Making the case for school reform

Senate President David Williams pooh-poohed the agenda for Gov. Steve Beshear's education task force as "duplicative" and called instead for "immediate action" from the administration.

What Williams fails to appreciate is that broad-based buy-in is a necessary prerequisite for action on education.

Senate Republicans should have learned that in recent legislative sessions. Not even good ideas sell themselves, especially to audiences that are understandably skeptical of some lawmakers' motives.

What Beshear is doing makes sense: Bring together a cross-section of interested parties to meld into a coherent stream all the promising reform currents that are swirling around. Then have them go home and talk up the plan.

And there are a lot of good ideas, flowing from multiple sources, including Senate Republicans.

One of the most exciting — the development of national learning standards — originated with the nation's governors and could serve as the basis for a standards-based test to replace the school accountability regime that produced endless political distractions and was overturned by the legislature earlier this year.

Also fueling a wave of reform is the competition for $4.3 billion in federal funding. It's forcing Kentucky to tackle an array of tough issues, including standards, how to improve teaching and how to fix chronically under-performing schools.

Twenty years ago, the pressure for improving schools came from inside Kentucky, from a ruling by the state Supreme Court, but more importantly from a public and business community that were fed up with dwelling in the nation's education basement.

The reforms of 1990 produced improvements, evident in Kentucky teens who now graduate from high school at a higher rate than the national average, something their parents and grandparents never did. There also have been significant increases in college-going, though not yet in comparative college graduation rates.

There's a long way to go, still, as other states and countries push up their standards and bring more rigorous education to more of their people.

It would be great if Beshear's task force could reignite the rare political chemistry that 20 years ago set the stage for sweeping improvements.

A major element then was support from the business community, led by three CEOs — UPS's Oz Nelson, Humana's David Jones and Ashland Inc.'s John Hall — who saw beyond the next quarterly statement.

They realized that the long-term fates of their companies were inextricably tied to how well Kentuckians are educated, that Kentucky's economy can only be as good as its schools and universities.

That's as true today as it was then.