a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
Overall, things were much quieter at CDE regarding CSAP results this year. This appears to be evidence that CSAP has become more accepted. Commissioner Moloney, Karen Gerwitz, Karen Stroup, and Carolyn Haug went to editorial boards, who had wonderful questions. Press coverage was fair. There were certain schools and districts that the press was looking at; they had analyzed the data much more than we had, since they were able to "zero in" on specific places. Performance of second-language students was interesting: Students in bilingual programs did better last year, but ESL students did better this year. But what exactly does "bilingual" mean? It is self-defined by the school or district. Some might be dual language programs, and some might be bilingual instruction. CDE's budget in the area of assessments goes to collecting and reporting data; we don't do analysis of data. The assessment office wants to lay out a plan for secondary data analysis, to be able to answer questions that the press and small districts ask. We should find out what kinds of analyses people would like from CDE and what kinds of analyses are already available. At the CASE conference tomorrow, Carolyn and other CDE staff will be collecting questions that need to be answered.
The Governor's task force on making CSAP more diagnostic found that communication and dissemination need to be improved, and training is needed so that parents and teachers can understand the information on the CSAP diagnostic reports; the diagnostic material is already available from CDE, which not many people were aware of. It will cost $5 million to implement all the recommendations made by the task force to do the training out in the field. We might be able to use some money from HR1 to do this. Some of the small school districts don't have staff to look at all the reports that come in, and superintendents don't have time to go through everything. Also, a lot of information is available on the CDE website, but small districts don't tend to use the technology as much. Regional managers from CDE are looking at their respective school districts and analyzing the data to identify the most and least successful. The Advisory Committee to Close the Achievement Gap will be able to utilize some of the funding from Title I to go out and help districts that are struggling.
The surveys of teachers after their 1st and 3rd years of teaching are done (to determine how effective their preparation at our state's colleges are for their success in teaching). Dorothy Gotlieb pointed out that the statute says that CDE shall conduct these surveys. CCHE did them, but Dorothy says that CDE should take back the responsibility so that people can't say that "it's like the fox guarding the hen house." CCHE had taken it over a few years ago because CDE didn't have the time or resources. CDE is now able to do it. We could also survey districts about their receipt of graduates from our teacher preparation programs. It would be helpful for SBE members, when speaking with principals, to encourage them to participate meaningfully in these surveys. Questions on which skills the new teachers need should be strengthened.
Concern has arisen regarding the fact that people in the Teacher in Residence programs often have the PLACE test waived before admission; on the other hand, students in regular teacher preparation programs take content exams at the sophomore level of college before they enter the teacher preparation program. Tim Foster feels that the caliber of people in Teacher in Residence programs may be lesser because of this. There is a movement towards our using PRAXIS rather than PLACE, since it's used in many states. Foster said that his staff has done an analysis of PLACE and found that it is a very poor test (e.g., questions aren't checked for validity, there are still questions on pedagogy). Gotlieb asked that the Board give her time to analyze both, and explore other options, before we make any decision. Our contract with PLACE is for another 15 months. Stanford suggested that in the short term, we consider offering the PRAXIS as an alternative to the PLACE. Foster's staff studied the PRAXIS and says that it does correlate well with our content standards. Gotlieb pointed out, however, that it is one that is based on a compilation of what several states want - might it be lower than what we want? The Commissioner pointed out that each state still gets to set the cut scores for passing.
We need to continue working on this issue. Too many people get into teaching on emergency authorizations, which makes licensure meaningless. The Teacher in Residence program was instituted to deal with teacher shortages, but it lacks accountability. Suckla pointed out that parents might be appalled if they knew which and how many of the teachers have not taken/passed the content exam and have not been through a teacher preparation program.
Because of SB 02-152, the SBE is required to adopt performance-based standards for principal preparation by January 2003, and CCHE must change its programs by fall of 2003. Gotlieb proposed that we adopt them by emergency rule in October, and then launch immediately into the process for permanent adoption. In this way, the institutions of higher education would have as much time as possible to change their programs.
Powerball had an overflow of money (more than twice the anticipated revenue came in), meaning that there is an additional $4.9 million for the school capital construction contingency fund. Moloney was part of a television commercial thanking the voters. We are not sure whether it supplements or supplants the money already appropriated. CDE will offer an interpretation of the law, and a decision will be made by the Legislature. Stanford suggested that we propose to use it to supplant the money taken from the State Education Fund (Amendment 23) to pay for the School Capital Construction Renovation Fund (Giardino lawsuit settlement), maybe to pay for other things that benefit student achievement, such as closing the achievement gap initiatives proposed by the SBE and not funded this past year. DeHoff said that given the budget cuts that have taken place, it would be hard to justify spending it on new things. Polis and I said that we should push for using it to pay for the items that had their funding vetoes (such as libraries).
CSDB made a $30 million capital request, for instructional purposes, not safety. OSPB said that we shouldn't bother putting it in the budget request, because there is no money, and it will be struck out anyway.
The next meeting of the Steering Committee for Colorado's School Land Trust is August 29 at 3 p.m. A joint resolution has been drafted to give to the Legislature. The steering committee will first take it to the coalition member groups (SBE, State Treasurer, CEA, CASE, CASB, PTA, Colorado Rural Schools Caucus, Public Education & Business Coalition) to sign off on. The joint resolution resolves: "That Colorado's education community, the Colorado Land Board, and the Colorado Treasurer, represented by the following parties of the Colorado Land Trust Steering Committee, request the Colorado General Assembly to enact legislation granting more authority and flexibility that will permit the Land Board and the Treasurer to provide the greatest possible benefit to current and future generations of Colorado's school children."
The steering committee has come up with the following Strategic Plan, "A Hidden Treasure: School Trust Lands for Colorado's Kids":
Main goal: Optimize all aspects of the school trust to make a meaningful financial difference in the education of Colorado's school children.
Sub-goals: (1) Increase the State Land Board's tools and authority to generate more revenue from school trust lands. (2) Increase the state Treasurer's flexibility to maximize opportunities to grow the Permanent Fund. (3) Establish a representative for the beneficiary - Colorado's school children.
Education community's goal options:
(1) Remove the trust-generated interest and income from the School Finance Act and dedicate the trust interest and income to a specific purpose. (This would require finding a replacement source of funds that currently go into the School Finance Act from the trust lands - $50 million.)
(2) Use the trust-generated interest and income as a partial solution to the solvency of the State Education Fund, as opposed to a contribution to the School Finance Act.
(3) Modified status quo - freeze the amount contributed from the trust to the School finance Act at current levels and reinvest any trust earnings over that level to grow the size of the corpus. (This would make it very difficult to make investments, since the $50 million would be frozen.)
State Land Board's tools and authority to generate more revenue from the school trust lands: Gain autonomy from the appropriations process - requires changes in the state constitution and state statutes. Acquire more staff and funding to more effectively manage current and future school trust lands.
State Treasurer's flexibility to maximize opportunities to grow the Permanent Fund: Develop an investment plan to provide a superior alternative for the Land Board to reinvest proceeds. Develop an investment plan to meet the needs of the education community. These require changes in the state constitution and state statutes.
Tactics to establish a representative for the beneficiary: Register the committee as a tax-exempt Colorado entity. Name the entity and publicize its goals and strategies.
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