Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Kentucky began implementing a new state accountability system in 2011-12. The system is called Unbridled Learning. It was built on the requirements of Senate Bill 1 (2009) and is used to meet state accountability requirements as well as the federal requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education/No Child Left Behind Act. The system has [...]
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Dual credit is one of several strategies that has proven effective in helping more students reach college- and career-readiness and achieve success at the postsecondary level. So, it makes sense to fully utilize this strategy to help us reach our goal of college/career-readiness for all students and our ultimate goal of a better-prepared workforce. [...]
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday For readers who missed my blog last week, you may want to review the good news and bad news about No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers. In the blog I said, “I believe the current waiver process represents a major federal intrusion into the rights of each state to develop, implement, and manage the [...]
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday I want to give a “shout out” to one of our university partners. I recently had the pleasure of speaking to a group of K-12 and higher education educators at the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Education P20 Innovation Lab meeting. UK College of Education Dean Mary John O’Hair started the P20 Innovation [...]
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday The 2014-15 school year is upon us, and it’s going to be an exciting and busy school year for Kentucky public school students, educators and parents. Many new and continuing initiatives will require the time and attention of the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE), school districts, schools and educators. All of these efforts support [...]
Several weeks ago in this blog I told you about the United States Department of Education's (USED) new requirement for states to develop an educator equity plan to ensure every child has access to a quality education and quality educators.
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday While most of the country seems embroiled in a political fight around Common Core State Standards and their implementation, too many of our students are graduating from high school unprepared for the current workforce. An upcoming special report, No College = Low Wages, from the Kentucky Center for Education and Workforce Statistics (KCEWS) brings [...]
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday Equal educational opportunity for all -- it was the basis of the lawsuit that triggered the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 and remains a basic tenet of the Kentucky Board of Education and Kentucky Department of Education today. A student's race, ethnic background, family income, unique challenge or zip code should not determine [...]
This week, Commissioner Terry Holliday welcomes Kentucky Department of Education Chief of Staff Tommy Floyd as a guest blogger. Dr. Floyd weighs in on some new ways of thinking about delivering quality preschool experiences and how they can lead to an increase in kindergarten readiness and greater school success for students. Tommy Floyd Many school systems across the country and [...]
Education Commissioner Terry Holliday As states moved to implement new, more rigorous college/career-readiness standards in English/language arts and mathematics, they faced a challenge: how would they assess student progress on the new standards? Writing high quality assessment items that truly measure student mastery of the standards would be no small task. It would be both time consuming and [...]