At a Frontier of School Reform, Getting Millions, Seeking More
By GREG WINTER, New York Times, December 6, 2004

As New York City schools celebrate the findings by a court-appointed panel that could bring them $5.6 billion more every year, the schools under the sawed-off mountains here in the heart of coal country tell a hopeful but cautionary tale of what may lie ahead.

Once the Kentucky Supreme Court said the state's school system needed revamping, in a ruling that inspired court cases and decisions around the nation, lawmakers here enacted one of the country's most thorough education overhauls within a year.

The response was virtually the opposite of the inaction in Albany after New York State lost its own case last year. And yet, despite all the changes and the extra money that came with them in 1990, the transformation of Kentucky's schools is far from complete -- and the state is back in court as a result.

Here on Bobcat Lane, Breathitt County High School is precisely the kind of school that was supposed to catch up to its peers outside Appalachia. But for all its new computers, college-like schedules and, yes, academic improvement, its students still lag far behind those in the rest of the state.

''We've made great strides, but there's still a long way to go,'' said Lisa Gross, a Kentucky Department of Education spokeswoman. ''The problem is revenue. There's not enough of it. This may be something we're dealing with for quite a few more years.''

Since the overhaul more than a decade ago, the state has increased its yearly spending considerably -- to $7,021 per student in 2003, compared with $2,898 in 1990, state figures show. That is more than three times the percentage increase that the court appointed panel has proposed for New York City students over the next four years.

There seems to be almost universal agreement here that Kentucky has leapt forward. Test scores on state exams have gone up steadily in almost every subject. Even the ''tidal wave'' of disappointment that made it ''crystal clear'' to the state's Supreme Court that Kentucky's schools were failing -- the high dropout rates and low national standings -- appears to have abated somewhat.

But while Kentucky schools have gained considerable ground, they still have much more to cover. Not much more than a third of the students are considered to be proficient or better in the basic subjects that all are supposed to master within a decade, state records show. State officials say it is probably unrealistic to think everyone will be.

Poor rural schools like Breathitt were at the forefront of what is now called the adequacy movement, a national fight for more education spending that has enveloped dozens of states and may soon send billions more dollars to New York City schools.

But 15 years later, the litigation is not over. Kentucky schools are taking the state to court once more, only too aware that even a major victory does not mean an end to the battle.

Last year, the vast majority of Kentucky districts, more than twice as many as the first time, sued the state, accusing it of failing to put in enough money over the years, basically leaving the job undone.

''Years ahead of almost every other state in the nation and the federal government, we began a journey that would ensure that every child in Kentucky receives an adequate education,'' Blake Haselton, president of the Council for Better Education, a coalition of about 150 schools that brought the suit, said when it was filed last year. He added, ''But the sad fact of the matter is that the general assembly has not lived up to its constitutional mandate.''

The lesson is a particularly important one for New York, because Kentucky's Legislature was much more responsive than lawmakers in Albany were after New York's highest court ordered them to stop shortchanging the city's students and fix what it called the ''systemic failure'' of its schools nearly 18 months ago.

''The important thing to remember is that adequacy doesn't ask the question, 'Are you spending money and doing a good job with it?''' said Jacob E. Adams, director of the School Finance Redesign Project at the University of Washington. ''It asks the question, 'Did you put enough money into the system to achieve the results that states have never achieved before?'''

To come up with at least some of the money, Kentucky raised its sales tax early on, Mr. Adams said, and the strategy may also come up in the dispute over raising more money in New York. Even so, the districts in Kentucky argue that the state's financing formulas have barely kept pace with inflation. Beyond that, they say, most -- and in some districts, all -- of the increases have been eaten up by mandatory salary increases. So if the state intends to meet the court's standard, the districts contend, it has to spend about 22 percent more than it does now, regardless of whatever increases it may have made in years past.

In a move that closely parallels the New York case, Kentucky districts are asking a judge to dictate how much money should be spent on education, bringing the courts into an area that has traditionally been left to the Legislature. Perhaps not surprisingly, lawmakers in both states have had similar reactions.

''We vehemently oppose the idea or the concept that a court could order us to spend a specific amount of money,'' said David L. Williams, president of the Kentucky State Senate, pointing out that school spending was up to lawmakers.

Gov. George E. Pataki's lawyers in New York have made much the same argument, but the court-appointed panel effectively dismissed it last week. Exactly how Justice Leland DeGrasse, the State Supreme Court judge overseeing the case, will rule is still unknown, but he is widely expected to follow the suggestions of the panel, which he appointed.

At Breathitt High, tucked among the flat-topped mountains here, test scores have been gaining momentum in the past few years. Still, fewer than one in five students are proficient or better in math and social studies. The figures are a little better in reading and science, but only slightly: fewer than one in four.

''We're doing better, but obviously we live in a depressed area where there aren't a lot of jobs,'' said Joseph Beder, the Breathitt principal, who has watched the demand for coal miners dwindle. ''They don't see a job waiting for them when they graduate. They don't see that there's going to be any immediate gratification out there.''

Breathitt's students say they are pretty content with their education, though they certainly don't think more money would hurt. As it is, Breathitt spent only about three-quarters of the state average per pupil in the 2002-03 school year, and the students say it shows in the outdated titles they have in the library and in the rough condition of the books. Some of the teachers complain about their salaries and quit, the students say, but they figure that probably happens everywhere else, too.

Mr. Beder said he would welcome more money, if for nothing else than to lower the size of some of his core classes. But would more money necessarily raise test scores, reduce the number of dropouts, send more students to college?

''I don't know if more money would make the difference or not, to be honest,'' he said.

For all of Kentucky's struggles, the strides it has made would be welcome in New York, said Michael A. Rebell, executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the group that brought the lawsuit that led the court to order more education aid for New York City. As long as measurable progress is being made, he said, the public's willingness to put money into the schools will continue. Without it, he said, support for the schools will be in short supply.

''In a way, it's an incentive,'' Mr. Rebell said. ''The city's going to have to put up or shut up.''

Progress of Education in the United States of America - 1990 through 1994
A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n
PART III EDUCATION REFORM 1990-1994

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Reform at the State Level

During this period, the education reform movement made headway in all states, though in some more than others. One of the issues that required the attention of State authorities was the problem of unequal funding among school districts. In the United States, the states contribute the largest share of the education budget, but local school districts finish a close second. In most states local revenues for education come from property taxes. In school districts where property values are high, the revenues are greater than those where property values are low. In part this discrepancy is mitigated by the fact that living expenses are lower in poorer districts (if only because house payments are less). However, it has become increasingly clear over the past few years that in some states the low-income school districts are suffering disproportionate as the result of diminished revenues. The result has been unequal opportunity of education among the various school districts. In several States -- e.g., Texas and Kentucky -- State courts have intervened and ordered the legislatures to take some action that will ensure a greater equity in funding.

The Texas legislature voted to take State revenues away from the more affluent districts and redirect them to the poorest districts. However, this solution proved unsatisfactory to the smaller counties; and the court ordered the State to make an additional effort to provide equity. The legislature passed a law ordering more affluent school districts in the State to share revenues from local property taxes with the poorest districts. This solution provoked a legal challenge from the affluent districts, and the State court likewise ruled that such a solution was unconstitutional. In 1994, Texas was still wrestling with the problem.

The Kentucky Experiment

In 1989 the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the State's system of public school financing provided unequal education and was therefore a violation of the State's constitution. The court ordered the legislature to devise a new way of funding the State's school systems. As a consequence of this ruling, Kentucky was forced to reexamine its entire education system, and the result was a series of reforms at both the local and State levels.

The next year, in response to the Kentucky Supreme Court's mandate for financial equity, the legislature passed the 1990 Kentucky School Reform Act, which authorized an extra $1 billion for education -- to be appropriated over a two-year period. This appropriation constituted a 35 percent increase in funding between 1990 and 1992, which raised the per pupil spending by nearly $1,000 to $4,600.

But the legislature did not stop there. In addition to this huge increase to correct inequities, the School Reform Act also called for sweeping changes in the way the State operated its educational system. These reforms eventually included:

the institution of instruction on Saturdays, before and after school, and during the summer vacation for students in need of extra help;

the maintenance of "family resource centers" designed to provide social and medical services to needy schools;

the abandonment of multiple-choice tests in favor of tougher measures that demand essays and analysis of data, as well as an emphasis on collections of student work rather than a single examination;

the establishment of cash awards for teachers whose schools show improvement over a two-year period;

the assembly of a statewide technology network designed to put a computer-ready telephone line in every classroom, providing linkups with libraries, research databases, governmental agencies, and even other schools and classrooms;

the elimination of separate grades in elementary school, allowing students of different age groups to work side by side;

the introduction of new courses that help students prepare to cope with such practical problems as child rearing and personal finance; and

the adoption of a looser classroom structure, including untimed classes and the blending of subjects such as mathematics and English.
This experiment in educational reform is perhaps the greatest ever undertaken by a state -- at least since the Massachusetts "common school" movement in the 1830's -- and after only three years the final results have yet to be posted. However, changes have taken place.

In 1990, the first phase of the reform program was implemented:

A new school-financing formula began to correct inequalities in funding.

An Education Professional Standards Board, made up mostly of teachers, was named to set and enforce teaching standards.

With some exceptions, schools were required to open preschool classes for disadvantaged 4-year-olds. Such classes had to be in place the 1991-92 school year as well as preschool programs for handicapped 3- and 4-year-olds.

The year 1991 brought further implementation:

An appointed education commissioner replaced the elected superintendent of public instruction as the head of the state school system with a mandate to reorganize the Department of Education.

At least one school in each district was mandated to begin governing itself through a school council. The idea was to ensure that most decisions relevant to instruction be made at schools by teachers, principals, and parents.

In order to provide help for students in need of extra attention, schools began offering instruction before and after school, on weekends or in the summer.

Centers to coordinate school and health services for students and their families began to open in or near schools where at least one-fifth of the students lived in poverty. More than 1,000 schools were required to provide such centers by the 1994-95 school year.

In 1992, more reforms followed:

The State began to assess learning in grades four, eight, and twelve. This assessment involved not only grading written tests, but also evaluating portfolios of student work. Students were asked to perform complex tasks that required them to draw on several types of knowledge. Successful schools were rewarded. Struggling schools received extra help. (Current policy would permit the State to take over the worst schools.)

The Council on School Performance Standards issued detailed goals for Kentucky schools. Schools are to be judged by how they meet the learning goals and whether or not the school reduces impediments to poor learning, such as poor health and poor attendance.

By 1993, the Kentucky Department of Education reported the following progress:

An "improvement goal" and an "accountability index" had been set for each of 1,400 schools. Approximately 600 of the schools already had councils in place, with a full budget allocation.

At least 222 Family Resource/Youth Services Centers were already in operation--127 Family Resource Centers, 55 Youth Services Centers, 40 combined -- and 103 school districts have one or more. These centers served 51,205 individuals representing 32,916 families.

Summer school programs operated in all school districts and served 20,750 students. About 33 percent of those students improved by at least one letter grade.

Eight Regional Service Centers, dedicated to the professional development of teachers and administrators, were established. The funding for this program increased from $1 per student to $16 per student.
As reported by the Washington Post in April of 1993, teachers were teaching their subjects in a new way and students were learning differently:

In rural schools, which were once without the basic tools of scientific learning, children were studying biology and chemistry in high-tech laboratories.

A team of academics was deciding which literary works were most important in order to establish a syllabus with which all students must be familiar in order to graduate.

Desks now came with lap-top computers, and eventually students would be able to check them out for home use like library books.

A class in Calloway County Middle School was using its computer to call a national weather database. Recently these students tracked the progress of an ongoing tornado in Louisiana, hundreds of miles away.
Of course, some educators were cautious about abandoning all the ideas and practices of the past. As one teacher put it: "I have to keep enough of the old way to know it will work, and the add to it and build in the new way. In my own mind I can't throw away what I learned in 19 years."

Many students weigh the new against the old and see advantages in change. "The work is a little bit harder," said one 14-year-old, "but it sticks with you longer."

Some administrators have also found improvement in the midst of challenge and readjustment. "People feel so pressured, there is so much change," said a rural principal. "But this is absolutely the opportunity of a lifetime." Her county superintendent affirmed the radical nature of the change. "Basically we were able to erase the board clean and do away with everything as it was," he said. "It's probably the cleanest sweep [the country] has had in education."

These are signs of significant progress in Kentucky schools. However, it would be unwise to suggest that all states could profit equally from these reforms. In many ways, Kentucky's educational system is atypical. For one thing, its per pupil expenditures and its teacher's salaries have always been among the lowest in the Nation. Some of what is happening in Kentucky's schools is merely compensation for past inadequacies, a sudden and valiant effort to catch up with the rest of the states. For this reason, a dramatic rise in funding may be more likely to yield dramatic results here than in a state where expenditures have been perennially high and where modern technology has long been available.

On the other hand, some of the classroom innovations instituted in Kentucky (e.g., diverse age grouping in elementary school) may generate improvement in traditionally affluent states as well as in poorer ones. For this reason, the Nation is watching Kentucky with great interest.

The Kentucky experiment is probably the boldest of any educational reforms at the State level, but there is reason to believe that other states are beginning to consider some of the ideas instituted in Kentucky. For one thing, by the beginning of the 1990's, other States had begun to face the issue of inequity in financing, and the question was a topic for debate at every level of the U.S. education system. It seemed clear that with rising taxes more and more an issue in local, State, and federal elections, educators would have to devise innovative solutions to justify the expectations of the general public. Already a number of researchers were exploring various means of delivering a quality education at a reduced cost.

Progress of Education in the United States of America - 1990 through 1994

Kentucky's school reform efforts bear fruit

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A state-level accountability program can lead to significant improvement in school performance, according to recent studies by UW-Madison Education Professor Carolyn Kelley. She found that Kentucky schools successfully meeting student achievement goals in the state's school-based performance award program did so by making considerable changes in curriculum and instruction.

Kelley found distinct differences between award-winning schools and non award-winning schools in the Kentucky Accountability Program. She studied 16 schools, selected to represent elementary, middle, and high schools in various geographic regions and reaching various levels of success in their accountability goals (see sidebar):

Levels of Success

"Reward" schools exceed their accountability targets and received a pool of reward funds that were distributed to teachers for any purpose, including salary bonuses. (Kentucky spent $26 million to $27 million in each of the two award cycles to pay for bonus awards. In 1997 the Kentucky Education Association decided to oppose the funding of bonus awards and to recommend funneling that money into professional development activities.)

"Successful" schools meet their target but receive neither bonuses nor sanctions.

"Improving" schools improve over their baseline but fail to reach the target. They must submit a transformation plan to the state, detailing how they will meet their achievement goal in the future.

"Decline" schools drop below their baseline. They are assigned a Distinguished Educator and some improvement funds and must submit a transformation plan.

"Crisis" schools drop more than five points below baseline. They are assigned a Distinguished Educator who is given broad powers to terminate teachers and override school site council decisions if necessary.

The Kentucky accountability program aims to produce school-level improvements in student performance on the state's authentic assessment instrument, the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS). Both the accountability program and the assessment instrument were created as part of Kentucky's state education reforms in 1990.

The accountability program combines KIRIS results at the individual student and school levels with measures based on student attendance, dropout and retention rates, and transition to adult life.

Strategies for meeting accountability goals
Studying the 16 schools, Kelley wanted to determine what differentiated the award-winning schools from the non-award-winning ones, and how some schools that had received a poor score the first year changed to perform as successful schools the next year. Kelley found that the most successful schools:

aligned curriculum with the assessment instrument;

incorporated writing and other test-taking skills into the regular curriculum; and

focused high quality professional development activities on gaps in teacher knowledge and skills.

Principal leadership and a focus on achieving rewards were critical factors in achieving reward status, except in the highest achieving schools. In these schools exceptionally skilled and professionally connected teaching staffs worked with principals to focus the curriculum and instructional program. The schools receiving rewards in both the first and second cycles all had extraordinarily skilled teaching staffs and were professionally "in the loop." They had direct contacts with the state's accountability program through professional ties and as current or past members of state committees. As a result, these schools were more likely than others to know how to use and interpret the considerable amount of information the state issued as a guide to help schools improve practice. They used draft curriculum guides and analyzed test results from previous assessments to modify their curriculum to address weak areas.

Although principal leadership was not a major characteristic of the schools receiving awards in both years, it was an important characteristic of other successful schools. One explanation for this, Kelley says, is that the schools receiving awards both years had such strong teaching staffs that the principal could function as a facilitator rather than as a director.

The low success schools lacked the characteristics and strategies of high success schools. For example, the elementary school in reward status the first year but in decline the next did not incorporate KIRIS goals into its curriculum program. Teacher leaders in this school made no attempt to modify curriculum and instruction to KIRIS goals. The principal was more a nurturing figure than a strong instructional leader and chose not to exercise leadership to overcome teacher preferences for more traditional curriculum and instructional approaches.

The reward/decline middle school had a stronger professional culture, but had several major educational reform initiatives underway that competed with KIRIS and absorbed the attention of teachers in the school.

Some poorly performing schools were able to achieve reward status in the second cycle. They did so by implementing an accountability program with a strong developmental intervention. Schools identified as in decline received financial resources and were assigned a Distinguished Educator who provided developmental guidance. The combination of rewards, sanctions, and developmental interventions seems to provide a powerful package that has the potential to address organizational and individual barriers to successful organizational change, Kelley says.

What motivated teachers
In 1993-1994 the maximum cash bonus paid to teachers in rewards schools was $2,600 per teacher, with the minimum award set at $1,300. For most teachers in reward schools, the cash bonus was a nice acknowledgment of work well done, but not an incentive that drove their behavior. At the same time, the cash award has an important indirect effect on motivation, given the level of attention to the accountability program, and the level of attention paid to achieving reward status. The bonus seemed to provide an important signal to teachers, principals, district administrators, and the public about what educational goals the accountability program valued.

Teachers were also motivated to avoid sanctions for their schools (having to submit a transformation plan to the state and being assigned a Distinguished Educator) because of the resulting negative publicity. This motivation was particularly strong in rural areas, where school news dominates the newspaper coverage. A few teachers and principals also said they were motivated by fears of losing professional autonomy or job security. But many were motivated by professional pride; they wanted positive public recognition and they wanted to see their students achieve.

Kelley found that elementary schools were significantly more successful in achieving reward status than were middle and high schools. In the first accountability cycle, most of the reward winners were elementary schools, followed by middle and then high schools. In the second cycle, most of the reward winners were again elementary schools, followed by high schools and then middle schools. "In general," says Kelley, "the success of elementary schools was due to the smaller organizational structure, the cross-disciplinary nature, and teachers' greater malleability and willingness to try new things."

Implications
The Kentucky accountability program created a crisis or galvanizing event that research suggests is needed for meaningful organizational change to occur, Kelley says. Her research provides important information on the responses of teachers and schools to the accountability program. The program provided teachers with clear, specific, and challenging goals to strive for, and enabled them to focus curriculum and instruction on these goals rather than any of the other myriad possible goals. The program outcomes that provided a meaningful incentive for teachers included fear of negative publicity, a desire for positive public recognition growing out of a sense of professional pride, intrinsic rewards associated with seeing students achieve and, for a smaller proportion of teachers, a fear of loss of professional autonomy from having a Distinguished Educator assigned, and a fear of job loss.

Several other studies of various aspects of Kentucky education reforms provide support to suggest that the findings here may be generalizable within Kentucky.

For more information contact Kelley at kelley@education.wisc.edu.

Funding was provided by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement.