Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence – Making Kentucky Proud

Founded in 1980 as a citizen panel composed of 30 members tasked to plan the future of higher education in Kentucky, the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence has emerged as an independent, non-partisan, non-profit, citizens’ advocacy organization composed of parents and citizens who work to improve education in Kentucky at all educational levels.

The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence has carried out numerous programs including:

The Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership (CPIL), which is a program that supports parents as effective advocates of improving Kentucky public schools. In fact, CIPL has trained over 1,500 Kentucky parents on ways to effectively advocate for high-quality schools. CIPL seeks to keep parents educated, informed, skilled, motivated, and supported. As a result, more than 3 dozen CIPL fellows have served on school boards and hundreds have been involved in advocating education everyday.

The Center for Parent Leadership (CPL) is a product of the Kentucky-based Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership (CPIL) as a response to several requests for advice and support from parents outside of Kentucky. Formed in 2001, CPL provides a wide range of services to clients including publications, extensive consulting, customized training, seminars, and workshops.

“Top 20 by 2020” is a statewide campaign launched by the Committee for sustained education reform with its goal to drive Kentucky to rank and belong to the top 20 states for student achievement by 2020, thereby positioning itself in the highest level of public education in the country.

Strong Start Kentucky: Quality Pre-K for Every Child is an initiative that works to ensure that all children in Kentucky are given the chance to have a strong start in education thus helping them receive the highest quality of education there is by funding, supporting public and community-based programs, improving the quality of all pre-k programs, and expanding the partnership among parents, policymakers, and education leaders.