When the discussion began several months ago under former Commissioner Stephen Pruitt, a series of town hall meetings had been planned across the state. After Pruitt resigned, these meetings were canceled. While the proposal is not yet final, a public comment period runs through November to be followed by a review from legislative committees, it would have been easier to make changes before the KBE vote.
We will continue to work with the education groups and our members to analyze the proposal. Most of our concerns, from the local board perspective, center on the fact that many districts will not be able to offer the called-for multiple course options tailored to student interests due to a lack of funding and personnel. For example, as we continue to expand dual credit offerings across the state, many districts find it extremely difficult to find qualified teachers for dual credit courses. It will be difficult or impossible for students who don’t have access to enough dual credit offerings to qualify as “transition ready” and receive a diploma.
The new, yet-to-be-created exit exam of “basic skills” is also a concern. With Senate Bill 1 (2017) we had hoped to move away from excessive high-stakes testing, which creates stress for students, parents and teachers, and costs districts and the state both time and money. A new exam moves us in the wrong direction and according to the Prichard Committee’s
review of recent research, other states have moved away from this type of exam. The definition of “basic skills” and the scores needed to pass the exam are also areas for concern.
While some aspects of the proposal appear to offer students more flexibility, namely in course options, other aspects are very proscriptive. The requirement that students demonstrate that they are “transition ready” by one of only two ways, either being academic ready or career ready, is an extremely high bar that some students will not be able to meet. We all support high goals and standards for student achievement, but we also know the realities many of our students face and realities of state education funding, therefore, the goals and standards must be appropriate, reasonable and realistic in context with all other factors.
Several members of the KBE and the commissioner have stated that they expect the dropout rate to increase, at least initially, under this plan. That is worth stopping all of us in our tracks to carefully consider the implications.
KDE has filed the regulation with the Legislative Research Commission, and the public comment/legislative review process is underway. On page 16 of the
regulation, there are instructions, deadlines for comments and the date of the public hearing, along with an
email address to submit comments. To grasp the importance of the requirement that students must “demonstrate academic readiness or career readiness” in order to graduate, you will need to reference those terms in the accountability regulation
703 KAR 5:270.
We ask you and your district assessment and instructional leaders to:
- Examine the proposal through a lens of real-world implementation; and
- Consider submitting written public comments on the regulation, either individually or collectively as a board, during the comment period which ends Nov. 30.
