a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
Attorney General Ken Salazar visited with the Board to discuss his participation with the Coalition to Close the Learning Gap, among other things. He was accompanied by Christine Arguello, Chief Deputy Attorney General. He said that the Attorney General's office works with SBE a lot; for example, they defended the State Board in the charter school cases that were appealed to the courts. Ken spoke mainly regarding his concern about youth violence, his visits of schools around the state discussing it with students, and the lessons he learned. He expressed the need for schools to know how to do a safe school plan. He discussed the significant issues of bullying and drugs, which are the main contributors to the problem of school violence. He expressed concern about the Rocky Mountain News editorial that said his bullying prevention bill was unnecessary. He was very happy to report that the National Character Education Partnership intends to hold its annual conference in Denver again this year, October 17-20.
Diane Kress from CDE is working with Terri Rayburn and Rick O'Donnell from the Governor's office and Rob Mitchell from KPMG to create the "data warehouse" that is required by SB 186 to collect the information that goes onto the school report cards, which are due out for the first time this summer. Diane explained the process by which CDE selected KPMG to be the project manager. KPMG is responsible for designing the technological aspects required by SB 186 -- the public access website and the integrated GIS that displays school locations on a Colorado map, so that the public will be able to "see" the data around the state. All the data is collected at CDE, after being sent in by the school districts. Then the data is processed for reporting to the publisher of the report cards and for the website. There will not be information available on individual students; it will be by school. The data on the CSAPs comes to CDE from McGraw Hill in raw form per pupil, and CDE does the weighting of the scores and the disaggregation, before giving it for KPMG to work with. The entire project should be ready by June 1.
SB 99-154 requires teacher-training college programs to become standards-based (the standards were set by SBE last year), and these programs must be approved by SBE and CCHE (Colorado Commission on Higher Education). Recently the newspapers have had articles about the impending June 30 deadline, by which time any college teacher-training program that has not incorporated the standards and been approved will be closed. Headlines have included the following: "Teacher programs face scrutiny." "Teacher colleges face deadline -- 15 programs must meet new standards set by state by summer or face consequences." Bill Ottey from CDE has been leading the effort to evaluate all the programs for SBE. The licensing parts of the colleges like the standards-based approach and have been very cooperative in making the adjustment. However, it's been a challenge for some of the content areas, particularly in integrating the math requirement.
The Assessments Unit of CDE is currently preparing to align the scales for Advanced, Proficient, Partially Proficient, and Unsatisfactory for the new CSAPs. The 4th and 7th grade tests have already been set, and the intermediate grades will be fit in between these. This process, called "bookmarking," is done by teachers who have worked in the subject area and at the grade level of the particular CSAP for 5 years. The bookmarking is based on rubrics that are part of the standards.
Ed Flex is a federal program that has operated as a pilot for 12 states. The pilot program expires on June 30, 2001, and to continue in the program, Colorado must reapply. Under this program, Colorado can receive waivers of federal programs; one example of a waiver we use is the poverty threshold required in order for an entire school to be part of Title I. Ed Flex provides Colorado with millions of dollars, and it provides us with flexibility in using the dollars from federal programs. One of those programs is Title I, which provides our state with about $70 million.
Ed Flex has new requirements, and approval is based on the following: (1) Our state assessments must be approved based on many criteria; we are expecting this approval on June 2. (2) We must provide a definition of "adequate yearly progress" for our Title I students; we are holding hearings around the state to come to an agreement of what this will be. (3) We need to provide a clear explanation of how our state provides waivers of state laws.
Polis suggested increasing student involvement with the SBE in some way. The Board decided to explore what possibilities there are for increasing student participation and interaction. The Board will seek to be more involved in two events that already occur: (1) CASB's student forum, and (2) CHSSAA's annual leadership conference (CHSSAA = Colorado High School Student Activities Association).
Currently the "State Board Commitment" on the SBE brochure reads as follows:
The Colorado State Board of Education dedicates itself to increasing achievement levels for all students through comprehensive programs of education reform involving three interlocking elements:
1. High Standards for what students must know and be able to do;
2. Tough Assessments that honestly measure whether or not students meet standards and tell citizens the truth about how well our schools serve children; and
3. Rigorous Accountability Measures that tie accreditation of school districts to high student achievement.
Hudak suggested that the word "tough" in #2 is too negative; the Board agreed to change it to "challenging."
The Board reviewed a list of committees that advise or report to SBE and commissions created by the Legislature that SBE appoints, including current and historical ones. Current advisory committees include the Colorado Council for Library Development, the State Gifted and Talented Advisory Committee, and the Capital Construction Funding Advisory Committee; no longer active is the Adult Literacy Commission. Current standing committees enacted into law by the Legislature include the Special Education Advisory Committee and the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind Advisory Board; no longer active are the State Certificated Personnel Performance Evaluation Council and the State Standards and Assessments Development and Implementation Council. The Educator Professional Standards Board has never been active.
Regarding the decision of the Adams County School District 50 Board of Education to deny the charter, the State Board voted 5:2 that the decision of the local board was contrary to the best interest of the pupils, the school district, or the community, and to remand the matter back to Adams County District 50 Board of Education for reconsideration. (Hudak and Stanford dissented.)
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