by Mandy McLaren, Louisville Courier Journal –

The Kentucky Department of Education will push for several controversial pieces of legislation next year, according to a list of priorities made public Wednesday.

The department’s main priorities include:

  • Securing a permanent funding mechanism for charter schools.
  • Obtaining the power to retain third-graders who are not proficient in reading in that grade for another year.
  • Taking the power to select principals away from school-based decision making councils and giving that authority to district superintendents.

Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis presented the legislative priorities to the Kentucky Board of Education on Wednesday.

Board member Gary Houchens applauded the department’s vision.

“On a multitude of levels, this is exactly the bold agenda that we need to be in partnership with the state legislature to pursue,” Houchens said.

Third grade retention

The department will pursue a third grade reading retention policy that would hold back students who have not reached a minimum level of reading competency by the end of their third grade year, with exceptions for students with disabilities, English language learners and students who have previously been retained.

Third grade reading has long been a favored issue for Kentucky Board of Education Chairman Hal Heiner.

When he served as the state’s education and workforce secretary, Heiner pushed the idea of creating a “third grade reading guarantee.”

In June 2017, Heiner issued a report to the state education board that pointed to other states’ policies, including Ohio, Indiana and Florida, to retain students who are not reading on grade-level by the end of the third grade. Those states provide “intense reading intervention” for students who are retained, Heiner said in the report.

The Louisville businessman insisted at the time that the policy wasn’t about holding students back but about instead intended to get students on the right track for future learning. Third grade is a key time for students’ reading skills because it’s the point where they transition from learning to read to reading to learn.

Sixteen states have third grade retention policies, according to a 2016 survey by the Education Commission of the States.

Critics of the policies have pointed to research indicating that retained students often continue to perform behind their peers and are more likely to drop out of high school.

Speaking to the state board Wednesday, Lewis said attention shouldn’t be focused on the retention aspect of such a policy, but on early reading interventions provided to struggling students.

“That should lead to a place where very, very few kids are actually retained,” Lewis said.

Weakened SBDMs

Kentucky’s landmark 1990 education reform law created school-based decision making councils. Made up of teachers, parents and an administrator, the councils set school policy and make key decisions for students, such as what textbooks will be used or what support services will be provided.

The councils also have the power to choose the school’s principal — a decision critics say should be in the hands of a district superintendent.

According to its legislative priorities, the Kentucky Department of Education will push for legislation giving the authority to hire principals back to superintendents and demoting the school-based councils to an advisory role in the process.

Such a move was criticized by parents at a recent hearing before a panel of legislators. Several said the councils are an important way for Kentucky parents to have influence in the schools that their children attend.

“I know what’s best for my children,” said Teandra Parker, a parent and school-based council member from Woodford County.

Though the department would seek to remove hiring power from the councils, it would also push to increase parent voice on the committees, legislative priorities show. The department will call for parents to have the same number of voting seats as teachers, representing an increase in parent voice from the current policy.

Charter school funding

Lewis announced last month that the department would push the legislature this session for charter school funding.

“It is absolutely a priority,” Lewis said.

He made that pledge in the face of consistent opposition from the state’s public school teachers.

Though Kentucky passed a charter school law in 2017, no charter schools have opened in the state. That’s because lawmakers have yet to approve a permanent funding mechanism for them.

Because it is not a budget year, any bill that creates a new appropriation of state dollars would require a supermajority — or 60 votes — in the House.

But the education department will likely seek to avoid the appropriations process altogether and instead re-route per-pupil dollars that are already appropriated under the state’s Support Education Excellence in Kentucky, or SEEK, funding.

On Wednesday, Lewis pushed back against critics who say charter schools will take money away from traditional district schools.

“If parents aren’t interested in public charter schools and they don’t enroll their kids, then no money moves,” he said.

Other controversial priorities

  • Solidifying, in statute, Gov. Matt Bevin’s executive orders that reorganized several state education boards. Critics, including Attorney General Andy Beshear, have criticized those executive orders for further politicizing state education policy.
  • Giving superintendents and principals greater authority to “remove ineffective staff from schools and classrooms as necessary for the benefit of students.”
  • Giving district and school administrators more power to “set education policy” and to control “administrative decision making” — changes which could mean taking powers away from locally elected school boards.