Education

Murray State President Dr. Randy Dunn will address the campus today for his 2012 State of the University. Dunn's remarks will focus on what he calls “The Three Prongs of Murray State University's Future.” How involved Dunn will be in that future is uncertain at this point; the president just returned from an on-campus interview for the top position at Missouri State University in Springfield. The address takes place in the Wrather Museum Auditorium at 3 pm.

Preliminary data presented to the Kentucky Board of Education shows just one in four children in the Commonwealth are ready for kindergarten. Next year all 174 school districts will be required to have kindergarten screening. Education Commissioner Terry Holliday says he expects the number of children not ready to start school will increase then. Associate Commissioner Felicia Smith says fewer than 110 districts participated in this year’s screening, representing 34,500 children. The tests assess the whole child, including social and emotional development.

The results of the state's new tests for public school students could be delayed until November. Board of Education officials had originally said scores would be released sometime late October. The state Department of Education has been telling school districts and members of the public for months to expect the scores from the new K-PREP tests to be lower than the scores have been for the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, or CATS, especially in math and reading.

In this month's conversation Dr. Dunn discusses his candidacy to be Missouri State University's next President, how the potential of searching for a new president and provost at the same time could affect Murray State, plus an update on work by budget planning and review teams to trim the MSU's budget.

Dr. Dunn also discusses his plans for an "extemporaneous" state of the university address and meeting the stretched $70m Hold Thy Banner high Goal.

Murray State University President Dr. Randy Dunn is making a case to be hired in the same post at Missouri State University in Springfield this week. Dunn is a finalist for the post and spoke at an open forum today. Among other topics, Dunn presented his approach to outreach for the university which was formerly called Southwest Missouri State University. He says,