Since the 1990-91 school year, an ongoing project has studied the implementation of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) in four rural Kentucky school districts. Study methods have included over 1,200 interviews with various stakeholders, observation of over 500 classroom instruction hours, and a comprehensive review of key documents. This…

This paper addresses misconceptions about the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). Advocates claim that there has never been a statewide school reform of KERA's significance and magnitude. However, Kentucky legislators, both in 1909 and in the mid-1950s, passed governance and finance reforms considered to be as revolutionary as those of KERA. A…

Describes how local, within-school factors at two rural elementary schools located in different parts of Kentucky influenced efforts to achieve the mandated goals of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). Discusses the tension created by imposing generic reform measures on very different rural places. An appendix presents KERA goals.…

Since 1990, a long-term study has been following the implementation of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) in 21 schools in 4 rural school districts. This publication summarizes study findings through 1995. Findings across KERA strands suggest that reform would have been unlikely without KERA's extra funding, used to increase teacher…

This paper describes how a vice principal at a rural Kentucky elementary school successfully implemented curriculum changes to meet the learning needs of young children. The change process also addressed the concerns of kindergarten teachers frustrated with the demands of teaching basal reader activities that eliminated explorative play and other…

Forward in the Fifth is an organization created to improve the quality of education in Kentucky's Fifth Congressional District, which had the lowest percentage of high school graduates in America. The organization has employed innovative ways to involve the whole community, resulting in widespread cooperation, as well as increased graduation rates…

Opposition to outcome-based education (OBE) has become a rallying cry for a number of organized groups that oppose state-education reform initiatives around the country. Such opposition has arisen recently in Kentucky among groups that object to many components of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). This paper explores the…

Kentucky has a long history of educational problems and of reform efforts that failed because of state neglect. These problems, which deeply affect rural economic development and are closely tied to patterns of unequal development, have become more troublesome as world markets have changed. The roots of these problems are planted in the state's…

In 1989, the Kentucky Supreme Court declared that the state's public school system was unconstitutional and ordered the Kentucky legislature to create a new system of public education. The Kentucky General Assembly then enacted the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA). This book sets forth the policy assumptions underlying KERA and…

This document consists of the first five issues of "Notes from the Field," a serial documenting a 5-year study of the implementation of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) of 1990 in four rural Kentucky school districts. The first issue provides a brief overview of KERA policies and the status of their implementation in the study…

This paper discusses the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) and its impact on school facilities planning and community involvement in related decision making. Since 1900, the pattern of rural school reform, nationally and in Kentucky, has been one of increased state and federal control, with cost effectiveness and equity the primary criteria in…