Teach for America FINALLY in Kentucky!
It’s not a secret. The Bluegrass Institute pushed to get Teach for America (TFA) teachers in Kentucky schools for some time (see here and here).
Finally, during the 2010 Regular Session, the Kentucky Legislature passed Senate Bill 180. This bill changed the state’s teacher certification laws so that Teach for America teachers could qualify for alternative teaching certificates in Kentucky, removing a major stumbling block.
Now, TFA teachers have been in Kentucky for a year, and the Rural Blog has a great article about how these unique teachers are doing in some of the state’s most challenging schools.
As you read this, note that the TFA teachers’ students are being won over by their teaching enthusiasm and expertise.
Still, there are critics. Some of the nay-sayers are Kentucky ed school profs. I wonder if those professors are a little worried that the TFA crowd might just show up the products of Kentucky’s ed schools. That might not be hard to do, as another article you will find in this same blog listing, “State education commissioner says teacher quality in Appalachian schools must be improved,” says Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday isn’t happy with the product of some of Kentucky’s ed schools. Holliday even indicates that if the state’s ed schools don’t shape up, some may have to be closed!
One more note – have you noticed the number of key education bills that have originated in the Kentucky Senate over the last decade?
It started in 2006 with Senate Bill 130, which started testing all our students with high quality tests from the ACT, Inc. in grades 8 and 10 and with the ACT college entrance test in grade 11.Then, there was Senate Bill 1 from the 2009 Regular Legislative Session. That one finally got rid of the very poorly performing CATS assessments and, among other things, started a remarkable era of cooperation between the K to 12 school system and the Kentucky postsecondary education folks.
Just today I was at a meeting of the School Curriculum Assessment and Accountability Committee where someone referred to SB 1 as the second Kentucky education reform, and that isn’t far off. This bill is a real gem.
Then, we have Senate Bill 180 from 2010, which finally opened the way to get some really well educated teachers into our Eastern Kentucky region.
There have been other bills to establish better reading programs and math programs, as well.
Anyway, seems to me I’ve been reading comments lately about how the Kentucky Senate isn’t supporting education. I wonder how that notion possibly got started. The record shows the Kentucky Senate has provided more than its share of top-flight education legislation including the awesome SB-1 and the bill that opened the pathway to break a long-standing logjam of ingrown teaching in Eastern Kentucky.