The gubernatorial candidates are talking about the usual things such as education and highways and, of course, promising all kinds of goodies without raising taxes. With respect to education, the notion was presented in 1990 that the Education Reform Act (KERA) of that year augured well for virtually making geniuses of at least 90% of Kentucky public-school students by 2015. The results of the most recent tests indicate that the efforts by students in the grades tested are about average in reading and well below average in math and science as determined on the basis of national norms. Locally, educators and parents recognize that KERA has been an abomination, but “eating crow” is not de rigueur for legislators of that era still in office, and parents just shrug.
Added to the misery is the fact that 53% of first-year students at Kentucky universities in 2004 had to take remedial courses costing $25 million per year, meaning that their high-school diplomas were not worth all that much after nearly 15 KERA-years. If the threshold for entry-level is raised on the math section of the ACT, the number will rise to 63 percent needing remedial math. Put as kindly as possible, KERA is a flat-out failure, notwithstanding all the political propaganda to the contrary.
So…what do the candidates propose? Billy Harper, for instance, proposes funding for full-day kindergarten, never mind the fact that traditional students read as well as “Head-Start” students within about two years or less. Besides its expense, this program (all-day too long for 5-year-olds anyway) will be little more than full-day child-care instead of half-day. This might make the parents happy to be relieved of some child-care expenses, but schools are not designed to be social programs.
This is not a “pick-on-Harper screed,” but it should be noted that he recommends some sort of reward for teacher leaders (whatever they are). Under the KERA reward-system, administrators and teachers (and even students) conspired to rig tests or test results in order to get the financial rewards. It was a scandal sort of like BopTrot/Humana in the 80s-90s, except these folks didn’t go off to the Big House. The legislature, thankfully, did away with the reward system as regarding those financial windfalls awarded teachers/administrators/schools for simply doing what they were paid to do, in the first place. Even at that, probably 90% of teachers never learned how (assuming there was a “how”) to grade those all-important portfolios.
Another Harper idea: “Require school councils to collaborate with superintendents on hiring principals.” Imagine that! The Kentucky Supreme Court made it clear to the Fayette School Board a few years ago that the Councils did NOT have to pay any attention to the elected superintendent in this matter. The truth is that the councils don’t have to pay attention to the superintendent on much of anything – even, or especially, curriculum. Harper should be demanding that the council-mandate of KERA be rescinded and the operation of the schools returned to the elected school board and the elected superintendent. Instead, he comes up with this suggestion indicative of the total inability of multi-school systems to be held accountable or arrive at a semblance of standardization that would give planners a leg up on making the total system homogeneous curriculum-wise and therefore susceptible to some sort of academic order.
Instead of getting rid of the councils, as he should promise, Harper recommends expanding school councils to include two community members and one employer. What on earth for? What Harper is actually suggesting is that there is no need for a school board or a superintendent, just a gaggle of schools reflecting the latest fads, one of which was the KERA engine 17 years ago, known as “outcomes-based-education,” a total disaster and the reason for the mediocrity of today. The site-based-council is made up of a principal, three teachers and two parents, and they are literally on their own, whether or not they have the overall expertise to set up an individual system or operate it.
Harper is probably little different from any other candidate, with regard to education. This is part of the bio on his Web site: He was chairman of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in 1989-90. During this time, he traveled the state promoting education reform. Education reform was embodied in KERA. The legislators made the fatal mistake of enacting pedagogy, something entirely beyond their expertise. Harper made the mistake of pushing it. Now, he and probably all the other candidates should be revisiting KERA in order to find the most efficient ways to finish dismantling it, since the legislators have been dismantling it piecemeal for years, after some teachers had already started pooh-poohing it locally, such as in nullifying the silly K-3 section. He will help his campaign not by praising KERA and attempting to turn education into a social activity, but by calling for a thorough reform of the Reform. And that shouldn’t require a tax increase.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
No comments:
Post a Comment