Oxendine joins Governor Beshear, Commissioner Holliday, other school leaders at “kickoff” ceremony for TELL Kentucky Survey

9/29/2010

Photo by David Bryan, Commonwealth Office of Creative Services. Used by permission.

KEA President Sharron Oxendine joined Governor Steve Beshear, Kentucky Education Commissioner Dr. Terry Holliday and leaders of ten other organizations that make up the TELL Kentucky Coalition of Partners for a formal signing of the Memorandum of Understanding of the Teaching, Empowering, Learning and Leading Kentucky Survey.

“Not since the early days of KERA has there been a more critical time to do everything possible to improve students’ learning conditions,” Oxendine told a crowd of about a hundred in the state capitol rotunda on September 28. “And never before has there been a better opportunity to ask Kentucky’s public school teachers how to do just that.”

The purpose of the statewide TELL Kentucky Survey, which will be conducted during the month of March 2011, is to let all teachers and other certified public school personnel give their opinions, ideas and suggestions about conditions, policies and practices in the Kentucky public schools and school districts in which they work to the Commonwealth’s public education policy makers. Beshear said the survey “aims to gather feedback from 44,000 education experts living and working in our state. Those experts are our teachers.” (Hear Governor Beshear's comments to Kentucky Public Radio)

Kentucky teachers will participate in the survey by logging on confidentially to a Web site created especially for the survey, at www.tellkentucky.org at any time between March 1 and March 25. The survey questions already are available at the Web site, along with background information about the survey and updates on news coverage.

When the survey is complete, the New Teacher Center will produce district-level and school-level reports on the confidential responses, which are meant to be used, along with the statewide survey report, as “part of a comprehensive and collaborative plan for improving public education in our state,” Commissioner Holliday said, adding that,  “Understanding and improving the working conditions in our schools will help us realize our vision of every child, proficient and prepared for success -- that is, college- and career-ready when they graduate.”

Oxendine, who, in addition to Governor Beshear and Commissioner Holliday was the only leader of a Coalition partner group to speak at the ceremony, concluded her remarks by saying, “KEA is a proud partner of Tell Kentucky.  We will be working in every public school in Kentucky between now and March to assure that Kentucky’s public school employees’ voices are heard.

“I have no doubt that the survey will also show that Kentucky’s best investment is in its public schools and investing in those schools will keep Kentucky learning for many years to come.”