Strategic Planning and Research

Published: 2/28/2018 12:01 PM

The mission of the Strategic Planning and Research Team is to provide support and service to KDE leadership and staff by conducting research and analyzing data in order to facilitate strategic conversations that lead to continuously better outcomes for students.

We believe that the Kentucky Board of Education’s vision is the catalyst for ensuring that every student is successful through every transition. KDE’s mission provides guidance and our values are a reminder for how we approach our work toward achieving our agency goals. Focusing on our agency goals will ensure success of our state accountability goals.

KBE Vision – Each and every student empowered and equipped with the knowledge, skills and dispositions to pursue a successful future.
State Accountability Goals – cut the achievement gap in half by 2030, every student ready by the end of third grade, every student ready for middle school, every student ready for high school, every student ready for success.
KDE Mission – The Kentucky Department of Education’s mission is to partner with districts, schools and education shareholders to provide service, support and leadership to ensure success for each and every student.
KDE Strategic Goals – cultivate conditions for success and create a culture of collaboration.

Our core values are:

Equity – Every child has the opportunity for a high quality education.
Achievement – All students can achieve at high levels.
Integrity – We will be honest with students, schools, families and shareholders about achievement.

STRATEGIC PLAN

This infographic is designed to illustrate how the goals in our strategic plan support our vision and mission. Operational plans feeding into the strategic plan provide a solid foundation as we work to cut the achievement gap in half by 2030, while maintaining the flexibility to absorb outside factors that impact our work.

We have a lot of underserved students. Underserved is defined as our current non-duplicated gap group. A high percentage of them are not proficient.

In grade three, there are 37,081 underserved students. To cut the achievement gap in half, 10,661 must become and stay proficient in math. 9,734 must become and stay proficient in reading.
In grade five, there are 34,968 underserved students. To cut the achievement gap in half, 10,665 must become and stay proficient in math. 9,109 must become and stay proficient in reading.
In grade eight, there are 32,502 underserved students. To cut the achievement gap in half, 8,759 must become and stay proficient in math. 10,157 must become and stay proficient in reading.

We designed our strategic plan to be a solid framework that is governed by our vision to pursue a successful future, our mission of service, support and leadership and our core values of equity, achievement and integrity. With these things guiding us, we established two goals which become for us the walls in which we will operate. Our goals are to Cultivate Conditions for Success and to Create a Culture of Collaboration. We understand that each child comes to us with their own story. The following statistics were published in the Kentucky Kids Count County Data Books in 2016 and 2017:

Family and Community – 5.7% of Kentucky households speak a language other than English and 7% of children are in kinship care
Education – 14.6% of births were to mothers without a high school degree between 2013 and 2015 and 58% of young children are not in school
Economic Well-being – 25% of children are living in poverty and 8% of teens are not in school and not working
Health – 4% of teens abuse alcohol or drugs and 21% of mothers smoke during pregnancy

We can’t change all the factors that influence their lives, but we are responsible for ensuring quality opportunities are made available for their education. Our framework also needs to be flexible enough to absorb outside factors that influence our work like legislation and the budget.

At the foundation of all of this is the operational work of our agency. Each office was asked to create a theme for their operational plan. The themes are:

Go Digital, from the Office of Education Technology
Reaching for the Stars, from the Office of Assessment and Accountability
Measuring Progress, from the Office of the Commissioner
Guiding and Supporting Educational Progress, from the Office of Legal, Legislative and Communication Services
The Continuous Improvement Journey, from the Office of Continuous Improvement and Support
Pathways to Equity and Achievement, from the Office of Teaching and Learning
Transforming Today’s Education for Tomorrow’s Careers, from the Office of Career and Technical Education
Managing Resources, Maximizing Results, from the Office of Finance and Operations

There is not one straight and narrow path that will work for all children; rather, there are multiple paths that twist and turn. The service, support and leadership that we provide looks different in each of our offices. But with all of us collaborating around the same goal to cut the achievement gap in half, we believe this strong, yet agile framework is setting us and our students on a path to success.

Karen Dodd

Office of the Commissioner of Education

300 Sower Blvd., 5th Floor

Frankfort, KY 40601

(502) 564-2102

Fax (502) 564-7749

karen.dodd@education.ky.gov

KDE Strategic Plan 2017-22

Strategic Plan Infographic