Friday, August 22, 2014

Holliday to make "Major Announcement" on Kentucky Core Academic Standards Monday

This from KDE via press release:
Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday will make a major announcement concerning the Kentucky Core Academic Standards in English/language arts and mathematics on Monday, August 25 at 10 a.m. at the:
 
Woodford County High School, Media Center
180 Frankfort St.
Versailles, KY 40383
The Kentucky Board of Education adopted the standards, which represent the minimum of what students should know and be able to do at each grade level, in 2010 and they have been taught in Kentucky classrooms since the 2011-12 school year.  

The standards were the result of Senate Bill 1 (2009) that mandated new, more rigorous academic standards in all content areas.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not the most seasoned educator but I am sensing yet another turn of the rudder which will again indicate that teachers have been busting their tail with threats of job loss and failing school monikers hanging over their heads only to be told by their "leaders" that all their work was again wasted and that a new path would be taken which will require more work which has occur immediately.

Frankfort and Washington leaders have no business trying to impose their sold out agendas on local districts. No offense but we aren't all Breathitt County

Anonymous said...

Well that was certainly a disappointment of an announcement. Not man enough to stay the course or independent enough to take a different path. I feel like we have pulled Great Oz curtain back and found the scarecrow unable to even make a decision and instead asking the munchkins for advice on leadership.

Richard Day said...

I see this a bit differently.

CCSS wasn't really a federal intrusion. But when Obama tied CCSS to RTTT it became political...and since one had to comply to receive funding, the federal intrusion argument stuck. The Governors lost control of the issue and CCSS has been struggling ever since.

In state after state common core is getting pummeled by the far right (fed intrusion, Anti-Obama) and far left (tied to the inappropriate use of test scores for a range of heavy-handed offenses). Ky was first out of the gate and avoided most of the flack but certainly not all. The commissioner is very sensitive to recent upswings in anti-CCSS sentiment (particularly in the legislature) and needs to refocus the conversation. If he fails to do that, Kentucky will likely become susceptible to the same political pressures as others.

This is an effort to stay the course, not abandon the standards.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but it is a façade, not a action which no one should expect will change the conditions of the game. The left and right are going to continue to force their position. Inviting the public to review and comment is just hollow showmanship. Anyone who is associated with its use has long ago read through this stuff. If the average guy or gal hasn't spent some quality reading time using this stuff to go to sleep to during the last five years, I don't see it showing up on their night stands now. I guess what bugs me is this would seem to have been a logical request prior to adoption not after.

Brad Clark said...

If no one uses the KCAS Challenge, then it is a facade...but that is not KDE's fault. That is the public's fault or teacher's fault for not using the process to refine the standards.

I honestly think that now is the perfect time to examine the standards because we, at least as teachers, know the standards in depth.

Richard Day said...

August 26, 2014 at 2:28 PM:
Holliday has no intention of changing the game, just the conversation.

Objections to Common Core tend to weaken (or fall apart) when opponents are asked to identify specific problems with the standards. That is not to suggest they are perfect. Teachers have worked with them enough to know what needs tweaking. But we must have a set of curriculum standards. Indiana outlawed Common Core, wrote a set of “Indiana standards,” and found that they looked just like common core.

Limiting the scope of the conversation eliminates all of the outrageous stuff one hears…like common core turning Kentucky kids into communist homosexuals and other right-wing fantasies. Show me where that is in the standards. If individual teachers push the standards into inappropriate topics, that is not the fault of the standards, but the local school.

For a good time, ask your average right-wing CCSS opponent what kind of curriculum design Kentucky kids should have. My experience is that they either have no idea (the most common response, I assume because that takes work and it makes their heads hurt to think about it) or they argue that every school district, or even school, should think up their own – duplicating the effort a million fold, killing any uniformity in what it means to pass Algebra I, and not solving the problem. Local school councils would begin to hear from the same folks about how the standards at school X are turning kids into communist homosexuals.

Brad: For the reasons stated, I think the challenge is a sincere effort. And I’ll take your word for it that this is a good time to reexamine them. In recent years KDE has revisited curriculum every few years. It’s about time, I suppose.

One can disagree with the direction Holliday is taking, but it will not come as surprise to anyone who has been watching his administration.

Anonymous said...

Though I do lean toward that right, I agree there isn't anything wrong with core, I just don't like all of this song and dance about the challenge, like I said it is just PR show. No change will come, whatever response they get will just homogenize into at best a committee, commission or task force to explore concerns. I do worry that when nothing comes of it all this charade that it will just instill greater indifference in those who already feel they have no voice as well as apparently those who do think they are going to have a voice.