The sponsor of one of the bills is Henderson Rep. J.T. Payne
Courtesy of Kentucky Lantern
The Kentucky House passed a pair of Republican education bills Tuesday that would impose a new accountability and assessment system for public school students and allow state colleges and universities to fire faculty for financial reasons.
One has the backing of the Kentucky Department of Education, while the other is opposed by university union workers.
The one backed by KDE, House Bill 257 from Rep. J.T. Payne, R-Henderson, would implement a new accountability and assessment system for public K-12 schools that focuses on community feedback and individual student learning. House lawmakers voted 92-1 to approve the bill.
Payne, who is the principal of Career and Technical Education unit at Henderson County High School, said on the House floor that the “arguably most important change” in his legislation is the one to measure individual student growth, rather than compare cohorts of students’ test scores.
“This will reward schools for fostering individual academic growth of each student, versus rewarding or punishing them for comparing this year’s class to next year’s class, which in simple terms, compares apples and oranges,” the sponsor said.
Rep. Tina Bojankowski, D-Louisville, a teacher in Jefferson County Public Schools, gave a floor speech in favor of the bill.
“Shifting some of that (annual) testing to a local initiative where we can spread it out over the year would be just marvelous,” she said.
Another education bill, House Bill 490, passed largely along party lines Tuesday, 72-21. Sponsored by Rep. Aaron Thompson, R-Russell, the bill contains a provision to allow the boards of Kentucky public universities and colleges to dismiss faculty for financial reasons, such as financial exigency, low enrollment in a program or major misalignment of revenue and costs.
Thompson said on the House floor that the goal of the bill is to give board members “an additional tool in their tool box to be a good steward for each institution’s future, their students and for the taxpayer.”
“While various policies exist at some of our state universities, the process is not consistent,” Thompson said, adding that his bill is modeled after some language in a few of the universities’ faculty handbooks.
Though no lawmakers spoke against the bill before the House vote, the United Campus Workers of Kentucky previously told the Kentucky Lantern it opposed the bill for increasing pressure on faculty to teach, research and publish on topics that “‘maximize revenue’ for the university.” For students, the bill could mean that higher education moves toward a “corporate model” that focuses on return on investment, which could include prioritizing large classes over courses that attract fewer students, the union said.
Both bills are heading to the Senate for further consideration.
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
