The real eastern Kentucky; 1; What's Happening to Education in Eastern Kentucky

There has been a tremendous expansion in facilities in the Appalachian portion of Kentucky boys and girls in the mountains of the desire and seek an education quality education comes before quantity. We hear so much nothing out migration leave it up and he says Well have they got this stuff. What possibly will face the situation. We're a deeply interested and deeply involved in finding out what the needs of the students are in the meeting. But what happened you were educated in eastern Kentucky. What happened was when I need to educate you he said you know Kentucky what happens when they do education he's doing. What happened to that in death and what happened to education in eastern Kentucky. That's the question with which we began our search to discover information about the educational systems in the 32 counties comprising eastern Kentucky. The idea

that one room schools would be prevalent in the Commonwealth of Kentucky was completely shattered in 1954. Kentucky had thousand and one room schools throughout the state. In fact there were approximately 30 100. Today Kentucky has one hundred and forty two one room schools. This shows how consolidation has taken place and this is a good indication of progress. Wendell Butler Kentucky's Superintendent of Public Instruction underlines the word progress. Elaborating on a plan which has been the turning point for education in the state and 1954 the Kentucky legislature. Past an adopted what is known as the minimum Foundation program education. Under this program great progress had been made and it applied more to eastern Kentucky than any other part of the state. The ultimate determination of whether the plan is doing its job or not is made by the quantity of educational outcomes. This program seeks to explore some of those

educational outcomes. You will hear the voices of the people concerned the educators deeply committed to improve education in eastern Kentucky. That portion known as Kentucky Appalachian. Our preliminary investigation revealed an abundance of material. There were far too many innovative and exciting programs for us to cover them all. We were forced to select representative programs on the various educational levels starting with the preschool educational program and ending with basic education for adults. These are the goals and objectives as told by the administrators of those programs in eastern Kentucky. One of the essential goals would be to. Create a force in East Kentucky a united type of force to attack all the problems related to the elements and their education. Student Then

from this one of our prime goal has been to update ourselves in terms of methods techniques and approaches the establishing new and innovative exemplary programs in the elementary secondary schools means Kentucky a concerted effort on the part of 18 and now 19 school districts throughout the United States together with their 16 state departments of education. The U.S. Office of Education. Various consultants and universities all engaged in an endeavor to do something about secondary education in this country. We are all convinced that secondary education as it is now practiced is not a valid learning experience for the youngsters who are trying to serve. We're deeply interested and deeply involved

in finding out what the needs of the students are and meeting them. There are many students who are not completing high school. Several districts have dropout rates of over 50 percent between the ninth grade and the 12th grade. And this isn't a monumental loss of educational talent. So one of our objectives is to get youngsters to stay in high school and complete the Secondary School Certificate and graduate. The other part of our program is to get youngsters to attend some type of post-secondary school education. And notice I've used the word post secondary school education rather than college because we have many junior colleges. We have many vocational schools as well as our colleges and universities. And it is our judgment that there should be some type of terminal education for every youngster. The overriding purpose is to make vocational education available to everyone

who needs it as a basis for employment. That includes the high school students the post-secondary students the adults. And it includes all people in that region who are able to take on an education and training and secure a job. The 1968 Vocational Education Act has broadened the base for vocational education to include vocational training for the disadvantaged and for the handicapped to give children everywhere in the United States an equal opportunity headstart and follow through programs have been established. Eastern Kentucky is no exception. The programs cannot easily erase the handicaps of poverty but they do provide real advantages there.

Please do not go into that. You know when they get to it they do. Harold Steele education specialist for the Office of Economic Opportunity in Kentucky has been reviewing and evaluating Head Start programs for the past three years. He is frequently concerned with measuring results to see just how effectively the agency's appropriations have been used. Thought it was an effect on the child. This is they. Think. They know what is considered to be one of the most successful Head Start programs in eastern Kentucky is located in Pike County a county considered to be in the middle of Appalachian. In terms of land area Pike County is one of the largest school systems east of the Mississippi. It measures 170 miles across by 101 miles wide. However it has

a total population of only 70000 people. Fifty two percent of the school children come from the sixteen thousand five hundred families with less than a $2000 yearly income. Thirty five years ago Pike County had 201 small rural schools. Today only 11 remain. The Head Start program began in the summer of 1965 in Pike County. The goals and objectives were to develop the total child emotionally physically intellectually and socially. Parents were involved in the process through volunteer positions in advisory groups. A successful program resulted today with about twelve hundred children enrolled in Head Start a spin off program has been developed. Known as part of the road it is a plan to continue the individual help that is needed during the early years of education. The Pike County School District was selected to be among the first 40 systems of the National pollo through Project here.

All of them are first rate. And. Only been able to determine. It started and I don't but I'm not a listen this is one of the real ways of making some determinations on the same field I'm going to raise. Oh I'm not that kind of hands and it's certainly something you're about Russian not wholly unknown. They have been quite successful. Under. A tremendous amount of enthusiasm generated and operation of a program so much so that not only people from Kentucky go to visit the program or people from other states come in to visit and try to get some ideas of what it is follow through programs going to the follow through program is being carried on at 5 centers in Pike County

each center consists of a teacher and teacher aide with an enrollment of 20 pupils special furniture and carpeted floors helped to establish a more attractive classroom with modern audio visual equipment available for assistance in teaching. We have been told that through the operation of this program a larger number of children have been instilled with a greater desire to learn. This has been evidenced by the increased participation in classroom activities by the students involving the parent activities has proven to be an effective way for stimulating change in a community. To what extent has adult participation played a role in eastern Kentucky educational programs. We are and bombing the parents as much as possible. We should in mom and more we have taken steps to involve the parents more. We try not to but those kind of situations above and beyond on the rights of the child is taught and it's all activities it's a. Blow through the

formation of the establishment but recommit is what we felt we refer to as last up the A C. And the positive so this. Isn't it but it's thought to have an impact on the community as well as they found. Some significant changes should take place. Oh well I. Don't know. This foundation that we call for change to establish an innovative program. I certainly recognize that education does not operate in a vacuum. And so the board of education and parents have been involved in the establishment already in this change process and they must be involved any time in a change process if they're not involved I can assure you will be a temporary change

whether we like it or not. Change is an essential part of the growth process today because of technological changes we have data processing of comprehensive student records. And they did a flexible scheduling by computer computer assisted learning helps to individualize instruction and places the teacher in an entirely new role. One of the most innovative educational developments ever undertaken in the United States is a cooperative effort of local state and federal forces. The U.S. Office of Education together with 19 school districts is hoping to change the secondary school system for the better during the next five years. Why was the brought that county system of eastern Kentucky chosen to play a part in this plan for the county was chosen from among several other counties in other states. Because of its general attitude and when I say general attitude I'm speaking of the board of education superintendent the administrative

staff as well as the people in the county because of his general attitude toward willingness to do something different. If it was convince that it was better at the LBJ elementary school is an outstanding example of this attitude. And as you know as recently won the governors award for the outstanding innovation no elementary school in the state. So having having seen the general attitude in the approach to education the concern for the welfare of the youngsters as opposed to structures and rigid curriculum requirements and traditional methods they find here and willingness to adequately and appropriately demonstrate that there are better ways of educating youngsters and actually going about doing it. This to me is the prime reason that brought the county I was selected

by the U.S. Office of Education 70 places the student at the focal point of their educational endeavors based upon behavioral objectives. The curriculum is designed to be relevant to every student no matter what his goals are. I would like to use an illustration here of say three youngsters one of them wants to become a carpenter one an architectural craftsman and the third an architectural engineer the carpenter will need a rather high level of experience and ability in wood shop. He will probably be wanting and be advised counseled to work at the honors level in the shop area and the modules that he takes there. The architectural draftsman will need a certain familiarity with woodworking and its properties from what can be done machinery and tools. He will take a much less rigorous shop experience the architectural engineer will be somewhat similar to the draftsman getting an

introduction but not necessarily becoming an expert carpenter a cabinet maker in order to continue his education. So here we have again three levels of learning experience available to the students to adequately prepare them for that which they want to become since 70 is such a massive undertaking requiring assisting the teacher in the transition to the new role of diagnostician and the writing of an entirely new curriculum. We asked William Ryan coordinator of the program a breath of county What does the educational system of the 70s mean to eastern Kentucky students. Well we have to look several years into the future when the total curriculum is implemented and operable in operational in our school. At the present time we are developing the science discipline areas. Basically however First let me say that we're writing it on a cross discipline basis in other words when a science report is required. The

communications or language arts department is writing the instructional module for the students so that it will serve a dual purpose. The student can get credit for report writing in English. He will also get credit for having done his science report in the science department. And this applies to history the fine arts humanities all across the various discipline areas. Now we're writing it at three levels we call them basic achievement and honors. First because eventually we will have a continuous progress no fail high school and the student will select its own level of achievement and proceed at his own rate. Now other words a student might very well finish in two years two and a half years. Some might take four and a half or five. We're not concerned about this were concerned about his needs. Concerned about the needs of the student is the key phrase in understanding what e s 70 is

all about. Why 975 it is hoped that all secondary education in the United States will make use of the curriculum materials now being written in Bradford County and the 18 other school districts of the e-s 70 network. On a somewhat lesser scale eastern Kentucky has attempted to bring about educational change through the efforts of the eastern Kentucky Educational Development Corporation funded through Title 3 of the Elementary Secondary Education Act. This corporation has brought together the creative efforts of school superintendents in 21 eastern Kentucky counties. The director of Ek EDC is Edwin JONES One of the prime reasons they organized into corporation was to give him the broad base to neutralize any resources and not be restricted to any agency funding. And also to ban them together since we have similar

problems to attack the problems and elements under education and he's been ducking as stated earlier the purpose of the cooperation would enable us to seek and utilise money as from any source any place and we have so far have utilized essentially Title 3 monies on the arm in center is education and we've had three grants going under Title 3. One of those have been computer assisted instruction and one has been communicated arced with an emphasis in drama. And the other we call our foundations for innovation. Meaning that we were trying to establish some sort of a base to bring about change. Today there is more concern for the individual student individualized education rather than mass education is being exercised with the assistance of

computers the use of the computer in the schools of Appalachian serves to assist enrich and supplement the regular instructional program. But the use of a computer is not enough. A curriculum has to be designed and fed to the computer. We were one of two places in the United States that cooperated with Stanford University and Morehead University. To develop a curriculum in mathematics grades one's who 9 now we're going into a stand alone posture breaking away from Stanford University which will enable us and to broaden the services not only giving the math program but other programs that are being developed in the logic language arts and other subject fields that are coming about. We've proven that five minutes of instruction via a computer for example and

a youngster has achieved as much as he's been getting in an hour or so under just the one teacher. Now this doesn't say the teacher has an operators along with this program. What is done is essentially relieved of some of the skills of the drill and skills and the grading the Monday new kinds of things that eats away a teacher's time. It's enabled her to give more time to teaching the concepts in math and other subjects. What does EK EDC mean for the future of education in eastern Kentucky. I believe that. We have certainly opened the door for an attitudinal change toward educating boys and girls in the elements in their school. I also think that related to the future that one of the greatest aims that we should look at is. The means available today through technology to influence education. And I

mean by this that we in Kentucky should be able through this to give our boys and girls the equivalent that any child would have in the America. Technology does provide educational advantages for the future of education. But at the present time in Appalachian there are many students who are not completing high school. Operation talent search at Morehead State University is determined to help youngsters remain in high school and complete their secondary school certificate. Frank cent is director of the program explains its operation. Why operation talent search is a national program sponsored by the U.S. Office of Education under title for the Higher Education Act of 1965 in the United States there are about 50 to 60 projects like ours. Most of the talent search organizations are located in the ghettos of the large cities or in the rural isolated areas of the country. We tend to be one of the other very rural or

very urban in our area of Appalachia. We are trying to go out into the counties this year using three full time counselors myself full time and a secretary in about 15 work study students which ends up with something like about 20 or 21 people working in talent search. A few of us full time and most of the people part time and I objective is to go into the 50 high schools of eastern Kentucky and identified 10 needy seniors in each high school. Our criteria for selecting youngsters. It is pretty subjective. We're organizing a local discovery committee and in every major town in fact any town that has any people in it to be interested in participating in the things that we want to get from the local discovery Committee. What we want to get from them is the names we want them to nominate students out their community. They know the families they know the circumstances and we ask these people

to nominate students especially a clergyman to look over the students at their church and pick out some students that meet the talent search guidelines. He's got to be from an economically deprived home. Students are going to need a lot of financial aid when he goes to college he can justify his request for 75 or 80 percent financing at college. Once the youngster is bound who puts these criteria he is given the opportunity for post-secondary education. You're shown how you can qualify for various types of financial aid so that he can get the type of education he wants whether it be in a junior college or university or vocational educational center basically in recent years through the explosion of knowledge and advances in technology and automation. There is an increased need for vocational education on the part of practically

everyone wherever they might be whether to eastern Kentucky or not. There's no question that the people in eastern Kentucky need locational training as preparation for employment. Part of the problem is he is actually getting them adequately trained and finding employment for them finding employment in the mountain area of Appalachian can be a real problem. Dr. Carl Amar assistant superintendent for vocational education elaborates on the difficulty. The problem that we have in eastern Turkey is that the one hand people say that they need to track new industry into their area to provide increased employment opportunities and the handicap is. Train manpower. So we are asked to train manned so that they become a factor in attracting new industry. So you attempt to train us

man. If the end astray does not come so that they get employment then the tendency is that they go to where the employment is and you bump into the criticism. Often times that you're actually training them to cause them to move out of the area so that is not really what we're trying to do. But sometimes that's what really happens. Today there is increased federal and state interest in vocational education. There has been a review of our educational system. Dr. Lamar points out the concerns are elementary and secondary school programs are geared primarily to preparing students for college. Actual AI only about 20 percent of our people that go through the elementary and secondary schools complete to be Esther vary. In addition to that in the labor market there are only

about eight and six tenths percent of the jobs that call for yesterday. So we need to turn the thing around and recognize that the at least 80 percent of the people that go through the elementary secondary programs need to get themselves prepared for employment at a level below the B.S. degree. Now this has been emphasized because of the great change in the world of work. Unskilled jobs are going out of existence practically every type of employment needs some kind of training. People need to acquire knowledge and they need to acquire skills as a basis for employment. And this has placed greater emphasis on the significance of vocational education. So I think that.

Very definitely it is going to expand in the years ahead. Vocational education in eastern Kentucky is presently experiencing a tremendous growth pattern. Numerous centers have been built in virtually every eastern Kentucky county. The only requirements for a post-secondary program are that the student must be at least 16 years of age and be able to profit from the training. But the growth cannot keep up with the interest. Every year hundreds have to be turned away from vocational opportunities. But the belief is strong that quality education comes before quantity. Adult basic education is another concern of the dedicated educators of eastern Kentucky. George Eisner explains what his agency is doing for Appalachian adults. Well in our agency we've accepted the responsibility of developing programs that would be people centered. That is we prefer to do our experiment our demonstration and research

with our clients. Those people who need our help. We do have a very broad list of objectives but we're isolating in each of our projects small research elements that then are being spread throughout the region in all other projects. So that we will have a general impact across the region. But in a very limited kind of way. I'm dedicated to that premise that there are portions of people who will benefit from education. And if we can do anything to give them opportunities it will. We must do it. I'm unwilling to accept the responsibility of these people living in ignorance and and becoming a continual drain on the rest of the world community. The Appalachian adult basic education demonstration center is concerned with research demonstration and experimentation in 12 states.

These states comprise the Appalachian region with all or portions of the area in the mountain country. The project coordinates research and demonstration so that each state experiment with isolated elements will contribute to the total plan for effective education of Appalachian adults. What is learned will not benefit only the adults here but across the United States. We began our look at Eastern Kentucky by asking what's happening. The answers have been varied but the voices of the educators show deep concern for the people of eastern Kentucky. The people after all will determine the success or failure of these educational programs. A note of optimism has been struck by knowing that something is being done. There has been a tremendous expansion in facilities in the Appalachian portion of Kentucky boys and girls in the mountains of desire and seek and education.

Quality education comes in before quantity. We do so much nothing out migration leave. And he says. Well have they got it done but possibly with a little situation. This is the national educational radio network.