2013 End of Session Report

*Note:  All information is current as of May 22, 2013

• House File 215 – Education Reform
• House File 489 – Insurance Division
  
• House File 620 – IEDA Tax Credit Cap
• House File 648 – Debt Reducion, Pension Obligations, and One-Time Appropriations
• Senate File 295 – Property Tax
• Senate File 446 – Health & Human Services Budget (Conference Committee Report)

To see the full House Debate Calendar, click here.

How Maryland overhauled schools while Iowa fell back

Principal: Maryland sets ‘very clear expectations’ for faculty, students. ‘There’s no room for excuses.’

By Mary Stegmeir

BALTIMORE — It’s 8:45 a.m. — just after the morning bell — and the youngsters in Noelle Hickok’s Liberty Elementary School class are hard at work.

The 4- and 5-year-olds take turns reciting alphabet letters and their phonetic pronunciations as Hickok nods approvingly.

“Perfect. My friends are ready to read,” she says.

The claim would have seemed unlikely just two decades ago.

At that time, Iowa students led the nation in reading proficiency. Maryland children performed below the national average, and students from inner-city Baltimore schools, like Liberty, posted abysmal scores on state tests.

Today, the tables have turned. After more than 20 years of statewide education reform, elementary and middle school students in Maryland outperform their Iowa counterparts in reading and math.

“Iowa is one of the sad stories of the nation,” said Eric Hanu­shek, an education researcher at Stanford University in California. “Your state had a long tradition of paying attention to schools. It was out in front. Then it sort of all just slipped away.”

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has pushed for wide-ranging K-12 education reforms to reverse the slide. But as the General Assembly heads toward likely adjournment this week, legislation remains stalled.

Iowa Education Director Jason Glass and other reform supporters point to Maryland as a possible model for how Iowa can overhaul its system to boost student achievement.

“They put the right reforms in place, stuck with them and then worked to continually improve, never being satisfied with the results,” said Linda Fandel, a Branstad education adviser.

Iowa has tried education reforms in fits and starts over the past two decades. Policymakers tinkered with teacher pay, funneled money into professional development and lowered class sizes. The moves have largely failed to improve student test scores, education leaders acknowledge today.

“They weren’t systemic (changes),” Glass said. “As soon as the political will or the money ran out, those programs vanished.”

Iowa and Maryland statistics: Click to see more

From 1992 to 2011, Maryland recorded the fastest rate of improvement in math, reading and science when compared with 40 other states in a Harvard University report published in July. The study included states that have participated in a set of rigorous national tests since 1992.

Iowa finished last.

The policies governing school performance in each state can help explain the results, said Hanushek, one of the study’s authors.

“Iowa has long resisted accountability,” Hanushek said. “There’s been an attempt in recent years to make some changes that are productive, but over the long run, Iowa’s been slow to make any changes in its schools.”

Maryland’s requirements ‘put schools on notice’

Maryland was one of the first states in the country to demand better performance from teachers and students, adopting a law in 1972 that required students to demonstrate minimal proficiency in math, reading and writing to graduate from high school.

Statewide assessments were rolled out in 1993, and results of each school were reported to the public. Iowa wouldn’t follow suit until 2002-03, when the federal No Child Left Behind Act required all states to measure student performance in math and reading.

By that time, Maryland had closely monitored performance of its schools for nearly a decade. In 2000 and again in 2006, the state took over a handful of consistently low-performing schools — something Iowa has never done.

“We put schools on notice,” said Nancy Grasmick, Maryland’s state superintendent from 1991 to 2011. “We stopped letting children be the victims of underperforming schools, period.”

Later legislation linked student progress to increased funding and spending flexibility. By 2007, Maryland students were required to pass exams in English, algebra, biology and civics to graduate, an idea Iowa lawmakers explored last year but ultimately dismissed.

“There are very clear expectations for teachers and for students and for principals,” said Jason McCoy, who leads Cradlerock Elementary School in Columbia, Md. “The focus is always on improving. There’s no room for excuses.”

Teachers’ union challenges accountability reforms

Maryland’s climb to the top was not without its challenges.

Although reform initiatives have enjoyed largely bipartisan support, state leaders at times confronted political impasses similar to the ones tying up Iowa lawmakers this session.

Iowa’s Kids: View stories, videos and photos from a yearlong Register project about the unprecedented challenges facing the state’s children

The Baltimore teachers’ union challenged the state’s ability to restructure struggling schools — a case that made its way to Maryland’s highest court, where the practice was ruled legal. Exit exams for high school students also were initially a tough sell to both parents and lawmakers.

Yet Maryland’s multiyear school improvement plan has continued to receive support and increased funding over the past decade under both Democratic and Republican leadership.

“As a people, we made the decision that education was the most important economic development investment we could make,” said Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat who served as mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007.

Early successes paved the way for continued state funding, he said.

At the local level, many school leaders received autonomy over their budgets, staffing and schedules. Their only objective: Raise achievement for all students.

McCoy, the Cradlerock principal, used that authority last year to rearrange his school’s schedule after 2010-11 test scores indicated students weren’t meeting state goals for growth in reading or math.

“We were bleeding red,” he said.

Physical education and music teachers at the suburban school now take responsibility for early morning duties, such as supervising the school cafeteria. That has allowed teachers in core academic areas an hour to collaborate, planning math, reading and science lessons.

Today, dry-erase boards in the school’s “war room” chart the progress of Cradlerock’s 499 students. A watch list tracks children receiving extra instruction in math or reading.

In 2011-12, Cradlerock students posted double-digit test score gains in both subjects.

Forty percent of Cradlerock students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, matching Iowa’s statewide rate. Iowa’s stagnating test scores over the past 20 years have coincided with increases in child poverty.

“If you look at best practices for (working with) kids in poverty, it’s just good teaching. It’s meeting kids where they need to be met,” said teacher Connie Conroy. “It’s a shift in how you think about what you’re doing.”

Former official: No school satisfied with status quo

In Maryland, even top-performing schools file an annual improvement plan with the state, former state superintendent Grasmick said.

“There is no system in Maryland where they don’t understand what needs to be happening, and where they are not ratcheting up efforts to achieve it,” she said. “No one wants to stand still. Everyone wants to push forward.”

Fandel said Maryland’s 20-year turnaround includes “a lot of lessons” for Iowa.

“Maryland is ahead of Iowa in every aspect of education reform,” she said.

Hanushek and others point to Maryland’s accountability as the lynchpin of its success. But Fandel said concurrent reforms that aligned the state’s curriculum, assessments and teaching standards were also key.

Iowa policymakers are just now beginning to develop a voluntary statewide curriculum, redesign student tests and improve measures of teachers — showing just how far Iowa has to go before it can reclaim its crown as an education leader, Fandel said.

Whether you agree with all the methods Maryland has used to improve its schools, Gov. O’Malley said, it’s hard to argue with the results.

Iowa and Maryland serve similar percentages of students who live in poverty and who are learning English as a second language.

“Public education in America doesn’t have to be one of those things where you throw your hands up and say: ‘This is way too complex to deal with’,” O’Malley said. “Yes, it’s hard and it’s not cheap; but it can be done.”

After decades of work, Maryland’s schools are enjoying accolades.

Education Week, the nation’s education newspaper of record, has ranked Maryland as the top provider of K-12 education in the U.S. for each of the past five years.

The state’s focus on college-readiness, in particular, has drawn national interest.

Nearly 28 percent of all Maryland seniors in the class of 2011 passed an Advanced Placement exam, showing mastery of college-level work. Only 9.7 percent of Iowa seniors achieved the same feat.

Maryland’s leaders acknowledge there’s plenty of work left to do. Large achievement gaps remain. Yet scores for all student groups have improved since the state began holding schools responsible for student scores.

From racial minorities to children living in poverty, all but one of Maryland’s student groups matched or outscored their Iowa counterparts on national math and reading tests. The only exception occurred on the eighth-grade math test, where low-income Iowa students performed better than their Maryland peers.

And unlike Iowa, Maryland has extra money to spend on reducing gaps between students. It won $250 million in federal funding awarded to states addressing issues such as improved teacher effectiveness. Iowa got shut out.

Maryland’s latest wave of school reform efforts focuses, in part, on reducing disparities between student groups and turning around struggling schools.

Maryland has pledged to cut in half the number of students scoring below grade level by 2017. Early results are positive.

Some of the highest-scoring schools in 2012 served populations where more than three-quarters of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

“Kids are capable of overcoming all sorts of barriers, if we’re willing to support them,” O’Malley said. “Maryland’s story shows that if you make better choices, you get better results.”

Gaps between poor students and their peers, for example, triggered a statewide mandate in 2002 that schools provide preschool instruction for children from low-income families.

Hickok and her colleagues at Baltimore’s Liberty Elementary School see the program’s value every day.

In 2003, 34.2 percent of the school’s third-graders read at grade level. Last year, 87.5 percent of third-graders passed the state reading exam.

After reciting their ABCs on a recent morning, Hickok’s preschool students moved on to more sophisticated fare — combining sounds to make words like “cat,” “hen” and “pen.”

With a little coaching, the children then wrote simple sentences.

“Look at you; you’re so smart,” enthused Hickok, earning smiles from her young charges. “You’re ready to go.”

Below is an article featured on Bloomberg Businessweek’s website on May 9th which discusses reforms made to New Haven, Connecticut public schools.  A big part of the reforms in Connecticut involved evaluations that were based on a teacher’s classroom performance as well as whether students master their subjects.

The result:  Higher test scores and higher graduation rates.

New Haven Shows How You Fix Public Schools

From Bloomberg Businessweek

By Devin Leonard

The end of the school year is usually a happy time, but not for David Cicarella, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers. He’s getting ready to have difficult conversations with some of his members, teachers who have flunked the Connecticut school district’s yearlong evaluation process. Cicarella will tell them the union won’t defend them, even if they have tenure. It’s time for them to look for another job.

Some of the teachers will yell at him. Others will tell him they have children to support and mortgages to pay. After one teacher received a termination notice, her husband tore into the union boss. “He said, ‘Our union would never let this s-‍-‍- happen,’ ” Cicarella recalls. “I said, ‘Your wife drinks on the job. What do you want us to do here?’ ”

In the last two years, 62 teachers left the New Haven school district after getting bad reviews. Cicarella, who taught math and reading for 28 years, didn’t fight to reinstate any of them. He reminds them that during their last contract negotiations with the district in 2009, New Haven’s 1,865 teachers agreed to abide by the results of the evaluations—which rate teachers based largely on classroom performance and whether students master their subjects. Cicarella helped write the rules. Instead of fighting each other, he and New Haven Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo are partners in improving the schools. “We’ve got the union right there saying, ‘We agree with the administration,’ ” Mayo says. “They’re saying, ‘We’re tired of supporting underperforming teachers, too.’ ”

The harmonious relationship between labor and management in New Haven is starkly different from many other large urban districts. Chicago teachers went on strike in September in part to protest Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s demand for evaluations. Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, frequently ridicules Emanuel in public, once calling him a “liar and a bully,” and says teachers will work to throw him out of office when he’s up for reelection in 2015. New York City schools lost $450 million in state and federal aid after Mayor Michael Bloomberg (founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg Businessweek) and the city’s United Federation of Teachers couldn’t agree on an evaluation process in time to meet a state deadline.

Everybody seems to lose in these standoffs, but the public increasingly blames unions for protecting bad teachers at kids’ expense. In 2011, 47 percent of the people who responded to a PDK/Gallup Poll said they thought teachers unions had hurt the quality of public education in the U.S., up from 38 percent in 1976. Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy think tank, argues the unions themselves are responsible for their declining public support. “They’ve resisted every reform effort that’s come along,” he says.

New Haven shows what can happen when management and labor are willing to bend a little. The catalyst for school reform in the city was John DeStefano Jr., a Democrat who’s been New Haven’s mayor since 1994. He controls the school board and has a close relationship with Mayo, who’s been superintendent since 1992. The district has challenges similar to those in other urban areas: In 2011, 78 percent of New Haven’s students were eligible for subsidized lunches, compared with 34 percent statewide. The 20,759-student district has historically fallen far short of state goals in math and reading. Starting around a decade ago, New Haven’s privately managed charter schools were shown to be vastly outperforming its public ones. At first, DeStefano was defensive. By 2008, though, he admitted the public schools were badly in need of help. “We were failing our kids,” he says.

DeStefano recruited Garth Harries, a reformer who’d worked for former New York schools chancellor Joel Klein, to come up with a plan to overhaul New Haven’s schools. Harries recommended replacing the staff at failing schools and in some cases recruiting management companies from outside the district to run them. The plan also called for greater accountability for underperforming teachers. City leaders braced for a furious reaction from the union. “Let me assure you, we thought this would be a major world war,” Mayo says.

Not so long ago it would have been. The relationship between the New Haven Federation of Teachers and the school district was once poisonous. Cicarella recalls attending union meetings where labor leaders boasted of filing hundreds of grievances against the district, sometimes for trivial contract violations. Cicarella, elected president of the union in 2007, didn’t see the administration as the enemy and wasn’t reflexively hostile to reform. He believes unions have hurt themselves by fighting to keep mediocre teachers in the classroom. “I understand this is our livelihood,” he says. “We’ve got to protect our wages and benefits. There is always going to be that part of it. I get that. But we’re not dockworkers. We’ve got kids here that we’re responsible for.”

DeStefano shrewdly courted Cicarella, asking for his advice about how to reform the schools. The union president was flattered. The mayor also reached out to Randi Weingarten, the influential president of the American Federation of Teachers. “She was very helpful,” DeStefano says. Weingarten’s blessing made it easier for Cicarella to sell the terms to his members. The union leaders spent much of 2010 negotiating details of the evaluation system with Mayo and Harries. Teachers who received an exemplary rating could be rewarded with lighter class loads and be invited to help develop the schools’ curriculums, Cicarella says. Those who scored poorly would receive coaching and other special services to help them improve. If that failed, they’d be let go.

Cicarella had to persuade his members to go along. One thing that helped: Mayo agreed to a union demand that school principals be subject to similar evaluations. “There were some fractious meetings with teachers,” Cicarella says. “They would say, ‘What about the principals? Is it going to be the same for them?’ And I would say, ‘It will be.’ ” Cicarella sat on the committee that wrote the evaluations for principals, meaning union members have a say in judging their bosses’ performance. This is unusual, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. “Unions are easy to pick on,” says Andrew Rotherham, co-founder of Bellwether Education Partners, a consulting firm. “But school management is no picnic either.” Seven principals have left since 2011.

The new system seems to be having a positive effect on student achievement. The district’s graduation rate rose from 58 percent in 2009 to 71 percent last year. Student test scores have improved, too. According to ConnCAN, which advocates for school reform in the state, the number of New Haven students whose scores have met or exceeded the goals on state tests has risen from 31 percent in 2009 to 54 percent last year. “For the past couple of years, New Haven has been among the districts that have made greater gains in the state,” says ConnCAN President Jennifer Alexander.

The question, of course, is whether the New Haven experience can be replicated elsewhere. Rotherham isn’t so sure it can. He says Lewis, Chicago’s combative union boss, has inspired teachers in other cities to take a harder line with their school district leaders. “She’s become a star of the teachers union movement,” he says. “After the strike, a lot of teachers are saying, ‘Why should we capitulate on anything? We should fight.’ ”

Cicarella says he understands why so many union leaders play the part of rabble-rouser: It gets them elected. Yet his own experience shows that people in his position don’t have to pick fights to prove their loyalty to the rank and file. Despite Cicarella’s willingness to stand by as some of his members are shown the door, teachers reelected him to a third term in December. It wasn’t even a close race: He ran unopposed.

The bottom line: Since teachers in New Haven agreed to abide by performance evaluations, 62 have lost their jobs. Their union hasn’t appealed or sued.

Click here to view the Businessweek article.

• House File 512 – Confinement Feeding
• House File 616 – Targeted Jobs Program
• House File 644 – E911
• House File 645 – Wastewater Treatment Sales Tax Exemption
• Senate File 247 – Bengal and Savannah Cats
• Senate File 338 – Background Checks for School Employees
  
• Senate File 339 – School Vehicle Inspections
• Senate File 432 – Department of Revenue Efficiency Bill
• Senate File 436 – Historic Tax Credits

To see the full House Debate Calendar, click here.

(DES MOINES) – Thursday afternoon, Republican Education Conference Committee members released a new proposal to come to resolution on education reform.  Nine concerns raised by Democrats are addressed in the new proposal.

“Republicans are focused on crafting meaningful education reform on behalf of Iowa’s students, parents and teachers,” said House Education Chairman Ron Jorgensen (R-Sioux City).  “We remain committed to coming to resolution on these issues in a timely manner.”

The House proposes the following offer:

• 2% Supplemental State Aid + 2% equivalent payment for FY14
• 4% Supplemental State Aid for FY15
• 2 year extension on the sunset for the Early Intervention Block Grant

House File 215 language with the following changes:

• Move minimum salary to $33,500
• Create comparable model language and criteria
• Local districts comparable model proposal reviewed by the commission, which makes a recommendation to the director, who will decide whether to approve. Add an appeal option to the State Board of Education.
• Eliminate Teach Iowa Marketing program (HF 214 section 43) – move the money from that program to fund the Competency-Based Provisions in the Senate language (H-1248 sections 38 and 48)
• Mentor teachers experience, move from 2 to 3 years (eliminate HF 215 section 77, subsection 7)
• Take Senate language on preschool funding uses (H-1248 section 41)
• Take Senate language on kindergarten assessment (H-1248 section 45)
• Add language to ensure that the Teacher and Administrator Development Systems must be accomplished in a collaborative manner (SAI provided suggested language)
• Remove letter grades from Attendance Center Rankings program developed per section
• Take Senate language on School District Reporting Requirements Task Force (H-1248 section 49)
• Take Senate language on Instructional Hours (H-1248 Division 1)

The Iowa Association of School Boards, Urban Education Network and School Administrators of Iowa have all backed the plan.

The Iowa Association of School Boards and Urban Education Network said:

“IASB, in consultation with the School Administrators of Iowa and the Urban Education Network, lends its support to this proposal.

The House-passed version of education reform contains many provisions important to school districts, including:

• A more comprehensive and rigorous assessment to better measure student achievement;
• Student learning as a component of teacher evaluation;
• A flexible teacher leadership framework that allows districts to submit their own proposal; and
• Home rule lite, which provides more local control and flexibility for local school boards to make decisions.” (IASB action alert sent 4/10/13).

Additionally, the School Administrators of Iowa said:

“This does seem to be a financial compromise that could be acceptable….SAI is supportive of this proposal by the House.” (SAI action alert sent 4/10/13).

The House Republicans’ plan offers flexibility for school districts, accountability to parents and protection for taxpayers.  We remain hopeful that the Senate will take our compromise under serious consideration and we can resolve this issue today.

House Education Committee Chairman, Rep. Ron Jorgensen (R-Sioux City) offered the compromise plan during the conference committee.  The details include:

• Keep intact policy language and appropriations for House File 215.
• 2 percent increase in allowable growth for Fiscal Year 2014, plus a one-time payment equivalent to 2 percent allowable growth.
• 4 percent increase in allowable growth for Fiscal Year 2015.

“This compromise plan offers flexibility for school districts, accountability for parents and protection for taxpayers,” said Rep. Jorgensen.  “I am hopeful that the Senate will take our compromise under serious consideration and we can resolve this issue today.”

The House previously passed $87.5 million in Fiscal Year 2014 and $119.3 million in Fiscal Year 2015.  The Senate originally passed $135 million in Fiscal Year 2014 and $305 million in Fiscal Year 2015. The House compromise plan is $144.7 million in Fiscal Year 2014 and $195 million in Fiscal Year 2015.

• House File 120 Administration of the Judicial Branch
• House File 492 Gaming Self-Exclusion
• House File 613 War Orphans Educational Assistance Fund
• House File 619 ATVs on Highways
• House File 621 Property Tax Appeal Board
• House File 622 Property Assessment Protest Dates
• House File 625 School Tuition Organization Tax Credits
• Senate File 142 Business Opportunities Law
• Senate File 182 Reinsurance
• Senate File 189 Risk Management Framework
• Senate File 272 DNR Registration
• Senate File 298 Definition of Sex Act
• Senate File 316 Farm Tenancy
• Senate File 317 Invasive Plants
• Senate File 332 NGEAP Administration
• Senate File 380 Spirits in Charitable Auction
• Senate File 384 Police Radios and Interference
• Senate File 419 Vision Screening

To see the full House Debate Calendar, click here.

Southeast Polk superintendent Craig Menozzi said that “Allowing the professionals to control the instructional time can make learning experiences much more meaningful.”  In addition, the change would allow schools flexibility when determining their yearly calendars.

To read caucus staff analysis on House File 352, click here.

To read the full Des Moines Register article, click here.