Footing the bill for dual credit courses
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Last week, the Senate Education Committee passed SB 87 out of committee. Sen. Stan Humphries has done an excellent job bringing this bill back to the General Assembly — the bill passed the Senate in 2013. This legislation would support dual credit courses in our high schools. Dual credit is defined in KRS 164.002 (4) as a “college-level course of study developed in accordance with KRS 164.098 (Council on Postsecondary Education standards) in which a student receives credit from both the high school and postsecondary institution.” Under SB 87, students could use Kentucky Educational Excellence [...]
Strong leadership will let Kentucky soar, not stagnate
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Governor Steve Beshear recently convened a group of business leaders, legislators, educators, and policy makers from across the southern region to study career and technical education. This group was convened under the support of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) for which Gov. Beshear is the chair in 2014. The group will complete its work with a report in late summer. I was excited to be a part of the group since KDE was also conducting a career and technical education study with the support of the Southern Regional Education Board. During a recent [...]
Elevating and integrating career and tech ed
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday In a few weeks, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) will release findings from a study of our career and technical education programs. KDE requested the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) study pursuant to recent legislation that merged the former Office of Career and Technical Education within the Education and Workforce Development Cabinet with our local Carl Perkins programs in the Department of Education. It was important for the department to have an independent outside voice make key findings and recommendations on how to elevate and integrate career and technical education in the Commonwealth. [...]
A road map for moving forward
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday I wanted to share with you two reports that the Interim Joint Education Committee recently received that, for me, are of particular importance. The first came from the Advance Kentucky team, which provided an evaluation report for their outstanding program. The Advance Kentucky team utilized the Kentucky Center for Education and Workforce Statistics to answer several research questions including, “Does participation in AP Math, Science, and English courses impact high school success, college remediation rates, and college performance and persistence?” The research study came back with overwhelmingly positive results for Advance Kentucky. It is [...]
Budget cuts impacting our children’s future
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Look at our most recent college- and career-readiness and graduation rates and you can see the tremendous progress we are making in Kentucky public education. Our teachers and administrators do an amazing job every day, in spite of the fact they are doing so with less funding. Educators have told me about the negative effects a drop in per pupil spending is having in the classroom, but I was curious about the real impact it is having on students. At a recent meeting of my Next-Generation Student Council, I asked students if they had [...]
Teachers speak out on Common Core Standards
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Scholastic recently released some early results from the third edition of Primary Sources, a survey of more than 20,000 teachers across the nation. The early release highlighted three major findings concerning teachers’ views on the Common Core State Standards, which in Kentucky are called the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. Here are the key findings. Awareness – Teachers’ awareness of the Common Core State Standards is now universal. Approximately 97 percent of teachers surveyed were aware of the Common Core State Standards. Impact – Teachers expect the Common Core to enhance students’ ability to think [...]
Results show progress; work to be done
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Last week, we released the Unbridled Learning assessment and accountability results from the 2012-13 school year. We have some really positive news. Our cohort graduation rate is 86.1 percent which places us among the top states. Our college- and career-ready rate is 54 percent which is 20 percent higher than our 2010 baseline. It is clear that Kentucky educators are helping more students reach success. We have made tremendous progress the last few years, but we have much work to do. I am concerned that students are not making sufficient progress on assessments in [...]
Listening to teachers, advocating for more school funding
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday As I noted in my column last month, the 2013-14 school year is going to be a busy one with many new and continuing initiatives. Since that column ran, two reports have been published that underscore our work in two areas – teachers (their training, professional learning and their working conditions) and state education funding. I’d like to highlight some of the findings of each report. The first report comes from the New Teacher Project (TNTP) and is a follow-up report to its October 2012 study, “The Irreplaceables: Understanding the Real Retention Crisis in [...]
Upcoming school year shaping up to be a busy one
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday The 2013-14 school year is upon us, and one thing is certain: It’s going to be an exciting and busy school year for Kentucky public school students, educators and parents. Many new and continuing initiatives will require the time and attention of the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE), school districts, schools and educators. All of these efforts support our ultimate goal in Kentucky: college and career readiness for ALL students. The 2014 Kentucky General Assembly also will convene during this school year, with discussions and decisions on the biennial state budget. As in the [...]
Raising drop out age important step in ensuring more students are college/career ready
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday The recent “Diplomas Count” study certainly gave us something to celebrate in Kentucky. The Kentucky graduation rate for the Class of 2010 (the most recent data available for this report) was 77.2 percent – better than the national average of 74.7 percent. Kentucky ranked third in the nation for most improvement in the graduation rate over the last decade, gaining 13.5 percentage points compared to a national improvement of 7.9 points. That is good news. But more work is needed. According to “Diplomas Count,” Kentucky had 53,524 students enter 9th grade in 2009-10, but [...]