Money Matters, Part 3-- Prichard Committee's "Big Bold Future"
In this third post about the importance of money in public education, we will examine the impetus and rationale for a comprehensive P-16 approach to education funding from the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence . It is appropriate that such a bold plan should come from the Prichard Committee-- they played a significant role in the push for reform from the Rose decision through Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990 and the reforms to higher education in the late 1990s. Kentucky has made impressive progress in education over the past generation. After vaulting from near the bottom to around the middle, P-12 metrics have hit a plateau , even moving backwards in some key areas – from preschool to postsecondary – with persistent gaps for those historically underserved. These plateaus were seen before the COVID-19 pandemic, and now, nearly one year since many students have seen the inside of a classroom, we now face learning loss like never seen before . Th...