The following is a wiki that was developed by a participant in this weekend's CIPL STEM session.  
http://www.wikispaces.com/t/c/3IzxvbwBl1BcpBW42bCWUX
It is exciting to see our parents using technology to share the work with others immediately.   Check it out!
Welcome to the home page for the Kentucky Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership wiki for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.  As this is a wiki, all members can add, read and modify content as is appropriate.  We can add pages, links, resources, and project information as we wish and help provide this information to all parents in Kentucky.
CIPLSTEM Membership
Please visit: http://www.wikispaces.com/t/c/3IzxvbwBl1BcpBW42bCWUX
Below is a message from bennis47:
We've created a wiki to keep this group talking, sharing and attached to resources. Currently, members can post and change things, but anyone can view. Keep adding resources and ideas. We also have discussion boards if we want to use them.
Thanks,
The Wikispaces Teamhelp@wikispaces.com
Getting Started Tips
Watch our tours to learn the basics of working in Wikispaces.
Need assistance?
Contact us at help@wikispaces.com
       
Sent by Wikispaces.com - 67 Langton St, San Francisco CA 94103 

Some grim preschool losses

With a rising number of students who need state preschool services, the state budget is providing a smaller total amount, guaranteeing that the funding for each student will decline. 

The chart above shows a 13% cut for students in every preschool need category, and that is without any adjustment for inflation.  It's a decline of over $400 for each at-risk (low-income) four-year old and each three- or four-year-old with a speech/language challenge. When the needs are even more serious, the cuts are still worse: over $600 for a child with developmental delays, and over $800 for a child with severe or multiple disabilities.

Source: as required by state regulation, the Kentucky Department of Education recommends the rates that are possible within state funding to the Kentucky Board of Education for review and approval.  The most recent action was taken at the August 3-4, 2011 KBE meeting, and the numbers above come from the staff note stating what will be possible this year.

Associate students completion rate jumps to 16th in the nation (still too few completions)

31 percent of full-time students entering Kentucky associate programs in the fall of 2006 had graduated by the summer of 2009. That's a big step up from 26 percent the year before.

Naturally, 31 percent is not a completion rate Kentucky should be fully satisfied to see.  It would be better to see a rate twice or even three times as high.

Still, there's good new--important good news--here.   On this measure (using data from HigherEdInfo.org), our postsecondary schools delivered major improvement last year, pushed past national average, and in fact shot up to 16th among the 50 states after being 28th just one year earlier.

Work like this puts Top 20 by 2020 even closer to being reality!