Whither Kentucky Education?

Interestingly, Al Smith, moderator of the KET presentation Comment on Kentucky, mentioned in the program of 24 February that the necessity of inculcating remedial courses in the state’s universities is costly, at least implying that this money could be better spent and that students graduating from Kentucky high schools are not being prepared adequately for further education. He was right. Though it has been largely dismantled in recent legislative activity, the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 needs further examination with respect to some big-time tweaking. Without question, the condition of schools and students is a direct manifestation of that legislation.

According to the state’s testing for 2004-05, only 33% of high school seniors could write at a proficient level; 34% and 37%, respectively, of 11^th-graders were proficient in mathematics and science; and 39% of 10^th-graders could read at a proficient level. These statistics obtain after KERA has been in effect for 15 years, and may or may not be entirely trustworthy, since the education pooh-bahs in the state have never seemed to figure out exactly how to do their testing, in the first place.

The figures do represent an overall improvement over the past five years in the above-noted areas during the time that the legislature has done a good bit of revamping, although individual schools are suffering. For instance, only 23% of seniors in Lexington’s Bryan Station High School could write proficiently in 2005, a gain of only one percentage point since 2001 and well below the state average. On the other hand, 45% of seniors could write proficiently in 2005 at Lexington’s Dunbar High School, a healthy gain of 15 percentage points since 2001. The goal is that nearly all students will function at proficient/distinguished levels in all subjects by 2014.

The most telling element has to do with the slide in accomplishment as the student moves through the system. For instance, about 60% of fourth-graders read at grade level. By the time they reach the 10^th grade, that figure has dipped to 39%. Why? The answer may be at least partly found in the setup of individual schools. As per the requirement of KERA, each school must have a School-based Council made up of the principal, three teachers and two parents. These six people have the final say on everything, even to the hiring of the principal and the curriculum the school will follow. This means that students entering Middle School will come from widely varying elementary-school backgrounds and that students entering High School will come from yet another set of widely varying backgrounds. This is true, at least, in sizeable systems having a number of schools. Another factor undoubtedly has to do with the fact that, after teachers had already begun ignoring it, the legislature did away with the K-3 concept years ago. One can only wonder how badly reading ability would have suffered absent this circumstance.

So, the element of standardization is missing. Strangely, the students are tested in the same way by standardized methods, but come from backgrounds, particularly as impacted by curriculum, that are quite different. Whereas school-boards and superintendents, with input from the experts, once made decisions that impacted the entire system, they now have no such power. In fact, elected school-boards have very little power at all, at least with respect to the academic area, which is the most important of all areas.

This leads back to the matter of remediation. If 33% of seniors can write at a proficient level in Kentucky, as is the case now, 67% could expect to go into a remedial English class in the freshman year at university. The actual mark is probably closer to about 35%. The same is true with respect to math and science. This should not be tolerated. It is no secret that education accomplishment and accountability in this country have been deteriorating for years, especially as compared to the systems in other industrialized nations. This is well documented. While the brightest and best students will continue to excel, in the way that the cream always rises to the top, the vast majority of students, for whatever reasons, are being short-changed. Major changes are still needed in Kentucky, not the least of which is the dissolution of the School-based Councils. Wasting valuable resources on totally unnecessary remediation must stop.

The worse tragedy, of course, is that most students who lag at any stage may never quite catch-up. This is sad, particularly since industrial enterprises in the nation are sliding away from the factory-type mechanical efforts to the more service-oriented kinds demanding people with good educational backgrounds and/or skills. In Kentucky, this is especially and depressingly bothersome.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark