Update on OEK

The Provo School District has been offering Optional Extended-day Kindergarten (OEK) at some schools for children who need help getting prepared for mainstream first grade. The results of this program has been very positive; however, funding for this program has run out so if it would be continued, the legislature would have to include it as a new item in the budget.

Currently, the proposal we are hearing is to allow districts to apply for Early Intervention Block Grants, which could be used for OEK, if that is how the district wants to use it. That may be a good way to fund it. The size of the grants will determine whether it is adequate.

Budget Forecast

A long-awaited report came to the Legislature this morning. As legislators were asked to make appropriations in this first half of the session, they made them with no information about how much money would be available. Meanwhile, state financial officers have been gathering data from all kinds of indicators in order to make their best guesses, called “revenue projections”. Everyone was watching for the revenue projections to give a better idea about how much tax money could be appropriated to government services. Those numbers came out today.

There are two sets of numbers. One set is one-time money. I am no expert but I believe that this is from Federal or other sources that can only be counted on one year at a time. The other is on-going funds based on income taxes or fees that will stay in place. Both sets of numbers show that the economy is recovering slowly but surely. There are more people employed and more taxes are being paid to cover the costs of government.

This is good news for public education and Medicaid. The Medicaid dollars go a long way to address medical needs of the most vulnerable people of the state. Each dollar spent by the state is matched two or three times in federal funding but the budget cuts have made even that commitment difficult.

Public Education won’t be asked to take cuts as deep as what we may otherwise seen. Still, it was pointed out, we have been falling behind for the past couple of years so it will take more than a small increase to get us to where we would like to be. And a small increase is what we have.

Student population growth has not been funded in the past two years and catching up will be very difficult. The Public Education appropriations committee claimed to have funded growth in the base budget but they were playing something of a shell game, moving funds from one education basket to another and calling it money for new student growth. Representative Mel Brown announced today that paying for growth would cost $60-million more than even the added revenue projections can cover. We are hearing that in order to pay for new student growth with new dollars, legislators would have to short some other areas of government, areas that are also feeling squeezed.

At least now, the legislators can now begin to divide the expected revenue more realistically.

Immigration legislation in the mill

If you think you know what is going on with the proposed legislation on illegal immigration, listening to the current debate on the House floor may be an interesting excursion.
I am currently sitting in the gallery and listening as the members of the Republican Caucus are anything but united. The discussions may go on for quite some time.
An "unfriendly" amendment has passed that does not allow law enforcement officers to act in opposition to their superior officers. It also removes the ability of citizens of the state to sue state agencies for alleged noncompliance.

Whether you like HB70 or not, you cannot claim that Representative Sandstrom has worked to create a racist bill. He has been very transparent in discussing the issues with voters and has been willing to tweak his bill to address concerns.
I find my own feelings about the immigration bill have changed from strong aversion to ambivalence. I admire the efforts that have gone into the struggle of addressing the problems of immigration. I also admire the efforts that have been marshaled to amend or refine it. Even the opposition, I believe, has been healthy.

I am not surprised that immigration reform is bogged down on the Federal level. If a generally homogeneous populous in Utah cannot come to agreement, how likely is it that the larger population of the country can find consensus?

Anchors Aweigh! for the Partisan-Ship

There should be some places where politics do not interfere. The church is one. School is another. I would like to think that children can be taught to read, write, and think in an apolitical way. We may have just taken a step away from that ideal.

A few years ago, the method for choosing candidates for the State School Board was changed so that a Governor-appointed committee chose the nominees, and the slate was narrowed by the Governor to two candidates, and the voters then elected one of the two. Many people objected to this system and this year Representative Moss drafted a bill to return to direct non-partisan election of State School Board members.

Direct election would allow greater participation as candidates. Keeping it non-partisan would keep control of education out of the hands of political party bosses. There were rumors from the beginning of the session that it would be amended to become partisan elections.

The bill was presented on the House floor yesterday and before any other amendment could be made, Representative Nielsen substituted the bill identical except that elections for State School Board members would be held on odd numbered years, so that they would coincide with the non-partisan municipal elections. Unfortunately, both the bill and the substitute bill were voted down, not because of opposition to direct elections but because the majority of the House of Representatives expressed a desire that the elections be partisan.

I think we can expect to see a bill later in this session that calls for partisan election of State School Board members.

Call Waiting!

SB142, by Senator Howard Stephenson, passed the Senate on Monday. This bill requires that all publicly elected officials have their telephone and email addresses available to the public. This bill also makes a point that Community Council members are included as publicly elected officials. Moreover, the contact information of Community Council members must be made available on the school’s website and in a mailing to every household with a student at the school.

The arguments in favor of this bill are straight forward: we should have access to those who represent our interests. One of the concerns of those in opposition to this bill is that having personal contact information on a website, open to anyone in the world, would discourage volunteers from becoming candidates for their schools’ community councils. Individuals who want to lobby community council members for political purpose would be able to reach any and all members. The sponsor was adamant that the contact information be for each member directly and not be routed through the school or another person or organization.

I would not oppose having the contact information of elected members of Community Councils being made available to their constituents. Perhaps this could be done by posting email addresses on protected websites. I can get information about my child's grades on a website that I must log into. Only parents of students registered for school can get to this site. That might be a good place to post contact information of volunteer Community Council members.

Report Cards

When my child comes home from school with a grade in a class, particularly a low grade, I want to know what that grade represents – whether it is missing homework or not understanding the subject matter or talking to a classmate out of turn. If the only grade information I had was a grade point average for all classes, I would not find it very helpful.

Imagine getting a report card that averaged all the grades of all the students in all the classes in the school. This would not really tell me anything about my child’s education but this is exactly what one legislator wants to do and is claiming that HB59 will provide more transparency about the school performance. In addition, the assignment of public school grades would be distributed in a bell curve. That means that they would assign a certain number of A’s and F’s, a greater number of B’s and D’s, and most schools would receive a grade of C.

We currently have information about the performance of students in individual schools based on the UPASS data. This is comprehensive information and it is available to the public. With this much information, I wonder why another grade that gives less information is necessary.

The sponsor predicts that parents with children in a school that receives a low grade will be motivated to pitch in, to help improve their child’s school. Interestingly, there are similar provisions in the very unpopular “No Child Left Behind”. When test scores are below an acceptable level, NCLB required that the parents of that school’s students be allowed to choice out of the school. It recognizes that the reaction of many adults would be to remove their children from a school that is labeled as underperforming.

Maintaining a bell curve may be tricky if the most-involved parents move their children to the highest graded schools. Raw test scores that provide the data for assigning grades would eventually be distributed on an inverted bell curve – high numbers of schools at the low and high ends with the middle dropping out. Proposals to tie teacher pay to student performance on tests would make it even more divided. I feel uncomfortable about creating an education system made up of elite and substandard schools.

Every study I have seen on student performance has concluded that the greatest influencing factor is parental involvement and home environment. Schools can overcome disadvantages that come from the socio-economic backgrounds of their students but it requires a big effort and increased financial resources.

If the Legislature wants to assign grades to schools, and wants to keep the costs of doing so down, they might just as well assign the grades based on the students’ families’ average socio-economic background. This bill would have the same effect. Overcoming the effects of poverty and social status on education requires greater funding of education than what the Legislature seems willing to grant.

The adage that “you get what you pay for” is often true. In this case, I think it would be fitting to rename HB59 to be “Grading the Legislature’s Commitment to Public Education”.

A Optional Kindergarten Day

One of the innovations that Provo District has piloted in the past couple of years is Optional Extended-day Kindergarten (OEK). Currently, children who are identified as needing assistance to be ready for Kindergarten can be placed in a longer program of Kindergarten, if the parents request it. These children are considered “at risk” because it has been shown that if a child enters regular Kindergarten behind most other students, they fall increasingly behind in subsequent years. Data from the pilot program show that if they receive the extra help during their Kindergarten year, they catch up rapidly and stay up with their peers.

There is a cost to this specialized program but it is much less than remediation and frustration for the children in subsequent years. Still, the Legislature must approve the funding for OEK and one legislator is proposing an alternative to the program. HB111 would prohibit schools from offering OEK but instead would allow Kindergarten students to apply to attend both the morning and the afternoon sessions of regular half-day Kindergarten. These students would get a repeat of the lesson material, a repeat of the activities, but with a different set of classmates and perhaps with a different teacher. OEK offers a comprehensive curriculum that brings children up to speed from their level. If you find yourself in a situation where the conversations that surround you and expectations other have of you are all over your head, does it help to repeat the instructions twice? I believe that rather than helping, this will lead to even more frustration for these at-risk children.

If you have experience with the OEK program in the past few years, your legislators should hear from you. It is important to point out that OEK is not just a matter of time in a Kindergarten classroom but a different way of teaching children who need specialized help. HB111 has not yet been heard in committee.