Systemic Education Reform in Kentucky State, USA: The Reestablishment of Local Superintendents

Abstract

  This paper considers the change of education system in Kentucky State in the United States of America as part of education reform. Kentucky was the first state to implement comprehensive education reform, with the 1990 “Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA)”. It was the model case for “Standards-Based Reform”, which is education reform for improvement of educational quality through setting standardized curricula and requiring rigorous assessment by the state. KERA had a great impact on other states and federal education policy through the 1990’s. Now, these policies are criticized as Neo-Liberal policy, but the theory of Neoliberalism is vague and unclear. Neoliberalism applies to different types of education system reforms, depending on local contexts.

  To understand the contradictions of Neoliberalism, one prominent explanation is the “Principal – Agency Theory”. This theory comes from new institutional economics and reconstitutes educational governance by inducing market theory. In the Principal – Agency Theory, the national government or state sets the standards and creates the market infrastructure to compete with each other, and establishes top-down governance over the education system. However, it is not clear who is going to be principal and agent in the complex education system: Will local school district boards and local superintendents lose power?

  KERA had begun as a civic movement launched by the “Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence”. In 1984, the Prichard Committee held a State’s Town Forum for discussing education issues. This forum was held at 145 locations and joined by 20 thousand civic people. After this forum, the attention of the Kentucky education system focused on three areas: (1) elected state superintendents, (2) local school district boards and (3) education finance equality.

  The first problem was the state superintendent. Kentucky had an elected state superintendent, with this position acknowledged as being a step up to higher political status. State educational administration was influenced by the result of political elections and not by educational considerations.

  The second problem was the local school district boards, which were criticized for “nepotistic practices”. Although it was not clear that nepotism was in fact at play, the state’s Research Report suggested that education boards and superintendent attitudes were more favorable to the hiring of relatives.

  The third problem was education equality between local districts. A civic group called the “Council for Better Education” sued the state for education finance inequality, winning a lawsuit in 1989 called the “Rose Decision”, a leading case in education finance litigation. The Rose Decision legally required the Kentucky Congress to pursue equality in education finance and adequate education quality for all.

  As a result, KERA led to system-wide educational reform, with reform efforts spearheaded by the State-appointed “Task Force on Education Reform”. The Task Force addressed all three aforementioned categories, and developed a blueprint for education system reform. This plan called for the abolition of elected state superintendents, who appointed by state education boards whose members were, in turn, appointed by state governors and congressionally agreed upon. In addition to this, Kentucky established an independent office “Office of Education Accountability” that checked the whole state education quality and overall circumstances.

  KERA also induced “School Based Management” and reduced the powers of local school district boards. However, elected local school district boards were not abolished and members continued to be elected by people. Local superintendents were also appointed by local school district boards, even though candidates had to be selected from a pre-approved list that the local (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)