Education issues and the 2015 General Assembly

Season’s greetings! I hope that readers of this blog will take time over the next couple of weeks to relax and spend time with family and friends. The holiday season is an excellent time to recharge your batteries.  I plan to do just that, so this will be my last blog for 2014, but will return to the keyboard for a January 9, 2015 entry.

As we look forward to the New Year, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) is preparing for a busy legislative session. Here are some of the hot topics we predict will be on the education agenda for the upcoming General Assembly.

     1)  Charter Schools – we will again see legislation to create charter "
     schools in Kentucky. Our state is one of only eight states without
     charters. I am hearing about the possibility of a small pilot of
     five to six charter schools in districts that have very low-performing
     schools with significant achievement gaps.

     2)  Teacher Pension Plan – the Kentucky Teacher Retirement System
     has asked the General Assembly to consider a plan that would require
     a $3.3 billion bond to shore up the underfunded retirement system.
     This system is critical for recruitment and retention of high-quality
     teachers.

     3)  School Funding – while 2015 is not a budget session, there are
     a number of funding issues that could surface. The Council for
     Better Education report recently released at the Kentucky
     Association of School Superintendents’ winter meeting will garner
     a lot of attention. The $2 billion-plus price tag is sure to get attention. |
     Also, KDE will be releasing a report on funding of the career and
     technical education programs in Kentucky. Finally, we may see
     discussion of impact of revenue shortfall and SEEK shortfall.

     4)  Dual Credit – a recent set of recommendations from the dual
     credit task force will generate discussion about how to ensure
     quality, access, funding, and transferability of courses.

     5)  Merging County Systems – several county school systems
     have been identified for state assistance and state management.
     Some county systems are very close to not having a 2 percent
     fund balance. The General Assembly previously enacted legislation
     that allowed a financially insolvent independent district to merge
     with a county system; however, currently there are no statutes that
     allow for the merger of an insolvent county system to merge with
     another system.

     6)  Closing Achievement Gaps – this issue will be part of the
     charter school issue but will also be an overarching theme of the
     Education Committees. The achievement gap in Kentucky begins
     before students enter kindergarten, continues throughout P-12,
     postsecondary, and is very obvious when we look at labor and salary
     studies for adults.

At the national level, KDE will be working to support reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) – most recently dubbed the No Child Left Behind Act – and the Carl Perkins Act which is the primary vehicle for federal funding of career and technical education. We are very excited about the potential of both bills moving forward very quickly under the leadership of Sen. Alexander of Tennessee and Majority Leader McConnell.

Examining dual credit inequities

Dual credit is one of several strategies that has proven effective in helping more students reach college- and career-readiness and achieve success at the postsecondary level. So, it makes sense to fully utilize this strategy to help us reach our goal of college/career-readiness for all students and our ultimate goal of a better prepared workforce.

However, in June, Council on Postsecondary Education President Robert King, Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority Executive Director Carl Rollins and I received a letter from House Education Chair Derrick Graham and Senate Education Chair Mike Wilson. The letter expressed concerns that members of the General Assembly were hearing from constituents about consistency in implementation of dual credit policies across the Commonwealth. The letter asked President King, Dr. Rollins and me to pull together a task force to look at the concerns with dual credit policy implementation and bring back recommendations around access, finance, quality, and transfer of credit.

This week, the dual credit task force had the first of its three planned meetings; the agenda focused on a national perspective and how Kentucky compares. Dr. Jennifer Zinth, from the Education Commission of the States, provided the group with an excellent review of current state policies and best practices for dual credit. The next presenter, Dr. Amy Loyd, shared information from the Harvard Pathways to Prosperity Project, Jobs for the Future dual enrollment strategies and data from a national review of early college programs.  I encourage you to click on the links above to view their presentations.

The task force agenda for the Sept. 26 meeting at the Council for Postsecondary Education will focus on Kentucky-specific issues. The group will hear updates from CPE, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System and the Association of Independent Kentucky Colleges and Universities on how higher education institutions are implementing current dual credit policies in our state. The presentation will focus on access, finance, course quality and transfer of credits. 

Also, KDE will be updating the dual credit survey – first completed in 2013. We will be providing superintendents with survey access at the September 11 Superintendent Summit and ask for a quick response so that we can provide a state perspective at the Sept. 26 task force meeting. 

Finally, at the next meeting we will be inviting a number of best practice sites from across Kentucky to provide examples of the high performing dual credit programs in Kentucky.

Should readers have questions or comments about the dual credit task force, please contact Marissa Hancock in our Office of Career and Technical Education.  We expect to issue a final task force report and recommendations in December.

Footing the bill for dual credit courses

This week, the Senate Education Committee passed SB 87 out of committee.  Sen. Stan Humphries has done an excellent job bringing this bill back to the General Assembly --the bill passed the Senate in 2013. This legislation would support dual credit courses in our high schools. 

Dual credit is defined in KRS 164.002 (4) as a “college-level course of study developed in accordance with KRS 164.098 (Council on Postsecondary Education standards) in which a student receives credit from both the high school and postsecondary institution.” Under SB 87, students could use Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES) money they had earned to pay for tuition of up to six college credits per year.

Below is an excerpt from a blog I wrote in 2012 about the need for dual credit funding.

The Need for College Credit for High School Students 

Recently, The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE)              
        conducted a survey of school districts to ask about dual credit
        issues. 

        • more than 32 percent of school districts do not offer dual credit
           for career and technical courses

        • more than 97 percent of school districts do offer dual credit for
           college general education courses

        • more than 60 percent of the districts require parents/students
           to pay for tuition costs

        • more than 60 percent of districts require parents/students to
           pay for textbooks

        • more than 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 2 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.

I strongly support SB 87 for the following reasons.

• Dual credit works. As evidenced in my 2012 blog, students
   who take dual credit courses are more successful in
   postsecondary.

• Funding will actually save money. Providing KEES
   funding for high school students taking dual credit courses
   will actually save money in the long run. Students who
   receive dual credit tuition funding through KEES will be
   more likely to complete postsecondary degrees which will
   lead to better paying jobs and improved revenue for the state.

• Funding for dual credit addresses inequity. Students in
   Pikeville should have the same opportunity to take dual credit
   courses as students in Paducah and receive tuition support
   from the state. Our current system reveals huge inequities
   across school systems and higher education service regions.
   Why should one student pay $190 per credit hour in one part
   of the state and another student receive the course for no cost?

• There are no long term costs. SB 87 would provide the
   funding for tuition through KEES funds, however, no student
   would get more KEES funding than they would have earned
   under the existing  program. There will be a short term cost
   as the program is implemented for high school seniors in
   2014-15 and high school juniors in 2015-16.

• Funding will increase our college- and career-readiness
   rates.  In 2009, Senate Bill 1 set a goal of 67 percent of KY high
   school graduates reaching college and career readiness by 2015.
   Students who successfully complete dual credit courses in either
   general education or career/technical education are twice as
   likely to reach college- and career-readiness as students who do
   not take dual credit courses.

• Funding will enhance career and technical education.
   Prior to 2012-13, there was no significant cost for many students
   who took dual credit career and technical courses. Since that
   time, enrollment has dramatically decreased due to students
   having to pay an administrative fee to take the courses. This
   decline in dual credit enrollment in career and technical courses
   will have a significant impact on students able to gain industry
   recognized certifications which in turn means Kentucky will
   have a less skilled workforce.

• Dual credit benefits many students. Dual credit is not just
   for our brightest students. More than 3,700 students earned in
   excess of 22,000 credit hours in 2012-13 and thousands more
   earned dual credit in general education courses. In many school
   districts, better than 40 percent of high school seniors graduate
   with six or more credit hours thanks to dual credit. In many
   of our early college models,  students can graduate with 30
   hours or more of dual credit. 

• Dual credit saves parents and students money. By gaining
   dual credit through an early college program or career technical
   program, students achieve college- and career- readiness at
   higher rates meaning they should not have to take non-credit
   bearing remedial courses in college which will save parents and
   students money.

As a member of the board that oversees the KEES funding, I do recognize that we must work out the initial impact of SB 87; however, I do hope that we will not sacrifice long term benefits for our students, our postsecondary programs, and our economy for the sake of short term inability to provide adequate funding. I hope we can come together in the next few weeks to resolve the issues around
SB 87. OUR KIDS CAN’T WAIT!!!