Whomever the next president is if we don't have the law.

Crystal clear as to what relatives can do, then every president is going to be in a potential compromised situation through a relative.

U.S.

Congressman James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, explains why he's looking into the dealings of President Joe Biden's son.

You make about 7 to $8000 more a year annually if you have a high school diploma versus a GED.

The program that's giving people a place where they can learn more to earn more.

Hopefully you will learn to love to read and then also just learn to interact with other babies and other kids.

The wheels on the bus bring toys, songs and stories to children in Southern Kentucky.

Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the Katy Endowment for Kentucky Productions, the Leonard Press, Endowment for Public Affairs and the Cette Millennium Fund.

Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition on this Wednesday, December the 28th.

I'm Rene Shaw.

Thank you for spending some of your Wednesday night with us on this special edition of Kentucky Edition, we're focusing on education from a lack of teachers in the classroom to some of the unique programs helping students learn.

We'll look back at some of the success stories from around the state.

But first, when the U.S. House convenes on January, Kentucky, and we'll have a major role on Capitol Hill.

Congressman James Comer of the first congressional district in Kentucky will head the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Congressman Comer says there are dozens of investigations he's prepared to tackle as chairman.

And he says he thinks the issues cut across party lines.

So now let's talk about the Hunter Biden administration.

If the White House refuses to cooperate with your investigation, does it matter?

And will it, in fact, stunt what you were trying to do?

I wish the Biden administration would cooperate with us, but now I have the tools to be able to continue meaningful investigations without the Biden administration.

I'll give you an example, Renee.

I have tried to get the bank violations that the Hunter Biden fan, Hunter Biden and his Uncle Jim have had on many account accounts that we know we're also paying for basic living expenses of Joe Biden.

So these accounts used to be available to committees in Congress, these these suspicious activity reports.

Joe Biden, on one of his first acts in office, changed the rules on that.

So now we haven't been able to access those accounts, even though we know MAXINE Waters was accessing suspicious activity account with respect to people in in the Trump family.

But now I have subpoena power.

I've been communicating with the banks where these bank violations were committed.

There are 13 banks that they were dealing with, Renee, 13 banks.

And we've communicated with all 13 of them.

We've requested information, obviously, because of privacy laws.

They're not allowed to give us that information.

But in January 3rd, an amazing thing happens.

I have subpoena power, and I think the banks know that they're going to be getting a subpoena from me.

We're serious about the investigation.

And this isn't a fishing expedition like a lot of the investigations Adam Schiff did.

We have specific requests.

We know exactly which forms we want.

We know exactly which accounts we want.

And even more specific, we know exactly to the line in which account we want to look for information on.

So I believe that it would be helpful if the Biden administration would work with us, but I'm not going to hold my breath today.

Well, I know, Congressman Colmer, you've been asked about all the investigations that are on your docket to conduct.

Many people would say, even if they are Republicans, that the alleged misdeeds and wrongdoings of the previous administration deserve to have some more investigation, not just January six, but other allegations.

Why is that not on your list?

I never said it.

Was it on my list?

Is it on your list?

You look at you look at what's happened.

From a congressional investigative standpoint over the past six years or the past four years, the Democrats have investigated every possible thing you can investigate with respect to Donald Trump.

And when I announced a few weeks ago at a press conference that we were going to investigate Joe Biden because of a lot of the evidence produced on the laptop that Hunter had.

Democrats were crying foul.

Why would they do a congressional investigation?

I mean, what a waste of money.

And I'm sitting here thinking, that's all you all have done for the past four years.

Donald Trump is not president now.

You're still investigating in three or four different areas.

A Ways and Means has its taxes.

January six committees investigating.

Intelligence committees investigating.

Oversight committees investigating.

And you know, we announce one investigation from one committee.

And they then they started to think, oh, well, you know, why would they investigate a relative of the president?

I mean, Hunter Biden wasn't in the administration.

>> Ministration of later they get all the investigation.

They did on the president.

His family will then just 2 days ago, the Democrat turnout on the House Oversight Committee, my committee that they're going to launch an investigation into Jared Kushner.

Well, I thought, you know, I got to size May for a lot of the things that I think that would give them awards in a box or C. But at the end of the day, I would love to work with them and they find some wrongdoing in the previous administration that goes along with influence peddling that I would love to incorporate that in our town and ISIS.

We'll be looking at relatives of a lot of a high ranking government officials because this is an influence peddling investigation.

We have a problem or night and then this should be about partisan.

Issue here because if we don't do something about what is legal and is it legal with respect to influence peddling and respect to foreign business dealings, then it's going to continue to be a problem.

I think the Democrat that said it was a problem when Trump was president, especially with the, you know, some of the dealings that Derek Fisher had in Saudi Arabia.

Obviously a huge problem with the president's brother Jim and his son Hunter, with the business dealings they had in China and Russia, even though I don't really know what their businesses the unemployed billing.

I do know what your mission or businesses are, but any right, whomever the next president is if we don't have the law, crystal clear as to what relatives can do then every president, it's going to be in a potential compromise situation through a relative because China and Russia and Saudi Arabia, they're going to go in and they're going to offer those relatives.

A large sums of money for access for information and we need to make the law crystal clear.

So at the end of my investigation, I'm hopeful they'll be a legislative big has to define what is and is not legal with respect to foreign business dealings and at the very least if you're someone like Trump, it came into office with huge businesses that spanned the globe and you had a big percentage.

Your sales in the international areas.

We need to increase the transparency laws to where the media and the public know exactly.

How much of your business it's coming from this country and exactly what that revenue stream this poor.

I think that will solve a lot of problems.

So that's why I'm a lot more optimistic about my investigation.

And then some are because I think at the end of the day there's going to be a very good legislative fix that will serve the American public.

Well, going into the future.

>> So a couple of last questions, many Kentuckians and many Americans are saying, you know, my greatest worries are inflation.

My housing cause my fuel costs.

And yet I hear this congressman from Kentucky talk about investigations that have no relevancy to my livelihood.

What would you say to those who have that criticism?

>> Well, I disagree.

Number one, they have inflation because the administration spent too much money.

They spent too much money in the name of COVID when the government prints money like it did under COVID, then the unintended consequence of that is inflation.

So the best way to reduce inflation, it's the stop the wasteful spending.

We have to reduce government spending.

So I think I'm playing a leading role in and do it apart to reduce inflation also, we're going to be doing a lot of other things.

You know what I'm doing leading the investigation on the southern border.

We've got to get a big to that.

The border that's creating a crisis in all 120 counties in Kentucky.

Everyone knows someone that's not a but not within the last 12 months.

That was just walking across the border that walking across the border in backpack them illegals every day.

It ended up on the interstate that been up in every county in Kentucky.

That has to stop.

So I'm playing a leading role in reducing inflation in securing the border, which you, sir, you know, lower prime rate in Kentucky.

And, you know, we're focused on a big legislative agenda.

We've got a lot of problems in the federal government.

Our energy problems, our first and foremost in and minds of all consumers having to pay too much for a gas oven to pay too much to heat our homes this winter.

We believe that part of the bad decision the Biden administration's made with respect to energy policy is because he was getting millions of dollars from China to try to help trying to get their foot in the door on a American natural gas.

So this is something that I think is important.

So we need to be serious about fraud.

We need to be serious about abuse of power and and corruption.

So these investigations are very important.

But there are small part of a huge legislative agenda that the Republicans are going to have starting in January.

>> Final question, Congressman Mister chairman on January 3rd, when the 100 an 18th Congress can veins, will Kevin McCarthy have enough votes to become speaker and are you going to vote for him?

>> I'm voting for him all fine of the Republican from Kentucky are voting for an even Massey who hasn't voted for him before in the has stated publicly that he's going to vote for Kevin McCarty.

I don't know or night.

I hope he has the boat.

I hope that we can get started.

You know, Andy Biggs is announced he's running against the main drd ran in You know, prior to this in our Copper, Andy Biggs is a friend of mine.

He's on the House Oversight Committee from Arizona.

But Kevin McCarthy got 85% of the vote traditionally wants with all the Republicans or Democrats, there is agreed to support the winner on the floor in January.

But unfortunately, where we're having a little trouble getting there.

I hope that we can get there because I think every every hour we delay is is an hour that could have been put to better use for the American taxpayer.

>> We'll KET our eye on that.

And you can see more of my interview with Congressman James Comer on land online.

Stream it online at KET DOT Org.

Slash connections.

♪ ♪ Now we turn to education in our state.

Some public school districts facing a shortage of teachers are using alternative methods to fill open positions this year, including emergency certifications and recruiting retired teachers.

Barron County had 61 new teaching positions to fill one 3rd of those new hires are participating in what's called Option 6.

>> One on the floor.

>> we would have 15 applicants for one teaching position during our current situation.

We we find that to be somewhere around 3 applicants.

>> And what we in the Senate >> Good job to head to continue to look for ways to fill those gaps.

>> And recruit the best that are out there for our students.

And we turned option 6 is a way to make sure we're fully staff and we begin our still.

You are option 6.

Allow someone with a bachelor's degree who doesn't currently have teacher certification to pursue that.

I'm using the bachelor's degree that they already >> when I learned of that already had a bachelor's degree.

So I felt like I wanted to have a bigger role in the school system.

>> Option 6 worked out.

Great for us because Andrea, of course, was an instructional system here for 4 years in primary and then in 4th grade in the very classroom where she is now teaching learning the standards that she is now teaching because it is a statement very good when you have an option, 6 person as they bring great skills and expertise in their content area.

But >> they haven't had that traditional pedagogy and training clinical hours that were used to saying from those that have pursued a teaching career through college University >> we us on building level mentor that works with Day in and day out.

Helps with planning with logistics.

All things teacher.

And then we also provide them a district level meet or that checks and any time there in the building.

>> Teachings really reflective I hope I'm modeling that.

Also that every away and what went well, what didn't?

And then we just work together.

>> They need.

That mentoring.

They need somebody to help show them the ropes because there's more to teaching than just walking in a no-win.

The subject matter.

>> It's difficult because she our kids deserve the very best teachers.

We just don't have nearly the number of applicants we've had in the past.

Crunch time.

>> And they still didn't have any applicants.

Then I realized it staff made a comeback.

I just feel called to come back and help out.

>> We're finding that the science fields and math fields are more difficult to fill and some of our other positions we were just trying to recruit anyone we thought would do a good job in the math classroom.

And we have and I Miss Ainslie who is retired, but was a phenomenal teacher.

And that.

>> It's all coming back.

Like a good every year for 28 >> Nervous excited.

I did not think that I would come back and teach again full time.

>> It is concerning because you over the course of the past few years, we KET seeing fewer and fewer applicants.

And so we're trying to put some things into place to help 6 that issue.

We an inspiring educator covert here.

It can So we're trying to grow our own students in high school that are interested in going into teaching.

You KET you were apart as it right.

I think there are a lot of people.

>> Out in the community.

Any industry who don't realize the importance of teaching and the role that they could play in the lives of students.

>> I love it.

Yeah, I love it.

I enjoy being in the school system and working with kids every day.

That is just been always been my dream right?

>> The COVID-19 pandemic caused many Kentucky students to fall behind academically.

But one school Knox County Middle School has bounced back in part because of how it was addressing learning gaps.

Our Casey Parker Bell shows us how students are learning by Re-learning.

>> We expect master here.

>> At Knox County Middle School, the teachers have expectations.

They want the school to finish in the state's top 10% as they shoot for the stars.

The school has been recognized as one of the state's bright spots.

University of Kentucky study says Knox County middle is overachieving based on the school's demographics.

How did the school do it?

They call it Panther time was we tell that the first time.

>> And if a student did not make above than t, then they had together reaching for that specific content strand.

And then we we talked all week and then on Friday we re took a test.

And if they still didn't make a save, even they had to go the mandatory tutoring after school until they got there because we didn't want kids to go on to the next grade with a learning gap in that core content because everything builds.

>> Superintendent Jeremy Ledford was the principal at Notts County Middle School when it started Panther time named after the school's mascot.

Every school day.

One period is used for teachers to focus on students who are falling behind.

>> They caught me in the eye.

>> And make sure students are proficient and what they're being talked.

In other words, they're re teaching.

So kids would learn from each They were be they were able to get more and more one-on-one time with a teacher and >> it was very beneficial anyway saying we change kids.

Great, too.

So if a kid made 60 and that second time, they may get an ID on it.

So they're Greg went from, you know what they eat too.

Tonight.

And and kids and parents once they saying that it wasn't punishment that we were truly trying to help kids, it changed our whole structure for school.

>> Re teaching drastically improved outcomes for the middle school.

According to Ledford Knox went from being in the bottom 19% of the state to rape or fish.

And over the course of 3 years.

>> They didn't want to be an after school.

And so it really kind of put the learning back on the M and they really embrace that.

Hey, I do have to study.

I do have to do these and it becomes for them.

Look what I can do now.

>> Failure is not an option.

And so we use that class period tips to help them.

>> Bringing urban teaches at the same building where she went to high school.

>> And what that pushed forward in the law.

>> She spent 16 years teaching in Knox County and says Re teaching during Panther time has changed the school.

>> A lot of sins are relieved, you know, because some of our you know, I panicked.

I might not be the best test takers and I'm a bit confused and a shot.

I ask.

But when you get them, while one in smaller groups are not class period, they say I'm relieved that they've got a second chance, maybe a 3rd or 4th.

If I made it.

>> Irvine says it's changed how the students learn and will help the school the cheap.

Its current go top 10% in the state.

>> The school is staffed with just rock stars.

So when the goal was put in front of them, it was just like, you know, dying on you know, I'd go for it.

>> And I've used that Panther, Tom, and they've used I've just made learning fun and the kids out.

Same so scared anymore because I know it's okay to make mistakes for Kentucky edition.

>> I'm Casey Parker Bell.

>> Knox County Middles Panther Time isn't just for students who are falling behind any student who wants to improve or gray does Al Jabal for Re-learning and re taking a test?

Kentucky's first ever free adult high school for ages 18 and up is now open in Louisville students.

We spoke to at the Goodwill Excel Center say that earning their diploma is the first step to opening new doors and reaching new peaks.

>> The Excel Center is an school for adults who do not have their high school diploma and who want to have a high school diploma or general education diploma means you have some basic skills that you would expect a high school student.

And but it's not quite the same.

>> We also want to provide a high percentage individuals with a certificate or credential or do a college credits while they're in school.

So when they graduate, they're ready to go beyond that.

>> So we can see it in a way that takes 22 credits to graduate from high school.

Some of them are very specific to some of them are a little more selective.

We sit down with that student.

Look at their transcripts and figure out.

>> How far away are you from meeting the requirements for the state of Kentucky for a diploma?

I thought it was going to be kind of hard to KET up with, but they let you pick out your schedule.

You get 4 classes a day, but you don't have to take all you have to at least take 2 of You can choose to take some of the morning that starts at 09:00AM.

>> And it was all the way until noon.

And you can choose to take some afternoon classes and they run from one before.

It's really just what you can do.

So since I have to help out my growth in the morning and a drop out for her job.

I do second 3rd and 4th into classes a and I go from one to 4, very convenient.

>> Yeah.

Enjoy today.

>> There's a bunch of people that didn't get the high school diploma.

So that makes it hard for them to get a good paying job.

You make about $78,000 more a year annually.

If you have a high school diploma versus the GED, we want to help people improve their wage levels as they're working to be able to get into the jobs that they want.

But this program, it's really going to help everybody get the department to make a better future for themselves.

My hope is that we have graduates this December next summer and they are fulfilling their dream and not only fulfilling the let's get a diploma dream, but to be able to be on a career pathway and advance themselves.

I know for a fact that I want to get high school department.

That's what I'm here for.

You know, that's my first goal is to make sure that I get that box checked off from there.

You know, the word for wide open.

>> From adult learners stood littlest ones.

A special boss and Warren County is getting children ready to learn before they start school.

The Warren County Little learners mobile classroom offers activities focused on school readiness.

>> Warren County, little learners is a 0 to 5 parent child initiative to help parents realize and then to understand the importance of them being their child's first and most important educator in their lives.

3.

>> They do a story time.

They do play time.

>> And sometimes they do.

Just 1, one parent interactions like reading a book to them.

>> We're all about school preparing now from the time they're born until they are ready to enter kindergarten.

>> This is actually our first time here and it will he listen to this story that miss exit down and he would right after >> What about that?

Yeah, I'm going to rewrite.

>> Literacy is important because even just readings here into your child is building vocabulary skills and language, communication skills like Bob >> Hopefully he will learn love to read and then also just learn to interact with other babies in the kid with So a lot of them are parents are just now hearing of social emotional learning that taking turns listening following directions being a good.

>> Not not.

Not not.

Not just just to learn to play with other littles and to sit and listen to directions being able to sit task that he needs to work on is >> as part of our program, this also to help those 2 and then maybe you need early interventions to get those resources and to get into public preschool.

If need be.

>> She does a great job.

She's that just a joyful and cheese.

Always singing songs and read to them and interacting with them on the bus, which I think it's great.

>> We want to be able to go out the community and to be able to meet the needs of not having transportation for those and that we go into the apartment complex is in the neighborhoods, but also just to bring education a little bit closer to those that may not be an educational setting.

>> I'm always looking for opportunities just for him to socialize with other babies and 2, I'm just going a little classes and things like that out a little away.

He was walking in my last night.

>> They want acting honors to have that independence scale.

Not only the numeracy and literacy.

>> So we really want to give them a solid foundation from early on until ad time hitting to kindergarten.

>> We're even hot Bolden.

Our last story tonight celebrating Warren County Public Schools Superintendent Rob Clayton who was named Superintendent of the Year.

>> Our earlier this year, he was named the Kentucky state superintendent from KSA and and now this is the National Serpent end of the year.

I mean, it's just like wow.

>> I think any time you can be recognized as a being at the top of the work that you do, it's very gratifying and something that we all product.

>> he told us that he was going to make Warren County great and he's done that.

And he said he was only going to get on the local and state levels go down on the national level.

We want to.

I'll be in a position where we're looking out for the needs of all 18,000 plus students.

And it is a huge challenge when you have an organization of this size.

>> But again, it goes back to having systems and processes in place where leadership and I support our students and support our staff.

And it's like Mister Klein says it's not an individual award.

It's it's a team effort.

But it does start at the top is in the in the the leader of everything.

It's but it's 3,000 employees and 18,000 kids all working together for what's best for for office.

Folks here go about their of their daily work behind the scenes, really having a positive impact on our students across the district.

But as you see room for folks here, we're all in this together.

He had them agent tornado year ago that devastated so much.

Warren County.

We talk often as a leadership group that when challenges occur, that's really the best opportunity to distinguish yourself and your value as a first of all, compliment you on how well he said the carpet, how?

>> But I couldn't think of a better person that could have led us to the pandemic and the tornado.

Then Rob Clutch.

Something about the superintendent.

Okay.

When you look just the last 2 years in general.

There's hardly a person that doesn't see the value of our local school systems throughout the Commonwealth.

If anything, they've learned work Peacock.

It's just continuing to KET your nose to the grindstone, mister Clay and our teachers and our classified staff all have a love for the children of Warren County.

Her students are growing each and every day and we measure that daily because that's that's why that's why we're here as to see them.

Much even have success.

>> Congratulations to Superintendent Clayton job.

Well done.

We hope you've enjoyed tonight's special look at education and we hope you'll join us again tomorrow night at 6.30, Eastern 5.30, central.

>> Right here for Kentucky Edition, we inform connect and inspire.

Thanks so very much for watching.

I'm Renee Shaw and I'll see you soon.

♪ ♪