Kentuckys Educational System; Argument by Definition, Evaluation, and Proposal - Essay Example

number Kentucky’s educational system; Argument by Definition, Evaluation, and proposal Introduction The society in Kentucky is frequently involved in making ethical judgments in relation to issues affecting schools. Such considerations create the relevant school curriculum through the practice of teaching and learning new methodologies. Education plays an essential role in the society as everyone participates in the society. The task of the parents and teachers is to support the child’s education (Horn 343). They also have a role of encouraging the whole society to avail living structures aimed at supporting the components in the teaching criteria. The goal of education remains that of providing viable ways for other people to learn (Horn 366). However, the learning motive varies in Kentucky. This paper discusses the educational system of Kentucky through evaluation and creation of proposals of improvement. While a large section of the population learn due to pure interest, others learn to be in a position of functioning in society through acquiring a job. The Kentucky education system is evident in various environments where individuals are willing to learn new basics. In this case. learning does not have dependence on the teachers or any of Kentucky’s education institutes but occurs through self-learning. The most appropriate teaching methods include the ones that the students chose and not dictated by the teacher. Most students show a preference in the learning methods as they can practically apply such knowledge. Through hands-on experience, students learn more effectively (Hanushek & Woessmann 510). Aso, all forms of exposure provided to the students within their study area also facilitates learning new roles as well as their future jobs in Kentucky. The exposure is provided by way of field trips and invitation of professionals in relation to the field of study of respective students towards addressing the needs of the students. Support can be awarded to students through career counselors and alumni groups. Therefore, the goal and method of Kentucky education are largely dependent on the student or learner, not the institute or teacher. Education in Kentucky encompasses elementary school such as kindergarten to fifth grade, middle school also called junior high that starts from sixth grade to eighth grade, and high school starting from ninth to twelfth grade. The system also includes post secondary institutions. Many Kentucky colleges and schools have an accreditation of various Associations of Colleges and Schools in the region. However, Kentucky education suffers from a common negative stigma like other Southern states. Various statistics ranks the schools at number 47 in the region because of the residents’ percentage with bachelors degree as well as adult illiteracy rates ranging at around 4% (Saravia 62). Subsequent reports rate Kentucky at number 14 in terms of educational affordability, number 25 for K-12 attrition as well as being number 31 smartest nation using the Morgan Quitno Press formula suggests that such stereotypes are overblown. This means that it is ahead of western states like Nevada, California, New Mexico, and Arizona). Lexington, Kentucky, is ranked 10th of the US cities in population percentage of college degrees or higher qualifications. In any case, for various reforms introduced in 1990, the studies concur that Kentucky continues to make progress across the education area. Through the recent practices in the education system, it is determined that the overall success of Kentucky school system is based on goals such as the need to use rudimentary math and communication skills, which will allow the students to prosper in the future. It is also a way of developing their abilities while applying core principles and concepts from sciences, mathematics, humanities, arts, practical living studies, vocational studies, and social studies to the future encounters across their lives. It also allows the development of strengths for purposes of becoming self-sufficient people in the society (Malone & Gallagher 602). The education system propagated by the sate allows the development of their abilities into becoming more responsible and responsive members of family, community, and work group, and it includes a demonstration of community service effectiveness. The other goal is that of developing the abilities to solving and thinking problems across school situations as well as in various categories of situations as they face life. The system also develops their respective abilities to integrate and new knowledge and connects experiences from the subject matter fields where what they previously learn to build on the past learning experiences and acquire other forms of information from different media services (Skiba 288). Currently, Kentucky has 16 technical and community colleges, eight public universities, and above 30 private universities and colleges. Some of the renowned private colleges include Asbury University and Thomas More University. Berea College is another Kentucky college that was the first non-segregated college with a co-educational system within the South. For Kentucky, high school juniors have to undertake the ACT. Reform Kentucky General Assembly in 1990, passed the Kentucky Education Reform Act, abbreviated as KERA to respond to the Kentucky Supreme Court ruling in the previous year. The ruling had stated that the education system by the commonwealth was considered unconstitutional. The court was mandated by the Legislature to enforce broad reforms within systemic levels across the country (Rindermann & Ceci 551). The changes became rather unpopular and teachers in Kentucky started referring to KERA as an Early Retirement initiative. However, no spike within teacher attrition occurred due to the passage of KERA. Evaluation Since 1990, the Kentucky education system has faced several major testing phases. There was the formation of results information service for instructional education used between 1992 and 1998. The phases included performance events, open-response items, on-demand writing prompts, and mathematics and writing portfolios for 12th, eighth and fourth grades. With the psychometric concerns coupled with the absence of political support from the government agency, the 1998 legislation replaced the existing methodology with an accountability testing system from the Commonwealth. This includes the use of open-response as well as multiple-choice items together with on-demand writing prompts of writing portfolios. As an integral part of testing changes, the nation set other scale scores to rate student work as an apprentice, novice, distinguished, and proficient (Stolle, Soraka & Johnston 75). Thenew cut-off points counted the higher figures as proficient with various subjects. In 1998, Harvard University and Ford Foundation awarded the education system in Kentucky an award for ‘Innovations in American Government’. Between 1999 and 2006, schools in Kentucky showed slow improvement for the state’s assessment system in almost all subjects, at all levels. The student groups listed within the disaggregated information reports were reviewed to develop an interpretation. Other elementary schools followed suit at a slow pace enough. This went on to counter the various aspect of reaching the goal proficiency initiated by the state to run to 2014. Other middle and high schools were on the verge of improving even though at slow paces and hence delayed approaches to meeting the proficiency targets. The extensive changes for the CATS came into action in 2007 and included various revisions to content under testing. The focus was also on the years in which each of the subjects was tested as well as the relative weights awarded to various topics (Rindermann & Ceci 568). The relative weighting awarded to open-response and multiple-choice questions focused on the national norm-referenced tests excluding the overall school scores. This means that the “cut points” approach were used in convert numerical scores of the students into performance levels of proficient, apprentice, distinguished and novice. The changes inhibited the “trend line” of the state, which meant that the scores could not be in any way compared to the previous years. Critics also mention that the changes in the system significantly decreased the reported proficiency levels as compared to the previous educational assessment techniques, which were a challenge presented by more state assessments. Additionally, critics observe that irrespective of the rise in the CATS scores, remedial necessities for entering colleges by Kentucky freshmen is still very high. It is close to one of two of the recent high school grandaunts requiring at least a college remedial focus within the public college system in Kentucky (Skiba 264). This leads to the pending legislation of replacing the system with an updated and more credible assessment. The Assessment on Educational Progress presents a respected information base for the comparison of public school students of Kentucky to the ones in subsequent states. Another recent scale score outcome of the focus shows that Kentucky scores well above the national average for the eighth and fourth grade sciences (Malone & Gallagher 584). The statistical ties focus on the national average of the eighth and fourth grade reading, eighth grade mathematics, and fourth grade writing. It also invokes the scores that are below national average for eighth grade math fourth grade writing and. Some critics observe that the results are rather unreliable as the differences focus on showing how states accommodate students with disabilities. In latest testing’s, Kentucky excluded higher proportions for learning among disabled students in both writing and reading as compared to the typical situation across the nation. Proposal One of the recommendations for the Kentucky education system is engaging a thorough transformation in education leadership and assessment. The steps taken for improvement are insufficient. The approach of transformation will be a critical driver economic and education development. The use of technology in managing school curricular will trigger faster development and synthesis of ideas (Stolle, Soraka & Johnston 57). The main aim is to have the development of capabilities at a higher order for the learners across the world as they are within the system change center. All other things including pedagogy and metrics have to have an alignment to support it fully. Curricula, assessment and teaching, and learning require focus towards building the skills necessary in solving complex problems even as they working across international teams, as well as manipulating knowledge on a discipline-based level. Building leadership, culture, and design are important elements for the success of the transformation strategy. The crucial enablers for the process are continuous professional development and connectivity (Guskey & Bailey 34). Through continuous tests of this approach, Kentucky will learn that effective changes will have to be holistic and the focus shifting to the learner. This will also include the adoption of systemic approaches. The government education agencies will be testing ideas for the implementation of positive change at school and classroom level. The jurisdictions in place identify various crucial propositions including the relevance of leadership for the support of change. The focus is not for the technologies but to the processes as well as finding safe innovation spaces. On the other hand, most of the approaches to the issues are dependent on the contexts of split-screen approaches. This also involves continuous improvement in the growing of disruptive innovations within Kentucky (Beck 90). The outcomes amplify radical innovations through their emergence while other states diversify the approaches of having to assess the educational skills. This design includes the practical assessments that are technology-based for specific complex social learning and team problem solving across digital environments. Further, Kentucky campuses are alleged to be replica faculties teaching their individualized curricula without communication between them. Part of the challenges facing Kentucky education system is that the university growth of took place in the countries that such campuses were located. However, there are more populations scattered across Kentucky without access to stipulated programs availed by the mother campuses. To address this, there is a need for government agencies to place considerable pressure for increased access, and achieve responses with various access plans series. The policy making emphasis needs to be on the learning and teaching programs, extending outreach, and growing graduate programs. Other challenges of financing due to budget reductions, the risk of fragmentation, increased competition from universities inside and outside Kentucky region can be addressed by reduced costs of operation through efficiency and effectiveness (Donovan, Smith, Osborn & Mooney 81). The ultimate solution is the creation of mutual virtual university spaces, which is keen to integrate and consolidate the distributed learning resources and technologies, enabling academics, researchers, and students to be part of a single learning space while connecting with other global institutions. The other proposal is to invest heavily in capacity building. Development agencies need to reproach the approach of working for purposes of improving the national learning outcomes. Building schools, distributing books, or training teachers does not ultimately guarantee the fact that learning will continue taking place. This is because such projects are not directly correlated to the wider policy reforms. The development of the overall capacity is useful to all actors in the event that Kentucky is serious about large-scale reforms in the education sector. This follows the improvement of governmental capacities to ensure that the education systems accurately respond to the integral needs of a given society (Beck 89). The system emphasizes on various levels where capacity building takes place. The initial focus is that of having individual officers, precisely from government management and planning teams are participating in remodeling the system. Also, organizational goals revolve around improving the overall effectiveness of the methods and incentivizing better teamwork in education. The other level includes that of developing public service reforms to have a fundamental national leadership while adapting to the respective administration circumstances. Lastly, the levels of external assistance from international and bilateral agencies need to have a long-term consideration leading into a critical transfer for skills, precisely within the fragile state of Kentucky. The development strategy can be prepared together with international education organizations focusing on the development of capacity across areas of quality and equity, leadership, organization, institutions, and knowledge generation. Works Cited Beck, Glenn., Conform: Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014. Print Donovan, Todd., Smith, Daniel., Osborn, Tracy., Mooney, Christopher. State and Local Politics. New York: Cengage Learning, 2014. Print Guskey, Thomas. R., Bailey, Jane. M. Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning. New York: Corwin Press, 2001. Print Hanushek, E.A. & Woessmann, L., Does Educational Tracking Affect Performance and Inequality? Differences-in-Differences Evidence across Countries, Economic Journal, Vol. 116 2006 (510:C63). Horn, D., Age of Selection Counts: a Cross-Country Analysis of Educational Institutions, Educational Research and Evaluation, Vol. 15. 2009. 4: pp 343-366. Malone, Delia., & Gallagher, Peggy., “Transition to Preschool Special Education: A Review of the Literature,” Early Education and Development 20, no. 4. 2009: pp 584–602. Rindermann, H. & Ceci, S.J., Educational Policy and Country Outcomes in International Cognitive Competence, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 2009. Pp 551-568. Saravia, Alejandro., Elementary Parent Involvement, School Culture, and Accountability Scores: Data from Kentuckys Scholastic Audits. New York: ProQuest, 2008. Print Skiba, Russel., “Achieving Equity in Special Education: History, Status, and Current Challenges,” Exceptional Children 74, no. 3. 2008: pp 264–88. Stolle, D., Soraka, S. & Johnston, R., When Does Diversity Erode Trust? Neighboorhood Diversity, Interpersonal Trust and the Mediating Effect of Social Interactions, Political Studies, 56, 2008. Pp 57-75. Read More