Kentucky Teacher

The Kentucky Board of Education will meet today and tomorrow, Feb. 1, in the State Board Room on the first floor of the Capital Plaza Tower.

The board will hold a study session today beginning at 2 p.m. ET. On Wednesday, the full board will meet at 9 a.m. ET for Executive Ethics Commission training, then begin its business session at 10 a.m. ET. The board’s Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Committee and Management Committee will meet in the afternoon, and the full board will reconvene after the committee meetings.

Agenda items include a review of the Teacher and Principal Effectiveness System, a presentation on a paperless board system and reports on the status of state regulations. The board also will present the Joseph W. Kelly Award.

The study session and regular meeting will be webcast. Information on how to access the webcast for both days will be available on the Kentucky Department of Education’s homepage tomorrow afternoon.

A full agenda is available here.

By Susan Riddell
susan.riddell@education.ky.gov

Judy Wood, migrant advocate for the McLean County school district, helps Maria Hernandez look up her son's grades in Infinite Campus. Also pictured, Consuelo Pineda checks her son's progress. Photo by Amy Wallot, Dec. 8, 2011

Two years ago, Judy Wood, a migrant education advocate for the McLean County school district, met a young Mexican mother of two.

The mother had struggled to make it to the United States for many years.

Sometimes, she worked in tobacco, or she sorted eggs for nine hours a day.

“Her hands would grow numb from hours of sorting eggs,” Wood said, noting that the woman often worked in a cold, damp environment. “She continued to support her children. She worked nights and on Saturdays cleaning houses to make extra money.”

The mother is still working hard to support her children, but so is Kentucky’s Migrant Education Program (MEP), a federally-funded program designed to provide supplementary education and resources.

“Our program has helped her find a new place to live,” Wood said. “The children now have their own bedroom.

“The migrant program collaborates with other school programs and community agencies to supplement the basic needs such as food, clothing and school supplies,” Wood added. “Most importantly, we helped (the mother) find hope and encouragement to find a new life.” Continue Reading

Editor’s note:  Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), enacted in the 2009 Kentucky General Assembly, requires a new public school assessment program beginning in the 2011-2012 school year. Kentucky Teacher is doing a series of stories explaining the Unbridled Learning: College/Career Readiness for All assessment and accountability system this month. This article focuses on accountability. The system is subject to United States Education Department approval and may be changed prior to adoption.

By Matthew Tungate
matthew.tungate@education.ky.gov

Melanie Santiago answers a question for James Rutledge and Antoneo Watkins during her freshman civics class at Western High School (Jefferson County). Santiago is a graduate of Western High School. Photo by Amy Wallot, Nov. 30, 2011

Anyone can understand Kentucky’s Unbridled Learning assessment and accountability system if they understand the basic concept, according to one of its designers.

“We’re going to give schools one score, tell them they’re better than a certain percentage of schools and tell them we want to improve that percentage each year,” Office of Assessment and Accountability Associate Commissioner Ken Draut said. “At the highest level, it’s a very simple system.”

In late summer 2011, the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) approved an even simpler accountability system it was ready to use. Under that version of the plan, schools would have received a score and been placed in one of three categories: needs improvement, proficient or distinguished. But they would not have had an annual improvement goal for accountability. However, waiver guidelines from federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act regulations require the state to enact annual measurable objectives (AMOs) for schools and districts.

That caused Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) staff to redraft parts of the accountability system, Draut said.

“What we wanted to do, of course, from the beginning was move our single state accountability system into this area to take the place of the NCLB accountability system, so we would have one accountability system model, not two,” he told the board in December. “That’s caused problems over the years.” Continue Reading

Phillip Rogers, executive director of the Education Professional Standards Board. Photo by Amy Wallot, Dec. 21, 2011

Phillip S. Rogers, Ed.D., of Scottsville, Ky., became executive director of the Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB) in 2005. He has been with the EPSB since 2000, serving as director of the Division of Professional Learning and Assessment prior to becoming executive director. 

A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Rogers received a bachelor’s degree in counseling from Liberty University in Virginia, a master’s in child development from Western Kentucky University and a doctorate in education evaluation from the University of Louisville.  Before joining EPSB, Rogers served as the founding director of the Allen County schools district’s Family Resource Center, recognized in 1995 as Kentucky’s Outstanding Family Resource Center by the Kentucky Association of Guidance Counselors. 

As executive director of the EPSB, Rogers oversees the daily operation of the agency, which was established as part of the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act. Rogers has performed research and evaluations for a variety of organizations and programs, including the Kentucky Institute for Educational Research, the National Center for Family Literacy, the Kentucky Safe Schools Project, and the Kentucky Department for Juvenile Justice. Educational policy formation as it relates to educator preparation and professional development for experienced educators are two of his current research interests. Continue Reading