JCPS blasted in what education chief calls 'academic genocide' | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com

JCPS blasted in what education chief calls 'academic genocide' | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com:

JCPS blasted in what education chief calls 'academic genocide'

State could step in after 16 of 18 low-performing schools show little progress; JCPS Superintendent Donna Hargens notes challenge

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Discussion of JCPS low performing schools: The Kentucky Board of Education on Wednesday discussed the State's 41 priority schools, of which 18 are in JCPS. In this video education commissioner Terry Holliday asks associate commissioner Susan Allred about Jefferson County's progress.

Nearly all of Jefferson County’s persistently low-achieving public schools are failing to improve, a situation so dire that Kentucky’s education commissioner called it “academic genocide” and warned that the state may be forced to intercede.

A new analysis by the Kentucky Department of Education found that 16 of the 18 Jefferson County schools that underwent overhauls in the past three years because of chronically poor academics are showing little or no progress, despite receiving millions of dollars worth of resources to boost student achievement.

Moreover, state officials say several schools failed to follow the detailed improvement plans they agreed to as a condition of their overhaul — and Jefferson County Public Schools officials failed to exercise the oversight needed to make sure the plans were being followed.

Education Commissioner Terry Holliday said the state may need to take over direct oversight of some schools’ turnaround efforts, as it has done in several other districts. He said that could happen at “schools performing at the lowest levels for the longest periods of time — schools such as Valley, Shawnee,