Kentucky Department of Education

On March 26, 2009, Governor Steve Beshear signed Senate Bill 1 (2009) into law. This significant piece of legislation led to the implementation of several education initiatives impacting college readiness and degree completion in Kentucky. 

 

Senate Bill 1 (2009) College and Career Readiness

 

Included in these initiatives was a mandate for the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE), the Kentucky Board of Education (KBE), and the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) to develop a unified strategy to reduce college remediation rates of recent high school graduates by at least fifty percent by 2014 from the rates in 2010, and to increase the college completion rates of students enrolled in one or more remedial classes by three percent annually from 2009 to 2014. 

 

Four key strategies have been identified to promote college and career readiness and degree completion:

• Accelerated Learning Opportunities (focusing on the expansion of AP/IB access and dual credit opportunities)
• Secondary Intervention Programs (focusing on the development of transitional coursework)
• College and Career Readiness Advising (focusing on the full implementation of the Individual Learning Plan and comprehensive advising programs)
• Postsecondary College Persistence and Degree Completion (focusing on bridge programming, accelerated learning opportunities, and student support and intervention systems)

 

Cross-Agency Unified Plan 

 

CPE and KDE created cross-agency work teams that included KCTCS, four-year institutions and other external agency partners. These work teams developed goals and action plans, identified useful resources, and determined expected outcome measures for each of the strategies, promoting readiness and degree completion. The teams also developed metrics to measure progress on each of the Senate Bill 1 (2009) goals. The agencies will partner with secondary and postsecondary institutions to implement the plan, with dates of implementation contingent upon available funding.

 

The activities of this work will be ongoing and represent a model of collaboration with a shared vision of having all students prepared for postsecondary and career success.  Because of this work, more students will reach higher levels of proficiency and more students will be college and career ready.

 

 

Transitional Courses

 

Additionally, Senate Bill 1 (2009) required schools to provide a transitional course or monitored intervention to every student not meeting college readiness benchmarks in English/language arts or mathematics. In response to this requirement, a statewide team of secondary and postsecondary mathematics educators were tasked to assist regional school districts and high schools in designing and implementing transitional mathematics and English/language arts courses. Meetings were held in 2010 to develop college readiness transition courses. These transitional courses center on a framework of content and concepts aligned with the revised Kentucky Core Academic Standards and aligned with college and career readiness standards.

 

These transitional courses fall under the second college and career readiness strategy – Secondary Intervention Programs. The target audience is high school seniors who scored 1 to 3 points below college readiness on the ACT for the corresponding content.