Kentucky Education Policy Blog

As the details about the violent and seditious breach of the US Capitol on January 6 are slowly revealed, there are no shortage of prognostications about the why and the how of our present moment and no shortage of culprits-- the media, economics, politics, and race. It has prompted educators to reflect about role of schools, colleges and universities in the face of the present challenges to democracy. Did the riots result, in part, from a failure to educate? Is our nation finally paying a price for more than a century of anti-intellectualism? Michael Reynolds/ EPA via Shutterstock If teaching and learning are dedicated to helping students wrestle with big ideas to discover truth, then educators have a role in helping to correct the challenges that we are facing in a post-truth nation. Yale historian Timothy Snyder, writing in the New York Times , says post-truth is a form of pre-fascism.  "Without agreement on some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would al...

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...

  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, ...