Education in Kentucky

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Education in Kentucky includes elementary school (kindergarten through fifth grade in most areas), middle school (or junior high, sixth grade through eighth grade in most locations), high school (ninth through twelfth grade in most locations), and postsecondary institutions. Most Kentucky schools and colleges are accredited through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

Education in Kentucky suffers from the same negative stigma as many other Southern states. Some statistics, such as ranking 47th in the nation in percentage of residents with a bachelor's degree^[1] and an adult illiteracy rate of about 40%^[2], seem to justify the stereotype, while others, such as ranking 14th in educational affordability^[1], 25th in K-12 attrition^[3], and being named the 31st smartest state using a formula by author Morgan Quitno^[4] (ahead of western states like California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico) suggest that the stereotype may be overblown. In fact, Lexington, Kentucky ranks 10^th among US cities in percent of population with college degree or higher^[5]. Whatever the case, due to a number of reforms beginning in 1990, most studies agree that Kentucky is making progress in the area of education.

1 K-12
- 1.1 The Kentucky Commonwealth Diploma
- 1.2 Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES)
2 Colleges and universities
3 Kentucky Educational Television (KET)
4 Reform
- 4.1 Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA)
  - 4.1.1 Goals
  - 4.1.2 Outcomes
- 4.2 Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997
5 General profile of Kentucky's public universities
6 References
7 External links

[edit] K-12

The Kentucky Board of Education is responsible for the development, coordination, and implementation of K-12 education in each of the commonwealth's 174 school districts.^[6] In 2003-2004, Kentucky's public schools enrolled 656,503 students, with another 12,170 being home schooled.^[7]

[edit] The Kentucky Commonwealth Diploma

In order to motivate Kentucky high schoolers to take a more demanding curriculum, the Kentucky Board of Education began awarding the Commonwealth Diploma in 1987. The Commonwealth curriculum requires that the student take four Advanced Placement courses (one English, one science or math, one foreign language, and one elective) and sit for the Advanced Placement exam in at least three of the four areas. Students whose combined scores on any three Advanced Placement exams meet or exceed a given threshold are eligible to have their registration fees for those exams refunded.^[8]

[edit] Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES)

In 1998, the Kentucky General Assembly voted to utilize some of the profits generated by the state lottery to fund the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship. The program was designed both to encourage high school students to take a pre-college level curriculum while in high school and to encourage them to pursue higher education in the commonwealth after graduation.

To be eligible, students must attain a grade point average of 2.5 or higher in a rigorous curriculum defined by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE), and attend college at an eligible institution in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.^[9] The actual amount of the award is based on a combination of the student's grade point average and score on the ACT. The scholarship is renewable for four years, provided the student maintains his or her eligibility.

[edit] Colleges and universities

Murray State's Pogue Library

Kentucky is home to 8 public universities. Additionally, the commonwealth has 16 public community and technical colleges and over 30 private colleges and universities. The oldest of these is Transylvania University, the first college established west of the Allegheny Mountains and only the sixteenth established in the United States.^[10] Another of Kentucky's colleges, Berea College, was the first non-segregated, co-educational college in the South. Like many southern states, the ACT, not the SAT, is the preferred college entrance test.

[edit] Kentucky Educational Television (KET)

Main article: Kentucky Educational Television

KET is the commonwealth's public television network, and is the largest PBS network in the nation.^[11] KET took the air in 1968 after a generous gift from Ashland Oil founder Paul Blazer.^[12] In addition to the PBS schedule, KET now airs programming aimed at local audiences and educational series used by some colleges in Kentucky as telecourses.

[edit] Reform

[edit] Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA)

In 1990, the Kentucky General Assembly passed the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) in response to a ruling the previous year by the Kentucky Supreme Court that the commonwealth's education system was unconstitutional. The court mandated that the Legislature was to enact broad and sweeping reforms at a systemic level, statewide. The changes were so unpopular with Kentucky's teachers that some of them began to refer to KERA as the "Kentucky Early Retirement Act," though no spike in teacher attrition actually occurred following KERA's passage.^[13]

[edit] Goals

KERA was based on six goals:

Students use basic communication and mathematics skills for purposes and situations they will encounter throughout their lives.
Students apply concepts and principles from mathematics, the sciences, the arts, the humanities, social studies, practical living studies, and vocational studies to what they will encounter throughout their lives.
Students develop their abilities to become self-sufficient individuals.
Students become responsible members of a family, work group, or community, including demonstrating effectiveness in community service.
Students think and solve problems in school situations and in a variety of situations they will encounter in life.
Students connect and integrate experiences and new knowledge from all subject matter fields with what they have previously learned, and build on past learning experiences to acquire new information through various media sources.

[edit] Outcomes

While the commonwealth's own assessment program, called the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS), showed considerable progress in the early 1990s, the commonwealth's reading scores remained flat for reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) between 1992 and 1994. This triggered an audit by the Kentucky Office of Educational Accountability in 1995 that raised a number of serious issues with the assessment program.

Continuing difficulties with the assessment program, including failure of two of the most radical elements, the "mathematics portfolios" and the "performance events" test element, triggered more audits that led to the demise of KIRIS in 1998. The Kentucky legislature replaced KIRIS in 1999 with the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS). However, this new assessment has also been controversial. Charges were made, with some substantiation, that the changeover from KIRIS to CATS had resulted in a very notable reduction in the academic goals. Not only did school scores suddenly jump upward as a result of the CATS score resetting process, but the effective goal where schools could avoid all sanctions was changed from an end score of 100 in the year 2014, on a zero to 140 point scale, to a score slightly below 80.

Kentucky did begin to show improvements in NAEP reading in 1998, but it was quickly pointed out that those NAEP results were suspect because the commonwealth had radically increased its rate of exclusion of students with learning disabilities on the NAEP. This controversy continues unresolved in 2006 as the NAEP has never corrected scores for this increasingly severe problem, which now impacts the validity of scores in a number of other states, as well.

Kentucky's NAEP math results generally continue to rank below the rest of the nation, and there is ample evidence such as high math remediation rates in Kentucky colleges that the problems are indeed severe. Testimony from the commonwealth's leaders admit that there are severe problems with math instruction after more than 15 years of reform effort.

Despite these problems, there have been those who claim the program is worthwhile. In 1998, The Ford Foundation and Harvard University awarded Kentucky's education system the Innovations in American Government Award. However, more recently, interest in Kentucky has waned as the generally unspectacular results have become more apparent.

[edit] Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997

The Kentucky General Assembly completely revamped higher education in the commonwealth with the passage of the Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997, commonly referred to as House Bill 1 (HB1). HB1 mandated that the University of Kentucky become a Top 20 Public Research University by the year 2020.^[14] It also charged the University of Louisville to become a preeminent metropolitan research university over the same time frame.^[15]

[edit] Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS)

One of the most significant changes in the Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997 was the creation of a new entity to govern the commonwealth's community and technical colleges - the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). Previously, many of the commonwealth's community colleges had been part of the University of Kentucky's Community College System, while many of the technical colleges had been operated by the Workforce Cabinet.

[edit] Kentucky Virtual University (KYVU)

Another reform of Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997 was the creation of the Kentucky Virtual University (KYVU). Originally designated the Commonwealth Virtual University (CVU), KYVU is an online collaboration among many of the accredited colleges and universities in Kentucky. KYVU does not offer degrees; it simply provides access to online courses already being offered at the participating colleges. This is a tremendous benefit for rural users who may not have easy access to higher education. This population accounts for more than three-quarters of students using KYVU.^[16]

In 2002, KYVU received the “Award of Excellence” and an “Award of Merit” from the Kentucky Association of Government Communicators.

[edit] Kentucky Virtual Library (KYVL)

To support the Kentucky Virtual University, Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997 also created the Kentucky Virtual Library (KYVL). KYVL provides students with the ability to search a number of databases of books and scholarly works, while providing help on research methods and techniques. KYVU is maintained exclusively online and supports not only KYVU, but also a number of the commonwealth's colleges and libraries.