be to ask these folks what their agenda really is. Our agenda at the Kentucky Department of Education and Kentucky Board of Education is to help more children graduate with the skills needed to be successful in college and careers.