The best and brightest of Kentucky high school students are doing better academically, a clear indication that the state’s high schools are doing a better job of preparing their best students for the academic rigors of college.
That’s the conclusion that can be drawn from how Kentucky students are doing on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and on year-end exams in Advanced Placement (AP) classes. In both, Kentucky students are improving.
The SAT is not an accurate measure of how well Kentucky high schools are preparing students for college life. That’s because so few high school students in Kentucky take the SAT, which is not required for any students enrolling in state universities and community and technical colleges in Kentucky. Thus, just about the only Kentucky high school students taking the SAT are those who hope to go to the private college. For the most part, those students are among the highest ranked students in their senior class.
While more than 40,000 Kentucky students took the rival American College Test (ACT) representing virtually 100 percent of last spring’s graduating class, the number of Kentucky students taking the SAT — about 4,000 — actually dropped by 20 percent, making the test an even less accurate gauge of how well Kentucky high schools are preparing students.
Nevertheless, there were 9- to 10-point gains in verbal, math and writing skills among the minority of Kentucky students who did take the SAT.
Even more encouraging is the increase in the number of Kentucky students taking Advance Placement classes and the scores they received on the year-in tests.
AP courses allow high school students to pursue college-level studies, and those who score well on the year-end tests can earn college credit, lowering the cost of their college education.
In 2005, Kentucky and five other states received a grant from the National Governors Association to improve access to and success in AP courses. Kentucky used its award to improve both student and teacher preparation for AP courses.
In 2007, the National Math and Science Initiative (NSMI) formed a partnership with the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation to expand access to, preparation for and participation in AP courses.
Those efforts are getting the desired results. According to the Kentucky Department of Education, the number of Kentucky students taking AP courses and getting a high score on the year-end AP exams has increased by 87 percent.
The SAT scores and AP courses tell us little or nothing about how well Kentucky high schools are preparing all their students, but they tell us quite a bit about how well schools are preparing their top students — and the news is good.
Editorials
Better prepared — 08/31/09
Two signs that the brightest students are improving
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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