Some Current Educational Issues in Kentucky

Some Current Educational Issues in Kentucky

State Testing System

All the core content and testing practices in Kentucky are beginning to be reformatted. Several drafts of the “new” Core Content have been introduced to educators around the state. For the most part it appears that the new Core Content will be a more focused version of the earlier. This is most likely a result of many educators sighting problems with teaching all the content in the current curriculum within the current setting.

In conjunction is the formation of “Power Standards” and “End of Course Assessments”. While these are not in place currently, they are on there way. This past school year a team of highly skilled Math teachers from several schools around the state have meet multiple times organizing and writing power standards for math. These standards are basically the same as the math core content currently in place, but fewer and more direct. The goal of power standards is to have as few standards as possible, but include all the essentials. The other content areas are likely to soon experience a similar process and the Writing portfolio is under heavy scrutiny. It may or may not be a part of future scoring, but it is destine to change.

Another current process which will be piloted in several schools this coming year is end of course assessments. Many schools will be administering end of course assessments in science next year. Many believe that soon all subjects will have end of course assessments. Some schools around the state have moved toward common assessments and common finals. That is, teachers teaching the same subjects, using the same tests, projects, and finals. This requires team work and collaboration.

Team work and collaboration brings us to some of the things schools are doing to improve consistency and student-teacher relations:

• House Systems-Yes, this is the same thing we were trying to do at Grayson when you left with our “Advisee/Activity Period.” Nearly every one is trying it. We haven’t given up on it yet, but we areonly having minimal success through a large number of different configurations.
• Freshman academes-Many schools are finding that isolating freshman in the building and having a freshman team of teachers, is a great way to build better relationships with this fragile age of students. Freshmen have lower grades and more difficulties in high school than do other students. A freshman academy is a good way for many schools to improve the success of freshman.
• Looping-An extension of the freshman academy, a few schools have recently formed freshman and sophomore teams of teachers, they have common planning and work together as teams of teachers to assure consist ant rules, education, and student-adult relations. Each year, the freshman teachers move up with the students, and the sophomore team starts out with a new group of freshman. This sounds great in theory, but to function well you need a lot of teachers who are willing to take on new topics and content each year. Although it does greatly improve student-teacher relations, as students retain the same teachers for two years. As juniors and seniors, students then are allowed to enroll in a few left over required classes, electives, and coop.
• Other new ideas relate to the problem of the senior year. The senior year has come under great debate nation wide. Some think we should do away with it all together.
• Senior Projects-A few schools have tried, with varied success, the implementation of senior projects. A senior devotes part of their senior year to research a topic of interest, learn a new skill, or perform community service. A teacher is used as a resource to make the experience educational, while a member of the community serves as mentor to the students.
• May Term-Attempted only at some private schools and at North Oldham this year. For the last two weeks of school (after AP Tests and the Core Content Test) students take special interests classes. These classes are unlike any of their normal classes. They are formed based on student surveys and teacher abilities. Some classes currently offered at North, this year for May term include: Yoga, Aerobics, Cooking, Sports Medicine, History in Movies, Sign Language, CSI Goshen (crime simulation), Golf, Caving, European Culture, Psychology in Movies.
• A few counties have decided that the campus concept is the way to go. Each site has an elementary, middle, and high school on the same grounds. The administration staff work together, share teachers, resources, and have collaboration of students and teachers from one school to the other. Essentially, they function as their own community in order to strengthen all kinds of relationships.
• To revamp the senior year, some districts (and the state department) are considering a change to senior year requirements. As it currently stands, many seniors only need an English credit to graduate. While some students use this time to prepare for their futures wisely, others take study halls, PE, and leave school early. One of the more interesting ideas which is being tossed around is to require some or at least one of the following in order to graduate:
• Senior project
• Coop
• Community Service
• College Classes (for duel credit)

The question is how much and which of these should be required.