Tagged: Terry Holiday

Education Week magazine has ranked Kentucky in the top ten in its annual assessment of school policy and standards.

The commonwealth got two perfect scores in subcategories of the six indicators measured. One was for school accountability and another for Economy and Workforce. Overall, the commonwealth received a grade of B-minus.

Tennessee and Indiana both received grades of C+.

And while the state has tried to avoid cutting education, Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday says federal education cuts could be coming.

"We think we've solved the fiscal cliff two weeks ago. We did not," says Holiday. "It is still a reality and we encourage our congressional delegation to solve this fiscal cliff issue called 'sequestration' for domestic cuts.”

Despite a short legislative session that’s expected to focus on pension reforms, Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday says lawmakers may consider some key education measures, too.

“I think you’re going to see a number of possible bills coming out following up from the Newtown incident.”

Holliday says lawmakers may also be interested in increasing funding for Kentucky’s Center for School Safety, which saw dramatic cuts to its budget in 2009.

He also expects the General Assembly to take up legislation that would allow the education department to move forward with reforming its teacher evaluation system. The new system would likely measure teacher performance based partly on student test scores, which has been controversial among some in education.

Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday on Friday previewed an application process for public school districts wanting to operate more like charter schools, freed from a host of laws and regulations to run more independently.