Education Commissioner Terry Holliday When the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 1 in 2009, a key component was the ACT assessment for college readiness. The General Assembly, through KRS 158.6459, made it clear that any student in grade 8 or grade 11 whose high school- or college-readiness scores reveal that additional work is needed in English, reading, or [...]
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Since Senate Bill 1 (2009) was enacted, Kentucky has certainly been seen as a leader in the nation for our work in implementing college/career-ready standards, assessments, a new accountability system and professional development for educators. As these core processes begin to stabilize after three full years of implementation, it is important that Kentucky look [...]
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Education Commissioner Terry Holliday recently had a column published in the Cincinnati Enquirer in which he discusses the link between Senate Bill 1 and the Kentucky Core Academic Standards. This is a longer version of that column. Our goal in Kentucky is to provide students in our state with a world class education that will prepare them for [...]
Kentucky’s new school and student accountability and assessment system meets the requirements of Senate Bill 1 and the pledges of the state’s waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act. For Kentucky school board members and superintendents, one of those challenges will be explaining the Unbridled Learning system and what the measures of student achievement mean at the local level. [...]
After teaching high schoolers the ins and outs of government, history and economics for 27 years, state Rep. Derrick Graham has retired from Frankfort High School. .
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Twenty-six million dollars is a big number. That is the amount some are estimating it will cost Kentucky taxpayers to raise the compulsory school attendance age from 16 to 18. I and the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE) have counted such a change as a top priority in past legislative sessions. The 2012 session [...]
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 [...]
Kentucky’s ranking in an annual grading of all states on key education indicators rose dramatically this year, placing the state 14th in the nation for its work on academic standards, the teaching profession and many other variables related to public education. Each year, Education Week (a national publication that focuses on P-12 education) produces a special issue, “Quality Counts.” The [...]
The U.S. Department of Education announced last week that Kentucky will receive a Race to the Top grant of $17 million to advance targeted K-12 reforms aimed at improving student achievement. Kentucky and six other states — Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — will each receive a share of the $200 million in Race to the Top [...]
The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) will provide tools to analyze resource decisions to improve school districts’ operational processes and free resources to invest in the work of Senate Bill 1 through the Performance Excellence Connection Project. The “Kentucky Best Practices” website is a component of the project, and it will enable school districts to share solutions to common operational [...]