a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
At CDE’s briefing with the Joint Budget Committee, JBC members asked about what assessments we have that aren’t required by NCLB (which are the 9th grade CSAPs and the Writing CSAPs). They asked how much federal money we are using to pay for CDE staff (75% of our staff is paid from federal funds, because of the state budget cuts during the last two years). The inflation rate is so low (somewhere between 0.1% and 0.7%) that there is concern about the General Fund’s ability to cover costs. There is new interest in funding programs like full-day kindergarten, mandatory kindergarten, and additional preschool slots. There was discussion again, like last year, around the cost of grade-repeaters. There was much discussion about where there is flexible money (categoricals). They asked about differences between SBE’s budget requests and the Governor’s. One thing we want more money for is English Language Acquisition, for clsoing the achievement gap. There was talk again about changing the entry date for kindergarten to September 1. They are looking for private funding for the School for the Deaf and Blind. They discussed capital construction and the Giardino lawsuit. There was talk of not funding transportation anymore. Regarding the School Trust Lands, they don’t see that the money is supplanting the General Fund, as we allege, because they say it is funding the increase in school finance. They are interested in having more money from the Trust Lands to fund schools. Their interests are not exactly the same as ours, although they agree that we need the Trust Lands to earn more money. There will be some discussions about allowing mill levies to float and the interplay between property tax and state general fund. There are two recissions from this fiscal year’s funding: a withholding of a monthly amount to fund the School Finance Unit in CDE ($1.00 per pupil off the top) and reductions to the Business Incentive Agreements of 50% (but if there isn’t enough state funding, the amount will be pro-rated). Polis asked if we would like to take a position to stop the trend of the erosion of local funding for school finance. Not all the SBE members were sure about that, although they agree that this needs to be dealt with in some way; they expressed fear that the solution could be worse.
Suckla said that we really need a lobbyist, rather than just someone who monitors the Legislature and reports back to us. We discussed how it might be funded. However, we have had Byron Pendley as our Legislative Liaison, and perhaps we could ask him to play a stronger lobbying role. DeHoff said that we often don’t take positions on bills because they change frequently, but we could take positions on the general issues of bills. Pendley should call on us when we would have a good relationship with particular legislators.
SARs: The Governor is having a press conference later this morning on the release of this year’s SARs. There are 114 more schools rated Excellent and High than last year. In regard to Senator Windels’ and Rep. Merrifield’s interest in doing a clean-up bill on the SARs, they have agreed to work with CDE and the SBE on the changes they propose. Polis said that we need the Governor involved in these discussions so that he doesn’t veto the bill and leave us with the same one. Karen Stroup will put together a list of changes for January, which we will turn into a prototype.
This is an option that allows high school students to take college courses while in high school and get dual credit. It allows high school seniors that have already earned all their credits for graduation to take college courses. The students can request to take up to 2 classes at the district’s expense, as long as they receive a grade of C or above, and as long as the course is not available in the district. The credits would then be transferrable to state colleges, as agreed upon by CCHE. Rural districts love this program, because it allows more classes than they are able to provide. DeHoff said that some large metro-area districts dislike it because it provides competition for their teachers. There are 5400 students in some kind of post-secondary option. The change in law last year for the "voucher" (stipend) for higher education funding is not included in this, and these courses don’t count toward the 145-credit limit for college undergraduate funding under the stipend. The high school students must pay the fee up front, and the district reimburses them after they pass the course.
The SBE had lunch with the CCHE board of directors. We discussed such things as the pre-collegiate curriculum and how the SBE and CCHE can work together more cooperatively.
Pam Smith, CDE Director for Adult Education and Family Literacy, gave us an update on the CARE Unit at CDE. (Erlinda Archuleta, former director of the CARE Unit, resigned to become a principal of a school in Denver, and she has not been replaced.) The unit includes four areas: Even Start, Migrant Education Even Start (MEES), Adult Education and Family Literacy (AEFL), and Colorado Refugee English as a Second Language (CRESL). In 1998 the decision was made on a federal level to partner AEFL with the Department of Labor by making it Title II of the Workforce Investment Act. The federal budget has provided level funding for AEFL for this year, while the Workforce Investment Act was reduced in funding. Because 9,000 of the 15,000 served in AEFL in Colorado are English language learners, the AEFL Unit at CDE is working with the ELA Unit. They have established four state literacy resource centers, located in Cortez, Denver, Longmont, and Trinidad, as well as a satellite center in Delta. Colorado Mountain College, with 16 campuses, works with the program. The state’s GED office is in the AEFL Unit. Funding for CRESL has been reduced, largely because of the September 11 incident, despite the fact that most refugees come from Africa, primarily Somalia, Liberia, and Sudan. These refugees have many issues besides literacy. MEES has four sites in the state: Delta, Lamar, Pueblo, and Westminster. CDE is working to raise the level of professionalism of adult literacy educators by allowing an authorization for Adult Literacy Educator, which was one of the new authorizations passed by the SBE earlier this year. Several of the curriculum guides that our department has developed are being used throughout the country as examples of approaches to these programs, such as Intergenerational Literacy Activities. Colorado is the only state that doesn’t provide any state funding for Adult Literacy; all our funding is federal. We have community-based organizations that raise money to pay for the programs. Even Start grants are given based on an RFP process. It functions through school districts. Colorado got a $20 million cut federally in this year’s budget. The federal funding pays for family literacy for both parents and children that qualify, meaning that they have limited financial means and either lack a high school diploma or are non-English speaking. In the first year of the state’s Family Literacy Act (passed two years ago), the fund (which must receive gifts, grants, or donations to exist) received $50,000 from donations and a contract with TANF. In the second year, it received a grant of $300,000 from the Daniels Fund. There must continue to be sufficient funds for the Colorado Family Literacy Act to continue.
CDE will be audited by the U.S. Department of Education to see if we are doing what we said we would do according to our state’s No Child Left Behind plan. They intend to make on-site visits to Denver Public Schools and Colorado Springs District 11 for audits, since those are the districts receiving the most Title I funding (other districts will be audited by e-mail and other off-site means). There will be a re-examination of our state assessment system under NCLB. They will take another look at whether we can consider partially proficient in the "proficient" category. Assistant Commissioner Bill Windler recommends that we don’t rush to amend our state plan; he says that we should wait to see what comments we get from the audit and see how the new U.S. Secretary of Education indicates the level of flexibility allowed. USDOE warned states that if districts’ audits come out faulty, the sanction will be against the state rather than the individual district.
The Safe Harbor provision of NCLB has helped a significant number of Colorado schools and districts meet AYP targets (ex. 32% of schools used Safe Harbor in Reading for students with disabilities, and 17% used it for Math for students with disabilities). Over 50 districts have gone on Program Improvement this year; CDE sent the districts a list of the required elements for the letter about that, which much go to parents. The districts may pay for the letter out of their Title I funds. Letters about schools that are on Improvement should already have gone out; those are also written by districts.
CDE does not expect many changes of a significant nature in NCLB in the foreseeable future. We tried to build as much flexibility as possible into our plan. Moloney said that historically, the Elementary a and Secondary Education Act has not been revisited by Congress until it is due for reauthorization. However, he said that the USDOE has a lot of flexibility in its issuance of guidance (guidelines for implementation of the law). I asked about the HR1 Hub Committee and its desire to amend our state’s plan based on flexibility granted to other states, particularly our HOUSSE, and what the timeline is in regard to amending our plan. Windler said that we had put some provisions in our plan before they were actually allowable; other states were later granted permission to do those things. It was pointed out that Colorado received the highest ranking in the country by the National Council on Teacher Quality in their rating on states’ progress toward meeting the new requirements of having "Highly Qualified Teachers" according to NCLB. Colorado received an A+; the next highest were 3 states with a B+ (Alabama, Hawaii, and Pennsylvania); and many states received an F (including California and Connecticut).
The Colorado School Finance Project presented to us their latest material. The CSFP was created several years ago to develop a consistent approach to help districts and legislators make decisions about school funding. They looked at the equitable funding aspect of the School Finance Act, which gives a base amount of funding, plus additional amounts according to the "factors," to analyze how school funding compared with the costs of districts delivering services, and they compared funding with how it was or was not keeping up with inflation. What they have been working on recently is getting input from various groups on the topic of adequate school funding. Two years ago, after NCLB was implemented, the CSFP did an adequacy study. They just, within the last month, did another study to update their findings. They focused on the costs of professional development, getting all teachers to meet the definition of "Highly Qualified," and requirements of SB 186 (the Education Reform Act) and Accreditation. They have identified things that are expected to be included in the base funding; it includes things like Gifted/Talented programs, arts and athletics, assessments, preschool and kindergarten, and support personnel such as counselors and nurses. They have not included transportation, because adequacy assumes that children are at the school, and they have not included capital costs. However, districts contend that these are also costs. Orr said he agrees that school funding is required by the Constitution only to provide an adequate academic education. Therefore, he doesn’t think that state money isn’t required to fund sports or transportation. He says that our society asks for more and more from government; when he was a child, he had to walk 3 miles to catch the bus, and now, buses pick kids up right near their front door. He says that there is a limit to what we can provide; he would rather use funding to pay for high-quality teachers. Tracy Rainey said that when it comes to disabled students, districts are required by law to provide transportation. Orr also said that there is a large disparity of spending when districts build stadiums for athletics. DeHoff pointed out that this still is looking at the costs of funding the system; he wonders whether we should also look at changing the requirements of the system, since we have never had enough money to fund the system fully adequately. Rainey pointed out that CSFP has listed the resources (such as kindergarten, summer school, etc.) needed for an adequate system, not the specific dollar amounts. DeHoff said that for example, if we had teachers that could do a better job of teaching students, we might not need summer school. Orr pointed out that funding increases for unfunded mandates like special education could change the adequacy picture overnight.
I had asked Cameron Lynch to come to our meetings so we could have a better communication with the Governor’s office. Polis said that due to the lateness of the meeting (4:50 p.m.), we would ask Lynch to meet with the Board formally in the future.
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