Kentucky education officials are working on a reimagined school accountability system to ensure every public school student in the state is learning what they need to learn. But it will take some time to launch it — potential approval of the new (or maybe just improved) system is still about two years away.
Kentucky Department of Education education policy executive director Meredith Brewer told LINK nky that stakeholders right now are focusing on ways to achieve the “moonshot,” or ultimate goal, for the system being created under the state’s United We Learn initiative.
The recommended next steps will be relayed to the department later this year and to the state board of education next spring, with engagement by the state legislative Interim Joint Committee on Education sometime in late 2025.
“We are being really intentional about feedback on those (recommendations) because we want to be sure we keep the goal in mind – does this seem to address the concerns levied, yes or no, and then make modifications,” Brewer told LINK nky.
That would put potential legislation, if any, before state lawmakers no earlier than 2026.
Meanwhile, the department is preparing to transition to a new commissioner on July 1. Dr. Robbie Fletcher, formerly superintendent of Lawrence County Schools, will take the reins from interim Commissioner Robin Fields Kinney, who has served in the position since Sept. 2023 following the departure of former Commissioner Jason Glass.
United We Learn, initiated by Glass, is an ongoing state initiative defined by the department as “the vision for the future of public education in Kentucky.” It is built around what the department calls “three big ideas – students, innovation and community.” Personalized learning opportunities, like portraits of a learner, align with those ideas.
“Right now, it’s about just making sure everyone knows what we’re working toward and feels like they’re contributing in a meaningful way,” Brewer said of the moonshot goal.
What is happening with the moonshot now?
Four prototypes, or accountability models geared toward the moonshot, are in development by the council with more possible. The models, according to state officials, will center around the commission’s three big ideas shared earlier.
Once approved and in place, the final model or models are expected to serve every student while simultaneously recognizing every student is different, both Brewer and United We Learn council chair Penny Christian told LINK nky.
In other words, the focus isn’t on any one region – Northern Kentucky vs. Eastern Kentucky, for example – or one type of student learner. It is to “launch an accountability system that is meaningful and useful to all our learners,” quoting the moonshot statement itself.
“What the moonshot does is it puts us on that specific path that lets us know we may be doing different things in certain parts of the state but at the end of the day, that accountability system falls on KDE and it falls on the stakeholders to make sure every child is in those numbers,” Christian told LINK nky.
Christian said the new system is being designed to give state officials and communities a “true depiction of what students aren’t getting on the daily.”
“We know that we don’t have a true picture,” Christian said. “Everybody used buzzwords like the achievement gap, but decades not much has changed. Why are some students not getting what they need? What are we not doing to enact that change?
The NKY perspective
Brewer is a former school teacher and a former resident of Fort Thomas. She understands the NKY education landscape well, including the fact that NKY has more independent public school districts than anywhere in the state (11) and the third-largest county public school district (Boone). Brewer said there are other traits that make NKY unique, too.
“There is a lot more transience in the student population. There’s a lot more mobility,” Brewer said.
Working as intended, the moonshot will ensure every student is equipped for learning and the future no matter where they go to school or where they call home, Brewer explained.
That includes students in NKY and elsewhere.
“It really is about ensuring that every student has an educational experience that will equip them for their future,” said Brewer. “I think for Northern Kentucky it’s important that, regardless of if you are a student in Newport and your family moves to Ludlow or Covington or any of those districts, our hope at the department level is there is a commitment to this transformed student experience in every classroom, that there’s going to be some consistency is how that experience is framed.”
Competitiveness of Ohio’s public school system is also unique to NKY, Brewer said. So making sure Kentucky public schools are meeting Kentucky student needs, she said, is important if the state wants to keep those kids and their families on this side of the river.
“We know that in that Northern Kentucky space, it’s important that our schools are serving the needs of their communities because we want our students to stay in their public schools,” said Brewer. “We don’t want their families to feel compelled to move to Ohio to get that. We want them to get that in our Kentucky public schools.”