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The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence is continuing its series of meetings aimed at improving teacher quality in Kentucky.  A team of experts will focus Wednesday in Frankfort on teacher preparation programs.

The group is scheduled to hear from Deborah Ball, dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan. It will also hear presentations from the University of Louisville and Asbury University.

The panel is preparing to make recommendations for the 2014 legislative session on new ways to measure teacher effectiveness as part of Kentucky's massive public school reform effort.

Gov. Bill Haslam said he wants to set Tennessee on a path toward boosting college graduation rates from 32 percent to 55 percent by 2025.

Haslam has appointed Randy Boyd, chairman of wireless pet fence maker Radio Systems Corp., to help further that goal as his top higher education adviser.

Haslam said Boyd will join a working group tasked with finding ways to tackle what the governor called the "iron triangle" of affordability, access and quality issues for public colleges and universities in Tennessee.

The panel is made up the governor and the heads of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and Tennessee Board of Regents and the University of Tennessee systems.

Boyd will work full time but won't be paid.

One lesser-known aspect of the Affordable Care Act is it’s reliance on state health cooperatives —  which work separate of the state- or federally run health exchange, but are free to offer their own brand of insurance on the exchange.

But recent Congressional deal-making is putting those co-ops in danger.

While states are getting grants to fund their exchanges, co-ops were getting federal loans which had to be paid back within five years.

But the Washington Post reports that the fiscal cliff deal struck weeks ago kills off the co-op loan program for many states. But because of early planning, the Kentucky Health Cooperative isn’t in any funding danger, spokesman Jim McHanie says.

“Our funding is in place and we’re moving right ahead in fact we’re in the start-up phase of development and we plan to start offering coverage effective January 1, 2014,” he says.

WKU President Gary Ransdell spoke to WKU Public Radio Tuesday on a variety of subjects, including the high-profile role athletics has been playing lately at the university.

Head football coach Willie Taggart left WKU late last year for a bigger salary at South Florida. Within 72 hours, WKU had hired former Louisville coach Bobby Petrino, an accomplished--and controversial--name in collegiate athletics.

What does Dr. Ransdell say to those on and off WKU's campus who wonder if athletics is playing too big a role at the university? You can hear the President's comments on WKU athletics in the audio clip above.

The rest of Dr. Ransdell's interview can be heard here.

This story is being submitted in the category of Best Public Affairs report for the 2013 Kentucky Associated Press Broadcasters competition for radio.

WKYU-FM reporter Lisa Autry produced this report in March, 2012, about the challenges adolescents and teens in foster in our region face in finding permanent homes. This entry is an excerpt from a longer 30 minute documentary called Aging Out, which explored the need for more foster and adoptive homes for older children and the issues they face when they turn 18 and leave state custody.