What gets lost if Kentucky’s Priority Schools just go away?

Back on August 14, 2018 I posted “Kentucky’s Priority Schools all going away…or are they?” which discusses the plan for ending Kentucky’s Priority Schools program for the state’s very worst performing schools. In that blog I looked at the 47 schools listed below that have at least at some time been Priority Schools and what the current status looks like.

Full Status Listing of All 47 Priority Schools

You can check my earlier blog for full comments about the table above, but I want to point out again that 31 of the 47 schools never exited Priority Status. Four of those 31 schools were closed; however, the remaining 27 are still being carried as very under-performing but soon will just be left off the Priority hook when Kentucky’s new assessment and accountability system gets up and running. Basically, these schools are about to get a free pass.

Of course, some of these schools could very well wind up right back in trouble with the new accountability program. If so, they will continue to get identification and assistance.

But, there is still a catch.

If a Priority School does immediately become a Comprehensive Assistance school, right now there won’t be a flag or any other official way for you to know that this school didn’t just get into trouble.

I don’t think that is a good idea.

I’d like to see any schools that go right from Priority status to Comprehensive Improvement status get a flag to show their problems didn’t just start. Maybe they should be listed as “Priority – Comprehensive Improvement.” As such, as this title implies, those schools should be the first priority for improvement efforts.

After all, some of the Priority Schools have been in trouble ever since the spring of 2010. It seems like it’s way past time to get something right for the students in those schools and not hide the fact that this has not happened for almost a decade, not just for one year.

Note: The information in Table 1 comes from an Open Records request from the Bluegrass Institute to the Kentucky Department of Education.