Kentucky Teacher

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

Principal Ron Combs, right, observes 7th-grade math teacher Robin Pennington as part of the teacher effectiveness training at LBJ Elementary School (Breathitt County). Photo by Amy Wallot, April 5, 2012

Though it’s been a while since Instructional Supervisor Joy Gooding was teaching, she still remembers what it was like getting an evaluation. The 32-year Fleming County school district educator said her principal would come into her room on an appointed day and she would give an introductory lesson where she got to be center stage.

“It was a performance,” she said. “It was a one-shot thing. It didn’t necessarily affect my practice every other day of the year.”

From what she has seen as part of the field test of the state’s proposed Teacher and Leader Professional Growth and Effectiveness System, she would much prefer to be a teacher now, Gooding said.

She has been facilitating the work of five Fleming County High School teachers as part of the field test, and she said her conversations have been “rich and thoughtful.” One of the veteran teachers told Gooding it was the first time she’d ever had a conversation with an administrator about her professional growth plan.

Kentucky educators have been working on the proposed professional growth and effectiveness system for two years. Fifty-four districts are field testing parts of the proposed system for the remainder of this school year, and they will test all parts of the system next school year. Schools statewide will pilot the new system in the 2013-14 school year, and it will be added to the Unbridled Learned assessment and accountability system in 2014-15. Read the full story

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

Tyler Wright reviews a common core standards workbook to prepare for the K-PREP tests during Stephanie Sanders’ 8th-grade reading class at Page School Center (Bell County). Photo by Amy Wallot, Feb. 29, 2012

Educators from across the state say that preparing their students for the new Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (K-PREP) tests used for state accountability is making them better teachers.

“The K-PREP test has definitely affected the way I teach this year,” said Leigh Ann Scott, who teaches grades 6-8 English/language arts and 6th-grade social studies at LeGrande Elementary School (Hart County). “I am focusing on each standard until it is mastered. The formatting of the test, however, hasn’t been a huge change for me. I am spending about the same amount of time teaching test strategies for multiple-choice and extended-response questions, but I am focusing more on the short-answer questions, since that is new to the students.”

Scott said teachers need to prepare their students for the test’s format so they can accurately demonstrate what they know.

“If the students aren’t familiar with the format of the test, especially those that have some anxiety with testing, it can throw them, and no matter how well prepared they are, they may not do well,” she said. “It is important to not only give tests (during the year) in the same format as the K-PREP, but to also do daily work in that same format. Since the K-PREP is still somewhat of a mystery in some ways, I have done my best working with what I have.” Read the full story

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) will host its next TweetFEST Tuesday, March 27 inviting teachers and administrators to share resources they’re using to teach the new Kentucky Core Academic Standards (KCAS) during the 2011-12 school year.

KDE encourages teachers and administrators who use Twitter to tweet links to resources they are using to implement the KCAS in the classroom at any time on March 27 and add the #teachkcas hashtag to each tweet. KDE also will retweet these resources on its Twitter timeline (@KyDeptofEd) on March 27 to share the resources with KDE’s Twitter followers.  Go to www.twitter.com/kydeptofed to follow KDE on Twitter.

Not a Twitter user? You can sign up for a free account at www.twitter.com. School districts and individual schools who have a Twitter account also are welcome to tweet resources during the TweetFEST.

KDE uses the KDE Twitter feed to share information and converse with the education community and the residents of Kentucky. If you have a question about the TweetFEST, please contact Stephanie Siria via email at stephanie.siria@education.ky.gov.

By Nancy C. Rodriguez
nancy.rodriguez@education.ky.gov

Henderson County High School junior Jake Walker, Russell High School sophomore Morgan Casto and Murray High School sophomore Tiffany Parham laugh with House Education Chairman and state Rep. Carl Rollins as he jokes with them about education bills during the inaugural meeting of the Next-Generation Student Council in Frankfort. Photo by Amy Wallot, Feb. 28, 2012

They are usually on the receiving end of instruction, but last Tuesday a group of teenagers from around the state schooled Education Commissioner Terry Holliday on what it is like to be a high school student in Kentucky.

The students – members of the inaugural Next-Generation Student Council that was announced in January – left few topics untouched, moving seamlessly between discussing ways to make dual-credit courses more affordable and concerns about end-of-course exams to debating the merits of raising the compulsory school attendance age from 16 to 18.

“We’re really excited about you guys being here, and we’re looking forward to the feedback you’re going to give us,” Holliday told the 11-member council during its first meeting. “We want to hear what’s exciting to you about school and what’s not exciting.”

Holliday announced this past fall he was creating the council as a way to get student input on school issues and receive feedback on how state-level decisions are affecting students throughout Kentucky.

Students applied to be on the council, which was open to public school students in 10^th through 12^th grades. The inaugural council includes students who hail from all corners of the state, from Murray to Pikeville, and everywhere in between. They also represent diverse academic and demographic backgrounds as well as school sizes. This first group of students will serve during the 2011-12 school year, and those who are not graduating seniors may reapply to serve in the 2012-13 school year. Read the full story

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) will host its next TweetFEST on Wednesday, Feb. 29, inviting teachers and administrators to share resources they’re using to teach the new Kentucky Core Academic Standards (KCAS) during the 2011-12 school year.

KDE encourages teachers and administrators who use Twitter to tweet links to resources they are using to implement the KCAS in the classroom at any time on Wednesday and add the #teachkcas hashtag to each tweet. KDE also will retweet these resources on its Twitter timeline (@KyDeptofEd) on Feb. 29 to share the resources with KDE’s Twitter followers.

Not a Twitter user? You can sign up for a free account at www.twitter.com. School districts and individual schools that have a Twitter account also are welcome to tweet resources during the TweetFEST.

KDE uses the KDE Twitter feed to share information and converse with the education community and the residents of Kentucky. If you have a question about the TweetFEST, please contact Stephanie Siria via e-mail at stephanie.siria@education.ky.gov.

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

Holly Wood checks over the note-taking of sophomores Bailey Spalding and Nicole Mattingly in her Pre-AP Biology class at Marion County High School. The students were using the New American note-taking method while reading about genetic engineering. Photo by Amy Wallot, Jan. 4, 2012

Holly Wood, a biology teacher at Marion County High School, joined the Science Leadership Support Network (SLSN) in 2006 because she felt it would help her grow as a teacher.

“Being a young teacher and rolling out Core Content 4.1, my district found it important to send someone,” Wood said. “I had a great experience, but as budget stories go, I was unable to attend the next few years.”

Last year, however, she got an e-mail from Kim Zeidler, director of the P-12 Mathematics and Science Outreach for the Partnership Institute for Mathematics and Science Education Reform (PIMSER). The e-mail was informing science teachers about a grant helping teachers implement the new standards.

“I wanted to make sure I got a chance to be a part of this group,” Wood said. “SLSN has provided me with the opportunity to experience the changes taking place in science education first-hand while providing instructional strategies and collaboration with other quality science teachers from across the state.”

Science teachers are waiting for the new science content standards to be released later this year. In the meantime, they have been hard at work integrating content literacy standards for reading and writing standards in the Kentucky Core Academic Standards (KCAS) for English/language arts (ELA). Read the full story

The Kentucky Reading Project (KRP) is a professional development program that focuses on Senate Bill 1 mandates; Kentucky Core Academic Standards; college and career readiness preparation; and formative assessments.

KRP is a yearlong graduate-level course centered on research-based reading instruction. It is taught by literacy faculty at each of the eight state universities. Teachers in grades K-5 may participate in KRP and will receive a stipend and graduate credit upon completion of the course in May 2013.

The National Center for Family Literacy provides one day of training at each site. This initiative is directed by the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development. More than 2,900 educators have been trained through this program in 13 years.

For more information about KRP and the application for the 2012-13 cadre, go to http://www.kentuckyliteracy.org/elementary/krp/forms or contact Cary Pappas, at (859) 257-6118.

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 middle school assessment. Future stories will focus on high school assessment and 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

Cole Kaminski reads "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen during Julie Wadlington's 6th-grade reading class at Lyon County Middle School. Waslington tests the students after every two chapters for reading comprehension. Photo by Amy Wallot, Nov. 15, 2011

Kentucky’s previous assessment and accountability system was based on the idea of getting students, schools and districts to “proficiency.” But proficiency was an abstract concept, Kentucky Department of Education Associate Commissioner Larry Stinson said – and it left something to be desired in practicality.

“We have way too many students who would qualify to graduate, but they’re not ready to do anything,” he said. “So we were looking for a way to say, ‘If you are graduating from high school in Kentucky, you have some skills that you can use at that next level.’ And this is the way to go about it.”

So the state is defining proficiency based on college and career readiness, he said, and the ACT is the capstone measurement for determining it. The ACT provides an extremely strong research-based prediction of college readiness and plays a major part in Kentucky’s College/Career Readiness indicator. That is why all 11th-grade students take the ACT. The ACT PLAN test, given to all 10th-grade students in Kentucky, provides a direct connection from its scores to a predicted ACT score, thus linking early high school work to college readiness. Read the full story

StageLab is offering a professional development session for teachers this Monday, Jan. 16 that will focus on the elements of drama and how they connect to the new English/language arts standards. 

The session, which is open drama teachers of all experience levels, will be in Louisville from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost is $100. Six hours of professional development credit are available.

The session will be centered on the literary elements and ways in which these can be studied in context with the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. Performance elements also will be addressed in terms of the speaking and reading criteria.  Additionally,  the session will address technical elements and connections to social studies and the Common Core State Standards. 

For more information, call (502) 741-8392 or email stagelab@insightbb.com

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 elementary school assessment. Future stories will focus on middle school assessment, high school assessment and accountability. The system is subject to U.S. Department of Education approval and may be changed prior to adoption.

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

Cavin Wallace answers questions about prepositions in Heather Brumley's 5th-grade class at Taylor Elementary School (Bracken County). Photo by Amy Wallot, Dec. 6, 2011

Despite significant changes to Kentucky’s public school assessment and accountability system beginning this spring, the foundation remains the same as its predecessors, one of its architects says.

“I think the whole design from the very beginning of looking at education reform in Kentucky was about, ‘Let’s develop well-rounded kids – kids that have exposure to knowledge and experiences that emphasize important things like reading and math, but also have these other key things,” said Rhonda Sims, a director in the Kentucky Department of Education’s Office of Assessment and Accountability.

The new assessment system has many specific similarities to the old system, too, she said. For instance, just as it has for nearly the past decade, the new accountability system will continue to test every student in grades 3-8 in reading and mathematics every year, Sims said.

“Reading and math are foundational skills,” she said. “They are certainly key foundational subjects for work in science, for work in social studies, for overall work on things like ACT, PLAN and EXPLORE.”

Students also will be tested in science and social studies once in elementary school and once in middle school, which meets federal requirements, Sims said. Read the full story