a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
a strong voice for kids 2nd Congressional District
Suckla, our new Chair, decided that we should take the time to make more detailed Board Reports during the Work Sessions and keep our reports at the regular Board Meetings short. [However, everyone had only a couple of minutes today to make their reports.] Suckla wants members to report on the committees that they are liaisons to or meetings they have attended.
ORR: Felt that our meeting with the Joint House and Senate Education Committees last Thursday afternoon went very well. He was very impressed with the difference in the SBE’s relationship with the Legislature since the mid-1990s when he got on the Board.
DEHOFF: Announced that he is running for NASBE Western Region Director again. He is on the Nominations Committee, but because he is running, he will not attend the committee’s meeting in March.
MUNN: He was asked by NASBE to be on their Finance Committee.
LITTLETON: Continues to work with CDE staff on implementing the new rules for CBLA (Colorado Basic Literacy Act) and urged us to attend the presentations being given around the state on this. Continues to be involved in planning the Reading First conference.
POLIS: Is still the Board’s liaison to the State Advisory Committee for Gifted and Talented Education; reported that they are looking at how to work with GT kids in rural areas.
HUDAK: I handed out my written report from the final meeting of the Eligible Facilities Education Task Force. I explained that the legislation creating the task force had expired, but a Facilities Advisory Committee had been informally put together with many of the same members to continue the work, which has not gone beyond the report that was presented to us last fall. I handed out a written report from my meeting in January of NASBE’s Governmental Affairs Committee, with an update on what’s happening with federal legislation. I shared NASBE’s concern that State Boards of Education around the country need to do a better job of advocacy, and said that the GAC has recommended the following priorities for federal legislative action: (1) Amendments to NCLB; (2) Perkins Act reauthorization - making sure that there is continued funding for vocational education; (3) Head Start reauthorization; (4) budget - avoiding cuts in any existing programs prior to giving increases in programs; and (5) new high school reform proposals.
MIDDLETON: Has taken Christine Baca’s place on the Adams 14 Foundation and attends their meetings and events. She would like us to take a look at the Staff Development Council’s recommendations, which are very good. She attended CCHE’s College for Colorado event and the luncheon for National Board Certified Teachers.
SUCKLA: Said that she heard good things about our meeting last week with the Joint House and Senate Education Committees. She appreciates our filling in for her when she is unable to drive in to Denver. She attended a good legislative forum in Durango.
Online programs. There is a bill (SB139) to take the authority for overseeing online programs out from the SBE’s authority and put it into an outside authority, which would approve all cyberschools. This is being put forward because of the need for more accountability for online programs. Our Board has in the past discussed increasing the accreditation indicators for cyberschools, and we would prefer to do that rather than ceding the authority to an outside agency. There had been a legislative interim committee a couple of years ago to discuss issues related to cyberschools. Also, CDE had put together a committee to follow up on the recommendations from that committee. Moloney mentioned that there is an article in today’s New York Times about Colorado’s online programs. Tim Synder, head of Colorado Online Learning in CDE, came to speak with us about SB 139. He said that the bill proposes to make an online program authority a Type I agency. He thinks the proposal would allow valuable support to improve the quality of online programs. Judith Stokes, who was a member of the legislative interim committee, is associated with Branson Online. She said that if she were an SBE member, she would be see the proposal as a slap in the face of the SBE. She sees many other problems with the bill; she thinks it will reduce students’ options. She said that people from the cyberschools are well prepared today to work with the SBE and CDE. DeHoff said that until we look at the big picture of various educational options, and how the state monitors them, we shouldn’t consider a statewide authority just for online programs. Middleton said that there is no funding stream to pay for this online authority, which is why the bill proposes taking 3% of PPOR from districts with cyberschools to pay for the authority. Stokes said that it isn’t fair for only the districts with online programs to pay, since students from throughout the state are enrolled in cyberschools. She said that traditional schools have had years to do a good job of education, and they aren’t. I expressed disagreement with this last statement. She cited the 30% dropout rate as an example. Moloney said that there is nobody more qualified than the SBE to do the things proposed in the bill; however, we could use additional resources for the effort. He mentioned that two of the prominent school districts that are online providers are on Accreditation Watch. "We have the capacity; we have the expertise. We just need the support to do the job," said Moloney. Karen Stroup, Chief of Staff, said that making the authority a Type I agency is a direct challenge to the SBE’s authority (it would have rule-making authority, as we do, and as the Charter School Institute and the board of the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind do). There will probably be an amendment to make it a Type 2 agency, which would operate as an agency within CDE, and then the SBE would make the rules for its operation.
State Budget. Supplemental funding bills were heard. CDE has a supplemental bill because of increases in student enrollment and at-risk students. There was a shortfall in funding for small attendance centers, and the Joint Budget Committee reallocated a small portion from the categorical line for special education increases to cover that cost. CDE asked for an additional half FTE for the GED programs, which was approved. We asked for an increase in the CSAP line to pay for the ACT, which had increased costs in the past year (it has gone up every year); the full amount we asked for was not approved. Overall, we had a good response to the CDE supplemental requests.
Legislation. Byron Pendley, our Legislative Liaison, asked us to discuss HB 1216, which revises the process of dealing with schools that are Unsatisfactory for 3 years. It has the local district deal with the schools, and it applies the process only to the 10% lowest-performing schools in the district. It provides options that are similar to NCLB’s to "remedy" the low-performing schools. Munn said that the key for us to look at is whether the SBE "is in the game or not" in dealing with these schools. Orr said he doesn’t think we can rely on the district to take care of it. I argued with him about that, and Suckla said that she doesn’t agree either. DeHoff agreed with Orr, saying that local boards suffer from too much political pressure. Munn said that isn’t the issue; he said the issue is who should be the change agent directing the change. He pointed out that we had agreed during the Cole Middle School conversion process that we weren’t the appropriate ones, that we are ill-equipped to pick who should run a school or what the curriculum should be for schools. If the next school were hundreds of miles away, our ability to help them would be much more limited. He suggested that we allow the districts to be the change agents, but that we have some approval power over that. He said that there only needs to be a slight tweaking of the bill to provide for this.
Another bill, SB 50, allows districts to go for a special mill levy override if they choose to opt out of NCLB, in order to pay for services addressing AYP. It would affect CDE, because if the district opts out of NCLB, it doesn’t have to determine its own AYP, so that would have to be done at CDE.
Other bills of note that we might want to take a position on:
Rick O’Donnell, Executive Director of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, came to update us on what is going on and discuss CCHE’s various initiatives. The College in Colorado campaign is an effort to boost the number of students who take a post-secondary option in the state. He mentioned the "Colorado paradox" of our state having the highest education level of citizens and yet a dismally low rate of college attendance and graduation. The CiC campaign is envisioned to be similar to the Mothers Against Drunk Driving campaign launched a couple of decades ago. CiC wants every child to be ready to go to college by having taken a pre-collegiate curriculum and to be aware of their options to plan, apply, and pay for college. Governor Owens and Mayor Hickenlooper are part of the CiC campaign. CCHE has proposed legislation to require all students to be enrolled in a pre-collegiate curriculum, unless they choose to opt out, with parental permission. Another of CCHE’s proposed legislation is to notify parents that if their children did poorly on the ACT, there might be remediation necessary in college, which will cost extra money.
O’Donnell asked us to sign onto a resolution that CCHE passed in 2003 (which they are asking other education stakeholders to sign onto also), which pledges commitment to improved access to higher education, expectations of participation in higher education, appropriate funding for institutions of higher education, responsible utilization of public funds in institutions of higher education, and an affordable education. DeHoff asked if we might be able to look at CSAP scores previous to 11th grade and predict which students will do poorly on ACT. Polis said that this is the opposite of SBE’s view of reform, focusing on inputs rather than outputs. "It should be left up to the districts and schools . . . to make sure kids are prepared. To add this level of regulation seems contrary of freeing up our districts to be innovative," Polis said. "We want to hold them accountable for results, not tell them how to do that." He said that admissions standards are within CCHE’s domain, not proscribing curriculum. I said that this is too little, too late, and read a quote from Jerry Wartgow, Superintendent of Denver Public Schools, that was in the newspaper: "We know that economically the best possible investment is to put the money in early childhood education and kindergarten. That’s the best way to go about secondary-school reform. Successful leaders have always been able to resist the pressure to make short-term, quick-fix changes at the expense of sustainable reform." I asked if they are just trying to push the costs down to K-12. O’Donnell said no, the issue is that remedial courses don’t count towards degrees and cause students to decide to drop out. DeHoff said that many of these courses are necessary to succeed in many fields, not just college. (I agreed with that.) His question is if students take the pre-collegiate courses in high school and still cannot perform in college, whose responsibility is that? Orr said that he supports the rigor, but pointed out that we send the wrong message to kids by saying that they have to go to college to be successful in life. Moloney said that research shows that more than 80% of high school graduates said they would work harder if they could go to high school again. He said that everyone’s attention is on high school reform currently; "the cause of CCHE is the cause of the SBE." Middleton said that it is very narrow to look at scores below 19 on the ACT. She would like to see expansion of the outlook on the issue. Part of the "ground war" needs to be inspiring and encouraging kids to go on to college; we should look at how we deliver messages to kids. "You did lousy on the ACT is a negative message," she said. I brought up the fact that the SAT is used by many colleges, not just outside of Colorado. DeHoff said that many who have looked at college admissions standards and found that there is a disconnect with high school standards. He said that higher education needs to be involved in our discussions about the content standards. Munn said that he’s been saying many times that CDE and CCHE should have a memorandum of understanding so CDE requires that districts provide the right courses and CCHE accepts them for college admission. He doesn’t understand why this hasn’t happened. Suckla said that we have to be careful not to dictate curriculum to districts. Munn said that we could certify their curriculum as appropriately pre-collegiate. DeHoff said that we could link our standards to CCHE’s standards and use the accreditation process. Suckla suggested that we have another meeting with the CCHE board within the next few months. I said that the Board of Regents should be in that loop as well.
Accreditation. Roscoe Davidson, Deputy Commissioner, repeated his belief that Accreditation is working well to hold districts accountable by incorporating qualitative things and all the other systems of accountability. He said that we need to look at whether the quantitative measures alone are sufficient in adequately measuring districts’ success. I asked if these statements were made because of the questions the members of the Joint House and Senate Education Committees had for us when we met with them last week. Moloney said that Rep. Merrifield came to CDE after the meeting and got his questions answered. Davidson said that one of the things CDE will start doing is to send a team into districts for their accreditation review. He said that some districts, such as Sheridan, have been very receptive to receiving help from CDE. Because of their receptivity and the resources that CDE has provided them, they have made significant improvement. Gary Sibigtroth, Assistant Commissioner in charge of Accreditation, said that Hanover has also made significant improvement for the same reasons. Their partnership also included CEA, working with the teachers in the district. He said that the force behind accreditation is partnership. In terms of the Harrison School District and the concerns brought up at the Joint House and Senate Education Committee meeting, the key will be their cooperation in receiving technical assistance. CDE will send a team of about 8 people into the district to spend a week doing a "technical audit." The district is very willing to have this done and have a conversation about improvement. DeHoff mentioned that we were asked if the thought behind accreditation was a requirement that the district change leadership. He said that in some cases it was needed and happened, but not in all cases. Orr recommended that CASE and CASB, at their annual conventions, have a panel discussion about the process districts have undergone in Accreditation Watch/Probation. Suckla suggested that we might submit articles for their publications, honoring the districts that have done well. Gerwitz said she could highlight one in our next newspaper supplement publication.
NCLB. Many of the topics that have been discussed so far this morning are very relevant to our compliance with No Child Left Behind. We were given the findings from the USDOE’s monitoring visit last month. They criticized us for not having a process for monitoring low-performing districts, for not having all ELL students take the CSAP tests, and for not using Section 6111 funds for developing ELL assessments. They want us to "beef up" our assessments of paraprofessionals. The state gets cited for things that districts are not doing. The President’s high school reform requests include requiring a standards-based assessment in 11th grade, as well as NAEP in 12th grade. Districts can indeed opt out of NCLB, choosing not to take Title I money, but all they relieve themselves of is doing a district improvement plan if they don’t make AYP and being officially designated as a district in need of improvement. They still are required to have their AYP calculated and reported, and they must comply with the Highly Qualified Teacher requirements. I pointed out that opting out also means that they don’t have to provide supplemental services or transportation to higher-performing schools. Windler said that the district in question which brought up this issue, Academy 20, did not have any schools that didn’t make AYP; it was only the district that didn’t. Moloney, Suckla, and DeHoff expressed concerns that Academy 20's refusal to take the $500,000 was a bad decision, because they have less money to help needy kids. Moloney implied that if they request the money in the future, we could refuse to give it to them. Windler said that if they take it in the future, it could be seen as supplanting.
We asked people from the Cole community to share their thoughts with us on how the Cole conversion process went, as a way of providing us information for our deliberation regarding HB 1216. The people who came to speak with us were from both MOP (Metropolitan Organization for People) and the community Cole Conversion Committee. They said that the leaders in the conversion process are people from Denver Public Schools, but the district hasn’t provided a rigorous curriculum at Cole in the past, and it shows that the system is not working. The problem isn’t the teachers or the students. The community is very concerned; they don’t want the district to have all the authority. They haven’t looked at the principal, how the principal works with the staff. This was realized after the process took place. The SBE should look at this in other low-performing schools. The community feels that the "fox is guarding the hen house." The committee feels very strongly that the district failed the students and the SBE should have "the last word." They still feel that the process needs to change. It went too quickly. More people should have been involved, such as the students and people from the community, not people from outside the community who don’t know it, as were on the official advisory committee. It should be people who are affected by what happens at the school. It shouldn’t be in the hands of people who have other interests. There was a parallel process done by the community. The community process began in August, but the official committee started in November. The community should have a role in choosing who is on the conversion committee. They also expressed a need for funding for things such as translations. They want the SBE’s help.
DeHoff asked about what the district had done to help Cole prior to the point at which they had to convert to a charter school. The Cole community members said that the superintendent came to help motivate the students, but things don’t work like that. It seemed like the district wanted the Cole community to think they were there for them, but they really weren’t. Suckla said that parents and community members needed to get involved earlier, also, as soon as it became apparent that there was a problem. She hopes the community learns the lesson about the importance of their involvement. The community group went to speak with the Governor recently, in November, proposing some changes for the process; they asked for funding for the expenses such as translations, and he said yes. He said that there would be other options besides just converting to a charter school. I asked about the new principal that Cole had gotten two years prior to the conversion, because I heard that there had been some significant improvement. They pointed out that there was improvement, but it takes more time than the 2 years the new administration had. They said that looking at the principal and staff, and how the students are treated, is something that should be looked at.
Munn pointed out that the law requires the SBE to continue to play a role, as a facilitator, in the process of converting Cole to KIPP. In the original negotiations with KIPP, it had been stated that parents would not have to fill out any paperwork to keep their kids at Cole. However, parents are now being told that they have to fill out applications and a contract for their children to attend KIPP Cole. There are disagreements about how much funding the district is giving KIPP. The community members think we should be involved in that. The contract is supposed to be approved no later than February 15; there is a draft contract at this time. There appear to be significant disagreements regarding the contract’s terms, such as the extent of KIPP’s autonomy. Munn said that it is important for us to find out if the conditions the SBE issued in our selection of KIPP are being met. Littleton said that maybe the KIPP charter school should work with the Charter School Institute. DeHoff said that the SBE has more statutory authority in this than we have taken. I pointed out that the first term of our conditions in picking KIPP was for CDE to facilitate contract negotiations, but it does not appear that this has occurred; Davidson said that we were available to provide assistance, but DPS didn’t ask for it. Moloney said that CDE will report to us by next week what has happened.
We received a draft of the report we must make to the House and Senate Education Committees on the SARs (School Accountability Reports). Middleton suggested that our top concern should be mentioned first, which is that we would like flexibility in designing the SAR. Munn pointed out that the draft has changes in tone, sometimes critical, sometimes complimentary, of the SARs. I said that the result is to present contradictory impressions to the Legislature. He suggested that we need more references to the SBE. Members brought up various details that they would like tweaked. The most substantive is about changing the organization of the report, putting our most important concerns first. We need to decide what our main message is: Do we recommend continuing the SAR or not? DeHoff said some districts have suggested that we provide a template for information, rather than having the SAR, because much of the information is duplicated in the districts’ reports to the community. Polis suggested that we ask for waiver authority so the districts can do their own report rather than using the SAR. Suckla responded that such a decision may require more work for CDE to review all the different reports.
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