Kentucky Education Swirling Down the Budget Bowl

From PZ Myers:

The Fordham Institute has released their annual evaluation of state science standards. They are very tough graders — Minnesota got a “C”.

Kentucky got a "D" - more than richly deserved for a state in which high school biology teachers are not permitted to utter the word "evolution."

Nor is that grade going to improve any time soon.

The state’s top education leaders told a legislative panel Wednesday that proposed budget cuts to the Department of Education will delay implementation of new standards called for in a 2009 overhaul of Kentucky’s education system.

Terry Holliday, commissioner of the Department of Education, told a House budget subcommittee that cuts proposed under Gov. Steve Besehar’s two-year budget will also mean less money for teacher professional development and less money for technology assistance for local school districts. There also will be no new state money to help some schools that have been deemed low-performing schools.

Beshear’s proposed budget does not include cuts to the main funding formula for Kentucky schools, commonly called SEEK, or Support Educational Excellence in Kentucky. However, other parts of the education budget would be cut, including an 8.4 percent cut to administration and technology and a 4.5 percent cut to instruction, assessment and curriculum programs and to the Kentucky School for the Blind and the Kentucky School for the Deaf.

By comparison, eating your seed corn is prudent and advisable.