Reform and Reaction: Education Policy in Kentucky

A coalition of for profit and nonprofit organizations, combined with the tenacity of then-Governor Martha Layne Collins, cooperative legislative leaders, and the decision of Toyota to locate a major manufacturing facility in the state, raised the consciousness of the Commonwealth’s leaders and citizens. [...] The elites marked struggles over values of growth, progress, and the roles of individuals in the changing Commonwealth during much of the twentieth century, a time when the state was characterized by a general pattern of lagging behind other states in economic and educational development alongside uneven regional development, with wide variations in wealth and political power.11 In its role of att. [...] the Reluctant state and eVolVing policy The changes wrought by different waves of capital in the first third of the twentieth century created internal crises for Kentucky and launched a series of hesitant development and education reforms. [...] The Depression and embarrassment of President Herbert Hoover shredded the bipartisan combine nationwide, but parts of the combine persisted in Kentucky, mainly in the alliance of coal and agrarian interests. [...] By this time, clear patterns of funding polarization and uneven development had emerged; the spending range Reform Thwarted: The Trap of Tradition 19 20 Reform Thwarted: The Trap of Tradition Reform Thwarted: The Trap of Tradition 21 22 Reform Thwarted: The Trap of Tradition Reform Thwarted: The Trap of Tradition 23 24 Reform Thwarted: The Trap of Tradition varied by a factor of more than nine fro.