News and Notes:  News Release
January 23, 2004

Topeka: Governor’s appearance highlights January KLFA meeting

Governor Kathleen Sebelius’s appearance highlighted the Kansas Learning First Alliance (KLFA) meeting held at the KNEA office Friday, Jan. 23. The Governor outlined her Education First plan she unveiled in her State of the State address earlier this month, then fielded questions. Special education funding and the future of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act were among the issues the Governor specifically addressed. The Governor, also in the State of the State address, called for Kansas to become the national leader in education within ten years, a vision that is shared by KLFA in its mission statement of “making Kansas first in the nation in teaching and learning.” Twenty-four statewide educational organizations comprise KLFA, which was formed in February 1999. As a result, the organization also celebrated its fifth anniversary at the meeting.

After the Governor’s departure, the meeting focused on the three workgroup’s efforts. The workgroups are designed to support each of the three goals KLFA has identified to help meet the mission. The three goals are improving student achievement; strengthening the professional development of educators; and engaging the public in school improvement and student achievement efforts.

The Student Achievement workgroup continues to use the math audit as the focus of its efforts. The results of the audit were released just over a year ago. Since that time, the Executive Summary of the study has been disseminated and used to start the process of using information gleaned from it to start to help teachers improve instruction in the classroom. A November conference brought many of the participating schools together to further analyze the results; a follow-up is scheduled for April 14.

The Professional Development group reported on one of its projects, a survey of professional development practices in Challenge Award winning schools and a control group of schools that were not named as an honoree. Used in conjunction with results from the math study, effective practices from the classroom will be identified and shared with teachers across the state.

The Public Engagement workgroup reported it had closed in on its goal of seeing a separate educational foundation established that would be used as a way to solicit grants and handle fiscal other resources KLFA currently cannot do. They also are following up on the September “Good to Great Conference” with a survey of participants to find out what has been done to continue the dialogue that was started in Wichita with over 750 people attending.

Over forty people from 19 member organizations attended the meeting. The last two meetings of the year will both be at KASB. The first is Tuesday, March 30; the second is Monday, June 7, a switch from the originally planned June 4 date. Visit the KLFA Web site at www.kansaslearningfirst.org for more information on KLFA activities and resources.