a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
The Board has been task-oriented this past year. CSAP, recommendations on accreditation went on schedule. As of now, 150 of 176 have turned in their accreditation contracts (some won't be voted on until July); of the remaining 26, all are scheduled for endorsement at local board meetings this month. Evaluations of teacher training have been done. The date of the release of the State Accountability Reports (report cards) was moved back to September 15 with CDE's encouragement.
All across the country, school reform is advancing, but unevenly and in different forms. Many more people know about the SBE than they used to, mostly because of CSAP. Everything turns on the body of evidence that testing provides. Also, controversy surrounds testing. U.S. Secretary of Education Paige "embodies what we are all trying to do," says Commissioner Moloney. California has had many problems. A couple of the test publishers have had problems and controversies. Colorado's program has been stable compared to other states and free of the kind of problems that other states have experienced. We've avoided some of the trouble by not counting CSAP for graduation or students' individual grades. Also, we took our time to develop the tests. We gave enough time to administer the tests (even though we had to ignore the law and give CSAP in February instead of late March). We need to tell CTB/McGraw Hill that they should let us know immediately if there is an indication of a problem.
Next month we will have the biggest release of test results ever: grades 4-10 CSAP and 11th grade ACT. The website will be online after July 31 with all the report card data. (Will the report cards then be old news when they are mailed on September 15?) School districts have done a really good job getting their data in on time, and the data is being "scrubbed." We expect that it will take a year or two to work out all the kinks, but KPMG has been excellent. The people who are working on the project have to meet with auditors in the near future, but we'll get the job done. The auditors will be affirming the data on the report card, in terms of the proper collection and processing of the data. The accuracy of CSAP data is a combination of the districts' responsibility and CDE's. Districts will confirm that students have been put into the right categories for the ratings of the schools. We got two new full-time staff to help with all the new work. The changes to the report card required by SB 98 have been "reasonably well" incorporated, or will be. SBE will have a press conference around the third week of July; the Governor will have one as soon as the information is posted on the website.
What exactly is the "stability" information that will be on next year's report card, as required by SB 98? We don't have a good definition of "stability" (or "mobility"). Does it apply to students who were in the same school continuously from October 1 to February 1?
B. The Longitudinal Data Base: What Is to Be Done, Legislative Expectations & the Challenge of .Unique Student Identifiers [with Representative Keith King]
We have until March 1, 2002, to build our system for longitudinal analysis and reporting. Much is already in place in the data warehouse. The data system is under the control of CDE; we are not precluded from contracting it out. The legislative intent was to not be prescriptive about how it should be done. Need a state identifier with controlled access. Need to guarantee to parents and the Legislature that the information is controlled. State statute 22-32-109.3 requires confidentiality of student information held by school districts. The information that will be identified for these purposes will be the CSAP data, student's name, address, date of birth, IEP and/or LEP status, gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status (free lunch only). It will be completely unconnected from other student records (such as psychological and medical). How will we provide access to teachers about their students' CSAP scores? Can CDE give them the information? - might not have the capacity to serve that many inquiries. In Texas, teachers have direct access to this information. Likely much of the information can be given to teachers from their school districts. Also to parents.
Could it include other assessment data? Other assessments are designed to give other kind of information and could confuse tracking. Shouldn't we base it on state standards? If we focus on the legislative intent for the purpose, it is as follows: "The goal of each school and every teacher should be to add value to every student's academic progress so that every student is at grade level." It would make sense for local districts to track other test data, and the state focus on CSAP.
There are groups who have been discussing this topic and trying to resolve some of these issues. The Coalition for a High Performance Education System, for example. In addition, the Governor is thinking of putting together a blue ribbon panel on this topic. Dick Elmer attended a meeting of the Alliance of Quality Teaching last week, which he will discuss in a later portion of the agenda.
We will be able to have sequential information on reading next year, but writing and math will be another two years because all the CSAPs have not been given every year in those subjects yet.
Representative King intends to submit legislation next year to change school ratings on the report cards to improvement based on longitudinal/value-added - to begin 3 years from now. He would like us to continue giving him input on the issue.
The Coalition to Close the Learning Gap is developing an action plan focusing on the areas of teacher quality and staff development, data analysis (not only achievement, but also programs in school districts), school climate, and parent/family/community involvement. Its connected to the new accreditation rules - the requirement for disaggregation of data. However, the gap may be larger than it seems because of kids who drop out. We should identify what kind of support is needed from SBE, CDE, and/or the Legislature make the action plan work. There is a sense of urgency about moving this forward, because many school districts have seen no progress in helping minority students for many years. We will put this topic regularly on the Work Session agenda to keep up with the plans. The efforts of the Coalition should be coordinated with the committee that SB 98 requires (the Governor to appoint) to study English-language acquisition.
We have newly revised rules based on the input from our hearing on May 10, 2001. The changes are basically clarifications; the additions relate to defining the correction plan and the education improvement plan, including students, improving graduation and attendance rates, and adding to the technology plan a statement regarding access to inappropriate material on the Internet.
A teleconference for final approval will be set up for later in June.
Implementation of accreditation: The department is working on creating an Implementation Guide to assist districts and schools. It will clarify specifics of what the rules mean. CDE will work with superintendents and principals on all the components. Staff members in the department are working out in the field so the rules "take on life." First there will be training for CDE staff. Each year the CDE Regional Managers will have to submit a report. They will develop a history of each district with each component of the rules to collect data. Our intention is for all districts to be successful. "We're on the edge of a very promising new era," said Roscoe Davidson. "We will be vigorously working to help everyone succeed."
Accreditation Rubric: Takes the accreditation report criteria and shows how they relate to the accreditation categories. There are the "big four" - 4.01 (1) (A) - (D) [educational improvement plan, CSAP goals, closing the learning gap, and value-added growth] - and the other six - 4.01 (E - (I) and 2.02 (1) (5) [the other content areas, the school report card, safe schools, the Literacy Act, planning for technology, and contextual learning, etc.]. To evaluate success using the rubric, if a district is missing any of these categories, it goes on Academic Watch, but this is based on a district making a good faith effort and a preponderance of the evidence.
Staff is in place to help with this in the Regional Teams. Discussions have been held with CASB to see how we can work cooperatively with them. Will be meeting with CEA also. State Board members would like to be involved in working with districts that are having problems.
CDE has a Technology Planning Committee (headed by Eric Feder and Nancy Bolt from CDE) that has been working on a state technology plan to promote e-learning in Colorado. Four goals: (1) Provide access to quality educational experiences for all students, regardless of where they live. (2) Ensure that all educators will use technology tools and resources to improve student learning. (3) Make available quality instructional and information resources for all educators and learners, regardless of where they live. (4) Provide reliable high-speed access to local and remote human and information resources for all Colorado schools and libraries. Need additional funding ($500,000) to give K-12 and libraries access to the statewide network, MNT (multi-use network), which is in place for state agencies and higher education (i.e., pay for the services). Will be asking the JBC to transfer some money for this project from the General Support Services budget.
A large number of technology partnerships exist throughout Colorado - through the Governor's office, CDE, higher education, U.S. regional education agencies, school districts and BOCES, private industry, and other educational agencies. Need more trained staff, funding, consistent policies, more teacher preparation in technology, more consistent local capacity, and a way to assess the extent to which teachers are utilizing technology. There are excellent leaders in the field in this area, such as BOCES directors, district technology specialists, and superintendents. There is a clear alignment of technology projects to content standards. There has been increased federal funding for it.
When the plan is fully implemented, it will allow for (1) Colorado On-Line Options - "COLO," a service broker - which will provide access to elective and core high school courses to students who need learning options, such as home-bound, home-schooled, expelled, etc. (would have to be paid for through fees, hopefully which are largely subsidized) and (2) online library databases. There is a symposium planned for this fall to bring people from the state and the country together.
K-12 education did very well this past Legislative session - $2.5 billion. A huge bulk of the money in CDE's budget is money that goes to schools - we spend only 1.1% of the budget on management and administration. Karen Stroup is now working on planning the next year's budget, which is actually 2002-2003, because of how the process works. By August 1, she has to give the Office of Planning and Budgeting requests for any items that we want changed.
Do we want to make a recommendation for spending some of the Education Fund (Amendment 23) money for next year? Send Lynne our suggestions so that in July we can discuss specific programs.
1. History: The Decline & Transformation of PLACE Tests
The Teacher Licensing Act of 1994 required tests in a broad spectrum of areas: basic skills tests, liberal arts, content area, and professional knowledge (for elementary, middle school, or high school). Also, after 3 years of holding a provisional license, a performance assessment (portfolio) was given in order to renew the license; that was eliminated in 1996 before it was ever enacted. Now the only test given is in the content area they'll be licensed for. (The test costs $70 and is given three times a year.)
A survey was done to see if districts look at the PLACE test when doing hiring; the answer was no, except in the content area the person would be teaching. We have not refreshed these tests. We use NES (National Evaluation Systems), a private for-profit testing company, which customizes the tests to our content standards. (More widely used around the country is ETS - Educational Testing System; the only other option is for the state to develop its own test.) (Teachers from out of state with a license and three years' experience don't have to take the test.) Before we refresh the tests, or come up with new tests, we need to review the performance standards and the process in place for teacher licensure. If the teaching colleges are doing a good job, why would we need to test in the content area that the teacher candidate majored in?! A review has been done of the percentage of students from the different colleges who passed the PLACE.
2. Testing: The Coming of SB-154
Dick Ottey has done substantial work with evaluating the 16 teacher colleges and helping them include the standards. There are some serious practical issues regarding approving the teacher colleges - e.g., education colleges are "cash cows." Some of the changes of SB 154 have been difficult for our colleges to deal with. We are now at a turning point. We did what we needed to do by approving the programs by July 1, but now the real work is ahead.
Tim Foster feels like he is under a lot of pressure - from Regents, people in CCHE, the press, etc. - because of the decisions CCHE made regarding CU Boulder's teacher training program. The law gives CCHE tremendous power over the curriculum of the colleges. However, we work with CCHE on the requirements for teacher licensure. For example, the standards for teaching endorsements incorporate the content standards that we set. It is important for our two groups to work cooperatively together. Maybe we could meet with them at their breakfast meeting (they meet the same day of each month as we do). Gully and Randy will come up with a written report on what was discussed today on this topic and bring us a proposal for focus on this.
What are the key elements for properly training teachers? How meaningful is licensure really in ensuring that someone is a good teacher? Are the regulations inhibiting the supply of teachers needlessly? Are they ensuring that we get good teachers? The Alliance for Quality Teaching has been working on these topics and was able to bring people together to open up the discussion. CEA has said that it wishes to take the lead in reforming the profession - but to what extent does CEA represent the teachers in Colorado? What about NCATE vs. TEAC?
SBE should take the lead in directing the discussion about quality teaching to see what changes might need to be made in laws and rules in this area nobody else really can. There are 14 states whose SBEs have had the authority over teacher certification taken away.
Time management is an important matter for the board to do a quality job. Much has to do with adequate staff at CDE, but the work of the SBE defines what is important for CDE to be doing.
One area of concern is the amount of time spent on charter school appeal hearings. Can we work with CASB to help preempt some of the problems that lead to the districts appealing to SBE? Can we get a mediator to work with the district and charter school before coming to us? - there is a mandatory dispute resolution process already in place for contractual disputes for existing charter schools, but it can't be done (as per current law) with initial charter appeals. One thing we can do is to revisit our rules and see if we can streamline the process of the hearing itself - will have a small subcommittee to work with Lynne Fontanier and Tony Dyl to look at it. We can try to schedule the hearings so they don't interfere with our Work Sessions.
Need more time for Work Sessions so we can have enough time to discuss issues thoroughly. Perhaps we need more subcommittees that can spend the time going into details on topics (such as data collection/reporting and teacher quality); we already have committees working on closing the learning gap and technology. Would be worthwhile to have small ad hoc task forces (rather than formal standing committees) to study specific issues and make recommendations to the board. We can create a list of priorities and have them on the agenda regularly.
Regarding advisory committees already in place (which are statutorily required), they make written reports which are submitted to the Board for information; then we will give them a short time (15 minutes) on the agenda for them to report to us in person. It is important for them to use the time in person to speak with us rather than reading the written report.
There has been a reallocation of resources in the department to focus on new priorities and needs. At the end of the summer there will be an annual review of each school district (accreditation requirement). There has been a revisiting of work projects for the regional teams, with effort made to provide consistency of evaluation.
A few weeks ago Gully and I accepted the BOCES invitation to meet with them. Their concern was that the department is moving toward re-centralization, not regionalization, especially because of the loss of federal funding that had been used for the regional service centers. Elmer has met with some of the main BOCES and explained about the loss of the "soft money" that was being used.
A new Gifted and Talented Education Director has been appointed at CDE. The only personnel that the Board deals with directly are the Commissioner and the Director for State Board Relations. Those annual reviews will take place at our August meeting.
There is no identifiable beneficiary of school trust lands. These lands are supposed to benefit education - the school children of Colorado - financially. In 1998 the SBE passed a resolution resolving to seek for the SBE to be identified as the fiduciary representative of the beneficiary. There recently was an editorial in The Denver Post discussing serious criticisms of the decisions made by the State Land Board in handling these lands, wherein they are not raising the appropriate revenue that the lands are worth. The income from these lands go into the state's funding of schools (school finance). There doesn't seem to be any incentive for the State Land Board to work to make these lands more profitable. (The board is appointed by the Governor and there will be some openings soon.) We need to make the argument of connecting these lands to the needs of schools. Maybe sue them for not handling the lands appropriately.
Virtually all the grade-level expectations for the content standards are ready to go on line. Dick Elmer is working on this and is in charge of it. Drafts have been circulated and feedback sought. There were some concerns expressed about whether some were developmentally appropriate for the grade level. These are not curriculum, just suggestions/guidelines. However, state statute requires SBE to review the standards - annually? We could ask staff to bring us ideas about what has emerged in the field about the standards. Do we need to create some (optional) technology literacy standards? (We have added optional standards in dance, theater, and libraries.)
I went to the NASBE conference "Early Childhood Education and Its Impact on Students with Disabilities" in May, along with Pat Chlouber. After the conference, Pat and I came up with some questions about what is going on in Colorado in this area, and I met with some people at CDE to get the answers. This is my report on the topic and the areas that we had questions about.
The State Board of Education and the Colorado Department of Education have jurisdiction over pre-kindergarten education as well as K-12. Dave Smith is primarily in charge of this area, but it overlaps with Special Education (Lorrie Harkness) and Adult/Family Literacy, part of Title I (Pam Smith). I met with all three of these people to get the information. Staff at CDE who have mutual concerns related to early childhood education meet together regularly to share information and coordinate efforts.
The goal of early childhood education is for children to come to school ready to learn. About 20% of kids don't have access to developmentally appropriate preschool. Children need early literacy experiences. As Dave Smith (from CDE) explained in his report to the Board, good preschool can prevent some kids having the appearance of learning disabilities. Also, good preschool prepares kids for future accountability demands of our schools.
At the NASBE conference, an emphasis was given to the need for coordination and integration of early childhood services, programs, agencies, and providers. Included in this list are Head Start, Even Start, IDEA Part C, and IDEA Part B Section 619. IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law) requires attempts at early identification of children with disabilities (Child Find) and the identified children to be put on an IFSP (Individual Family Service Plan). In Colorado, CDE is the entity that draws all the different services and programs together for these identified children. We work collaboratively with organizations such as the Department of Public Health, Human Services, Medicaid, TANF, Migrant Services, and Developmental Disabilities. In fact, Colorado was a national leader in the integration of services by creating the Consolidated Child Care Pilot program, the Interagency Coordinating Council, and the Early Childhood Leadership Team. NASBE said that states should meet the quality standards for early learning set up by NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children). It turns out that NAEYC based their standards on what we are doing in Colorado!
What still needs to be done in Colorado: (1) increasing funding for the Colorado Preschool Program, so that all eligible 4-year-olds can be included, as well as adding 3-year-olds, and (2) improving the requirements for training preschool providers, and perhaps requiring them to be credentialed.
Copyright © 2001-2007 Evie Hudak - All Rights Reserved