Op-Ed shows how well-meaning parents get confused about Kentucky education

An interesting Op-Ed, authored by a Jefferson County woman named Gay Adelmann, showed up in the Courier-Journal a few days ago. Ostensibly, the article pushes Adelmann’s favored school board candidates. But, her convoluted arguments betray a considerable amount of confusion regarding which entities really control education in the commonwealth.

Bluegrass Institute Scholar Gary Houchens has done a great job outlining those mistakes in his blog, “More inaccuracies from school choice opponents,” and our readers are encouraged to surf to Gary’s blog for the details.

I would, however, like to expand on something that Adelmann and many others in Kentucky do not understand, namely the awkward way the commonwealth’s schools are actually governed. While Adelmann seems to believe that much of the responsibility for what is wrong in her schools should be laid at the feet of the Jefferson County Board of Education, the truth is quite different.

The facts are that many key education decisions in Kentucky are not under the control of locally elected boards of education. Most key education policy decisions are directly under the control of teachers in each school due to the fact that – by law – Kentucky uses School Based Decision Making Councils (SBDM) as major action agencies. Also – by law – teachers comprise the voting majority on every SBDM. The only exception may come in a few, very low performing Priority schools where the SBDM can have its authority transferred to another agency due to the school’s astonishingly low performance.

Thus, while Jefferson County’s school board and some other boards elsewhere in Kentucky certainly create their share of problems, when it comes to many important decisions about how allocated money is actually spent in each school, which staff members get hired in each school, and what curriculum gets used in each school, those important decisions are all directly made or strongly influenced by the teachers in each school. Problems in these areas cannot be blamed on outside agencies. These problems belong squarely on the shoulders of the professional staff in each Kentucky school.

For example, if teachers in a school allow an excessive focus on testing, they, and no other agency, can modify the curriculum to fix that.

If teachers on an SBDM allow themselves to be bullied when they have state agencies like the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability (OEA) eager and waiting to leap to their defense, that is those teachers’ own problem (Example: OEA recently sanctioned the head of the Fayette County Board of Education for crossing the SBDM authority line).So, to be sure, there are many problems with Kentucky’s traditional school system. However, a surprising number are more under direct control of the teachers than many, including Ms. Adelmann, seem to understand. In the case of school board elections, regardless of who winds up on the Jefferson County Board of Education or on any other local board, those elected officials will not have the authority to solve many of Adelmann’s problems, either.

This is why better-informed people are considering alternative governance structures for public schools in Kentucky. One of those options includes public charter schools. With a proper charter school law, the abuses that frighten Ms. Adelmann can be well controlled while educational success, which everyone seems to want, might come a lot closer for many under-served students.

If Adelmann really wants better schools, she‘s the one chasing silver bullets if she thinks a different makeup at the JCPS board will make that happen. That won’t work because no Kentucky board has the authority to make it happen. But, you have to understand how schools in Kentucky really are governed before you will realize that.