a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
There is very little that we do which isn't based on data. A great many people have spent a great deal of time, some of which is not apparent to people, to develop a comprehensive database for the state from which we can extract information by region and by school. The foundation of our work on accountability is accreditation. An accreditation document was produced by CDE, sent to districts, which includes the following:
Considering a school's progress, upon which the new accreditation rules are based, sets high expectations for student achievement - we can improve more than we have in the past. To do that, we need to know what the learning gap is in order to close it - this depends on data. As we approach the end of the school year, the eight Regional Managers will write reports on how their districts are doing in achieving their goals. All the CSAP tests (for the longitudinal plan, grades 4-8) have not been given yet, except for Reading, so other kinds of evidence must be looked at. We will accept what the districts are using for now, such as Terra Nova, or even norm-referenced tests. Issue of "adequate yearly progress" involves a concern for Title I schools - but it is not formally connected to the "progress over time" that accreditation requires. CDE has established a percentage for Colorado schools, but federal legislation may be changing the requirements. Districts may be feeling as if they are "serving two masters" - and if we count the SARs, it could be considered serving three masters. The central piece of all is accreditation, to ensure that districts are doing what they need to do to improve student achievement.
SBE is required by SB129 to have a plan by March 1, implemented by June 1, to have a longitudinal data reporting system (LARS). The "Data Warehouse" is the collection of all the data required by SB186 and the SARs to support decision-making. CDE staff have been working around the clock in a mammoth effort to have it ready to go online tomorrow. The basic types (sets) of data are:
There are 272 tables in the Data Warehouse. It is designed for retrieval of the information. (It is read-only.) There are dual firewalls on the front end, and there are further security devices to ensure that nobody can access student-identifiable data. We still need to work on the "metadata" (information about where the data comes from, how the calculations were done, etc.).
There was a recent meeting at CDE with other stakeholders about what we're working on for the LARS. Stakeholders - those who want to have access for the data - include teachers, administrators, school districts, higher education, the business community, and various groups in the community.
A large network of people cooperating throughout the state will be required in order to communicate CSAP results to enhance data-driven instruction. A blue-ribbon committee was created by CDE to work on creating similar conversations in all regions for dealing with the data and help with accreditation requirements. It is possible to have so much data that sense cannot be made of it. Therefore, Morris Danielson has led the effort to clarify specific reports that can be derived. A few examples of them are as follows: how all students in each grade did in a specific subject; how students did from year to year in a specific subject; the overall proficiency of students in one subject; how the entire district did in one subject; how all students in one school did in all tests given.
The Data-Mining project has been convened to put the data in a user-friendly format so that teachers can look within each content area, by sub-population, in different content standard and sub-content areas of the specific tests. People from each of the regions came together for training to learn how CSAP tests different standards, how the tests are bookmarked, etc., so they could figure out how to work with the data to improve achievement. The Data-Mining project will recruit and train people to work in the regions to provide expert assistance as needed. It will create the computer programs to translate the raw data that comes from the testing company into an understandable form for diagnosis.
Student Diagnostic Reports: These reports take the individual student's CSAP test and break down the results by content standard, sub-content area, and performance level. A caution is that it is difficult to take one student's results on one test and one day for thorough diagnosis - there may be a large margin of error. But using individual data along with the sub-populations, whole class, and school will be revealing to teachers. The Student Diagnostic Reports will be given to parents so they can discuss with their children's teachers how the children are doing.
The Action Committee of the Closing the Learning Gap Coalition has been working steadily to develop an action plan. The committee has been working on the four areas [(1) teacher quality and professional development, (2) accreditation and data collection, (3) school climate and best practices, and (4) parent/family/community involvement] plus one additional area - legislation. They want to work with the entire state, and thus they are trying to create CLG groups in each region. One strategy needed to succeed in this goal is to create non-traditional alliances in the regions to include in the CLG committees - local people who don't usually interact with educators, such as people from Chambers of Commerce and Native American groups. They will be piloting it in Sam Batey's region (Southwest). Also, in Leadville, they will be piloting a project to use the Center for Effective Parent Involvement (created by the Statewide Parent Coalition and CDE) to get the community engaged.
The CLG Coalition is working to get a broad base of support for this work. They will be submitting a resolution to the CASB conference in October on closing the learning gap. The issue is multi-faceted. Factors such as environment, resources, income, and English-language acquisition come into play. Also, because CSAP is a critical-thinking test, and many parents do not really comprehend what it determines and what expectations there are for students (i.e., drawing inferences and demonstrating this in an essay answer), it would be helpful to have a small example to share with parents about what the test is.
The Coalition may have to accelerate the action plan process, because schools that get low ratings on the SARs may ask for help, and the committee would like to be able to offer some. There is material, such as KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), which is used in some other states.
Renny Fagan, former director of the Department of Revenue and former State Representative, has taken on the position in the Attorney General's office as Deputy of State Services. Thus, he is there to support us as the director of the attorneys who work the SBE and CDE, and to be there as a troubleshooter for us. We are welcome to talk with him any time we want.
The total budget request for CDE for fiscal year 2002 is $2,818,139,714. This includes $2,286,324,068 in the General Fund; $13,600,926 in cash funds; $247,231,723 in cash funds exempt; and $270,982,997 in federal funds. It is for a total of 418.8 FTE. (We can hire people on contract to perform certain tasks, but that would be outside the appropriated FTE. Inflation has been determined to be 4.9%.)
There are a number of "decision items" in our budget request which are special areas in which we are requesting increases. Most notable of these are $6.5 million for closing the learning gap and $2.27 million for the Colorado Online Consortium.
Of the entire state budget, 41% goes to fund K-12 schools, 28% to human services, 13% to higher education, 12% to corrections, and 1% to general government.
There are 2.8 mil acres of surface land and 3.8 mil acres of mineral lands remaining in the school trust. In addition, there is a permanent fund of approximately $300 million invested in bonds. In 1996 the voters passed Amendment 16, allowing 10% of the lands to be held in the stewardship trust, which can still generate income, but are protected from development; Amendment 16 also changed the requirements for handling the school trust lands from having them produce "maximize revenue" to "reasonable and continuous revenue." A lawsuit alleging conflict between Amendment 16 provisions and the original enabling act was found to not be in conflict, because the lands can be moved in and out of the trust by the State Land Board.
We need someone on the State Land Board representing the education community; there is currently a vacancy. The judge in the lawsuit said that the way the State Land Board operates merits watching, but could not make a ruling on it because it does not directly involve the federal laws in the enabling act. A short time ago, Senator Allard introduced a bill in Congress (S.1146) identical to Amendment 16, with the 10% limit, changing the original enabling act. Representative McInnis introduced one (H.R.2556) worded exactly the same. Representative Udall's bill (H.R.2584) changes the enabling act with no 10% limit - no limit at all. Neighboring western states with similar school trust lands provisions are worried that if one of these bills pass, the same changes could be proposed in their states. Udall's reasons for the bill include the following: (1) There is "no impact" on school funding - the $41 million these lands provide will be backfilled from the general fund because of Amendment 23; (2) it would protect a great deal of land in the state for scenic value, open space, or wildlife habitat.
It appears that 10 years ago the amount of land and revenue that our state and Oregon had were the same. But now, ours is worth $300 million and Oregon's permanent fund is worth $800 million. Also, Utah's is worth $3.2 billion. We are spending every bit of revenue rather than investing it. It's all invested in bonds. The 3.8 million acres generates only $10 million, and the 2.8 million acres of surface rights generate $11 million.
PTA convened a meeting of people from CASE, CASB, CEA, and CEN to discuss the issue. They have come up with 3 goals: (1) Short-term - defeat these bills. (2) Find ways to have these lands generate more revenue. (3) Set up a long-term strategy for revamping how school lands are administered. PTA, CASE, CASB, and CEA will work with their national organizations to lobby to defeat the bills. We need to look at what other states do to generate more income. One thing is to set up a new beneficiary group. Our State Land Board is under the Department of Natural Resources.
Copyright © 2001-2007 Evie Hudak - All Rights Reserved