Research > Other

In the spring of 2005, the Partnership created a teacher survey which was administered to the faculty of eight select Kentucky schools. The purpose of the survey was to gather descriptive data about teachers’ perceptions. In particular, the survey focused on teachers’ attitudes toward their job and their opportunities to improve, their perceptions of school and district leadership, and their connections to the community.

What skills do Kentucky businesses consider essential for their new employees? What makes an individual — especially a recent high school graduate — an attractive candidate for employment? This research report details the responses to these questions, gleaned from personal interviews with business owners, corporate executives, personnel administrators, human resource consultants, and others. It is designed to help educators, public policy makers, students, parents, elected and appointed officials, and the public at large gain a better understanding of the skills demanded by the modern workplace.

Northern Kentucky Technical College produced this workbook to give students more information about manufacturing careers. While the Partnership was not involved in the preparation of this workbook, we include it on our site because we feel that it is a valuable resource to help students learn about the skills required for today's jobs.

This report summarizes the pilot year of PPEN, a professional development experience for principals, whose growing obligations included new leadership roles as they remained accountable for heightened student achievement. The program introduced principals at all levels to the best practices of area corporations through presentations made by chief executive officers and their corporate teams. The network also featured presentations of best practices from schools, guiding principals on the best way to apply these practices in their home schools. In addition, resource presentations offered the principals training in a number of skill areas: marketing, communication strategies, presentation skills, negotiation and conflict resolution, budgeting, media relations, and customer service.

Read the fascinating accounts of five Kentucky school districts whose school boards decided to prioritize "the right stuff." Community issues that affect schools — and school issues that affect the community — provided the focus of LaRue County's dialogue sessions; Ohio Countians went to bat in the battle against drugs; board members mentored students in a creative Williamstown project; childhood and adult programs were linked in Lincoln County; and Daviess County applied the lessons of the latest medical research on the brain to classroom programs for the system's youngest students.

The Partnership for Kentucky Schools and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce sponsored the Summit for Students, Educators and Business Leaders in April 1997. This report details the discussion that ensued about the high school experience and how it is changing. Included are a full description of the summit process, a detailed analysis of results, and recommendations directed toward encouraging similar conversations at the local level.

Being a school board member in Kentucky is perceived as almost impossibly challenging, but the service is crucial for the state, its communities, and schools. The recruitment and election processes must therefore be changed to attract the participation of greater numbers of skilled community leaders. This is a summary of the findings that emerged from a series of focus groups and interviews conducted in the fall of 1997 for the Partnership for Kentucky Schools and the Kentucky School Boards Association. Focus groups of community leaders were conducted in eastern, western, northern, and south central Kentucky, and present and former school board members across the Commonwealth were interviewed by telephone.

Being a school board member in Kentucky is perceived as almost impossibly challenging, but the service is crucial for the state, its communities, and schools. The recruitment and election processes must therefore be changed to attract the participation of greater numbers of skilled community leaders. This is a detailed account of the findings that emerged from a series of focus groups and interviews conducted in the fall of 1997 for the Partnership for Kentucky Schools and the Kentucky School Boards Association. Contents include the difficulties and rewards of service, key findings about how to expand the pool of candidates, how to identify and influence community leaders to serve, and factors affecting decisions to run.

Falling roughly halfway through KERA's ten-year implementation period, this overview of the Partnership's position on assessment and accountability in the schools revisits and reemphasizes the themes that define its commitment to educational excellence in Kentucky. Included are a review of Kentucky's educational goals, a progress report on academic performance, and the questions that should be addressed by decision makers charged with improving the then-current system.