How have recent changes in Kentucky's educational system affected long-term educational outcomes?

Answer 1

As a product of KERA, I feel the state missed the boat with their proposed reforms. While the group learning models propounded in KERA are a good theoretical teaching tool, my real world experience has shown that most of the time, you alone are expected to produce results. While working with a team is important in any industry, there is an individual accountability in the working world that KERA does not do a good job of teaching.

Besides that, I can tell plenty of horror stories on the methods KERA uses to teach simple subjects such as English. I went to elementary schools in other states, but when I moved to Kentucky, I wa surpirsed to learn that spelling and grammar are not stressed under the KERA standards. Many of the people I graduated high school with can't spell to save their lives, and have a terrible time putting together coherent compositions. They were taught that anyhting was OK, so long as you tried hard. That's well and good for little kids, but employers expect you to be able to communicate effectively, meaning some ability tto form sentences and paragraphs in a logical fashion. KERA did not emphasize this, at least as applied in the schools I attended.

Math is another sore subject. While KERA mandated the math portfolio (which I believe is a good idea) it wasted a lot of classroom time putting together these portfolios that would (allegedly) bear on our educational future. When I got to college (in a Kentucky public university) I never heard about them again. My teachers swore that the skills I learned in compiling my portfolio would be valuable in college, but in reality, I never used them. Why spend weeks building the portfolio when there are so many other math skills that need teaching time?