Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/197412
Illustration by Carrie Neumayer FLASH BACK Louisville Magazine Vol. 34/No. 11 November 1983 On the cover: Humana co-founder Wendell Cherry in front of the Kentucky Center for the Arts, which, after 17 tumultuous years in the making, opened to the public on Nov. 19, 1983. Cherry, who died in 1991, served as the project's overseer, and the cost to build the center was a then gulp-inducing $33.5 million — or about $200 million less than its eventual Yum! Center neighbor just down Main Street. JUST SAYIN' Testing . . . Testing W hen the Kentucky Department of Education released the 2013 Unbridled Learning Assessment and Accountability System test scores in late September, there was some encouraging news and some defating news for the Jeferson County Public Schools district, as we've come to expect. Before 2009, under the guiding light of the cleverly named Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS — slyly earning Big Blue Nation brownie points), public-school kids took the Kentucky Core Content Test, which regularly yielded good and bad news for JCPS, depending on how you viewed and presented basically the same news. For example, a positively spun result from this year's second edition of the Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (K-PREP) test was that 75 of the district's 136 tested schools met or exceeded their predetermined goals (hip, hip!), although only 31 of the 136 achieved assessed profciency (dang!), based on a combination of criteria that include their students' average academic scores, the schools' graduation rates, achievement-gap-student results, improvement rates and more. And how about this: An impressive 14 JCPS schools — fve elementary, two middle and seven high — ranked in the 91st or above percentile among state public schools, with fve in the 99th percentile (hip, hip!), but 38 JCPS schools fnished in the 10th or lower percentile (dang!), seven of them at the rock bottom. And although JCPS moved up nine percentage points in state school-district ranking between last year and this year (hip, hip!), that only puts us in the 32nd percentile among the state's public-school districts (dang!). Aren't we city people supposed to be the sophisticates and those folks out in the state the yayhoos? Dumb reaction on my part, I confess, but hard to resist, considering all the rural slights we come up with here in metropolis. If you're looking for "but"-less statistics, for pure positivity out of JCPS eforts during the past year, here are fve solid examples, all from "persistently" low-achieving schools: Seneca High's state stature rose from 12th to 42nd; Fern Creek High's from 26th to 60th; Fairdale High's from 13th to 36th; Southern High's from 4th to 20th; and Western Middle's from 4th to 38th. Hip, hip! — Jack Welch Inside: Baptist hospitals announced new preferred health plans — PPOs and IPAs — sure to lower insurance costs. Uh-huh. And John Yarmuth left journalism (Louisville Today and City Paper) and politics to join the University of Louisville as chief fack. That didn't take either. Outside: Red rain falls in the UK after a sandstorm from the Sahara desert. Vanessa Williams becomes the frst African-American to be crowned Miss America (scandal to follow). McDonald's introduces the McNugget. Microsoft Word is released, as are Michael Jackson's megahits "Billie Jean" and "Beat It." The movie Risky Business, starring Louisville's own (sort of) Tom Cruise, opens in theaters. But wait a few months and you can watch it on Beta. Life of Pie WHAT EXCITES YOU MOST ABOUT THE WEEKEND OF NOV. 8*? U of L football at UConn on the 8th. U of L men's basketball opening the season at home against College of Charleston on the 9th. Only have fve weeks to fnish these JT signs! (Justin Timberlake plays the Yum! on Dec. 15.) *Both teams play on the 23rd, football at home against Memphis and hoops on the road against Fairfeld. 11.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 15