Kentucky Education Policy Blog

 As a lover of history and literature, I have always been interested in the works of Charles Dickens, especially his role in shaping the modern holiday of Christmas with his work A Christmas Carol . I admire how Dickens used his writing to address important issues around social justice focusing on the most vulnerable in society. One of the most poignant moments in A Christmas Carol is when the Ghost of Christmas Present confronts Scrooge with two disadvantaged children he called Ignorance and Want . Dickens' inspiration for these two characters actually came from a visit to a school in London that served some of the most severely depraved children living in the slums of the city. He believed the seeds of ruin are sown in any society that neglects to care for the most needy. He fundamentally believed that society had an important role in collectively working together to care for those in need. As educators we have faced many Dickensian challenges in 2020. The pandemic has f...

As we look ahead to the upcoming session of the Kentucky General Assembly, the issue of teacher pensions has started to make news again.  The headlines alone have caused many educators to nervously contemplate how they will get through another pension struggle on top of the stresses of COVID, the challenges of virtual learning and the threat of potential student learning loss.   The debate over teacher pensions in 2018 led to widespread protests, teacher walkouts and a significant political pushback that led to the election of Democratic Governor Andy Beshear in red-Kentucky the following year.   The question is whether the GOP, with a comfortable veto-proof majority in the legislature, will approach the topic any differently given the lessons of 2018-2019.    We got a glimpse of that this past week.  Rep. Ed Massey (R) from Boone County has emerged as a voice of reason for Republicans on this issue.  Massey has been working on a bill that wi...

With the issue of education funding and teacher pensions looming in the 2021 General Assembly, a new tool from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) shines a light on the importance of the issue of teacher compensation for Kentucky. The SREB Teacher Compensation Dashboard shows that compensation for teachers in Kentucky lags behind most other states in the South. Considering the fact that teacher pay in the South is behind the national average, Kentucky teachers are among the lowest paid in the country. According to the site, teachers are paid 20 percent lower in the South than similarly educated professionals in the region. Kentucky ranks in the lowest quintile of southern states in terms of net pay. The net pay for new as well as experienced teachers in Kentucky is about $10,000 behind the regional average and even further behind the nation. Kentucky's retirement system is one of the bright spots of the analysis. The state's pension is one of three southern stat...

Here are my additions to the flurry of December reading lists as the two best published books in 2020 on the topic of education policy.   The first is School House Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy by Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina.  Since I teach courses on the history of education and school law and policy, this book was particularly interesting to me.  Black adeptly traces the current challenges in public education to their historical roots from the Early National Period through Reconstruction. He makes a very compelling case that many of these threats are direct challenges to democracy overall. The second book, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door , is by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire, the hosts of the popular policy podcast Have You Heard .  Schneider and Berkshire address the growing movement toward privatization.  One of the best sections of the book focuses on challenges to tea...

This blog is an attempt to provide readers with a lively and accessible, but scholarly view of the critical role of P-16 eduction for the future of Kentucky.   A healthy and vibrant system of public education from early childhood through the university level, cradle to career, not only impacts the competitiveness of our economy, it impacts our future as a democracy.  Thomas Jefferson said "if a nation expects to be ignorant and free...it expects what never was and never will be."  M aintaining the "public" part of our P-16 system is a cause worth defending. From the very beginning, our nation's theory of government has been dependent on education. In looking at more than three centuries of history of US schooling, the main tenant where there is wide agreement is the role that public education plays as a “public good” in promoting and fostering our free and democratic society.   Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton did not agree on much regarding the founding o...

  Adequacy funding in education is one of the defining education policy issues of the past 50 years. Since the economic downturn in 2008, shortfalls in state revenues have led to widespread reductions in state education budgets bringing adequacy arguments back to the forefront.  The attached link is a preprint of a case study that examines two states-- Kentucky and Kansas-- and compares the evolution of the politics and policy of adequacy efforts as an approach to education finance prior to and since 2008. The study is based on a white paper that I published for the Kentucky Superintendent's Association in 2019 and research that I conducted while studying education policy at Johns Hopkins University in 2018.   It is kind of a sad fact that challenges of adequacy funding have not become outdated.  Access the preprint here:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340953009_Case_Study-_Education_Fiscal_Policy

 Published August 2020 I have a whole collection.  Unpublished letters to the editor, unsent texts, correspondence to the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, notes of what I needed to say to superintendents of other nearby districts, business owners, and citizens that lived near many of our schools from my time as the superintendent of the Owensboro Public Schools all about issues of racism.  I would on a weekly, if not daily basis, witness structural racism directed at Black students in our school district. I felt a constant anguish in my heart that I was never doing enough in the face of these disgusting displays of inhumanity directed at my students and friends. My initial reaction was always to fight back and use my position to label such behavior for what it was-- racist.  However, on many occasions, I was talked down by those who would rather me take a less outward role toward this issue. “This is nothing new, it has been happening for many years,” they ...

  Published May 4, 2020 To the Class of 2020: Like many of you the past few months have conjured up a mix of emotions, from fear and uncertainty about the health and livelihood of family and friends, to pain and sadness as we have watched horrific moments of this global pandemic and its economic aftermath unfold in front of us on the TV and in our communities.  I have felt extreme gratitude for the health workers and those on the frontlines helping to feed and care for everyone else.     As May arrives one other group is occupying my thoughts, the Class of 2020.  As an educator, academic regalia has been as much a part of my spring wardrobe as the seersucker worn at the Kentucky Derby.  It is truly one of my favorite seasons.  The bitterness of this moment is particularly hard as I have a daughter graduating from college and a niece from high school in May.   The revelry and joy of the last days of school and Senior Week, trips to the beach, ...