As Kentucky Legislative Session Opens, Groups Start Stronger Push for Charter Schoolss

This from WFPL:

The debate over charter schools is one Kentucky educators and legislators have heard and argued over for the last several years.

But supporters of the education reform feel one party left out of those discussions is ready to be brought into the fold. A newly formed group called Kentuckians Advocating Reforms in Education (KARE) is launching TV ad buys across the commonwealth today to educate the general public about charter schools. KARE has spent $8,950 to air the ad on WLKY in Louisville. Former Metro Councilman and Republican mayoral candidate Hal Heiner is the group’s chairman.



Ads are usually reserved for political campaigns, not legislative issues, but KARE and other organizations like the Kentucky Charter School Project are targeting 2012 as the year charter schools should be passed into law in Kentucky.

KARE’s TV ad is running in every media market in the state except Northern Kentucky.

Kentucky is among nine states that have not passed any charter school legislation. Kentucky’s absence of charter schools is one thing many supporters of the reform say has kept the state from winning multiple Race to the Top federal education grants.

A bill to add charter schools has been filed by state Rep. Brad Montell, a Shelbyville Republican, for several years. And supporters in the state Senate have filed and passed bills in that chamber as well, but all the measures have died in the House.

KEAT Press Conference Video

KEAT: From the 80's Playbook

The Seven Member

Kentucky Education Action Team

Decries Inadequate School Funding

"The public hears a lot of talk

about education having been 'protected'

from cuts in recent years,

but that's only true on a relative level

to the cuts in funding to other public services.

School funding has not gone untouched,

and the public needs to understand that.

--Bill Scott, Ex Dir KSBA

Recently, Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday and Prichard Committee Executive Director Stu Silberman began a little sabre-rattling over the state budget and the legislature's apparent contentment to underfund the schools. Previously, we've heard from Council for Better Education President Tom Shelton. When I first heard the comment that it was time to "draw a line in the sand," I wondered how serious these educational leaders really were.

A list of organizations resembling the Education Coalition of the 1980's, combined forces today to call on the legislature and governor to do better for Kentucky's children and teachers, Conspicuously absent was the Council for Better Education - the only organization to date with the moxie to actually sue the legislature for ignoring their constitutional duty. Twice. If there's any real "insisting" to be done, it will be done by the Council.

How much better, if the Council were to be encouraged by rough draft amicus briefs (and a good deal of grass roots networking) from the seven groups who popped off today.

I realize that Council for Better Education members are likely also KASS members, but still, if there's sabre-rattling to be done, it helps if the legislature actually believes there's a real threat of political action. ...and any lack of resolve will leave today's announcement as a footnote in history. KEAT's mission is only to "persuade the Kentucky General Assembly, parents and the public." Is this Phase One? Is there more to come?

Jim Warren's lead in the Herald-Leader:

A new education coalition said Wednesday that state support for Kentucky public schools has fallen over the past four years despite perceptions to the contrary, urging Gov. Steve Beshear and the 2012 General Assembly to reverse the trend with more money.

Calling itself KEAT (Kentucky Education Action Team), the new group contended that inflation, combined with state funding that has remained flat or been cut in some areas, has led to declines in seven key programs, including the basic SEEK funding that supports school operations.

"Our purpose is to let our legislators ... and the citizens of Kentucky know the realities of what has happened to funding in our schools over the last four-year period. There has been a trend ... of reduction after reduction after reduction," said Stu Silberman, executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and a spokesman for KEAT. The reductions are risky because they have come as Kentucky schools are preparing for new content standards, a new accountability system and a new statewide test, KEAT members said during a news conference in the state Capitol rotunda.

Stu got all that exactly right. The legislature's Senate Bill 1 needs teacher support or it's not going to work.

But absent real tax reform - a can the legislature has been kicking down the street for...how long now? - it's hard to see how this effort works out.

Status quo + promises = 0

It was the legislature's underfunding of the schools during the 1981 session that got 60 of the state's school superintendents mad enough to put their names and their jobs on the line, and stand up. The 1985 session settled the issue. But the legal circumstances are better now. Since the Rose decision, education is a fundamental right. Prichard has built an impressive citizen's network, and the KEA is still the KEA - when they wanna be...(Remember Ernie?)  

Since 2007, the "education establishment" as represented by the Action Team members has been "playing nicely together" - even to the point that the KEA has been willing to go along with teacher evaluations based, in part, on test scores, in order to secure federal funding.

While the Prichard Committee has consistently pointed out the differences between the governor's rhetoric, and the actual funding losses schools were suffering, the general attitude has seemed conciliatory, and vaguely hopeful.

What should one make of the fact that the gubernatorial election just ended? Is it safe for the collective patience to have now worn thin?

Silberman said, in the KEAT press release

“Having all of these organizations come together like this is a historic time for Kentucky. We believe that education is the bridge to a better life for all Kentuckians. The progress that has been made over the last 20 years is in danger of regression due to the reductions in funding.”

While I certainly agree with the fact that Kentucky's educational progress is truly threatened by inadequate funding, it remains to be seen whether this is an historic event. So far, it's only a press conference.

This from the AP/Herald-Leader:

The state's leading education advocacy groups joined forces Wednesday to call on Gov. Steve Beshear and lawmakers to increase funding to public schools.

The Kentucky Education Action Team, a coalition of advocacy groups, complained in a Capitol press conference that public schools have taken financial hits in the economic recession that has caused about $1 billion in shortfalls over the past four years...

The Action Team includes:

• Kentucky Association of School Administrators
• Kentucky Association of School Councils
• Kentucky Association of School Superintendents
• Kentucky Education Association
• Kentucky Parent Teacher Association, and
• Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.
• Kentucky Parent Teacher Association

The group is demanding:

• restoration of SEEK funding
• restoration of textbook funds
• fully funded preschool programs
• fully-funded teacher training
• family resource centers
• youth services centers
• after school programs and
• school safety programs

"Leaders of the coalition said SEEK funding has declined from $4,230 per student in 2008 to $3,769 per student this year. And, they said, state funding for textbooks has dried up entirely.

Sharron Oxendine, president of the 42,000-member Kentucky Education Association, said lawmakers need to know the funding cuts have negative effects in classrooms. As the state's largest teachers' organization, Oxendine said members see those impacts every day...

KEAT Press Release from KSBA:

K-12 groups begin campaign for school funding,

call for restoration of cuts over past four years

For the first time, seven organizations representing the full spectrum of elementary and secondary education in Kentucky have banded together to urge Gov. Steve Beshear and the General Assembly to reverse four years of state funding reductions to key services that support teaching and learning in the state’s public schools.

During a Frankfort news conference today, representatives of the Kentucky Education Action Team (KEAT) called on state leaders to restore funding to the SEEK (Support Education Excellence in Kentucky) program, the primary source of state funding for public schools; and to key elements such as textbooks, preschool, teacher training and family resource and youth services centers, along with afterschool and school safety programs.

“At a time when schools are being expected to significantly boost student achievement, budgeting equals tools that can help teachers and schools succeed for students,” said Tim Hitzfield, president of the Kentucky Association of School Councils and principal of Conner High School in Boone County. “Training, materials, technology and extra time for students are all key investments for kids to succeed instead of just getting by.”

KEAT’s efforts represent the first statewide joint advocacy campaign by the seven founding members: Kentucky Association of School Administrators, Kentucky Association of School Councils, Kentucky Association of School Superintendents, Kentucky Education Association, Kentucky Parent Teacher Association, Kentucky School Boards Association and the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence.

Prichard Committee Executive Director Stu Silberman said, “Having all of these organizations come together like this is a historic time for Kentucky. We believe that education is the bridge to a better life for all Kentuckians. The progress that has been made over the last 20 years is in danger of regression due to the reductions in funding.”

Jessamine County Schools Superintendent Lu Young, a member of the board of directors of the Kentucky Association of School Superintendents, said her members are “excited about the collaboration. This is perhaps the first partnership that focuses entirely on funding issues that impact our children.”

During the Jan. 4 news conference, KEAT released data demonstrating the reductions in state funding to key K-12 programs since 2008, including:

FY 2007-08 FY 2011-12
SEEK $4,230 per student $3,769
Preschool $4,092 $3,191
FRYSCs $103 $87
Afterschool $59 $20
Training $25 $4
Safe schools $17 $6
Textbooks $40 $0 (for the past two years)

“The public hears a lot of talk about education having been ‘protected’ from cuts in recent years, but that’s only true on a relative level to the cuts in funding to other public services,” said Bill Scott, executive director of the Kentucky School Boards Association. “School funding has not gone untouched, and the public needs to understand that.”

Representatives of classroom teachers and district administrators called on state leaders to end the slow eroding of resources that they see affecting student learning.

Sharron K. Oxendine, president of the Kentucky Education Association, a group with 42,000 active, student and retired teachers, said, "KEA members see the impact of reduced funding on their students’ lives and on their own economic welfare every day in our classrooms. KEA believes the united effort to inform lawmakers about the impact of funding cuts is important.”

“Our call to action is necessary and urgent,” said Mayfield Independent Schools Superintendent Lonnie Burgett, president of the Kentucky Association of School Administrators. “Kentucky’s educators are poised to lead our schools in this global society, and our children are engaged and ready to learn. Funding must be restored to meet the higher standards for learning as set forth by the General Assembly in Senate Bill 1 in 2009.”

Kentucky Parent Teacher Association President Teri Gale of Fairdale pledged her organization’s No. 1 focus to “advocate that Kentucky must fully fund all programs it mandates to local school districts.

“Our members believe all parents should be involved both in the home and in the classroom in the education of their children,” she said, “so we support the position that the Kentucky General Assembly acts to restore funding levels for education to 2008 levels.”

KEAT Website:

Mission Statement:
The Kentucky Education Action Team is an action advocacy group whose mission is to develop united messages that will persuade the Kentucky General Assembly, parents and the public to provide and sustain sufficient resources that will advance and support learning for all P-12 public school students to reach their potential for career and college readiness.

KEAT partners believe that:

•The Commonwealth of Kentucky has a moral and ethical obligation to assure that each student is given every opportunity to reach his/her full potential.

•Kentucky’s public schools are a great investment.

•Adequate and sustainable funding of public schools is the constitutional obligation of the legislature.

•Other sources of revenue should be explored quickly if adequate funding for education is not available.

•The General Assembly and Kentucky citizens expect more of our schools than ever before.

•Because Kentucky has among the highest proportion of students living in poverty compared to all other states, more support is needed to ensure that these students succeed in school and in life.

•The needs of our students, schools and state are urgent. The time to act is now.

To support our beliefs, we believe that:

✦ Shared leadership builds capacity for improved student learning
✦ Collaboration creates energy that inspires others
✦ Collaboration is needed among all supporters of public schools for the good of our students and democracy

Bad Timing ?

Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to speak

at Kentucky legislative ethics session

For the price of a nice junket, Jack Abramoff will make his way to Frankfort and spend an hour or so chatting ethics with Kentucky lawmakers at the start of the 2012 General Assembly. Called "the most notorious and crooked lobbyist of our time,”Abramoff will spin tales of how he was able to get rich while influencing Washington politicians and their staff members through gifts, trips, campaign contributions and job offers.

Unpropitiously perhaps, this falls on the heels of three recent stories in the New York Times calling into question trips taken by Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday and Jessamine County Superintendent Lu Young. The trips were sponsored by the Pearson company, which received Kentucky's major testing contract - valued at $57 million.

The shared modus operandi of Pearson and Abramoff is troubling.

• Over the past few years the Pearson Foundation has financed free international trips for education commissioners whose states do business with the company. The Commissioners meet with top executives of the Pearson company.
• Abramoff was accused of using trips and other illegal gifts in return for votes or support of legislation.

WikiBlurb: 

Convicted in 2006 of mail fraud and conspiracy, [Jack Abramoff] was at the heart of an extensive corruption investigation that led to the conviction of White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides. He served three years, six months of a six-year sentence...

WikiBlurb:

The Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal is a United States political scandal relating to the work performed by political lobbyists Jack Abramoff, Ralph E. Reed, Jr., Grover Norquist and Michael Scanlon on Indian casino gambling interests for an estimated $85 million in fees. Abramoff and Scanlon grossly overbilled their clients, secretly splitting the multimillion-dollar profits. In one case, they were secretly orchestrating lobbying against their own clients in order to force them to pay for lobbying services. In the course of the scheme, the lobbyists were accused of illegally giving gifts and making campaign donations to legislators in return for votes or support of legislation. Representative Bob Ney (R-OH) and two aides to Tom DeLay (R-TX) have been directly implicated; other politicians have various ties.

As the New York Times reported:

“The Pearson conferences fit the same fact pattern as the influence-buying junkets that the convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff arranged for members of Congress,” said Marcus S. Owens, a lawyer who was director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue Service for 10 years and is a former board member of the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance. “Those junkets were paid for by private charities.”

The Times questioned whether Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday (and one assumes, since she actually voted on the Pearson contract, Lu Young) may also be violating state ethics laws. KDE spokeswoman Lisa Gross told KSN&C that she in not aware of any other people who voted on the testing contract who also went on a trip. The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board began looking into whether Iowa's education commissioner's trip to Brazil violated state law following the Times article.

Is it possible that this could end up on some legislator's mind after three hours of training?

This from the Courier Journal:

The Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission is paying Abramoff a $5,000 speaking fee, plus expenses, to tell legislators how his corrupt actions helped him rise to the top of Washington’s lobbying world...

George Troutman, the commission’s chairman, said of the decision to have Abramoff as the featured speaker, “If you look at what this training for legislators is supposed to accomplish, I don’t think there’s anybody better on the face of the earth.”

All 138 legislators are required each year to attend three hours of ethics training. This requirement was adopted as part of an overhaul of legislative ethics laws after the federal investigation known as Operation BOPTROT resulted in the convictions of 15 Kentucky legislators and six others on corruption charges in the early 1990s.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo expressed some concern to C-J that people might be "plotting ways to bring undue influence on legislators."

New Questions About Trips Sponsored by Pearson

KSN&C Backstory: Lu Went Too

This from Michael Winerip at the New York Times:

In the summer of 2010, Lu Young, the superintendent of schools in Jessamine County, a Lexington, Ky., suburb, took a trip to Australia paid for by the Pearson Foundation, a nonprofit arm of Pearson, the nation’s largest educational publisher.

Ten school superintendents went on the trip, which cost Pearson $60,000. While the foundation described the visit as a way “to exchange ideas on creating schools for the 21st century,” there was ample time for play. “Everybody’s highlight of Canberra was to get to see the kangaroos,” Ms. Young said on a video produced by the foundation.

Six months later, in Frankfort, Ky., Ms. Young sat on a committee interviewing executives from three companies bidding to run the state’s testing program. While CTB/McGraw-Hill submitted the lowest bid, by $2.5 million, Ms. Young and the other committee members recommended Pearson.

In April, Kentucky’s Education Department approved a $57 million contract with Pearson. And then, over the next six months, the commissioner who oversees that department, Terry Holliday, traveled to both China and Brazil on trips underwritten by — that’s right — the Pearson Foundation.

Were the trips an effort by the foundation to influence government officials so the company would obtain a lucrative state contract?

A spokeswoman for Dr. Holliday said that the selection “was based on best value and not simply a low bid,” and Ms. Young said that the trips and the contract selection were “completely unrelated.”

“I never had any conversation or discussion with anyone from Pearson about the awarding of the testing contract during this trip or later,” Ms. Young wrote in an e-mail.

There is a fair chance that Ms. Young has not heard the last word on this.

For several weeks, New York State’s attorney general has been investigating similar trips involving two dozen education officials from around the country who traveled to Singapore; London; Helsinki, Finland; China and Rio de Janeiro as guests of the Pearson Foundation. The trips, and the fact that most of these officials come from states that have multimillion contracts with Pearson, were the subject of two of my columns this fall.

Last month, the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, issued subpoenas to the Manhattan offices of the Pearson Foundation and Pearson Education. Mr. Schneiderman is looking into whether the nonprofit, tax-exempt foundation, which is prohibited by state law from undisclosed lobbying, was used to benefit Pearson Education, a profit-making company that publishes standardized tests, curriculums and textbooks, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

Mark Nieker, president of the Pearson Foundation, wrote in an e-mail, “Our practice is not to comment about the existence of government investigations.” He added, “It just is not true that the Foundation’s support of conferences attended by education officials has the purpose of helping Pearson corporate to win contracts.”

Pearson has paid for the trips through the Council of Chief State School Officers. The foundation’s most recent tax form, from a year ago, lists a $100,000 contribution to the council.

Mr. Nieker wrote that the foundation trips reflect “a long-term commitment to foster a productive dialogue between education leaders from the United States and some of the world’s best-performing and most improving school systems.”

The conferences have also included top executives from the Pearson company, giving them the opportunity for meetings with state commissioners. Mr. Nieker has not responded to several requests to provide names of the Pearson executives who attended, but I was able to identify 12 who went to Finland and nine who were on the trip to Singapore. The only executive at the Australia conference Mr. Nieker would confirm is Kathy Hurley, a vice president for both the company and the foundation.

Marcus S. Owens, a lawyer who was the director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the Internal Revenue Service for a decade, said New York’s investigators were likely to look at if representatives from other education companies were invited to the conferences, “along the lines of how a trade show works.”

“If it’s only Pearson, that doesn’t have the feel of a real education conference,” he said. None of the lists of attendees obtained include people from other firms.

Also troubling, Mr. Owens said, was that the foundation left blank the line on its federal tax forms where nonprofits are supposed to list payments to public officials for “travel or entertainment.”

He sees parallels between the Pearson situation and an investigation by the United States attorney’s office in Arizona of the nonprofit organization that runs the Fiesta Bowl. In November, a former chief operating officer for the Fiesta Bowl nonprofit was indicted by a federal grand jury for filing tax returns that failed to list payments to political campaigns and lobbyists.

Mr. Nieker, the Pearson Foundation president, said the situations were not parallel. “We strongly dispute any valid comparison and question the ability of tax experts you cite to make such a comparison without knowledge of the relevant facts.”

While several commissioners have said they had prior approval for the trips from state ethics officials, oversight appears to have been lax.

Christopher Koch, state superintendent of education in Illinois — which has $138 million in contracts with Pearson — went to China, Brazil and Finland with the foundation. The only Pearson compensation he listed on state ethics forms was the cost of the flight to China, $4,271 for business class. Asked why hotels, meals and the other flights were not documented, a spokesman for Dr. Koch, Matt Vanover, said, “What we’re looking at is a litmus test; they just want to make sure he’s not traveling first class.”

David Steiner, the former New York education commissioner, has said that the entire value of a foundation-sponsored trip he took to London in 2010 was $2,000.

Pearson paid for the Australia trip through the American Association of School Administrators. Mr. Nieker said the superintendents on the trip were selected by the association, not the foundation.

In Montgomery County, Md., the now-retired superintendent, Jerry Weast, approved an unusual contract in June 2010, in which Pearson paid the district $2.5 million to produce curriculum materials that the company would then sell worldwide.

Two months later he was on the plane to Australia.

Dr. Weast, who has come under fire from parents groups, said the curriculum contract was a unique way to generate income for public schools in hard economic times.

Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of the administrators association, said the group had taken its last Pearson trip. “Given the climate in public education today, we won’t go on trips,” he said.

When told about the attorney general’s investigation, Dr. Domenech said: “I guess that means we better get our records set up. If there’s an investigation, I’m sure they’ll want to look at them.”

The Book on Lu Young

2012: What's In, What's Out

This from ASCD:

As we turn the last calendar page of the year, ASCD's Capitol Connection bids adieu to the compelling people, policies, and activities of 2011, and predicts their likely successors that will demand our attention in 2012.

IN	OUT
NCLB Waivers	ESEA Reauthorization
Bake Sales	ARRA Stimulus Funds
Race to the Top Losers	Race to the Top Winners
Finland	China
48%	82%
Local Control	Federal Requirements
Harkin-Enzi	Kline-Miller
STEAM	STEM
Common Core State Implementation	Common Core State Adoption
Potatoes	Leafy Greens
Student Growth	AYP
Early Learning	High School Reform
Brinksmanship	Partisanship
Multiple Measures Teacher Eval	Value Add Teacher Eval

Obama administration scrutinizes Georgia's early Race to the Top work

It would appear that phase 2 of Race to the Top has begun: Punishing the winners for their failure to actually be the supermen and superwomen they promised to be.

This from the Journal Constitution:

The Obama administration is raising some concerns about Georgia's early work to improve public schools with a $400 million, four-year federal Race to the Top grant.

The administration is stepping up the pressure on Georgia and 11 other Race to the Top winners to make good on the reforms they promised in 2010 in exchange for millions in grant money. In mid-January, the U.S. Department of Education is set toissue a report sizing up how the winners did in the first year.

A draft of Georgia's "progress report," obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, shows the state was largely on target at the one-year mark. But it points out that Georgia was slow to fill 21 high-level jobs considered critical to executing some of the state's complicated and controversial reform plans,including the launch of a teacher evaluation system that is tied to student achievement.

The report notes that the state won the grant in August 2010 but the final member of its Race to the Top management team wasn't on board until mid-September 2011, in part because of leadership changes:a new governor,new state school superintendent and new school superintendents in Atlanta, DeKalb and four of the 26 participating local school districts.

Those 26 school districts will be piloting the new teacher evaluation system. Educators are skeptical that a fair system can be created given the wide range of student abilities, but generally acknowledge that it's difficult to weed out mediocrity when all teachers are currently rated as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory...