Leadership

Keep focus on ensuring Kentucky students are prepared for the future

Education Commissioner Terry Holliday In the coming weeks, more than 650,000 public school students will fill the classrooms and hallways of Kentucky’s schools. It’s an exciting time of year for students, parents and educators. As has been our focus since the passage of Senate Bill 1 (2009), the 2015-16 school year will build on our efforts to move [...]

By |2020-01-28T10:18:08-05:00August 4, 2015|

Teacher leadership is about growing our students

Heidi Givens By Heidi Givens Heidi.givens@Daviess.kyschools.us Teacher leadership is “the process by which teachers, individually and collectively, influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of the school community to improve teaching and learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achievement.” (York-Barr and Duke, 2004) When selected as 2013 Kentucky Elementary Teacher of the Year, I [...]

By |2016-01-06T09:58:33-05:00April 2, 2015|

Teachers’ voices make a difference

Terry Holliday A guiding principle for our work in Kentucky is that we do the hard work of reform WITH teachers and not TO teachers. What does this principle look like in practice? In 2011, Kentucky implemented the TELL Kentucky Survey to allow teacher voice on key working conditions such as facilities, resources, leadership, professional development, time, etc. [...]

By |2023-01-04T15:27:50-05:00March 31, 2015|

Standards-Based Grading & PGES: The Perfect Connection

Natalie McCutchen By Natalie McCutchen natalie.mccutchen@simpson.kyschools.us Marie Montessori said the greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, “The children are now working as if I did not exist.”  For the past few years, I have been working to make my students more self-sufficient and more independent thinkers who are engaged in their [...]

By |2015-03-23T10:19:28-04:00March 26, 2015|

The freedom to make mistakes

David Grossman I still remember one of my first years teaching middle school science when my students conducted a lab and their data did not support the Law of Conservation of Mass. This was a big deal because the whole reason we were doing the lab was to learn or reinforce the Law of Conservation of Mass. That [...]

By |2015-03-18T14:20:13-04:00March 19, 2015|

TPGES: An Opportunity beyond Compliance

Sherri McPherson Naturally, when the Teacher Professional Growth and Effectiveness System (TPGES) was rolled out to our faculty many of us had questions. At my school, some of us wondered how this work would look in our large high school. Would our principals be stretched too thin with all of the observations and conferences? Others wondered how we [...]

By |2019-04-03T14:29:34-04:00March 12, 2015|

Four big myths about top-performing school systems

Terry Holliday I came across an interesting article recently on results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The PISA evaluates education systems worldwide by testing 15-year-olds in key subjects. The man in charge of the PISA tests, Andreas Schleicher, the Director of education and skills with the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD), says the [...]

By |2020-01-28T10:18:38-05:00March 10, 2015|

When students engage true learning takes place

Tanya Jury By Tanya Jury Tanya.jury@hardin.kyschool.us Although it used to be the norm for teachers to close their doors, lecture for 45 minutes while students sat in rows, listened, and took notes, times have changed. Over the past several years, student engagement has started to become quite a popular topic in the realm of education. So much so, [...]

By |2015-03-03T11:03:55-05:00March 5, 2015|

Feedback, engagement critical to schools, students continued progress

Terry Holliday No matter how busy my schedule gets as Kentucky’s education commissioner, I am always interested in receiving feedback. That’s one of the many reasons I meet regularly with staff, connect through social media and visit schools around the state. The comments, questions and ideas I receive from all of these and many other activities are invaluable, [...]

By |2020-08-25T13:26:31-04:00March 3, 2015|

Differentiating to meet students’ needs

Sarah Reed By Sarah Reed sarah.reed@jefferson.kyschools.us Each year students enter my classroom with different levels of knowledge and individual learning styles. Not all students learn instructional content in the same way or have the same level of proficiency. Consequently, I use differentiated instruction to support the needs of my students and to maximize their learning potential. When I [...]

By |2015-02-23T13:48:32-05:00February 26, 2015|
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