This paper describes Louisville, Kentucky's Community Accountability Team (CAT), which promoted parent and citizen involvement in school reform. It was unique to the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), a large, urban district, and represented a strategy in a rapidly building national movement to make education more transparent and accountable…

Teachers in Kentucky are using portfolios to determine strengths and weaknesses of individual students. Consequently, instruction is centered totally around the student. The implementation of portfolios sends the message to students that their first efforts should not be their last. Revision is part of improvement, and students are expected to…

This paper describes Morehead State University's support of the Kentucky Education Reform Act through mini-grants to public school teachers to help them implement state reform mandates and guidelines in the classroom through in-school action research projects. Morehead State University funded 18 mini-grants to 14 different schools in 11 different…

As part of a qualitative study of education reform in four rural Kentucky school districts, this report examines instructional changes that have occurred in the upper primary grades as a result of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). Researchers interviewed 13 principals, 37 teachers, and 14 eighth-grade students; observed 73 teachers working…

The central role of writing in Kentucky's Education Reform Act is most evident in Kentucky's new assessment system, which employs writing on all levels. Even tests that have recently included multiple-choice items may be replaced by response items that require students to apply knowledge, concepts, and skills in a writing format. Writing itself is…