Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday to retire — The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions

Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday has announced his retirement from the Kentucky Department of Education will be effective on August 31, 2015. He leaves two years before the scheduled end of his current contract, which extends to August 4, 2017.I think it is fair to say that Dr. Holliday has probably been the strongest commissioner in Kentucky since the enactment of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). That is partly due to the fact that he has been far more open in communications than his predecessors and he has certainly been more interested in data and analysis. This evaluation also is impacted by the unfortunate fact that it previously proved very difficult to find good candidates for this demanding position. In one extraordinary example, a very poor selection for commissioner in 2008 ultimately never reported for work following the surfacing of legal problems with her former position in another state.

Holliday has produced accomplishments; but, he leaves Kentucky still facing a great many challenges.

Certainly, student performance remains a major concern. Performance of the state’s predominant racial group on the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) eighth grade math test is very disturbing.

The state’s recent performance compared to other states that also test all students with the ACT college entrance test shows great room for growth.

White ACT Across All 4 Subjects in 100 Percent Participation States in 2014

Little more than one in five of Kentucky’s white students were fully prepared for a liberal arts college education in 2014; only one state, Mississippi, produced weaker overall performance of white students on the ACT in 2014.The thorny problem of growing racial achievement gaps also remains unsolved.

G4 NAEP Math P Rates for KY Whites and Blacks by Year

In addition, while the press release about the commissioner’s retirement lauds the increase in College and Career Readiness in Kentucky, the accuracy of those statistics are currently in doubt following the release in December of a critical report from the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability.

Finally, as the Kentucky Board of Education discussed earlier today, the full development of Kentucky’s Unbridled Learning school accountability system is far from complete.

At present, there are major concerns about scoring inflation in new elements of the state’s Unbridled Learning school accountability program including both the Program Review component and the pending addition of the Professional Growth and Effectiveness System. Due to fiscal realities, both of these are self-scored by school staff members who will be held accountable in Unbridled Learning for the results. That collides with obvious facts of life about human nature. As the Kentucky Board of Education discussed earlier today, there already is evidence that scores from both programs are inflated and therefore misleading.

In any event, as Dr. Holliday prepares to depart, we wish him well.

The Kentucky Board of Education now enters a very difficult time as they look for the state’s next chief education leader. As discussed above, this process has generally not been well-executed by past boards. It remains to be seen if the current board, and ultimately the state of Kentucky, will fare better this time. I hope at a minimum that the board opts for a highly transparent process and conducts considerable due diligence in examining prospective candidates. In this day and age with a great amount of material now available online, there is no excuse for any other action.