The Commish Tells It Like It Is

This from Commissioner Jon Draud in Business First of Louisville:

Public schools will have heavy burden in next few years

Tighten your belts, it’s going to be a rough couple of years in Kentucky public education. That’s the best advice I have after analyzing education funding in the most recent state budget.

The 2009-10 budget places a heavy burden on public school administrators, teachers, staff, parents, students and communities across the state. This two-year budget does not provide adequate state funding for public education and threatens to hinder progress being made in many districts.

Cuts coming

The Council for Better Education, whose membership is made up of most of the state’s superintendents, has predicted that many districts will be forced to cut teaching staff. A recent survey by the Kentucky School Boards Association indicates that this prediction has come true.

Other education-advocacy groups fear that ground gained in moving Kentucky students to proficiency and beyond and preparing students for successful careers will be lost without increased financial support.

Even if P-12 education had been spared any funding cuts for the 2008-10 biennium, Kentucky still would lag behind other states in the area of public school financing.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, based on 2003-04 data, Kentucky ranked dead last in per capita expenditures of state and local governments for public schools.

While spending great amounts of public money doesn’t guarantee high student achievement, there is a direct correlation between careful use of state funding and high student performance.

My challenge to Kentucky policymakers and Kentuckians everywhere is to stop thinking of education and economic health as simply having a tenuous connection. They are inseparable — the viability of one has a direct effect on the strength of the other.

Children should come first

This is not as much about funding as it is about a philosophy that children are important and that their education should be our primary concern. The budget does not reflect the concern for children, families and communities that exists in Kentucky.

The legislature developed the best budget it could with the monies available. However, Kentucky needs additional revenue to fund public education programs that have proven successful in helping students reach high levels of achievement. We must have additional revenue to help schools that are struggling to their goals by 2014, the deadline mandated by state and federal laws.

I feel a sense of urgency to re-ignite excitement across Kentucky for the work done by Kentucky educators. Kentucky teachers and administrators are moving Kentucky education in the right direction.

According to a report released last school year by the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center, Kentucky moved from 43rd nationally in 1992 to 34th nationally in 2005, based on an index rating created to measure progress. We know from results on national and state assessments that Kentucky students, on average, are making steady progress.

However, there is growing apathy for public education in Kentucky. We need to get Kentucky’s business and industry leaders involved in supporting public education the way they did in the early days of reform. We need the support of parents, community leaders and our education-partner groups to help make Kentucky’s education system among the best in the nation.

More commitment is needed

I have talked with Kentucky superintendents this summer about a program that appears to be gathering strong support for public education in northern Kentucky.

Last fall, the group hosted a northern Kentucky community summit titled Champions for Education: Focus Locally, Compete Globally.” The one-day event brought together a diverse group of more than 800 people to examine the issues facing public school districts and post-secondary institutions in the region. Participants also discussed issues related to preparing students with a rigorous education that will allow them to compete in a global economy.

What would it mean in every region of the state if 800 people representing several school districts made a two-year commitment like that? Imagine that level of support from business, community and local government leaders, parents and grandparents, educators and factory workers.

Across Kentucky, local business and community leaders, Chamber of Commerce members, local merchants, civic group leaders, school council members, retired teachers, church groups and PTAs want to help but just don’t know what to do. School leaders can call upon these partners to help make such regional summits possible.

Coming together to talk about education — from early childhood education to creating a work force — and its importance to the economic health of local communities is a conversation that is long overdue.