Why Knowledge Matters

| by Cory Curl |

Reading comprehension has a lot to do with students’ knowledge and vocabulary.

To build a foundation for reading comprehension for all future learning, students need exposure to a well-rounded curriculum including science, social studies, arts, music, and other subjects beginning in early elementary school. Susan Weston has shared this point several times here at PrichBlog.

Fortunately, Kentucky’s education community has understood this for a long time. Both policy and practice have emphasized a well-rounded curriculum, and we have the results to suggest that this is the right track.

Science is a case in point. As Lisa Hansel of the Knowledge Matters campaign pointed out in a webinar that we hosted last evening, Kentucky ranked 4th in the nation on the 2009 4th grade NAEP science test. That year, Kentucky elementary schools had the highest amount of instructional time devoted to science (see this paper by Dr. Rolf Blank).

Lisa also suggested that this commitment to building knowledge in the early grades contributes to Kentucky’s strong showing in NAEP reading, where Kentucky 4th grade students score in the top 10 in the nation.

The webinar also featured Robert Pondiscio of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, who went into lively detail about why knowledge matters for reading comprehension, as well as why attention to this connection is important for equity for all students. Lisa provided five concrete recommendations of how states can incentivize a well-rounded approach in the early grades. You can learn more about the research and recommendations in this issue brief.

We had a great discussion about how parents can advocate for a knowledge-rich curriculum. Lisa and Robert also shared stories to illustrate why an emphasis on building knowledge provides an opportunity for engaging and active classroom learning rather than rote memorization.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides some policy spark for states to incentivize a well-rounded education, an opportunity that Secretary of Education John King underscored in recent remarks. As always, we encourage you to be involved in Kentucky’s efforts to redesign its accountability system and otherwise take advantage of opportunities provided in the new law.

We welcome your suggestions on how can help keep you informed and engaged through the process.

What Kind of Student Writing Do We Want? And Where?

| By Susan Perkins Weston | 

 Some writing makes an argument to support a claim.  Other pieces inform or explain, and still others provide narratives or real or imagined experience.  Our Kentucky Academic Standards call for students to become skilled in all three, but that still leaves room to puzzle about how much teaching and learning time should be invested in each kind. 

In EdWeek's new coverage of Changing Practice in Writing Instruction, that balancing pops up in multiple places.  In one interview, Lucy Calkins says "the common core says that a third of kids’ writing should be narrative."  Another article reports that "By the time students are in 12th grade, literary writing to convey experiences is expected to take up 20 percent of the time allotted to composition, compared with 40 percent each for informative writing and argumentative writing."

Both statements share a part of story. The 2010 Common Core State Standards aimed to align with an earlier Writing Framework for the National Assessment of Educational Progress.  The original CCSS document show that framework using this table:

It's clear that Dr. Calkins' comment is about the grade 4 expectations, and the other article was explicitly looking at grade 12.

Both leave something big to be said.  This isn't all about English and the study of composition. Much of the high school writing for argumentation and explanation can be, should be, and must be part of mastering scientific communication and civic participation. That work belongs in science classes and social studies classes. That version of literacy needs teachers who are expert in the work of those disciplines.  Still more, those disciplines need literate students: they need students who are equipped to make sense of texts about science and social studies and equipped to organize and share thinking in those fields. 

For example, a high school's writing plans might be spread out like this, with plenty of room for narrative in English because major slices of argument and explanation happen in other classes.

The elementary and middle years can prepare students for that high school range, with argument and explanation becoming increasingly important as students mature.

Seeing the role of disciplines beyond English is essential to understanding how richly English classes can engage narrative writing, literary texts, and other classic undertaking.

The Pursuit of Excellence: Principles to Guide Kentucky's Future Postsecondary Success

The Prichard Committee today released a report outlining the the key elements of the Committee's work in postsecondary education going forward, as well as establishing guiding principles for ensuring Kentucky reaches its education, economic, workforce, and civic potential.

The full report can be found via the Committee's web-site here, The Pursuit of Excellence: Principles to Guide Kentucky's Future Postsecondary Success. 

Below is the full text of the Prichard Committee's statement released today:

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Providing a framework for a productive discussion on the future of postsecondary education in Kentucky is the goal of a series of guiding principles developed by the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.

“The Pursuit of Excellence: Principles to Guide Kentucky’s Future Postsecondary Success” provides a focus for the committee’s return to an area of advocacy that served as its foundation in the early 1980s.

The citizens’ organization was known at the time as the Prichard Committee on Higher Education in Kentucky’s Future. Its 1981 report, In Pursuit of Excellence, noted that “despite a tendency of people to become pessimistic about the value of institutions, (they) still look to education as the road to a better life and as the source of information and talent needed to solve problems.”

That remains true today as Kentucky faces issues of access, affordability, accountability and the relative value of achieving success through postsecondary education, the committee said.

In encouraging parents, students, business and community leaders, institutions and policymakers to participate in a discussion to ensure Kentucky builds and maintains an educated citizenry and a talented workforce, the Prichard Committee issued guiding principles that focus on access, affordability and quality:

• Access – High-quality postsecondary educational opportunities in Kentucky should be inclusive of all students, and Kentucky should ensure that all students are prepared for, have knowledge of, and are encouraged to pursue opportunities through postsecondary education pathways.
• Affordability – High-quality postsecondary education in Kentucky should be affordable to all students who want to benefit from and pursue such opportunities.
• Quality - To ensure the highest quality postsecondary education system and student outcomes, Kentucky should focus resources on and measure institutional performance in improving the lives of students and the public at large.

“In the current fiscal and political climate, investments in postsecondary education – both funding and strategies to achieve public goals – must remain a public policy priority,” the committee concluded. “Abundant research and the reality of the lives of countless Kentuckians make clear that greater educational attainment does, indeed, represent the path to a larger life for individuals and the state as a whole.”

“The Prichard Committee has focused on increasing the quality of P-12 education for more than 30 years. With more students than ever becoming ready for college and career, it’s critical to ensure our entire education system presents a seamless web of opportunity for all Kentuckians,” said Brigitte Blom Ramsey, executive director of the Prichard Committee.  “Renewing focus on access to affordable, high-quality postsecondary education will support efforts to ensure Kentucky has an educated citizenry and talented workforce.”

African American Suspensions: Cause for Sorrow

| By Susan Perkins Weston | 

 

Both suspensions and in-school removals take students out of their regular classes as a consequence for behavior. The chart above does not mean that every African American student was suspended last year. It does come close to meaning that for every African American student who was not suspended, another African American student was suspended more than once.

So far, what I’ve got on this is sorrow.

Sorrow for the students who separated from their classmates, removed from their school’s broad welcome in the simplest and most visible way imaginable.

Sorrow for the students who watch those separations, puzzling over what it means, puzzling over whether they should learn something general about an “us” or about a “them” from the pattern of who gets sent away.

Sorrow for the educators who decide on the separations, whether they had better options or not, whether they are still searching for other ways to work with the students or settled into despair.

Sorrow for the families, whether they think a particular exclusion just or unjust, whether they are giving the children the best preparation to avoid this kind of consequence or not.

Sorrow for connections not made, relationships not flourishing, potential not growing at its fullest possible speed.

Sorrow for all of us, because these students should be strong, secure, and settling into confident membership in our communities, and we somehow have not come close to making what should be into what happens here now.

I wish I had deep insight into how this happens in schools and classrooms.  I wish I had bold ideas for how to make it different.  I've been looking at these numbers since last October, without finding that kind of clarity.  Sorrow is what I've got, so I'll speak that, and welcome all thoughts on how we can do better.

Below: sharply contrasting data for three other groups of students:

Forward Progress for Early Childhood

| by Brigitte Blom Ramsey, Executive Director |

The 2016 session of the Kentucky General Assembly proved to be an unexpected win for progress and innovation in early childhood.

Given the state’s significant state fiscal challenges, the session began with little hope for increasing the state’s investment in our youngest learners, and with a lot of questions about the continued support for the Commonwealth’s commitment to quality early childhood.

Nonetheless, early childhood advocates proposed key measures to help maintain the state’s momentum:

• Align public preschool eligibility and child care assistance eligibility to the same Federal poverty level (FPL) and incrementally increase eligibility for both programs to 200% of FPL. Current preschool eligibility is 160% of FPL 
• Current child care assistance eligibility is 150% of the 2011 FPL 
• Incentivize collaboration between public preschool and private child care to increase participation in preschool and serve children in environments that best suit their needs.

In the end, the final budget approved by the Governor and General Assembly included significant progress – maintaining and increasing the state’s investment while also providing for innovations to build capacity and strengthen the system:

• Increased child care assistance eligibility to 160% of current FPL, bringing it into alignment with the eligibility level for public preschool 
• Maintained the full $90 million for preschool and maintained eligibility at 160% of FPL 
• From the $90 million for preschool, carved out a set aside of $7.5 million in each year of the biennium to establish an incentive grant for local collaborations between school districts and private child care providers to increase participation in preschool. Statewide, enrollment has dropped significantly since 2010.

Source: Kentucky Department of Education Staff Note, June 2015

We are thrilled to see the incentive grant program for early childhood partnerships in the budget. This is a testament to the state’s commitment to innovation and partnership in early childhood. It will be important for Kentucky to make the most of this unique opportunity by building evidence of success by serving more young learners, increasing school readiness, and improving efficiency of programs.

The budget language calls on the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) to administer the incentive grant program. It requires KDE to work with the Kentucky Board of Education, Early Childhood Advisory Council, Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and Child Care Advisory Council to design the program requirements. The next few months will be a pivotal time for these state agencies and advisory groups, as well as for school districts and child care providers to identify ways that they can partner to better serve young learners in full-day programs.

Why is it so important for school districts and child care providers to work together?

• Increasing access to quality preschool programs helps increase kindergarten readiness and early success in school.
• Public preschool should be increased in a way that does not crowd out private child care.
• Public-private partnerships bring diversity into the system that helps build the state’s capacity to serve more children with high-quality services that meet families’ needs.
• Partnerships between the public and private sectors encourage efficient and effective use of resources.

The idea of partnerships is not new in Kentucky.

• In April 2015, in partnership with Metro United Way, United Way of Greater Cincinnati, Kentucky Youth Advocates Blueprint for Kentucky’s Children, the Kentucky Head Start Association, the Kentucky Department of Education, the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood, and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services Stars for Kids Now, we released a brief that detailed the benefits of partnerships and examples of models underway now in Kentucky.
• In January 2016, the Early Childhood Study Group report recommended partnerships as a way to strengthen school readiness and ensure a stronger system for children from birth through third grade.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, comments, or ideas about effective partnerships between school districts and child care providers. We will continue to keep you informed as we learn more about this unique opportunity for Kentucky’s young learners.

ESSA Update: The Details Matter for Equity

| by Cory Curl, Associate Executive Director |

As we discussed here late last year, the U.S. Congress approved a new version of the federal Elementary and Secondary Act. This version, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), gives states some more leeway in how they design their K-12 school and district accountability systems.

This move at the federal level gives us an opportunity to do what we do so well in Kentucky. We have a long history of working together to set clear, meaningful goals for student and school success. We then come together around a set of shared measures to show how schools and districts are – or are not – making progress toward these goals.

To that end, the Kentucky Department of Education has just concluded a series of 11 town hall meetings across the Commonwealth. At the town hall meetings, Commissioner of Education Stephen Pruitt and Associate Commissioner Rhonda Sims shared information about ESSA and listened to educators, parents, and students about how they define student and school success. Videos and summaries of these meetings are available online, along with comments that have been submitted via email.

The next few months will be an important time for Kentuckians to continue engaging in these conversations. Everyone has a seat at the table to contribute to the process of setting these goals and measures, which will have so much influence on the priorities that schools and districts set for years to come.

As the process unfolds, it will be critical to make sure that the goals and measures give schools and districts a big push to prioritize equity, making sure that every child gets what he or she needs to be successful in their next steps. This is the only way that Kentucky will be able to close the achievement gaps that have persisted for so long.

ESSA will help us on this front. While it gives states more flexibility in how they design their systems, it includes several requirements intended to ensure that equity is a priority for schools and districts.

To keep you informed on ESSA’s requirements and flexibilities, we are partnering with The Education Trust, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for high academic achievement for all students, particularly students of color and students in poverty. We have developed a series of fact sheets, below, to translate what’s in the federal law to what it means for us here in Kentucky.

The Every Student Succeeds Act: What’s In It? What Does it Mean for Equity?
• Overview
• Accountability
• Public Reporting

Update: View our May 12th Community Conversations webinar with The Education Trust 

Postsecondary Funding - A Mixed Bag for Kentucky

Lawmakers in Frankfort concluded the 2016 Regular Session of the General Assembly in a flurry of activity during the waning hours of Friday April 15.  Putting aside the on-going legal dispute over current year cuts to postsecondary institutions and any potential vetoes the Governor might still make, the impacts of the enacted FY 2016-2018 budget on postsecondary education were a mixed bag.

On the one hand, most campuses received a 4.5% reduction, one-half of the 9% originally proposed by both the Governor and the Senate.  This amounts to a total reduction of $59.1 million over the biennium and represents an 18.2% decline in yearly funding since FY 2008, or $197 million.  Kentucky State University, in recognition of significant challenges facing the campus, was exempted from the funding reductions and received long-sought additional funds to fully match the federal requirement for land-grant programs.  Additionally, Western Kentucky University and Northern Kentucky University received additional appropriations in FY 2018 to help bring their state allocation per student to the average of the other regional campuses.  Overall, the enacted budget continues the pattern of state disinvestment in Kentucky’s postsecondary institutions that has persisted since 2008. A disinvestment whose costs are ultimately born by students and families.

On the other hand, student financial aid fared substantially better in the final compromise - increasing across all programs by $117.9 million over the biennium.  Need-based aid through the lottery-funded College Access Program (CAP) and Kentucky Tuition Grant (KTG) increased by $55 million – which could serve up to 30,000 more financially disadvantaged students.  This represents significant increases to the main need-based programs that have been flat funded for nearly 10 years. Two new programs were created to help increase college access and attainment.  The Work Ready Kentucky Scholarship received $25.3 million over the biennium and would provide essentially free tuition to recent high school graduates enrolled in associate’s degree programs at Kentucky community colleges, public universities and private colleges.  The Dual Credit Scholarship received $15 million over the biennium and will assist eligible high school students in paying for courses for which college and high school credit is awarded.

The budget also initiates the process by which postsecondary institutions will receive part of their funding based on performance against certain metrics.  Beginning in FY 2018, 5% of funding will be performance-based, rising to 15% in FY 2019 and 25% in FY 2020 and beyond.  A working group is established that will provide formula recommendations for the performance-based model to the Governor and General Assembly by December 1, 2016.  While in the early stages and not yet defined, this should be the first step in a process of recognizing that public investment will require accountability for progress toward well-defined system, institutional, and student outcomes and performance goals.

As the title of this post suggests – a mixed bag - perhaps one step backward and one step forward.  Issues of affordability and ensuring access to postsecondary opportunities for all Kentuckians’ make further reductions to institutional funding difficult to stomach.  A renewed commitment to state-funded financial aid programs, however, signals hope that perhaps progress is possible.

In the future, Kentucky needs to more effectively link decisions and policies on state appropriations, student aid and tuition to better define the expectations of institutions and students.  Lack of transparency in how postsecondary education is financed, and how the varying financial components interact, ultimately leads to less effective and efficient use of public resources and makes it more challenging for Kentuckians to reach their educational, economic, workforce, and civic potential.

A Tale of Two Maps

| By Susan Perkins Weston |

I groaned when I first saw NPR's magnificent new map of district-level spending per pupil across the country, part of a newly launched "School Money" project. Then I looked a little closer.



The shot above zooms in on the Kentucky part of NPR's illustration, showing:

• Red for spending 33% or more below national average (after a regional cost adjustment)
• Orange for spending 10% or more below national average
• Off-white for spending around average, between 10% below and 10% above
• Light green for 10% or more above average
• Dark green for 33% or more above average

My groan was because Kentucky doesn't offer much green. Owsley County is the single light green spot on the eastern side of the  map. Anchorage Independent provides the one dark green speck on the Kentucky map, nearly invisible inside Jefferson County. There really is bad news here, because most of our children receive school funding that isn't close to what's available across the nation.

But there is something else to see.

Owsley County has some of the deepest poverty in the nation --and the map shows it as having higher funding per pupil than most of the state. Owsley is surrounded by other Appalachian counties facing huge economic challenges, but those are the counties with funding most like national average.

In some ways, the NPR funding map looks a bit like a reverse-color version of this one from the Kids Count Data Center:

This one shows 2013 child poverty, with the darkest orange showing the deepest concentration of poverty, clustered heavily in the mountain counties. On this map, Owsley County has the highest child poverty rate in the state.

Comparing the two map shows that (roughly and with exceptions) Kentucky spends more on education where families have fewer financial resources to contribute. That, I submit, is a bit of good news inside Kentucky's low-funding bad news. Spending more for students who need more makes sense for a state committed to equipping each and every child to flourish and contribute as adults.

Added note: NPR's article and map are truly wonderful. The article gives a vivid sense of how much harm weak funding can do, and the map lets you click on any county to see its 2013 funding. Do check them out!

P-12 Funding: Action By the General Assembly

 | By Susan Perkins Weston | 

The General Assembly approved a budget on Friday, which is now awaiting action by Governor Bevin.  Unless the Governor vetoes some portions of the budget, it looks like the coming year will see a few major items get small increases and most parts of education funding continue without cuts. Here come some details.

The General Assembly’s budget provides a few increases in the 2017 Department of Education budget compared to 2016, including:

• $14 million more for facilities
• $9 million more for health insurance
• $8 million more for the teacher retirement employer match
• $4 million more for the SEEK base guarantee, Tier 1 and transportation
• $2 million in new funding for 'a review of the classification of primary and secondary school buildings”

The General Assembly did not include line items for two other investments made in past years. That is, the budget does not explicitly show:

• KETS funding that was budgeted at $23 million in 2016. The Kentucky Education Technology System has been shown as a line item in every budget since 1990.
• Added staffing for vocational/technical schools budgeted at $3 million in 2016. Those dollars were new in the budget for the last biennium and were shown as an effort to build college and career readiness.

Those two changes may not quite be complete cuts, though.

That’s because there’s one more big change:

• $28 million more is appropriated to the Department but not governed by a specific line item.

Since those dollars are not governed by a line item, they may turn out to go to technology, technical schools, or both. The amounts spent on those items could be higher or lower, and the uses could be exactly like past years or vary in small ways or vary in big ways.

Funding is unchanged for a number of other initiatives, including extended school services, family resource/youth service centers, gifted and talented, instructional resources (textbooks), the mathematics achievement fund, preschool program, professional development, Read to Achieve grants, safe schools , state agency children, and state-operated technical centers.

Outside the Department of Education budget, there are three other items that matter deeply to K-12 education:

• $541,900 less for the Education Professional Standards Board
• $13 million more for the School Facilities Construction Commission
• $480 million more to the Kentucky Teachers Retirement System.

That $480 million is the largest number in this whole blog post, and there's room to argue that it ought to be cited right at the beginning.  It's here at the end because those dollars aren't about paying for 2017 education.  They're about compensation owed to those who taught our children in years past. Filling the KTRS shortfall is about finishing paying for 2016, 2015, 2014, and years and years and years of earlier work with students.  The shortfall is about money that owed and must be paid, and the state will be making quite a few more big payments in the coming years to finish paying off that debt.  However, those payments won't allow any 2017 school to add a book to its library or a laptop to its inventory, much less an added teacher or a teacher with a better paycheck –and that's why it's not the starting point for this summary of what's coming next in P-12 funding.

Our new PrichBlog summary shows added detail, including changes for the 2018 budget and a detail page on small programs that receive less than $5 million in funding. You can download that here, or view the complete budget bill by going here and clicking on the link that says HB303.

P-12 Budgeting: Legislative Action So Far

 | By Susan Perkins Weston | 

Wednesday, the Senate Appropriation and Revenue Committee voted out its version of a budget for Kentucky P-12 education, and today the Senate as a whole voted approved that plan. Compared to the state budget for the current 2016 fiscal year, the Senate committee plan for 2017 would:

• Increase SEEK base and Tier 1 funding, facilities, retirement and health insurance
• Cut many line items that fund specific kinds of support for student learning
• Eliminate entire line items, including KETS technology, Kentucky School for the Blind, and Kentucky School For the Deaf
• Increase dollars not controlled by line items, giving the Department of Education the capacity to restore some of the funding from the eliminated line items
• Leave a puzzle about the total funding for SEEK

Details follow, along with notes on how the Senate approach differs from the House edition.  A conference committee will almost certainly be needed to work out a final budget that can be enacted into law.

INCREASES
Compared to FY 2106's budget, the Senate version would provide:

• $5 million more for the SEEK formula (when combined with growing local revenue, enough to continue the 2016 base guarantee of $3,981 for a growing number of pupils, along with student need add-ons and equalize local Tier I revenue)
• $14 million more for SEEK facilities
• $8 million more for the retirement match for teachers
• $9 million more for health insurance for school district employees

 These increases match the budget plan approved by the House.

CUTS TO PROGRAMS
The Senate budget would offer:

• $8 million less for preschool
• $3 million less for family resource and youth service centers
• $2 million less for ESS tutoring
• $1.5 million less for textbooks and other instructional resources
• $1.5 million less for Read to Achieve grants
• $1.1 million less for professional development
• $0.9 million less for children in state agency care
• $0.9 million less for safe schools and alternative schools
• $0.6 million less for gifted and talented programs
• $1.7 million less from 14 smaller grants

The House version would not make these cuts, which are closely aligned with the Governor’s budget proposal for 9% cuts to many programs.

ELIMINATED LINE ITEMS
The Senate plan would provide no funding for some line items that appeared in the budget for 2016, including:

• $23 million gone for KETS education technology
• $10 million gone for Kentucky School for the Deaf
• $7 million gone for Kentucky School for the Blind
• $6 million gone from eight smaller grants

The House budget would eliminate the KETS line and the added vocational staffing, but continued the other line items.

FUNDING NOT CONTROLLED BY LINE ITEMS
Some of those eliminated line items may still receive support, drawing on $35 million that the Senate approach would provide to the Department of Education without assigning them a specific use, including:

• $20 million for KDE Operations and Support Services that is not addressed in the line-item amounts
• $15 million for KDE Learning and Results Services that is not addressed in the line item amounts

The House plan would offer non-line-item funding totaling $28 million.

A SEEK PUZZLE
The SEEK section of the budget includes thirteen line items that add up to more than the General Fund total. That is, the budget bill would:

• Shows $3,036,462,000 in line items for SEEK base, Tier I, facilities, retirement, and other entries
• Shows $3,035,747,400 as the SEEK General Fund total
• Leaves $714,600 as the puzzling difference between the two

The House version would create the same puzzle!

ADDITIONAL DETAILS
You can download a PrichBlog comparison of the House and Senate  versions of the budget legislation here. Check out the legislative record on this bill here: click on the links for HCS and to download the full bill versions.  

SB 253 and HB 589: Charter Bills with A Few Differences

 | By Susan Perkins Weston |

Two charter bills filed this past Tuesday offer very similar rules for starting charter schools, but vary on details of who will be able to authorize those schools, how many schools can be opened, and where they can be located.

For Senate Bill 253, sponsored by Senators Wilson, Givens, and Seum, you can download our two-page Prichard analysis based on eight key questions here. For House Bill 589, sponsored by Representative Montell, a matching summary is here.  You can download each bill from the online legislative record here.

The rest of this post combines the two summaries, adding green highlighting when discussing places where the two bills handle issues differently. 

WHAT STUDENT RESULTS WILL CHARTER SCHOOLS BE EXPECTED TO DELIVER?

Charter schools will be accountable for “annual student achievement performance targets … set, in accordance with the state accountability system, by each public charter school in conjunction with its authorizer, and those measures shall be designed to help each school meet applicable federal, state, and authorizer goals.”

Charter schools will also propose their own performance frameworks that include indicators for student proficiency, student growth, achievement gaps, attendance, returning enrollment from year to year, college or career readiness, financial performance, and the board’s performance and stewardship, with the option of including additional indicators.

Possible Questions: Do targets “in accordance with the state accountability system” include annual measurable objectives, focus school criteria, and priority school criteria? Do they include professional growth and effectiveness system results?

WHICH PUBLIC SCHOOL REQUIREMENTS WILL BE WAIVED, AND WHICH REQUIREMENTS WILL CHARTER SCHOOLS HAVE TO FOLLOW?

Required:

• Plans for identifying and serving gifted students and students who are academically behind (examples: gifted student service plans, response to intervention, extended school services, accelerated learning)
• State assessments and school report card data
• Health and safety laws (examples: vaccinations, emergency drills, criminal record checks, weapons rules, student seclusion and restraint rules)
• Civil and disability rights (example: individual education plans (IEPs) as required by KRS 157.196)
• KTRS/CERS retirement and state health insurance for employees
• Financial audits and state purchasing rules
• Open records and open meetings

Not required:

• Free and reduced-price meals for low-income students
• Student learning services, including primary talent pool, primary program, family resource and youth services centers, individual learning plans, college-level courses in high school, and class size caps
• Program reviews and their use in accountability
• Teacher certification and single salary schedule
• 2% contingency reserve

Possible Questions: Do health requirements include physical activity in grades K-5? Do civil and disability rights include Title IX gender equality and alternate diplomas? Must school report card data be gathered using Infinite Campus?

HOW WILL STUDENTS BE ADMITTED OR ASSIGNED TO CHARTER SCHOOLS?

Students of school age will be admitted if they apply to a charter school and are currently enrolled in a “needs improvement” school or if they receive free/reduced-price meals and live in the district where the school is located. Applicants will also be admitted if their siblings attend the school or their parents are teachers or administrators there, and they will be able to continue attending if they are already enrolled at the school. If a school has too few applicants who fit those rules, enrollment will be opened up for any student who lives in the district where the school is located to apply for admission until May 15. If the school has too many applicants, a lottery will be used, except that preference will go to students already enrolled, their siblings, and children whose parents work at the school.

Possible Question: When will lotteries be held for schools that are over capacity?

WHO WILL AUTHORIZE CHARTER SCHOOLS?

SB 253: A nine-member state-level Public Charter School Commission will authorize two charter schools per year. Two more charter schools per year will be authorized by local school boards: one by a school board in a county with an urban county government (Fayette) and one in a county with a consolidated local government (Jefferson or possibly Anchorage).

HB 589: A nine-member state-level Public Charter School Commission will authorize a maximum of two charter schools per year in a county with an urban county government (Fayette County) and two in a county with a consolidated local government (Jefferson County). Local school boards will be able to authorize charter schools with in their own districts’ attendance areas.

WHO WILL BE ABLE TO APPLY TO RUN A CHARTER SCHOOL?

“Teachers, parents, school administrators, community residents, public organizations, private organizations, or a combination thereof” will be able to apply for a charter. The school will have to be “administered by a charter school board of directors” but the bill does not say it will have to be organized as a corporation. The school will have to apply for tax-exempt status within six months after charter approval. (A nonprofit education services provider can be chosen by the charter board to provide “educational design, implementation, or comprehensive management” of the school, but the charter board will still have final authority over policy and operations.)

Possible Question: If a charter applies for tax-exempt status and the application is denied, will it be allowed to continue operating?

WILL CHARTER SCHOOL NUMBERS AND ENROLLMENTS BE SUBJECT TO CAPS?

SB 253: The number of charter schools will be capped at four in 2017-18, with four more in each of the next four years, for a total of twenty by 2021-22. 

HB 589: Charter schools authorized by the Commission will be capped at four in 2017-18, with four more in each of the next four years, for a total of twenty by 2021-22. Charters authorized by local boards will not be capped.

Enrollment will not be capped.

Section 1(3) of the bill says that a charter may only enroll students who live in the district where it is located. However, Section 12(2) calls for admission of students from “needs improvement” schools and children of the school’s teachers and administrators, without listing that residency requirement. Section 12(2) also call for admission of students who currently attend the school and their siblings, which could include those who have moved out of the district since their original enrollment.

Possible Questions: Can charter schools admit students who do not currently reside in the district? Can students continue attending a charter school if they move out of the district during the school year?

HOW WILL CHARTER SCHOOLS BE CLOSED IF THEY DO NOT DELIVER?

A school’s charter must be revoked if the school “does not meet, for three (3) consecutive years, state student performance measures adopted by the Kentucky Board of Education under KRS 158.6453, excluding nontested program reviews, and academic program requirements found in the charter school's contract.”

A school's charter may also be revoked for failure to make significant progress on state accountability measures and on performance measures set in each school’s contract, failure to meet generally accepted accounting standards, or “material and substantial violation” of the school’s charter contract provisions.

WHAT FUNDING WILL CHARTER SCHOOLS RECEIVE?

 For charter schools authorized by local school boards, funding will be negotiated between the charter school and the charter authorizer. That funding will at least be comparable to what is provided to other schools in the district where the charter school is located.

For charters authorized by the state commission, funding will match state guaranteed SEEK funding plus the school’s proportionate share of locally-raised “Tier 1” and “Tier 2” funding. The Kentucky Department of Education will pay those amounts to the charter school and deduct them from the school district’s funding.

Both kinds of charter schools will receive categorical funding generated by their students, and both will receive state on-behalf payments for employee health and certified employee retirement.

Charter schools will not receive state transportation funding, but local school districts will be required to transport charter school students from home to school and back.

Possible Questions: Will board-authorized schools receive dollars that districts do not allocate to schools, including those for itinerant staff, extra duty staff, operations and maintenance, central office leadership and other functions?

Teacher and student voices matter now more than ever

| By Cory Curl |

Dollars, Decisions, and Data – from my experience, these “Three D’s” have been the traditional foundation for much of education policy work for as long as I can figure. If you were trying to decide how to improve student achievement and educational attainment, you worked out how to increase or redirect funding; what policy decisions need to be added or taken out, or made tighter or looser; and what data should be collected, analyzed, and reported to drive change throughout the system.

Education policy experts were largely those who specialized in one or more of the Three D’s.

In the last few years, however, it’s become clear that the Three D’s, while necessary, are completely insufficient for us to make the dramatic gains in student achievement and educational attainment we need as a commonwealth and as a nation.

Hope Street Group Teacher Fellow Tricia Shelton, other teacher leaders, and Student Voice Team members share their classroom insights to inform their postsecondary transition study

Around 2007, the education policy world had a collective “aha!” moment that the key to unlocking educational improvement rested in promoting great teaching – teaching that leads to strong student learning. Reports from The Hamilton Project, TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project), and many others underscored that the quality of teaching varied, and the education system itself did little to value great teaching over not-yet-great teaching.

Education policy experts reacted to this discovery by relying on the Three D’s, and set about redirecting dollars, making policy decisions, and developing new measures to evaluate and value great teaching.

But then, in 2013 or so, it became abundantly clear that this was but a first step.

• John Hattie’s research indicated that one of the most powerful practices for student learning is for teachers to give specific, actionable feedback to students.
• The Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project found that students have accurate insights into teacher practices that lead to learning.
• A National Academies of Science report highlighted that most important factor for learning in the early childhood years are the interactions between – you guessed it – teacher and student.

Now we know – we will never get the change we seek until strengthening the learning process between teachers and students is the foundation of our work.

If you’re trying to work on how to improve student achievement and educational attainment, you are missing the boat if you don’t have the most important experts – teachers and students – around the table as equal partners.

For the Prichard Committee to do justice to our efforts to inform the public and policymakers, study the issues, and engage with business and community leaders, families and other citizens, we are ever more committed to lifting up the expertise of students and their teachers.

We collaborate with Hope Street Group Kentucky State Teacher Fellows and other teacher leaders across the state to share teachers’ stories of implementing higher standards, incorporate their insights into our in-depth studies of issues such as the achievement gap, and partner with them in engaging with families and communities. We have launched our Student Voice Team to conduct outreach to collect and share diverse students’ stories, facilitate study groups on a range of issues from school climate to the achievement gap, and lend its expertise and research to educators and other thought leaders as it engages in conversations across the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Student Voice Team leader Andrew Brennan learns from the young Kentucky students

Looking ahead, expect to see us continue to make teacher and student voices an essential part of our work to help build awareness and deepen understanding of what is happening – or not yet happening – in classrooms so that parents, local school board members, and other citizens throughout the state can ask good questions and raise demand for great teaching that leads to strong learning.

The Power of Our Shared Science Standards

| By Susan Perkins Weston | 

Kentucky now shares the Next Generation Science Standards with 18 states and the District of Columbia--as shown in the EdWeek map below and discussed in today's Curriculum Matters post.

Over the last year, I've been studying those standards more closely and getting more excited with each round, because there are shifts so deep I didn't understand them on my first or second read.

For one thing, NGSS makes it almost impossible to think about content apart from skills or knowledge apart from active engagement.  That starts with life sciences call for kindergartners to be able to "use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive."  It flows all the way through to the high school engineering expectation that students will be prepared to "use a computer simulation to model the impact of proposed solutions to a complex real-world problem with numerous criteria and constraints on interactions within and between systems relevant to the problem."

Even more deeply, NGSS focuses on a short, powerful list of eight scientific practices:

• Asking questions and defining problems
• Developing and using models
• Planning and carrying out investigations
• Analyzing and interpreting data
• Using mathematics and computational thinking
• Constructing explanations and designing solutions
• Engaging in argument from evidence
• Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

Those practices give a clear idea of the types of hands-on work students should be doing, the ways critical thinking and active problem-solving  should become tools they can use through a lifetime, and the forms of teamwork and communication that will be embedded in the work they will do as adults. We've known for decades that we need to cultivate  deeper learning and 21st century skills: the NGSS practices look to me like a specific, muscular plan for making that happen.

And at the deepest level, NGSS calls for students to be active science users and science makers.  That's about recognizing students as current participants, rather than just preparing for future engagement.  It's about seeing them as contributing and building here and now and watching for the energy and innovation they're already able to share.

Added note: there are brand new resources teachers can use to combine NGSS standards with Literacy Design Collaborative approaches to reading, writing, and thinking. Battelle Education has developed an impressive set of new resources, complete with video of the students and teachers who designed and tested them, focused on analyzing data, designing and conducting experiments, and solving engineering problems. I was honored to get an early look at these materials, and I think they offer very important illustrations of how much more students can know and do with the right opportunities. If you give them a look, I think you'll share my excitement about NGSS and the possibilities in reach for learners here and across the country.

Check out the Battelle LDC tools and videos of students at work!

Meshing SB 1 with ESSA? Some Challenges

| By Susan Perkins Weston | 

Kentucky's Senate Bill 1 (SB1) and the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) both address standards, assessments, accountability, and public data reporting. On many issues, the two line up well, but there are definite mismatches on lowest performing schools, low graduation rates, and the contents of school report cards. The Q-and-A below explains those issues and the implications.

WHAT ARE SB 1 AND ESSA?
SB 1 is a Kentucky bill that has been approved by our Senate. Depending on action by the House and Governor Bevin, SB 1 could become state law in a matter of months. Our PrichBlog summary is available here, but needs updating to show that Senate floor action restored social studies testing.

ESSA is the replacement for the federal No Child Left Behind law and includes rules for what states must do to receive certain types of federal funding. ESSA was signed into law in December 2015, and EdTrust offers an overview here. This PrichBlog post looks specifically at section 1111 of ESSA and its requirements for statewide accountability systems and school improvement and support activities. To qualify for federal Title I funding, states must submit plans that show alignment with ESSA in these areas in time for the 2017-18 school year.

HOW DO THEY DIFFER ON LOWEST PERFORMING SCHOOLS?
If SB 1 becomes law in its current version, it will identify priority schools based on overall scores “in the bottom five percent of overall scores by level for all schools that have failed to meet the achievement targets of the state accountability system under Section 5 of this Act for at least three or more consecutive years.”

ESSA says states must identify schools with achievement results “in the lowest-performing 5 percent of all schools receiving funds under this part in the State” for “comprehensive support and improvement.”

That is, under SB 1, schools will not be identified so long as they have met their target for any one of the last three years. If only 200 schools missed three targets in a row, SB 1 could identify just 10 priority schools. In contrast, ESSA says that if 800 schools get Title I funding, the lowest 5 percent –40 schools– must be identified for added support, and it does not matter whether they met or missed targets while bringing in those low results.

HOW DO THEY DIFFER ON GRADUATION RATES? 
SB 1's current language will require focus school identification if the graduation rate “has been less than sixty-eight percent for three consecutive years.”

ESSA calls for states to identify high schools that are “failing to graduate one third or more of their students” for “comprehensive support and improvement.

Again, the three-year provision in the state version does not match the federal one. If a school graduates 69 percent of students in one year, 40 percent the next, and 30 percent the year after that, SB 1 does not identify that school for focus assistance. ESSA does require that school to be identified for support and improvement.

HOW DO THEY DIFFER ON SCHOOL REPORT CARDS?
SB 1 also calls for four elements to be included in school report cards published by the state, and allow a further local-option element:

• Student academic achievement on state tests, broken out by gender, English proficiency, free/reduced-price meal eligibility, disability status and minority/non-minority background.
• Advanced Placement, Cambridge Advanced International, and International Baccalaureate participation and results, broken out by “gender, race, students with disabilities, and economic status”
• School's attendance, retention, graduation rates, and student transition to adult life
• Parental involvement
• Other school performance data that local school districts want to see added

To fit ESSA, school report cards must include elements that are not in the SB 1 list, including:

• Achievement results disaggregated for migrant students, homeless students, students in foster care, and students with a parent on active duty in the armed forces
• Graduation results and an “other academic indicator” disaggregated the same ways
• School climate and safety data
• Preschool enrollment numbers
• Teacher qualification information
• Per-pupil expenditures, broken out by local, state, and federal sources

SB 1 does not appear to allow state officials to add those ESSA elements. The existing statute says report cards “shall include but not be limited to” a set of components, and that lets the Kentucky Board of Education add other things. SB 1 deletes the “but not be limited to,” which seems to mean that the listed items are the only items that can be in the state-issued report cards.

WILL THESE DIFFERENCES COST US TITLE I FUNDING?
Not necessarily. If SB 1 becomes law, Kentucky can probably keep the funding if we live with two overlapping set of rules. That is, we can:

• Use low assessment results to identify a small group of SB 1 priority schools and a larger group that get the ESSA-required support and improvement efforts
• Use low graduation rates to identify a small group of SB 1 focus schools and a larger group for ESSA support and improvement
• Issue state-published school report cards that fit the SB 1 data limits and have school districts responsible for publishing the rest of the ESSA-required information on each of their schools on their websites

Those side-by-side systems might be confusing and require intensive efforts to explain, but they can offer a possible solution if SB 1 becomes law in its Senate-approved form.

SOURCE NOTES: SB 1’s full text is available here. The full text of ESSA is here, using the last link in the Resources sidebar to download the law, and Section 1111 on state plans can be found at pages 19-51. For lowest performing schools and graduation rates, see SB 1, page 69, and ESSA, page 36. For school report card contents, see SB 1, pages 36-37, and see ESSA, pages 45-49, looking first at the listed requirements for a report on the whole state and then noting that local reports must include all the same data except for NAEP results.

ADDED NOTE: This post has been mildly edited to make it clear that SB 1 is legislation being considered, rather than a bill that has already become state law. 

Senate Bill 1: Changes from the Senate Committee (With A New Overview)

| By Susan Perkins Weston | 

Senate Bill 1 is the proposed legislation to revise Kentucky standards, assessments, and accountability rules.  Yesterday, the Senate Education approved a substitute provision of the bill, keeping many major features but making a number of changes as well. 

For those who liked the PrichBlog summary of the original language, here's a downloadable next edition in the same two-page format.

This post will give a quick tour of the changes, with one clarification about the original bill included at the very end.

GOALS AND STANDARDS
The arts language in the state law defining student capacities that schools must increase will not be amended. The original bill would have changed that wording to allow “application experience in coursework that incorporates design content, techniques of creativity, and interpretation” to be part of the arts expectation. That change has been deleted.

The Commissioner will participate in the standards revision process, presenting recommendations to the Interim Joint Committee on Education and serving as a non-voting member of the recommendations committee composed of legislators and members appointed by the governor.

Standards for arts & humanities and practical living/career studies will be revised in 2017-18 (and every six years after that). Those standards were not addressed in the original bill.

METHODS FOR CHECKING PROGRESS TOWARD MEETING GOALS & STANDARDS
Students with disabilities who spend more than four years in high school will not be exempted from testing during those added years.

An assurance form will require principals to describe how social studies, arts & humanities, practical living/career studies, and writing are integrated into the school curriculum. School council members will sign off on the form. Students, parents, and staff will be able to take concerns about those subjects first to the school council and (if needed) on to the Kentucky Department of Education for investigation. The form and the approach to concerns are new provisions.

ACCOUNTABILITY STEPS TO ENSURE PROGRESS TOWARD GOALS & STANDARDS
Graduation rates will include alternate diplomas. That is a new provision.

College admission and placement scores will be included using increases in percent of students earning composite scores that meet benchmarks. The original bill called for using the scores rather than change in scores.

Intervention schools will not be exempted from the vacancy definition found in KRS 160.380. The sentence on that has been deleted.

For priority schools, there are four new provisions.

• Audits done by the Kentucky Department of Education will be an option if a local board cannot find another outside team of educators.
• Turnaround teams will not have to have to be organized as nonprofit organizations.
• Turnaround plans will need approval from the Kentucky Board of Education as well as the superintendent and local board, but will not need Kentucky Department of Education review and recommendations.
• Superintendents will report to local boards and the Commissioner on turnaround plan implementation.

A CLARIFICATION ON FOCUS SCHOOLS
The original bill and the committee substitute both call for state-level intervention if schools fail to leave priority status or focus status for four years. The previous summary noted that provision for priority schools but not for focus schools.

To see PrichBlog's two-page summary of the complete provisions, click here.  To see the complete legislative language in the committee substitute, click here.

Financial Aid and Lottery Dollars in the Governor's Budget Proposal

| By Susan Perkins Weston | 

The Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA) will be able to offer almost $251 million in FY 2017 financial aid if Governor Bevin's budget proposal become law. 

Here's a breakdown for the programs included in the KHEAA budget, with yellow shading for cuts and green shading for increases and a new workforce training and development program.

Counting the workforce proposal as a lottery funded effort, this plan honors the state law that calls for nearly all lottery dollars to flow to postsecondary education. 

However, that also means overriding the legal provision calling for the College Access Program and the Tuition Grant Program to receive 55 percent of those dollars.  Those two needs-based programs will receive $35 million less than promised in statute, with those dollars moved to the workforce initiative and to KEES scholarships awarded based on grades and test scores.  The chart below shows the available dollars and compares the statutory approach to the one the Governor proposes.

 

Source note: The dollar figures above reflect the 2016-18 Executive Budget released by the Office of State Budget Director.  KRS 154A.130 sets the rules for allocating lottery proceeds, with $3 million annually committed to literacy development and the rest divided between 45 percent to KEES and 55 percent to CAP and Tuition Grants.

Notes on Governor Bevin's P-12 Budget Recommendations

| By Susan Perkins Weston | 

Total state P-12 funding for FY 2017 will be essentially the same as the originally budgeted amount for the current year if Governor Bevin’s recommendations become law. The Governor’s General Fund proposal provides $4,093,226,500 for the Department of Education, while the bill signed two years ago by his predecessor provided $4,093,244,600. That’s a change of $18,100 and a decrease of 0.0004%, though rising costs probably mean the decline in buying power will be larger.

The more important shifts may be in how the money will be used. The budget proposal includes:

• $12.3 million more for equalized facilities than the FY 2016 budget bill
• $8.7 million more for local district health insurance
• $8.3 million more for local district teachers' retirement match
• $6.4 million more for Tier 1 equalization funding to school districts 

 

• $0.6 million less for gifted and talented programs
• $0.9 million less for education of state agency children
• $1.5 million less for SEEK base funding
• $1.5 million less for Read to Achieve grants
• $1.5 million less for textbooks and other instructional resources
• $2.3 million less for after school tutoring and other extended school services
• $4.7 million less for family resource and youth services centers
• $7.9 million less for preschool programs 

•  $14.7 million less for the rest of the Department of Education’s work, including additional dollars the Department distributes to schools and districts.

Of course, that list also invites many questions.

How are career and technical education, professional development, and KETS funding for school technology addressed?
The Governor’s budget recommendation does not show those programs with separate line items the way legislative documents do. Instead, they’re included in a single figure that may include several programs, use some federal dollars, or cover some of the Department’s operating costs. The numbers that are shown look like they probably include moderate reductions, but the detail just isn’t available yet.

How can SEEK base funding be down if the base guarantee is unchanged?
Governor Bevin did indeed say that base guarantee be unchanged, staying at $3,981 per pupil. There is also agreement that Kentucky will have more pupils to fund. However, the state guarantee is paid by combining local revenue with state dollars: the state pays what districts don’t bring in with taxes designed to raise 30¢ per $100 in taxable property. When that local revenue is rising fast enough, the state share can go down even if the number of students is going up. As a result, the Governor can indeed propose to keep the same guarantee and spend less to cover it.

What will happen to P-12 funding in 2018?
Under the governor’s proposal, the second year of the budget will cut $9.3 million more from the Department’s share of the General Fund. Major elements of that change will be increases for health insurance, retirement, and facilities, and decreases for SEEK base funding and Tier 1 equalization.

Will there also be cuts for the current 2016 fiscal year?
The Governor has indeed proposed cuts to spending in the current year, even before a new budget can be approved. For gifted and talented, extended school services, FRYSCs, Read to Achieve, state agency children, textbooks, and preschool, those cuts seem to be half the amount shown above for next year—or about $11 million from current funding. The Kentucky School Boards Association is reporting that the total is about $18 million.

How will the Education Professional Standards Board and the School Facilities Construction Commission be funded?
Those two P-12 agencies have budgets separate from the Department’s funding. EPSB is slated to receive an increase of $415,900. SFCC has a recommended increase of $13 million for 2017 (and 2018 funding will be another $5 million higher than that). When combined with the added dollars for facilities equalization in the Department section of the budget, there’s clear evidence that investment in facilities is a priority in this proposal.

Where is the money for the pension shortfall?
The Governor’s proposal includes paying an additional $323.8 million toward that problem in 2017 and very nearly as much in 2018. The pension challenge is a huge factor in why the rest of the budget is so tight. It’s also an obligation that Kentucky simply must meet. That said, the big added payments into KTRS are not paying to educate current students. They’re late payments for work educators did in years past. They must be paid, but paying them does not add to what we can to do for the learners in Kentucky schools today and in the next two years.

Source note: This blog post compares the 2016-18 Executive Budget released by the Office of State Budget Director to 2014’s House Bill 235.