Kentucky-specific Digital Learning Now! report

Digital Learning Now!: Obstacles to Implementation in Kentucky©2011 The Bluegrass Institute

Published by:The Bluegrass Institute400 East Main Avenue, Suite 306Bowling Green, Kentucky 42101

Phone: (270) 785-0266www.bipps.orgwww.freedomkentucky.org

Richard G. Innes, Author

Front Cover Design: Nick Oberg

Report Design: Logan Morford

The Bluegrass Institute is Kentucky’s free-market think tank, dedicated arming Kentucky’s freedom fighters with the information they need to defend their individual liberties. Founded in 2003, the institute is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit educational organization.

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Table of Contents

Execu1ve Summary 2Forward 5Why Digital Learning? 6The Digital Learning Now! Plan 9Roadblocks to Digital Learning in Kentucky 10 Na1onal Issues of Significant Importance in Kentucky 10 Student Eligibility 10 Student Access 10 Personalized Learning 14 Advancement 14 Content 15 InstrucBon 16 Providers 18 Assessment and Accountability 18 Funding 19 Delivery 23 Kentucky Specific Issues 26Closing 28AJachments 29Endnotes 33

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Digital learning offers outstanding potential to enhance the educational performance and efficiency of public school programs in Kentucky and the nation. After four decades of experience with automated learning systems stretching from my days in the early 1970s as an Air Force Instructor Pilot in one of the US Air Force’s first operational pilot training learning centers to my experience with digital learning in commercial aviation, this opinion is well-informed.

Strong evidence of digital learning’s power also is found today in the public school sector.

Consider a "real world” K-12 example – the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning, Kentucky’s totally online high school program. Using a totally digital instructional delivery program, Barren Academy is successfully graduating high school students once in danger of dropping out.

While that accomplishment alone is noteworthy, Bluegrass Institute research also discovered that Barren Academy accomplishes its laudable task at much lower costs per pupil than those required to operate regular public schools. The Barren Academy performs its mission for only 37 percent of the costs required to serve students in the state’s standard high school system.

Other programs in Kentucky use digital learning to help students falling behind to catch back up and become successful graduates. Meanwhile, advanced students in our small, rural schools can take digitally presented Advanced Placement and foreign language courses that otherwise would be unavailable.

Despite growing successes, it is also clear that digital learning in Kentucky is still evolving. A number of issues remain unsolved, some of which pose specific obstacles to expanding benefits of digital learning to more of the Bluegrass State’s students. This report examines some of the more serious roadblocks, including:

➡ Funding, ➡ Problems with the data capacity and speed of Internet access (a ‘bandwidth’ issue), ➡ Availability of credible information on which programs work best and the costs of those programs,➡ Accessibility to hardware and software and critical initial teacher training and on-going professional

development to effectively employ these rapidly evolving tools, and➡ Assessment design to foster better digital learning.

Kentucky’s School-Based Decision-Making Councils (SBDM), the key decision making element in Kentucky’s education system, also create problems. SBDM laws require all decisions related to curriculum be made at the school level rather than the district or state level. Thus, most key decisions impacting digital learning are highly decentralized in Kentucky. The problem is that there are usually rather limited school-level resources to research effective digital learning programs, which can lead to inappropriate selections. The SBDM school governance system can also lead to an extreme lack of standardization in programs even within individual school districts. The lack of uniformity can seriously stress the support capabilities of district and state level technology staff. This issue is important enough – and unique enough – to Kentucky, that a separate section of this report is devoted to the problems generated by the SBDM.

It should be noted that this report draws on inputs from a number of Kentucky educators, including the Commissioner of Education, heads of various statewide professional education organizations and agencies, school district superintendents and district technology coordinators. The report also discusses teacher

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comments regarding digital learning issues that were collected by the Kentucky Department of Education’s recently conducted Teaching, Empowering, Learning and Leading (TELL) survey. Unfortunately, comments from one important state education organization – the Kentucky Education Association – are not included. Despite several requests, the union formally declined to provide any input.

As a closing note, our Kentucky-specific report intentionally draws from a recent national report, Digital Learning Now! The authors of that national report share our enthusiasm for digital learning and, like us, want to foster increased use of this valuable technology in K-12 schools around the nation.

Summary of Recommenda1ons

➡ The Kentucky Department of Education and Kentucky Board of Education, as they revise the state’s school assessment and accountability system, should consider the new issues of evaluating performance of digital learning programs. This includes separate performance measures and reporting for alternative programs such as the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning.

➡ State education leaders need to take the lead on establishing a clearinghouse or other similar service for the collection of lessons learned about specific digital learning programs. Such a clearinghouse need not be state operated. One of several organizations and consortia that have been established to support digital learning could provide an excellent vehicle for such an effort. Organizations mentioned by technology coordinators include the Kentucky Society for Technology in Education (KySTE) and the Kentucky chapter of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL).

➡ Kentucky should revise legislation on inter-district transfers to allow any student who is under-performing in his current district and/or in danger of dropping out to transfer to the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning or a similar system, and for all non-local education dollars to follow that student to the other district’s digital learning program.

➡ Educators must carefully evaluate the use of privately owned student devices in public school classrooms to insure that students of lower-income families are not placed at an unfair disadvantage. Schools must carefully consider security issues when privately owned devices are included in any public instructional setting.

➡ The Kentucky Department of Education should determine the degree of implementation of digital learning in the state’s schools and develop ways to address any issues identified.

➡ Although Digital Learning Now! originates from a viewpoint that digital learning systems are already well established, Kentucky’s educators need to understand that such programs actually present a lot of unanswered questions. The Kentucky Department of Education should take the lead in developing programs to answer those questions, while, at the same time, leaving specifics to independent organizations such as the Kentucky Society for Technology in Education (KySTE) or the Kentucky chapter of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL).

➡ The Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board should develop a voluntary program to certify teachers with the additional skills required to operate in a digital media environment. Those skills would include not only mastery of technical areas such as production of video, audio and still presentations of instructional material, but also the special training to successfully operate in the digital media instructional realm, which does not offer the sort of instant student feedback that exists in a face-to-face classroom setting.

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tucky ➡ Kentucky policymakers need to address the requirements for cross-state certification of creators and support

personnel for digitally based courses. Alternatives to formal certification of individuals, such as a program quality certification by an independent, national organization, should be considered. What needs to be avoided in this process is the restrictive, job-protectionist idea that only Kentucky certification will work.

➡ Digital learning should be an integral part of the overall professional development plan in Kentucky and an essential element in the implementation of Senate Bill 1. Education managers at all levels must insure this happens.

➡ State education leaders should incorporate results from future TELL surveys into overall plans for teacher professional development. The survey questions should be expanded in the technology area to collect more information about which specific instruction is most needed.

➡ Education leaders should develop policies and procedures in many areas covered by item 7 in the Digital Learning Now! report, which deals with students having access to multiple high quality providers of digital learning. Kentucky’s leaders should look to states with robust digital learning programs for indications of promising policies that also could be implemented here.

➡ Kentucky needs to insure its new assessments are of high quality and designed to provide valid and reliable information on student and teacher performance. Once the new assessments are validated, the state needs to prohibit any local restrictions in collectively bargained agreements on using student testing data as part of the evaluation tools for teachers.

➡ Barren County and any similar digitally based education programs should aggressively pursue all funding to which their students are entitled, including from both state and federal sources. The Kentucky Department of Education needs to establish policies insuring funding paths are available in the future as new digital learning initiatives are created.

➡ State administrators and local school district financial officers need to confirm whether or not Barren Academy and any other similar digital learning programs are eligible for federal dollars and state dollars (other than those from SEEK funding) that should follow transfer students. A change from funding schools with the average daily attendance approach to one that funds based on student enrollment could help improve “24/7” digital learning programs like Barren County’s chances of obtaining federal and state funding while preserving appropriate fiscal controls over tax dollars.

➡ The Kentucky Legislature and Board of Education should take action so that all alternative schools have incentives similar to Barren Academy’s. For example, students who don’t pass courses don’t produce funding for the school. Contracts written with private digital learning providers should contain similar payment rules.

➡ Kentucky needs a “digital consumers union” to assess the “bang for the buck” performance of all its learning systems, including digital learning approaches.

➡ Kentucky needs to revise its badly ailing MUNIS education financial accounting system to allow accurate determination of costs incurred by various educational programs, including digital programs. Changes to MUNIS should be made to enhance meaningful research into “bang for the buck” issues.

➡ A review is needed of current security requirements in light of the challenges posed by new technologies in the digital learning world. Are current restrictions workable with new devices and technologies? Does the need for security create a market for special Internet devices for education that incorporate internal security measures – a sort of digital lock that can only be opened with custom, controlled-access hardware and/or software? Should Kentucky’s digital technology personnel explore the possibility of creating a cross-state market for such devices to reduce costs and create large markets that would induce competition from providers?

➡ The Kentucky Legislature needs to revisit the SBDM concept and impacts of that governance model on adoption of exciting school reform options that include increased digital learning. Providing more authority for school districts to select and manage digital learning options district-wide could be one answer to this growing problem.

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“Digital learning can customize and personalize educa8on so all students learn in their own style at their own pace, which maximizes their chances for success in school and beyond.”

“Digital learning can…be the catalyst for transforma8onal change in educa8on.”

Digital Learning Now!1

In December 2010, the Foundation for Excellence in Education released a report titled Digital Learning Now! outlining a set of proposals for increasing the use of technology-based instructional systems in classrooms around the United States. This foundation is headed by former governors Jeb Bush (Florida) and Bob Wise (West Virginia). Its executive team includes the Black Alliance for Educational Options, a Bluegrass Institute school-choice coalition member.

Because the Bluegrass Institute shares a conviction that digital learning offers important opportunities to improve education in Kentucky, we decided to investigate some of the roadblocks to expanding use of digital learning raised in Digital Learning Now!. Our emphasis was to identify obstacles specific to Kentucky.

Truth in repor1ng

Before getting into details of this report, I must admit to some well-informed opinions about the power of technology in instructional environments.

In 1971, I became one of the very first programmers for the initial generation of automated teaching machines used in the United States Air Force’s pilot training program.

While that first generation equipment was unsophisticated by today’s standards, it represented a dramatic step forward from previous methods. The new equipment merged dramatically improved visuals with carefully scripted narration in an automated delivery environment where students could proceed at their own pace.

Student pilots took to the new technology like ducks to water. The new instructional tools also offered benefits for the instructor pilots, who quickly became as enthusiastic about the new technology as their pupils.

Nearly four decades later, I remain bullish about the promise of technology in education. When skillfully programmed and intelligently employed, technology-based learning has certainly proved itself in the aviation area, in higher education and it also is starting to prove itself in Kentucky’s K to 12 public education system. However, a number of issues remain to be addressed if the full potential of digital learning is to be effectively realized in Kentucky and the rest of the nation. This report is intended to foster and contribute to the discussion of those issues and possible resolutions.

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Digital Learning Now! points out:

“Our school system remains, by and large, the same as it was fiDy years ago.”

“The results of the status quo are dismal.”

Ample evidence exists to effectively challenge state policymakers’ frequent claims that Kentucky has made significant educational progress. To help understand why digital learning is needed here, let’s first discuss some recent education data.

Kentucky’s NAEP results are disappoin1ng

Consider Kentucky’s proficiency rates reported by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The state’s results from this highly regarded federal testing program are summarized in Figure 1, which shows the percentages of Kentucky students who scored at or above the performance level the NAEP considers to be proficient, grade level appropriate work. Results include several academic subjects and cover testing in both Grade 4 (G4) and Grade 8 (G8). Kentucky’s performance is shown for the most recently available test year plus results for the earliest available test year for each grade and subject combination.2

In general, the latest NAEP results for Kentucky indicate only about one out of three students is on track educationally. For some eighth grade subjects, only about one in four students tests at or above the level NAEP deems as proficient or better. This obviously unsatisfactory performance follows nearly two decades of aggressive education reform efforts in Kentucky’s public school system since passage of the landmark Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA).

Making the educational situation outlined in Figure 1 even more disconcerting is the fact that – because the NAEP is a sampled assessment – there are ‘plus and minus’ errors in each of the proficiency rates shown. Once those errors are considered, it turns out there is no detectible improvement in grade 8 reading between 1998 and 2009, an 11-year period.4 Progress in other subjects may also be lower than the numbers in Figure 1 indicate.

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Mathema1cs is a major problem

One of the most stunning examples of educational problems in Kentucky comes from a statistically valid comparison of state test scores for NAEP Grade 8 Mathematics. The map in Figure 2 was assembled with the Main NAEP Data Explorer Tool.5 This graphic examines the comparative performance of white students in other states to Kentucky’s white student performance on the 2009 NAEP Grade 8 Mathematics Assessment.

All of the states shown in green in Figure 2 got 2009 eighth grade NAEP math scale scores that were statistically significantly higher than Kentucky’s. The states shaded in tan tied Kentucky, within the measurement accuracy of the NAEP. Only one state, West Virginia, got a score so low that it is possible to say with confidence that this state scored lower than the Bluegrass State.

By the way, Figure 2 only considers white students’ scores to work around another significant problem with NAEP analysis. Sharply differing student demographics fromstate to state make it misleading to simplistically compare overall average scores for all students. Instead, doing an analysis disaggregated by race is in line with the latest guidance from the NAEP, which now specifically mentions the need to examine scores separately for different races.7

Those wishing to further explore Kentucky’s NAEP performance should read “The National Assessment of Educational Progress,” an article in the Bluegrass Institute’s freedomkentucky.org Wiki site.8

To summarize regarding the NAEP, Kentucky’s current performance shows huge gaps between where the state’s students currently are and where we need them to be.

Other troubling indicators

The Bluegrass State has even more reason for concern about its educational system.

Digital Learning Now! cites dismal nationwide performance in non-test indicators, including low graduation rates and high levels of college remediation. Kentucky has significant problems in both of these areas.

The latest graduation rates from the National Center for Education Statistics’ 2010 Digest of Education Statistics indicate that in the 2007-08 school term, only 74.4 percent of Kentucky’s students graduated from high school on time.9 This was three-tenths of a point below the nationwide average and is part of a recent decay in graduation rates for the state.

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Likewise, figure 4 shows that high levels of college remediation encountered across the country are also found in Kentucky. The latest available data shows more than one out of three recent Kentucky high school graduates who entered the state’s postsecondary education system was required to take at least one non-credit bearing college remedial course upon matriculation.

Clearly, as is true with the rest of the nation, Kentucky must dramatically improve the current performance of its K-12 school system. As Digital Learning Now! points out, we need a catalyst to transform education in Kentucky.

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Already, business, industry and higher education are extensively benefitting from using digital learning to enhance their instructional programs. Our school age children also benefit from this technology, but mostly outside the classroom.

Digital Learning Now! points out:

“Digital interac8on and learning through social media, the Internet, and mobile devices are a way of life for most teens everywhere except in educa8on” (emphasis added).

Digital learning offers the opportunity for Kentucky to take a quantum leap and move beyond 50-year old education models found in too many of our schools.

The Digital Learning Now! Plan

The Digital Learning Now! report suggests 10 fundamental areas for emphasis to improve learning for our students:

1. Eligibility: All students are digital learners.2. Access: All students have access to high quality digital content and digital learning courses.3. Personalized Learning: All students can customize their educaBon using digital content

through an approved provider.4. Advancement: Students progress based on demonstrated competency.5. Content: Digital content, instrucBonal materials and fully digital and blended learning courses

are high quality.6. Instruc1on: Digital instrucBon and teachers are high quality.7. Providers: All students have access to mulBple, high quality providers.8. Assessment and Accountability: Student learning is the metric for evaluaBng the quality of

content and instrucBon.9. Funding: Funding creates incenBves for performance, opBons and innovaBon.10. Delivery: Infrastructure supports digital learning.

Overall, this Digital Learning Now! list presents a very worthwhile starting point for discussion, as can be seen in the favorable comments about the report in a letter from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday, which is posted as Attachment 1 to this report.

However, some of the sub-areas above may not be entirely suited to every Kentucky student’s individual needs. For example, Digital Learning Now! stipulates on page 7 that all students must take a digital learning course in order to earn a high school diploma. That may be overly prescriptive for some students such as those with certain learning disabilities.

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We begin first with some significant issues Kentucky shares with the rest of the nation.

Challenges to Expanding Digital Learning -‐ Na1onal Issues of Significant Importance in Kentucky

In general, the “Actions for lawmakers and policymakers” listed in Digital Learning Now! also are applicable in Kentucky, and all of that report’s “Actions” should be reviewed for pertinence, status and accomplishment by education policymakers.

The good news is that Kentucky is making progress in certain areas discussed in the report. However, little or no work has been accomplished in other areas. Those areas we feel merit extra discussion and attention are discussed below. Note: The numbers below refer to the same numbers assigned to the various topics in the Digital Learning Now! report’s sections.

1. Student Eligibility:

There is huge variation in the ability of students to benefit from digital learning across the commonwealth. This problem is driven by a number of factors, but the most important one involves the state’s unique school management system known as School-Based Decision-Making Councils (SBDM). Because it is unique to Kentucky and has very far-ranging impacts on education in the state, the SBDM issue is discussed further below in a separate major section on “Kentucky Unique Issues.” Without major changes to the current SBDM policy, it seems inevitable that huge variations in student exposure to digital learning will remain common across Kentucky.

2. Student Access:

Digital Learning Now! wants all students to have access to high quality content in digital learning courses. However, our discussions with Kentucky technical experts led to the discovery that even the process of identifying high quality digital courses is problematic for schools and their districts.

Finding quality digital programs is a challenge

District technology coordinators inform us that there is no state-sponsored authority similar to the Kentucky State Textbook Commission to review and provide recommendations about the quality of digital learning programs. There also is no non-governmental organization with any significant program to collect and distribute reviews of digital learning courses.

Basically, Kentucky’s schools and school districts face uncharted territory when they search for digital learning programs. Each district and school is largely on its own to research program availability and efficacy with limited tools and resources to assist the process.

Absent potentially biased marketing information provided by publishers of digital programs, compelling evidence is expensive and time-consuming to gather. Schools and districts wind up duplicating efforts due to the lack of a central clearinghouse for knowledge gained.

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KENTUCKY SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATION -‐ Addi1on to Digital Learning Now:

State educa1on leaders need to take the lead on establishing a clearinghouse or other similar service for the collec1on of lessons learned about specific digital learning programs. Such a clearinghouse need not be state operated. One of several organiza1ons and consor1a that have been established to support digital learning could provide an excellent vehicle for such an effort. Organiza1ons men1oned by technology coordinators include the Kentucky Society for Technology in Educa1on (KySTE) and the Kentucky chapter of the Interna1onal Associa1on for K-‐12 Online Learning (iNACOL).

Actual access to an exis1ng, fully digital statewide high school program is very uneven.

Another example of uneven student access to digital learning in the Bluegrass State is highlighted in our earlier report, Virtual schooling in Kentucky: Great promise with challenges, published in September 2010.12 In that report, we addressed the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning, Kentucky’s totally digital high school diploma-granting program. We note that participation is very low compared to the total number of high school dropouts in the commonwealth. This despite the fact that such an exciting, totally digital learning approach to earning a regular high school diploma could help solve our state’s severe high school dropout situation.

A major contributor to the problem of low participation in the Barren Academy program seems driven by excessive desire in some districts to hold on to individual state per-pupil student funding, called Seeking Excellence in Education in Kentucky (SEEK) funding.

Here is how that happens: Student transfers to Barren County’s totally digital learning school work the same as other inter-district transfer agreements in the state. Even if the student and his parents want the transfer to occur, the losing school district must agree before SEEK money is allowed to follow the student. Absent such an agreement, the student has to pay tuition to enter the academy – a cost beyond the capability of many Kentucky families. Unfortunately, district-to-district agreements have grown increasingly problematic across the state as school districts fight to hold on to every possible dollar, even when such actions are not in the best interests of students. As a consequence, there are cases of students actually planning on dropping out of school who have contacted Barren Academy about transferring, instead only to be blocked by the district where the student resides (often called the “Resides District”).

While no statistics are available, it seems likely that some students denied the opportunity to try Kentucky’s totally online high school education option are indeed becoming high school dropouts.

Although there isn’t any performance and historical data for students whose home district prevented their transfer to the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning, the Bluegrass Institute has examined impacts of a number of rather similar inter-district transfer squabbles where students became obvious losers to district selfishness. These squabbles certainly convey the impression that some school districts in Kentucky do indeed look at the situation primarily from a money-lost aspect rather than acting in the best interests of the individual student.

One recent example of an inter-district transfer fight involves the cancellation of a long-standing student transfer agreement between the Knox County Public School District and the Corbin Independent School District.13 Anxious to grab more money, Knox refused to continue to allow students living in its “resides” area to attend Corbin instead.

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This adverse change occurred even though there was little doubt that the students would be much better served in Corbin.

For example, here are a few comparisons we assembled when the Cobin-Knox inter-district fight started:

• Corbin Independent’s lone high school produces dramatically higher ACT college entrance test scores than the two high schools in Knox County.

• Corbin students graduate from high school at much higher rates than those in Knox County, according to the credible Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate statistic.

To summarize, it makes no sense to allow districts to prevent a student transfer when the district is going to lose both the student and his state funding should that student drop out. However, current Kentucky law allows that to occur, and students in some areas of Kentucky who might benefit from the Barren Academy do not always get that opportunity due to a misdirected focus on money rather than the best interests of children.

It also should be noted that some districts, such as the Hopkins County School District, have established alternative schools such as the Hopkins County Schools Academy, which also offer credit recovery options for students who have fallen behind in school.16 Hopkins Academy also uses computer-based delivery. Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday mentions other exciting technology efforts in other school districts, as well (Attachment 1).

Thus, Hopkins and other school districts may locally offer the same sort of digital learning benefits that Barren Academy offers statewide. Districts operating similar programs might legitimately not see a need to transfer students to Barren.

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The full scope and resources of such local programs remains for future research. However, continuing large numbers of high school dropouts in Kentucky provide strong evidence that many students might – but currently don’t – benefit from a Barren Academy-type opportunity to graduate from a totally digital learning program.


Kentucky should revise legisla1on on inter-‐district transfers to allow any student who is under-‐performing in his current district and/or in danger of dropping out to transfer to the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning or a similar system, and for all non-‐local educa1on dollars to follow that student to the other district’s digital learning program.

Access to digital devices is uneven

A somewhat different access issue involving equity concerns the Kentucky Commissioner of Education, as noted in Attachment 1. Similar concerns also are expressed by the Kentucky Association of School Administrators. The issue: some students use personally owned devices in classroom educational activities while others cannot afford the technology. While policies allowing such activities are driven by difficulty in securing finances for school-provided digital devices, the issue raises important questions about the principle of equal access to public education.

There also are important security issues when students use privately owned devices in the public school setting. The security issue is explored further in the discussion under Item 10 below on “Delivery.”

Access also pertains to teachers getting access to adequate training in how to function in classrooms where a multitude of different personally owned devices, some from different manufacturers and using different-generation software, can make uniform delivery of education challenging.

For example, if students use their own laptop computers, the instructional software used may need to be compatible with Window XP, Windows Vista, Windows System 7 and Apple operating systems, as well. That can be a notable technology challenge.

Similar issues can arise with different types of tablet devices from manufacturers that also use different software.


Educators must carefully evaluate the use of privately owned student devices in public school classrooms to insure that students of lower-‐income families are not placed at an unfair disadvantage. Schools must carefully consider security issues when privately owned devices are included in any public instruc1onal sedng.

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3. Personalized Learning

The highly decentralized SBDM school management program in Kentucky means that a detailed survey of all 1,200-plus schools in the state would be required to determine the current amount of student ability to customize their own education paths using digital learning content. It is a task well beyond the scope of this report. However, given the concerns of the Kentucky Commissioner of Education about equity of access to digital learning throughout the commonwealth (see Attachment 1), it is likely that all of Digital Learning Now!’s item 3, “Actions for lawmakers and policymakers,” are significant issues in Kentucky and warrant much more attention.


The Kentucky Department of Educa1on should determine the degree of implementa1on of digital learning in the state’s schools and develop ways to address any issues iden1fied.

4. Advancement:

Digital Learning Now! calls for students to take state assessments to determine course completion and readiness to move on to higher level material. This is presently impossible in Kentucky as the state currently is completely revising its entire assessment program.

Michael B. Horn and Katherine Mackey point out in “Moving from Inputs to Outputs to Outcomes” that digital learning will work best when current “seat time rules” are changed so that course completion is not largely determined by some specified amount of time spent in a traditional classroom.17 To accomplish this goal, states will need a rich selection of mastery-based courses, which include suitable end-of-course exams or other final evidence of student mastery of the material.

The revised Kentucky assessment program, as presently being discussed, appears unlikely to create such a criterion-based environment, especially in the elementary and middle schools (a few end-of-course exams are in development for high school courses). Overall, suitability of the new assessment program to digital learning environments has not yet entered the discussions of the Kentucky Board of Education.

A related issue in this area is the lack of good metrics and reporting for the performance of students in Kentucky’s alternative programs, including those like the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning. To date, the Kentucky Department of Education has not even categorized Barren Academy within the state’s high school classification program, let alone begun collecting testing information. Other alternative programs in the state do not have separately reported performance results, either. Instead, performance of the students attending alternative schools is reflected back to the regular school the student would normally attend based on residence, hiding the real performance of such programs.

KENTUCKY SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATION -‐ Addi1on to Digital Learning Now:The Kentucky Department of Educa1on and Kentucky Board of Educa1on, as they revise the state’s school assessment and accountability system, should consider the new issues of evalua1ng performance of digital learning programs. This includes separate performance measures and repor1ng for alterna1ve programs such as the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning.

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5. Content:

At first inspection, Kentucky appears well-positioned to capitalize on Digital Learning Now!’s requirements for state programs to be aligned with the new Common Core State Standards. Kentucky was the first state to adopt these standards, and it is also participating in two separate consortia efforts to create Common Core State Assessments aligned to these standards.

However, a great deal of work remains to convert the rather general Common Core State Standards into a final, working curriculum. Also, there is no guarantee that even good state standards will necessarily translate into good curriculum and strong education programs for students at the individual school level. This process could be hampered by Kentucky’s unique SBDM school-governance model, which does not grant either the state education department or even local school districts the authority to select curriculum. Instead, curriculum determination occurs separately in each school, an overly decentralized situation that makes any educational changes hard to uniformly adopt – curriculum and digital learning definitely included. The SBDM issue is discussed further below, but so long as this governance model remains in place, significant problems are likely to persist regarding digital learning program content in Kentucky.

Aside from the curriculum issues, even state-level assessment design in Kentucky is a challenge.

For example, many questions remain about how two separate efforts to create Common Core State Assessments, largely digitally based, will be implemented. Education Week reported on April 27, 2011, that common core state assessments will severely test the technology in participating schools.18 Aside from obvious questions about the format of an assessment and its software for online administration, the article cites other often overlooked issues such as the potential need for more electric power circuits in classrooms and additional network bandwidth. There also may be issues regarding the type of technology used (laptops, desktops, tablets, etc.). Could the use of different technologies to deliver the assessment carry a risk of impacting the validity of the results? The Education Week article raises many questions which currently lack answers.

The bottom line: It is currently impossible to know how to create digital learning programs that will integrate into this evolving Kentucky revision to its educational program.


Although Digital Learning Now! originates from a viewpoint that digital learning systems are already well established, Kentucky’s educators need to understand that such programs actually present a lot of unanswered ques1ons. The Kentucky Department of Educa1on should take the lead in developing programs to answer those ques1ons, while, at the same 1me, leaving specifics to independent organiza1ons such as the Kentucky Society for Technology in Educa1on (KySTE) or the Kentucky chapter of the Interna1onal Associa1on for K-‐12 Online Learning (iNACOL).

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6. Instruc1on:

Digital Learning Now! lists a number of key issues under this topic, most of which pose challenges for Kentucky. They include:

• State provides alternative certification routes, including online instruction and performance based certification.• State provides certification reciprocity for online instructors certified by another state.• State creates the opportunity for multi-location instruction.• State encourages post-secondary institutions with teacher preparation programs to offer targeted digital instruction training.• State ensures that teachers have professional development or training to better utilize technology and (sic) before teaching an

online or blended course.

These issues are strongly related to the responsibilities of the Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board (EPSB). EPSB Executive Director Phil Rogers provides comments regarding the bullets above in Attachment 2.

In general, development of teacher preparation and certification in digital learning is largely a developing area in Kentucky. Discussions with Rogers made it apparent that while a number of plans are being considered at this time, most remain in the development phase.

One such plan is to develop a voluntary certification for teachers in digital learning. This would probably take the form of an added endorsement to the teacher’s certificate and would provide employers, such as school systems and digital media producers, information that the holder of such certification meets at least minimum levels of competency in this evolving area of education.

There also may be a need for policy regarding the credentials of non-Kentucky producers and supporters of digital learning instructional programs. Such protections would help insure that the media and educator supports used in Kentucky met minimal requirements for rigor – especially since no cross-state standards in the industry currently exists.

As an alternative, the creation of a high quality clearing house for digital media could help insure quality without the need for potentially complex cross-state certification issues. After all, if digital learning programs meet acceptable standards, the backgrounds and certification status of the individuals who create those programs may be relatively unimportant.

KENTUCKY SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATION -‐ Addi1on to Digital Learning The Kentucky Educa1onal Professional Standards Board should develop a voluntary program to cer1fy teachers with the addi1onal skills required to operate in a digital media environment. Those skills would include not only mastery of technical areas such as produc1on of video, audio and s1ll presenta1ons of instruc1onal material, but also the special training to successfully operate in the digital media instruc1onal realm, which does not offer the sort of instant student feedback that exists in a face-‐to-‐face classroom sedng. Kentucky legislators should expedi1ously support – with legisla1on, if necessary – this effort.

KENTUCKY SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATION -‐ Addi1on to Digital Learning

Kentucky policymakers need to address the requirements for cross-‐state cer1fica1on of creators and support personnel for digitally based courses. Alterna1ves to formal cer1fica1on of individuals, such as a program quality cer1fica1on by an independent, na1onal organiza1on, should be considered. What needs to be avoided in this process is the restric1ve, job-‐protec1onist idea that only Kentucky cer1fica1on will work.

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The Kentucky Association of School Administrators raises another important issue concerning professional development in digital learning for teachers already employed in the school system. Noting that the current professional development emphasis in the state is on implementing new standards and assessments due to Kentucky Senate Bill 1 from the 2009 legislative session, it was noted that “the luxury of providing or attending timely professional development on effective use of technology in instruction is constantly bumped down the priority list.”

Professional development in digital learning subjects is a key concern for teachers. The Kentucky Department of Education’s recently conducted Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) survey of teachers shows a majority of Kentucky’s teachers (62.1 percent) say they need more professional development in integrating technology into their instructional delivery.19 Fewer than half the teachers indicate they had received 10 or more hours of professional development in this area during the past two years. Only 71 percent of the teachers agreed that Kentucky teachers have sufficient training to fully utilize instructional technology.20 That means more than one in four of the commonwealth’s educators believe they are inadequately prepared to use digital technology.

Surprisingly, even new teachers report rather high levels of need for more professional development in integrating technology into instruction. The TELL survey says that a majority (54.9 percent) of new Kentucky teachers need focused professional development in technology. That isn’t much better than the 63.3 percent of experienced teachers who also need more assistance in using technology in the classroom.21

Furthermore, teachers in the first group of Persistently Low-Achieving Schools to be identified in Kentucky also reported inadequate professional development in technology for instruction. The TELL survey says 60 percent of these teachers in Kentucky’s most troubled schools required such training, but only 42 percent received it.22

KENTUCKY SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATION -‐ Addi1on to Digital Learning Digital learning professional development should be an integral part of the overall professional development plan in Kentucky and an essen1al element in the implementa1on of Senate Bill 1. Educa1on managers at all levels must insure this happens.

KENTUCKY SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATION -‐ Addi1on to Digital Learning State educa1on leaders should incorporate results from future TELL surveys into overall plans for teacher professional development. The survey ques1ons should be expanded in the technology area to collect more informa1on about which specific instruc1on is most needed.

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7. Providers:

Digital Learning Now! calls for all students to have access to high quality digital education providers. There are a number of problems with this goal in Kentucky.

• For one thing, as earlier mentioned, there isn’t an easy way to identify high quality programs in this state. • A second issue, again mentioned earlier, is the question of certifying the quality of individuals creating digital

learning programs.• There also are unanswered questions about using programs designed outside of Kentucky that employ supporting

educators not certified in Kentucky. In fact, as Rogers points out in his response to us (Attachment 2), Kentucky has no certification or endorsement for digital learning teachers. Hence, there currently is no reciprocity in this area, either. Rogers also points out that no requirement for professional development – the continuation training for currently working teachers – that deals with digital learning issues currently exists.

• Finally, the ability of Kentucky’s teachers to work with this new technology is largely unknown since many of them graduated before digital learning systems came into being.


Educa1on leaders should develop policies and procedures in many areas covered by item 7 in the Digital Learning Now! report, which deals with students having access to mul1ple high quality providers of digital learning. Kentucky’s leaders should look to states with robust digital learning programs for indica1ons of promising policies that also could be implemented here.

8. Assessment and Accountability:

This section of the Digital Learning Now! report calls for a great deal of the state’s assessment program to be moved to digital platforms for both summative (e.g. end-of-year testing) and formative assessments (tests given at intervals throughout the school term to gauge student progress).

Digital Learning Now! also makes broad-ranging recommendations that go beyond strictly digital learning issues. These broad-ranging items include evaluating teachers based on data, an area where Kentucky is behind other, more progressive states. Other broad-ranging areas include evaluating course performance using student learning data and holding providers accountable for student achievement.

While Kentucky, at present, is attempting to address these issues, it is difficult to comment in detail because the state’s former assessment and accountability program, the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, or CATS, was officially disbanded by the Kentucky Legislature in 2009. As previously discussed, the replacement system is still under development, and a number of features are still undefined as this report goes to press. Furthermore, results from the first round of testing with the new assessments won’t be publicly available until after the close of the 2011-12 school term, and some proposed assessments won’t come online until after that launch year.

Certainly, Kentucky needs to consider the comments under item 8 in Digital Learning Now! The encouraging word is that there is evidence of some progress, but much remains to be done.

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For example, in the area of formative assessment, districts presently are totally on their own to select testing products. While educators we spoke with indicated that many Kentucky districts have adopted the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) program for formative assessments, this is not universally adopted statewide. Thus, there is no way to compare formative testing results across the commonwealth.23 This lack of standardization statewide is problematic.

One Kentucky-specific problem that can be discussed concerns use of testing data to evaluate teacher performance. A recent report from the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability indicates some local district teachers’ union contracts expressly prohibit using test data to evaluate teachers.24 In addition, all the other districts with local collectively bargained agreements don’t use test scores for teacher evaluation, either, even though the contracts don’t specifically prohibit such use.

KENTUCKY SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATION -‐ Addi1on to Digital Learning Kentucky needs to insure its new assessments are of high quality and designed to provide valid and reliable informa1on on student and teacher performance. Once the new assessments are validated, the state needs to prohibit any local restric1ons in collec1vely bargained agreements on using student tes1ng data as part of the evalua1on tools for teachers.

9. Funding:

Ability to find funding

The cost to implement and maintain digital learning within the traditional public school system’s classical classroom setting can be considerable. Expenses involve far more than the start-up costs to purchase hardware, software and teacher training. As previously mentioned, there are also issues involving electrical power sources and additional air conditioning.

On-going system maintenance, including both software updates and equipment repair/replacement and updating, can also be costly. Students, after all, are children, and they cannot be expected to interact with electronic devices without creating some damage along the way.

There is also a continuing challenge to maintain a relatively modern system. Currently, our schools are experiencing an exponential increase in the types and capabilities of equipment to support digital learning. Many devices being seriously considered for digital learning programs in schools today, including iPads and e-books, simply did not exist 10, or sometimes even five, years ago. Judging from history, the increase in ever more capable devices is likely to continue in the future. This creates the potential for rapid, and expensive, obsolescence of any digital learning system that might be in service today.

District technology personnel in Kentucky are well aware of these issues and know they can create significant financial pressure for constant system updating.

Digital learning planners must constantly balance such potential costs against the reality of tight budgets that seem unlikely to dramatically increase any time soon.

There still are some options in this area, however. Providing increased flexibility for intelligent reprogramming of dollars normally spent in other ways could make more money available for digital learning. Textbook funds are one obvious example that could be used to fund e-books. Focusing annual teacher professional development dollars on training for digital learning systems could be another way to better use existing funding.

Furthermore, while digital learning costs in the traditional education environment can be considerable, alternative programs can be quite efficient. Let’s look at two remarkable examples. 19

Digital learning is efficient in Barren Academy

Consider a most remarkable, real life example of the potential cost savings that can be realized with digital learning. It involves the Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning right here in Kentucky.

As earlier mentioned, Barren Academy staff reported to us that students who currently transfer to their digital learning school bring only their SEEK state education funds with them. The Barren County Finance Officer informs us that to date, Barren Academy’s transfer students have not been bringing any additional federal and state tax dollars with them to this digital learning high school.

Thus, Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning is accomplishing its education mission for high school students without the significant amounts of money expended on students taking courses in traditional schools.

Education funds not transferred to Barren Academy include all local school tax dollars, all federal money and a portion of state money that comes from non-SEEK sources.

Consider what that implies about the cost to educate student in Kentucky’s digital learning high school versus the costs of an education in one of the state’s traditional schools.

It is reasonable to assume that, because Barren Academy recruits from across Kentucky, overall the academy’s student enrollment should mirror the statewide average enrollment situation. With that reasonable assumption, let’s look at the statewide average funding for education by source.

The Kentucky Department of Education annually issues an Excel spreadsheet listing education revenue and expenditure data for each school district.25 The spreadsheet also includes statewide averages for that data. The 2009-10 Receipts and Expenditures Report contains the statewide fiscal data listed in Table 1.

Local Revenue Per

Pupil

Total State Revenue Per

Pupil

Federal Revenue Per

Pupil

Total Revenue Per

Pupil$3,602 $4,483 $1,877 $9,962

Statewide ADA State GFSEEK 3111

Other State Revenue

(excluding 3900 On Behalf)

Total State Revenue

3000-3999 (excluding 3900

On Behalf)

585,450.07 $2,143,916,421 $480,730,321 $2,624,646,742 Revenue Per Pupil $3,662 $821 $4,483

2009-‐2010 Kentucky Statewide Per Pupil Educa1on Revenue by Source

Calcula1on of State Por1ons of 2009-‐10 Total Statewide Revenue by Sub-‐area

It is possible to further disaggregate the Total State Revenue Per Pupil funding into SEEK and Other State Revenue amounts using the statewide average daily attendance figure (ADA) and financial data shown in Table 2, which is also available from several tabs in the same Excel spreadsheet.

Notes to table: “GF” is General Fund. “On Behalf” funds are dollars expended at the state level for support such as the teacher retirement and teacher health care programs. Those dollars never reach the school districts, as the state handles these functions on behalf of those districts

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Table 126

Table 227

In the 2009-10 school year, on average, the Barren Academy would have received only the statewide average SEEK dollar funding of $3,662 per pupil. But, total district funding to operate traditional classrooms in Kentucky ran far higher at an average of $9,962 per pupil.

Thus, Barren Academy, using only digital learning, is educa1ng Kentucky students for only 37 percent of the cost to educate students in tradi1onal schools!

There is another important point:

Barren Academy only gets paid when students pass their courses. Traditional schools get paid regardless of student success.

To put this into some interesting context, the Kentucky Department of Education Receipts and Expenditures report shows that statewide total local revenue in this school term amounted to $2,108,773,431. When we are talking dollar amounts of this magnitude for funds Barren Academy is unlikely to ever tap, even though not every student is likely to be a suitable candidate for a Barren Academy approach to high school, the potential for cost savings across the commonwealth from digital learning in general becomes readily apparent.

Digital learning is efficient elsewhere, too

Kentucky is not the only state where real digital learning programs educate students at remarkably low costs.

The Washington Policy Center recently published a policy brief about “Online Learning in Washington State.”28 On page 6, the policy brief reports the average cost to educate each pupil in Washington is $10,200 per year. The paper then offers a table of costs for digital learning programs operating in 10 different school districts in the state. Those costs range from a low of just $2,639 per student to a top level of $5,662 per student. Thus, depending upon the specific program, digital learning in various Washington State school districts is being conducted at costs ranging from 26 percent to 56 percent of the average cost of educating each child in the regular public school system.

Clearly, wider use of digital learning in Kentucky offers potential not only to recover many students who currently are dropping out of the system, but our real examples show digital learning can accomplish that laudable task much more efficiently than regular school systems.

Why does only SEEK follow the student to Barren Academy?

While Barren Academy currently does not receive either federal dollars or Other State Revenue dollars for its students, it seems unreasonable that the students should not qualify for those funds.

21

One potential problem could be that most of this money is allocated according to student attendance rather than enrollment in schools. This antiquated funding method may not be suitable to digital learning situations where students are actually doing school work from home, a library, or some other non-school location, and they are doing this work in a “24/7” environment, as well.

As a note, we discussed this situation with Barren County staff who started immediate inquiries into obtaining those funds. Their progress was not available as this report went to press.


Barren County and any similar digitally based educa1on programs should aggressively pursue all funding to which their students are en1tled, including from both state and federal sources. The Kentucky Department of Educa1on needs to establish policies insuring funding paths are available in the future as new digital learning ini1a1ves are created.


State administrators and local school district financial officers need to confirm whether or not Barren Academy and any other similar digital learning programs are eligible for federal and state dollars (other than those from SEEK funding) that should follow transfer students. A change from funding schools with the average daily aJendance approach to one that funds based on student enrollment could help improve “24/7” digital learning programs like Barren County’s chances of obtaining federal and state funding while preserving appropriate fiscal controls over tax dollars.

Incen1vizing digital learning

Barren Academy does not get paid unless the student passes the course, which definitely complies with this Digital Learning Now! Recommendation. Payments are prorated for students taking multiple courses if they only pass a portion of them. Payments to other digital learning alternative schools in Kentucky may not be incentivized in this manner, but should be.


The Kentucky Legislature and Board of Educa1on should take ac1on so that all alterna1ve schools have incen1ves similar to Barren Academy’s. For example, students who don’t pass courses don’t produce funding for the school. Contracts wriJen with private digital learning providers should contain similar payment rules.

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Efficiency is important

In general, Kentucky needs to identify and employ cost-efficient models of digital learning delivery throughout the state’s school system. Some programs available today are very expensive, but efficacy remains an elusive data point in the evaluation of many of these programs.

Hence, as mentioned in a recommendation above, a clearinghouse for information about digital learning programs is badly needed along with credible measures of efficacy. Again, this clearinghouse could possibly be run by a private organization instead of the Kentucky Department of Education – creating a sort of Consumers Union like that of “Consumer Reports” fame or an educational equivalent of Underwriters Laboratories Inc., a private organization which certifies the safety of electrical equipment.


Kentucky needs a “digital consumers union” to assess the “bang for the buck” performance of all its learning systems, including digital learning approaches.

Fix the state’s fiscal accoun1ng system

Another Kentucky-specific problem needs mentioning in the financial roadblocks area. The state’s MUNIS education accounting system is not working well, and has not been for some time. As a consequence, real costs of various education programs, including digital learning programs, are not only difficult to find, but also unreliable. That precludes any extensive “bang for the buck” analysis of current digital learning programs in the Bluegrass State.

This isn’t a new problem. Major problems with the MUNIS system were identified in a Kentucky Legislative Research Commission report as far back as December 2006.29 Yet nearly five years later, MUNIS remains dysfunctional.


Kentucky needs to revise its badly ailing MUNIS education financial accounting system to allow accurate determination of costs incurred by various educational programs, including digital programs. Changes to MUNIS should be made to enhance meaningful research into “bang for the buck” issues.

10. Delivery:

Kentucky faces some interesting challenges when it comes to providing the infrastructure needed to support digital learning. Furthermore, there are unanswered technology questions that make investment in digital technology difficult at this time.

23

For example, as mentioned elsewhere, new technology that can be used to deliver digital learning is being created every day. From desktop and laptop computers, possible means of delivery have now expanded to digital tablets, i-Books, and even smart phones. Unanswered questions abound, such as:

• What hardware works best and provides the maximum bang for the buck?• What hardware offers the greatest potential for longevity?• Which systems have the most physical robustness (a real concern with student-aged users, especially younger

users)?• What are allied costs (for example, the costs for added school power wiring and air conditioning as well as

bandwidth support)?

Often, the software required is unique to the delivery system.

Internet bandwidth, again, is a major concern mentioned by many correspondents.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth relates to the ability of a school’s Internet connection to handle the high rates of data transfer required by quality digital learning programs.

As digital learning becomes more widespread in schools, significant concerns about available Internet bandwidth are starting to appear.

In fact, the bandwidth issue was one of the most frequently mentioned concerns by district technology coordinators, school superintendents and even the education commissioner (See Attachment 1). It is also mentioned in a recent report covering the digital learning situation nationwide from the Innosight Institute.30

The previously mentioned TELL survey of Kentucky teachers also included questions about the issue of sufficient reliability and speed of Internet connections in their schools.31 Approximately 7,500 teachers, nearly 18 percent of those surveyed, indicate Internet connectivity is a problem for instructional support in their schools.

Why is bandwidth an issue? As schools in Kentucky expand use of digital learning, they often find it cheaper to utilize contractor-provided education software that is actually stored in contractor computers located off the school site. This contractor-supplied software is linked through the Internet to individual computer stations at the school. However, efficient and effective delivery of that off-site (or cloud-based) software is critically dependent upon high capability Internet service at the school.

As a school’s network’s connection to the Internet becomes saturated, individual computer performance in the school starts to slow, impairing students’ educational experience.

This situation pressures schools to increase bandwidth. But that can be expensive in a highly rural state like Kentucky. In fact, just maintaining existing Internet connectivity offers a significant challenge for in some of more rural school districts.

In March 2011, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that the Madison County School System was facing a huge, 1,500 percent increase in Internet fees.32 Previously, the district had paid $90,000 per year for connectivity to a cable service. After that Internet provider went out of business, the new cable firm in town demanded more than $1.4 million annually to continue service. This new firm says it will have to install new infrastructure to continue service to the district’s schools.

24

A Kentucky Department of Education spokesperson has expressed concern that the Madison situation might set a precedent for large cost increases across the state.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Kentucky, the Daviess County Public School District just finished equipping all of its schools with fiber-optic Internet service, replacing three T1 wire connection lines formerly used at each school.33 The new service is reported to be 200 times faster, while the cost dropped from $1,200 a month per school to only $750 per month per school. Daviess County has 21 schools according to the KDE schools directory. 34 So, the total cost of service will run around $189,000 per year.

Madison County has 20 separate schools listed in the KDE schools directory.35 It is being asked to pay nearly 10 times as much for what appears to be a much lower capability service.

Thus, due to technology and bandwidth issues, there will probably be very large disparities in the digital learning offerings in these two school systems in the near future.

Security issues

A number of district technology coordinators mentioned that a closely related issue to their bandwidth problem involves statutory and ethical requirements to insure students are shielded from inappropriate web content. The laws and regulations in this area have created challenging demands for school systems’ network security that create hurdles for expanding bandwidth and the implementation of digital learning systems.

Security impacts ability to increase bandwidth

I discussed alternate means of connecting to the Internet with several district technology coordinators. At first blush, evolving 3G and 4G wireless based technologies might offer a cost-effective alternative to hardwired approaches. However, coordinators I talked to pointed out that maintaining legally required secure control over such systems would be difficult, if not impossible. They believe it is much easier to control access to inappropriate areas of the web when the school system ports through one central hub rather than the highly distributed environment created by cell tower based wireless technology.

Security impacts other digital learning areas, too

The security issue also came up in discussions of proposals to replace traditional textbooks with modern, electronic based alternatives such as tablets or laptops. Again, there is a problem with maintaining required security.

District technology coordinators point out these devices can be reprogrammed off-site with unacceptable material and then brought to school, placing the district in jeopardy of violating regulations regarding such activity. A similar problem arises when student-owned devices are used in a school-based digital learning environment.

Manufacturers of digital media and devices may be able to offer modified devices in the future that could only be programmed only from school-controlled, secure sources. But technology coordinators we spoke with said they are unaware of any such systems if they currently exist.

25


A review is needed of current security requirements in light of the challenges posed by new technologies in the digital learning world. Are current restric1ons workable with new devices and technologies? Does the need for security create a market for special Internet devices for educa1on that incorporate internal security measures – a sort of digital lock that can only be opened with custom, controlled-‐access hardware and/or somware? Should Kentucky’s digital technology personnel explore the possibility of crea1ng a cross-‐state market for such devices to reduce costs and create large markets that would induce compe11on from providers?

Challenges to Expanding Digital Learning -‐ Kentucky Specific Issues

Adult Issues

One of the more serious roadblocks to the implementation of digital learning technology in Kentucky may involve adults within the school system.

It is no secret that some within the Kentucky education community seem to prefer the status quo over exploring and adopting new ideas. This problem manifests itself in a number of different ways, and some of those can adversely impact expanded adoption of new learning approaches, which includes digital learning.

We really wanted to hear teachers’ viewpoints in this area and had hoped the Kentucky Education Association, the dominant teachers’ union in the state, would provide input into this report. Sadly, that organization formally declined to participate despite multiple invitations by letter, email and phone calls to do so. Thus, the comments below do not benefit from inclusion of the teachers’ side of the story, which by itself is an “adult issue.”

School-‐Based Decision-‐Making Councils (SBDM) roadblocks

We already briefly mentioned problems for digital learning caused by Kentucky’s very unique governance model for its education system. The SBDM school governance model can create extremely serious roadblocks for the effective and efficient implementation of any educational improvement in schools where the school culture is generally hostile to changes, digital learning most definitely included.

Unlike the situation in any other state, curriculum and related issues in Kentucky are not controlled by either the local school district or the state education agency. Instead, the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA) stipulates that major decisions about the operation of schools – most specifically including the incredibly involved issues of selection of curriculum, instructional materials and methods – are highly decentralized and independently controlled by the SBDM in each individual school.

The original intent of SBDM, as established by KERA, was to energize teachers by giving them considerable control over what they do in their own schools. The concept seemed noble, and certainly was – and remains – highly attractive to the state’s teachers’ union. However, two decades of experience demonstrates that SBDM governance provides no guarantee of high quality education for children.

26

In fact, at least until recently, the SBDM management model allowed seriously deficient school cultures in some schools to perpetuate with little consequence for teachers in those schools (Recently, a few of the state’s very lowest performing schools have lost their SBDM authority under provisions of the federal/state Persistently Low-Achieving Schools program. However, such actions have been very rarely taken).

This excessive over-decentralization of curriculum control, found only in Kentucky, leads to many problems. That includes the very significant challenge of establishing any sort of consistent agreement from school to school – even within one school district – concerning the specific details of what students should know and be able to do, and how that set of knowledge and skills will be taught.

The SBDM in each school is comprised by law with the principal as leader and includes three teachers elected by the teachers at the school and two parents elected by the largest parent organization in the school (usually the PTA). As such, the two parent members are almost guaranteed to have limited background in many important education areas such as curriculum.

Furthermore, the SBDM teacher members, who are full-time classroom teachers, clearly have limited additional time to study all of the many, complex decisions that are SBDM responsibilities.

We are also concerned by numerous comments from our correspondents and the teachers’ own responses in the TELL Survey concerning inadequate teacher professional development on digital learning. This creates uncertainty, at best, that Kentucky’s teachers in many schools have the backgrounds required to select and integrate digital learning effectively.

The SBDM concept excessively dilutes responsibilities to the point where required resources and expertise to implement strong digital learning programs are unlikely to be available at the school level.

SBDM management leads to highly inconsistent school programs

Not surprisingly, the practical application of SBDM management in Kentucky creates huge variation in the selection of processes and programs used to pass the desired knowledge and skill on to students. There is no guarantee of standardization – even within individual school districts – on digital learning approaches.

This extreme lack of standardization can lead to significant problems for students and staff alike.

For one example, as students transfer from school to school – a frequent occurrence among students from lower income families in a number of areas in Kentucky – those students encounter vastly different education programs. This can lead to pronounced adjustment problems for these students and excessive confusion and impairment of learning.

While some district level technology coordinators inform us that they are working around the SBDM problems, others indicate the state’s awkward, topsy-turvy school governance model makes it challenging to generate district-wide consensus regarding digital learning.

In some cases, the result is different schools within a single district using different digital learning programs to cover the same instructional area – all of which creates purchasing inefficiencies and multiplies headaches for district-level technical support.

27

To summarize, under current Kentucky law, each individual school can accept or reject district level support and suggestions concerning digital learning. The SBDM management model can greatly diminish the hopes of providing students with better digital learning opportunities – especially in schools with unsatisfactory school cultures where the staff is not amenable to changes.


The Kentucky Legislature needs to revisit the SBDM concept and impacts of that governance model on adop1on of exci1ng school reform op1ons that include increased digital learning. Providing more authority for school districts to select and manage digital learning op1ons district-‐wide could be one answer to this growing problem.

In closing

The Bluegrass Institute wishes to thank all of the correspondents who gave graciously of their time to communicate with us about the challenges and successes of digital learning in Kentucky.

While this report could not cover every aspect of this complex situation, we hope it will trigger more conversation and action among education and legislative leaders that leads to much stronger use of this exciting new technology in Kentucky’s schools.

It is up to the adults overseeing the state’s school system to deliver on the promise of digital learning for our students.

Richard G. Innes is the staff education analyst with the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s only free-market think tank.

28

AJachment 1LeJer from Kentucky Commissioner of Educa1on Terry Holliday

29

30

Attachment 2Letter from Educational Professional Standards Board

31

32

1 Foundation for Excellence in Education, Digital Learning Now!, online at: http://www.excelined.org/Docs/Digital%20Learning%20Now%20Report%20FINAL.pdf.

2 Note: Grade 4 NAEP Writing was last tested nearly a decade ago and the results are much too dated for reasonable comparison to the more recent test administrations shown.

3 Data in Figure 1 assembled by the author from the Main NAEP Data Explorer web tool. Online at: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/.

4 The statistical significance test for NAEP Grade 8 reading was conducted using the NAEP Data Explorer web tool. Online at: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/.

5 The Data Explorer is online at: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/.6 Map assembled using the Main NAEP Data Explorer tool. Online at: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/.7 See page 32 in National Center for Education Statistics (2011), The Nation’s Report Card: Science 2009 (NCES 2011–451). Online at:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2009/2011451.pdf.8 “The National Assessment of Educational Progress” is online at: http://www.freedomkentucky.org/index.php?

title=The_National_Assessment_of_Educational_Progress. 9 National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 2010, Table 112, Online at: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/

tables/xls/tabn112.xls.10 Data in Figure 3 assembled from various years of the Digest of Education Statistics.11 Source of data for Figure 4, Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education.12 Innes, Richard G., Virtual schooling in Kentucky: Great promise with challenges, Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions,

September, 2010. Online at: http://www.bipps.org/files/29/PPoint.%20Virtual%20schooling%20in%20Kentucky.pdf.13 Manley, Becky, “Corbin ready to take fight to Ky. Court of Appeals,” Times Tribune, Jan. 27, 2010. Online at: http://thetimestribune.com/

local/x1621222022/Corbin-ready-to-take-fight-to-Ky-Court-of-Appeals. 14 Innes, Richard G., “Why would parents prefer Corbin schools over Knox County schools – Part 2,” Jan. 29, 2010. Online at: http://

bluegrasspolicy-blog.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-would-parents-prefer-corbin-schools_29.html.15 Innes, Richard G., “Why would parents prefer Corbin schools over Knox County schools – Part 3,” January 30, 2010. Online at: http://

bluegrasspolicy-blog.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-would-parents-prefer-corbin-schools_30.html. 16 Harrison, Lori, “Academy marks milestone tonight,” Messenger, Madisonville, Kentucky, May 31, 2011.17 Horn, Michael B., and Mackey, Katherine, “Moving from Inputs to Outputs to Outcomes,” Innosight Institute, June 2011, Pages 5-6.

Online at: http://www.innosightinstitute.org/innosight/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Moving-from-Inputs-to-Outputs-to-Outcomes.pdf. 18 Gewertz, Catherine, “Common Assessments Are a Test for Schools’ Technology,” Education Week, Bethesda, MD, April 27, 2011, Page 8. 19 New Teacher Center, “Reference Document, Kentucky State Board of Education, June 7, 2011,” presented to the Kentucky Board of

Education, slide 20. To be available online in future at http://www.tellkentucky.org/.20 New Teacher Center, “Reference Document, Kentucky State Board of Education, June 7, 2011,” presented to the Kentucky Board of



Education, slide 51. To be available online in future at http://www.tellkentucky.org/.23 For information on MAP, see: http://www.nwea.org/products-services/computer-based-adaptive-assessments/map.24 Kentucky Legislative Research Commission, “Analysis of Collective Bargaining Agreements in Kentucky Districts,” Draft Version

Presented and Approved in December 2010 by the Kentucky Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee, Page 51. Online at: http://www.freedomkentucky.org/images/7/77/OEA%27s_Contract_Report_Draft.pdf.

25 The Unaudited 2009-2010 Receipts and Expenditures Report is online at: http://www.education.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/862BA2EC-284A-4961-991A-A9894D584B8D/0/ReceiptsandExpendituresUnaudited20092010.xls.

26 Data source: Unaudited 2009-2010 Receipts and Expenditures Report, online at: http://www.education.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/862BA2EC-284A-4961-991A-A9894D584B8D/0/ReceiptsandExpendituresUnaudited20092010.xls.

27 Data source for top line in figure is Unaudited 2009-2010 Receipts and Expenditures Report, online at: http://www.education.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/862BA2EC-284A-4961-991A-A9894D584B8D/0/ReceiptsandExpendituresUnaudited20092010.xls. Per-pupil amounts shown on second line calculated from ADA and funding figures by the author.

28 Finne, Liv, “Online Learning in Washington State,” Washington Policy Center, Seattle, Washington, March 2011. Online at: http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/sites/default/files/OnlineSchoolsPB_0.pdf.

29 Kentucky Legislative Research Commission, “Indicators of Efficiency and Effectiveness in Elementary and Secondary Education Spending,” Legislative Research Report No. 338, adopted Dec. 5, 2006. Online at: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/lrcpubs/RR338.pdf.

30 Horn, Michael B., and Mackey, Katherine, “Moving from Inputs to Outputs to Outcomes,” Innosight Institute, June 2011, Pages 8-9. Online at: http://www.innosightinstitute.org/innosight/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Moving-from-Inputs-to-Outputs-to-Outcomes.pdf.

31 New Teacher Center, “Reference Document, Kentucky State Board of Education, June 7, 2011,” presented to the Kentucky Board of Education, slide 10. To be available online in future at http://www.tellkentucky.org/.

32 Warren, Jim, “Madison schools fight 1,500% jump in Internet costs,” The Lexington Herald-Leader, March 30, 2011. Online at: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/03/30/1689099/madison-schools-could-face-1500.html.

33 Shafa, Dariush, “Schools get Internet connection upgrades, Messenger-Enquirer, July 26, 2011.34 School count for regular schools in Daviess County comes from the Kentucky Department of Education’s district and schools directory,

online here: http://www.education.ky.gov/KDE/HomePageRepository/Publications/Daviess+County+Schools.htm.35 School count for regular schools in Madison County (includes three schools actually operated by Eastern Kentucky University, which

might get separate service) comes from the Kentucky Department of Education’s district and schools directory, online here: http://www.education.ky.gov/KDE/HomePageRepository/Publications/Madison+County+Schools.htm.

ENDNOTES

33

http://www.excelined.org/Docs/Digital%20Learning%20Now%20Report%20FINAL.pdf




http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/












http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2009/2011451.pdf

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2009/2011451.pdf

http://www.freedomkentucky.org/index.php?title=The_National_Assessment_of_Educational_Progress




http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/xls/tabn112.xls




http://www.bipps.org/files/29/PPoint.%20Virtual%20schooling%20in%20Kentucky.pdf

http://www.bipps.org/files/29/PPoint.%20Virtual%20schooling%20in%20Kentucky.pdf

http://thetimestribune.com/local/x1621222022/Corbin-ready-to-take-fight-to-Ky-Court-of-Appeals




http://bluegrasspolicy-blog.blogspot.com/2010/01/why-would-parents-prefer-corbin-schools_29.html








http://www.innosightinstitute.org/innosight/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Moving-from-Inputs-to-Outputs-to-Outcomes.pdf


http://www.tellkentucky.org/








http://www.nwea.org/products-services/computer-based-adaptive-assessments/map

http://www.nwea.org/products-services/computer-based-adaptive-assessments/map

http://www.freedomkentucky.org/images/7/77/OEA%27s_Contract_Report_Draft.pdf

http://www.freedomkentucky.org/images/7/77/OEA%27s_Contract_Report_Draft.pdf

http://www.education.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/862BA2EC-284A-4961-991A-A9894D584B8D/0/ReceiptsandExpendituresUnaudited20092010.xls












http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/sites/default/files/OnlineSchoolsPB_0.pdf




http://www.lrc.ky.gov/lrcpubs/RR338.pdf

http://www.lrc.ky.gov/lrcpubs/RR338.pdf





http://www.kentucky.com/2011/03/30/1689099/madison-schools-could-face-1500.html




http://www.education.ky.gov/KDE/HomePageRepository/Publications/Daviess+County+Schools.htm

http://www.education.ky.gov/KDE/HomePageRepository/Publications/Daviess+County+Schools.htm

http://www.education.ky.gov/KDE/HomePageRepository/Publications/Madison+County+Schools.htm




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Kentucky-specific Digital Learning Now! report