By Angela Gunter

"Lessons from the Classroom" is a weekly feature that will appear on Monday about education in our community. Articles are written by teachers and education leaders with a goal of sharing information about a variety of topics related to local schools as they prepare students to succeed in life.

"Thank goodness for Mississippi."

When I was growing up, that phrase could be heard — sometimes jokingly, sometimes not — spoken among those discussing the rankings of state public education systems. Kentucky placed quite low in various rankings, but we never placed at the absolute bottom.

Fast forward to 2015. Picture an enormous, jam-packed ballroom full of educators, administrators and business people from all over the country working on some of the most innovative ideas to transform educational practice. The hotel that housed that group of passionate advocates for improvement was not located in Massachusetts or Colorado, which are ranked among the highest states in several academic measures. It was right here in Kentucky.

The Teach to Lead organization has held four teacher leadership summits — in Kentucky, Colorado, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. — but they selected Kentucky to kick off the series because so much is going on across our state. The purpose of the convening is to spotlight and advance groundbreaking, teacher-led work. Teachers from all over the country were asked to submit an application that included an innovative idea to advance teacher leadership and student achievement; those with the best, workable ideas were invited to attend. The attendees were then coached by experts, learning how to refine their action plans, how to gain financial and moral support and how to communicate their ideas to parents, colleagues, education leaders, members of their communities, representatives of business and industry and other stakeholders.

The conference hosted a list of distinguished, nationally recognized experts in education, but the one I remember most was Dr. Terry Holliday, then-Kentucky's commissioner of education. After his inspirational speech, he received rousing applause and an overwhelming, extended standing ovation.

Throughout the conference, people from other states noticed "Kentucky" on my name tag and commented how jealous they were that we had such an innovative person in charge of the direction of education in our state. This guy was like a rock star!

Some of us in Kentucky don't realize how respected we are across the country. Until I visited other states, I didn't realize it either. In Seattle, in Denver, in Indianapolis, in New Orleans, in Washington, D.C., in North Carolina — everywhere I go, people ask those of us in the Kentucky contingency what we are doing in our state to achieve success, and listen intently for words of wisdom — seriously! They recognize that there is a movement here toward higher achievement, toward more collaboration among educators and inclusion of the community in education, toward student-centered learning and the fostering of higher critical thinking, toward advancing teachers as experts in their fields.

There is a surprising number of ways to measure and rank states in education. One ranking system looks at the amount of money spent per pupil, reasoning that students from higher income families and school systems tend to be more successful. In that ranking, poor Mississippi ranked at the bottom, Massachusetts at the top, and Kentucky in the middle. One ranking system bases its scores on the number of Advanced Placement exams students take. Maryland is No. 1, and Kentucky is 22. (Mississippi fans, you are NOT at the bottom this time, but in 49th place!) Recently, a study found that Kentucky ranked fifth among Best School Systems in the nation based on pupil-teacher ratio, dropout rates, standardized test scores and rates of bullying incidents.

Is Kentucky an educational force to be reckoned with? It depends on whom you ask. It is exciting to be working as a Kentucky teacher at this moment, to have children in Kentucky schools, and to be part of a movement that is gaining ground.

Who knows? Maybe by the time my grandchildren grow up, no one will even remember that old line "Thank goodness for Mississippi." Kentucky is already quite far removed from that low ranking.

I believe some day in the not so distant future, people from elsewhere will be saying, "Well, our state is doing well, but it's no Kentucky."