Final Words

This is my last blog as commissioner of education for Kentucky. It has been my privilege to serve the children of Kentucky. I am extremely proud that Kentucky educators have helped more students graduate from high school and achieve college- and career-readiness than at any point in the history of the Commonwealth. Student achievement on state assessments, the ACT, and other national assessments continue to show Kentucky students are making progress.

While I am proud of these accomplishments, I am also aware that there is much work to do for the new commissioner and the Kentucky Board of Education. 

Achievement gaps persist and unless addressed, many children will not be able to reach their potential. Early childhood expansion is critical if we are ever going to close achievement gaps. 

While we have excellent teacher preparation programs in Kentucky, we must review the certification requirements for our upper elementary and middle school teachers who focus on mathematics. 

The Governor’s Bullying Task Force recommendations need to be fully implemented in our schools. 

Funding for critical support systems like school transportation and career and technical education must be increased. 

These issues and others will present many challenges to the Kentucky Department of Education leadership and the Kentucky General Assembly.

While we have achieved much and there is much left to do, my fondest memories of Kentucky will be the people. I traveled to every county in the state and visited every school district. I visited more than 800 schools and personally talked with thousands of educators, parents and community leaders across Kentucky. I am convinced that the people of Kentucky are kind, caring and committed to support public education. 

It has been the pinnacle of my career to work with a terrific Governor and First Lady. 

Members of the General Assembly have been strong advocates of education and Senate Bill 1 (2009) has provided the road map for the last six years. 

The team at the Kentucky Department of Education is second to none and will continue to do terrific work in support of our schools and students. 

Kentucky teachers are the best in the nation and will continue to motivate students. 

Finally, the reason educators do what they do is for the children. It is the reason I have done what I do for so many years. The Kentucky students I have met during my time as Commissioner are bright, eager to learn, and motivated to succeed. Kentucky has a very bright future with these students as future leaders.

Best wishes to all.

How Kentucky is creating responsive 21st-century schools

Over the past few weeks, I have been writing about the International Summit on the Teaching Profession that I attended recently. In last week’s blog, I highlighted the key ingredients for a responsive 21st-century school. I want to revisit those this week and briefly mention what is happening in Kentucky to address some of them.

Promoting effective school leadership
     • Empower teachers to play a role in decision making at the
        school level – Kentucky has long been a leader in this regard. 
        Kentucky teachers are heavily involved in what happens in a 
        school through the school-based decision making councils 
        and through professional learning communities. In addition, 
        every two years, we ask teachers to let us know how they are 
        involved in decision making at the school. The teacher survey 
        results can be found at www.tellkentucky.org. 2015 results will be 
        public in June.

     • Provide opportunities for, and remove barriers to, continuing 
        professional development for principals – Kentucky has strong 
        principal development programs in our universities. Also, the 
        Kentucky Chamber of Commerce has worked with communities 
        across Kentucky to provide innovative and creative leadership 
        training to more than 100 principals the last few years. Kentucky 
        also is providing training to principals who are looking for ways to 
        improve student achievement in their schools. Through a partnership 
        with the National Institute for School Leadership, we are training 
        more than 100 principals a year.

Strengthening teachers’ confidence in their own abilities
     • Build teachers’ capacity to provide instruction to all types of 
        learners – The Kentucky Department of Education has offered 
        an online resource for a number of years where teachers can 
        access differentiated professional development aligned with the 
        special needs of students in their classrooms.

     • Support the development of interpersonal relationships/
        collaboration within the school – Many schools are providing 
        common planning time for teams of teachers to collaborate 
        and review student learning expectations, current student 
        performance and identify instructional techniques that help 
        improve student performance.

Innovating to create 21st-century learning environments
     • Create conditions conducive to innovation – Legislation 
        has enabled the state to create districts of innovation and
        for the Kentucky Board of Education to grant exemptions from 
        certain administrative regulations and statutory provisions 
        in an effort to improve student learning. As a result, Kentucky’s 
        districts of innovation are spawning new approaches to teaching 
        and learning. 

While there is much work to do in Kentucky, there is much we have accomplished. It is extremely important that we continue to look for ways to improve public perception of the value of the teaching profession. Our very future depends on our ability to recruit, support, and retain great teachers.

Creating a responsive 21st-century school

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, I recently attended the International Summit on the Teaching Profession. Part of the pre-reading for the conference was a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This report provides an excellent executive summary of recommendations for countries and states to implement in order to create a responsive 21st-century school. 

The three ingredients to create responsive schools are promoting effective teacher leadership, strengthening teachers’ confidence in their own abilities, and innovating to create 21st-century learning environments. Kentucky is hard at work on all three components. Here are some of the specific recommendations from the report. 

Promoting effective school leadership
     • empower teachers to play a role in decision making at the school level
     • provide opportunities for, and remove barriers to, continuing 
        professional development for principals
     • ensure that principals receive training in, and have opportunities to
        assume, instructional leadership

Strengthening teachers’ confidence in their own abilities
     • build teachers’ capacity to provide instruction to all types of learners
     • support the development of interpersonal relationships within the
        school
     • encourage collaboration among teachers

Innovating to create 21st-century learning environments
     • collaborate and communicate
     • create conditions conducive to innovation
     • ensure coherence

Next week, I will provide brief summaries of how Kentucky is working on each of the recommendations. It is inspiring to know that many of the top performing countries in the world are working on these same issues along with Kentucky. 

Why aren’t teachers valued more?

Recently, I had the privilege to attend the 5th annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession in Banff, Canada. I was part of a U.S. delegation comprised of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, teacher union representatives, classroom teachers (including a teacher from Spencer County, Ky.), chief state school officers from North Carolina and Nebraska and support staff from U.S. Department of Education. 

The international summits began in New York City and have expanded each year as their location has moved around the world. The primary focus has been to bring countries together to highlight key issues to enhance the teaching profession and take actions to address issues.

This year, one of the many interesting presentations came from Andreas Schleicher, who works at the Organization for Economic Collaboration and Development (OECD). Andreas is one of the world’s leading experts on education issues and he always has excellent presentations that are loaded with great information and policy recommendations. His presentation was based on a recent report from OECD titled Schools for 21st Century Learners: Strong Leaders, Confident Teachers, and Innovative Approaches. 

One chart showed teacher perceptions of the value their society places on the teaching profession. It was no surprise to see that many Asian countries, Finland and several other European countries had the highest percentage of teachers saying that their society valued the teaching profession. One of the lowest countries in the survey was the United States. Why do U.S. teachers believe that our society does not value the teaching profession?

Recently, I spoke to the annual Kentucky Education Association Delegate Assembly and I offered a couple of reasons as to why teachers in this country do not think that the U.S. society values the teaching profession.
     1.  Over emphasis on testing – the U.S is the only country in the world that seems totally fixated on annual testing. The U.S is fixated on using student test scores to evaluate teachers. The media reports are constantly focused on the singular issue of rankings on test scores and too many of our policy leaders “blame” teachers for poor academic performance of students in poverty.
     2.  Lack of teacher voice and leadership – throughout the recent international summit, a key theme emerged: that we must engage teachers in decision making and provide opportunities for teacher leadership in our schools without teachers having to completely give up teaching. Most of our international competitors have been working on career pathways for a number of years. In the U.S., we have always focused on years of experience and postgraduate degrees for teacher pay increases rather than focus on teacher performance and leadership roles.
     3.  Working conditions – it comes as no surprise that teachers do not believe society values the teaching profession given working conditions survey results in areas like school leadership, professional development, time, resources, community support and facilities. 
     4.  Teacher pay – in many countries starting teacher pay is similar to what comparable professions pay. In the US, starting teacher pay is well below what a starting engineer would receive.
     5.  Selectivity of teacher candidates – for years, the public has been bombarded with the concept that our teacher training programs are not recruiting from the best and brightest high school graduates. Countries like Singapore, Finland and South Korea are pointed to as examples of teacher training programs that recruit from the top 10 percent of high school graduates. An interesting slide in the presentation showed that this is not necessarily the case. This is an area that will need more research.

As I look forward to my retirement after 43 years in education, I am very concerned about the public’s perception of public schools and even more concerned that teachers in the U.S. do not feel that the public values the teaching profession. If policy leaders at the local, state and national level do not address teacher perceptions in this area, we will have extreme difficulty in the future recruiting and retaining highly effective teachers.

In the coming months, Kentucky will receive the 2015 results from the TELL Kentucky working conditions survey. Kentucky has the highest percentage of teacher respondents of any state in the nation. Using the results from this survey to address key policy issues during the 2016 session of the General Assembly could go a long way in addressing teacher concerns about the value the public puts on the teaching profession.

Teachers speak out on Common Core Standards

Scholastic recently released some early results from the third edition of Primary Sources, a survey of more than 20,000 teachers across the nation. The early release highlighted three major findings concerning teachers’ views on the Common Core State Standards, which in Kentucky are called the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. Here are the key findings.

Awareness – Teachers’ awareness of the Common Core State Standards is now universal. Approximately 97 percent of teachers surveyed were aware of the Common Core State Standards.

Impact – Teachers expect the Common Core to enhance students’ ability to think critically and use reasoning skills. This is especially true of teachers who have the most experience with standards including math and English/language arts teachers, and those who teach elementary grades.

Implementation – Teachers are enthusiastic about implementation. At the same time, teachers share the realistic view that implementation is going to be challenging and have concerns for specific student populations, but are able to point to supports and resources needed to help these students.

I really enjoyed reading a few of the quotes from teachers.

“I think it’s about time that we implement the Common Core State Standards. It’ll give consistency district to district. We should have done this years ago.”

“It’s going to be a huge mind shift for both students and teachers. With Common Core, we need to allow for exploration so students can learn more ‘why’ now.”

“I feel strongly that the Common Core State Standards will do wonders for education. For the first time in a long time, I think education is getting back on track.”

With all the political gamesmanship over the Common Core State Standards, it is essential that we listen to our teachers. So, I have asked staff to survey Kentucky teachers with questions similar to those in Primary Sources. I believe the results will be even more positive from Kentucky teachers because they have been working to implement the standards since 2010. Once we have the response back from our teachers, we will provide this information to the House and Senate Education members and hope that they listen to teachers rather than special interest groups who are spreading misinformation about the Common Core State Standards.

Teachers are not alone in their support for the Common Core. This week I read an article that reported the Common Core State Standards also have strong support from the military. Military children will relocate at least twice during their school careers and having common standards across states will allow them to continue their education with the least amount of disruption. In addition, common standards will help Department of Defense Schools raise educational expectations, and improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Kentucky is home to two military bases – Fort Campbell and Fort Knox. Both bases work closely with local school districts. By using common standards across states, those children who move into Kentucky from other states will have an easier transition.

Great Teachers and Leaders in Kentucky

As readers know, I have a goal to visit all 174 Kentucky school districts by August 2012. Currently, I have visited more than 100 districts and over 300 schools. When I visit, I like to ask teachers and principals about the challenges they are facing.

In 2009, the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 1 (SB 1)without opposition. This legislation required implementation of new standards, new assessments and a new accountability system by the 2011-12 school year. When I talk with teachers and principals, this is usually the focus of my conversation.

What I often hear is the overwhelming nature of what we have asked teachers and leaders to do. They have been asked to completely transform expectations for students and student performance during a time when there have been significant cuts to professional development and instructional resources.

In spite of the challenges, I have found terrific leaders and teachers in every school. They are working hard to meet the challenges of SB 1. They are digging hard to find resources to help each other and to help each student reach his or her potential.

To all the teachers and leaders in our schools, I want to say “thank you” for your professionalism and dedication to the future of our children. Hang in there, because two or three years from now, we will certainly see the payoff for your hard work and dedication.