Legislature(2001 - 2002)
05/07/2002 08:40 AM Senate 011
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 11-COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE/AK HISTORY
CHAIRMAN GENE THERRIAULT called the Conference Committee on
Senate Bill 11 to order at 8:40 a.m. Present were Senators Olson
and Wilken, Representatives Coghill, Kapsner and Stevens and
Chairman Therriault.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT noted the committee had two versions of SB 11
before it: CSSB 11 amH and CSSB 11(FIN). Members of the Senate
objected to the amendment that mandates school districts to teach
Alaska history, which was adopted on the floor of the House of
Representatives. He said the Senate would prefer to return to the
original intent of the bill. He said Representative Coghill also
offered an amendment that he felt fit into the original intent
and would be acceptable to the Senate, which deals with mandatory
attendance.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL said because his amendment was offered on
the House floor, they would have to recede from both actions to
recede from one.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said the Alaska history provision is the
cause of the problem. He asked the House members to consider
accepting a version of the bill that contains Representative
Coghill's amendment but not the Alaska history amendment. He
said without that action, the bill would not pass the Senate.
SENATOR OLSON thought it was premature to say that SB 11 with the
Alaska history provision would not pass the Senate. He said
sometimes bills he thought didn't have a ghost of a chance grew
legs and walked through and sometimes bills that made a lot of
sense to a majority of the legislature got stalled for one reason
or another and never went anywhere. He thought they all agreed
that it is important for Alaskans to be educated in Alaska
history, they just could not agree on how to do it. He understood
there were probably other ways to ensure that students coming out
of Alaska's schools know about Alaska history.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said Alaska history is taught in most school
districts on a voluntary basis.
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER said it is not taught in some of the
largest school districts.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL said another mechanism has reached the
Senate [HB 171] that requires school districts to teach Alaska
history.
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER said the reason the contents of HB 171 was
incorporated into SB 11 was to breathe new life into it because
HB 171 seemed to be dead in the Senate.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said HB 171 is in the Senate Health,
Education and Social Services Committee but that points out the
problem the Senate has with the bill. He said Representative
Kapsner presented a lot of information during a hearing that
outlined the history of the issue. She said HB 171 would not be
an unfunded mandate and noted that school districts with an
Alaska history curriculum are willing to distribute it for
possible modification by the state board of education so other
districts could use it as a model at minimal expense. He felt the
problem is already well on its way to being solved. He thought
most districts that aren't already teaching Alaska history would
probably teach it if they could do so at little expense. He
asked Representative Kapsner which larger school districts do not
teach Alaska history.
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER said Alaska history is an elective class
in most of the larger schools. The Anchorage School District
made it a requirement shortly before session started. She
thought Alaska history is especially important now because of the
subsistence issue and the looming fiscal crisis. She thought it
is important that people understand why the Permanent Fund was
set up and to clarify a misconception about the subsistence
issue. Many believe that legislators are trying to take away the
people's right to hunt, which is not what the debate is about.
She said people do not understand the basic premise of the legal
debate surrounding the Constitution of the State of Alaska.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said SB 11 is an attempt to address a very
real problem school districts are having. Parents are using the
first grade as a babysitter for their children. He said a school
of 500-600 students might have one or two children who only
attend sporadically because state law does not mandate attendance
until children turn seven years of age. Teachers have to expend
an incredible amount of time and energy to keep those children up
to speed with the class, which diverts resources and attention
from the rest of the students. He said, in addition, it is not
good for the children because they would most likely be held back
at the end of the year.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL said he aggress and one reason he proposed
his amendment is that some parents might enroll their children at
the age of six and shortly thereafter decide their children
aren't benefiting. Those parents should have the right to pull
their child out of school. He said those parents would have no
mechanism to pull their children out without stretching the limit
of the existing mandatory attendance law. He said he would be
willing to vote the Alaska history requirement out if it is going
to sidetrack the bill because it is a different issue entirely.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said Representative Coghill's amendment would
not trigger a title change.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL agreed.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVENS felt that both SB 11 and an Alaska history
requirement have great value but expressed surprise that members
couldn't agree on how important it is for students to know Alaska
history. He said it is important for students to know about the
political issues that Representative Kapsner brought up but it is
also important to know basic Alaska history. He said people are
unaware of events such as the Native settlements, Russian
colonization and World War II. He asked for an explanation of
how conference committees work.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said two Senate members and two House members
have to agree on something to be taken back to their respective
bodies. Then a majority vote of both bodies is necessary to
adopt the conference committee's recommendation.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVENS asked what would happen if they could not
come to an agreement.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said there is still a possibility that either
body could recede.
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER noted that 36 members of the House of
Representatives voted for the Alaska history amendment. She said
she understood and supported SB 11 in its original form but
thought the amendment made it better.
SENATOR OLSON asked if the original Alaska history bill [HB 171]
would pass if it was scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said he didn't know. He thought the debate
in the Senate centered on the philosophical issue of who should
control the local school districts and curricula. He said the
State mandated districts to teach certain levels of math and the
social sciences. He has heard complaints from his school district
that districts are required to fulfill too many mandates without
additional funds. He said requiring Alaska history would be
micromanaging curriculum. The legislature would not only be
telling districts they have to teach history but also what kind
of history they have to teach.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT told members that he has heard from many
constituents who say they don't understand economics or the
separation of powers in government. If he were to mandate
classes, he would mandate more civics and economics but he
believes those decisions should be made at the local level. He
said that ensuring that students learn Alaska history is a
problem well on its way to being corrected.
SENATOR WILKEN asked why members are having this meeting at all.
He said if they want to talk about mandatory attendance, they
should talk about it. If they want to talk about a mandatory
history requirement, they should do that. He didn't know why
they were talking about both at the same time. The only reason
he'd heard to explain why a good bill was hijacked for another
purpose was because the [House] was desperate. He wasn't sure
desperation would drive him to want to marry the two bills. He
was concerned that they would lose one good bill because they
couldn't move another bill. He said they should have a
discussion about Alaska history and whether it should or
shouldn't be compulsory and how it would be funded but they
should not have that discussion in conjunction with SB 11 because
it is an entirely separate issue. He said they were hurting a
good effort because they didn't have the courage or backing to
talk about a controversial issue. He said if the Alaska history
requirement does not pass, they could try again the next year.
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER agreed. She said the House had the
courage to talk about mandating Alaska history but she didn't see
the same level of commitment in the Senate. She said the Senate
hasn't held any hearings on mandating Alaska history even though
there is overwhelming public support.
SENATOR OLSON thought both issues are very important and people
feel passionately about them. He said most districts don't have
the babysitting problem but they do have the Alaska history
problem. He said people don't understand what happened in World
War II in Alaska or what the creation of the Permanent Fund was
about - many people think the Permanent Fund was set up as a
rainy day account. He said the reason they are having this
discussion is because they had a bill that people felt
passionately about on one side and a bill that people felt
equally passionately about on the other side that couldn't get a
hearing in the Senate.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL said members are talking about two
mandates: attendance and teaching Alaska history. One is paid for
and one is not. He said history is being paid for in another
area. He said if they want to talk about mandatory attendance,
they should just deal with that but that the history discussion
should be a separate discussion.
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER said if they could get an Alaska history
bill to the Senate floor, she would be happy to recede from the
amendment. She thought many House members felt the same.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said they were not going to be able to pull
the Alaska history bill out of the Senate Health, Education and
Social Services Committee without objection from the Chair. He
said people are willing to deal with the babysitting problem. If
a district with an existing Alaska history curriculum were to
offer it to be modified, he thought all districts would pick it
up and the problem would be dealt with. He thought Alaska history
is already taught in more than half of the school districts. He
thought some school districts were resisting because they felt it
was another thing the Legislature was forcing them to do. He
said if it were offered without a mandate, it would be easy for
the districts to say yes because they would have no reason to say
no.
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER said a legislative resolution was adopted
in 1988 that pertained to teaching Alaska history. That was
before she graduated from high school and she thought by now
school districts would be required to teach it. She said three-
quarters of the states felt state history is an important enough
topic that they have mandated that it be taught.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVENS said the State has not published any
textbooks except for an Alaska history textbook. He tried to use
it to teach a semester course but it didn't work very well
because it was really designed for a one-year course. He thought
they'd done a great job and there was forward movement. He
wasn't sure they wanted to change SB 11 at that point.
SENATOR OLSON said Alaska history would not be an unfunded
mandate. Chairman Therriault stated that school districts were
looking at this as another burden they would have to carry. He
said that isn't quite true. Groups that are overseeing the State
of Alaska's education system, such as the National Education
Association and school administrations, support mandating an
Alaska history course.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said a couple of years down the road when a
district says there were too many unfunded mandates and he asks
what they were, the Alaska history requirement will be one they
point to.
SENATOR OLSON said there is money for it.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said the bill had no funding source attached
to it.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVENS said he didn't buy the unfunded mandate
argument. He said they require math, reading and writing and
state history is another basic subject that ought to be required.
He had to take Oregon history in high school and he was glad that
he did. He felt the Alaska history requirement wouldn't be a
burden. He thought the argument that it wasn't going to be paid
for was hollow. He said it wasn't so unusual or bizarre for the
State to require its own history to be taught in schools because
a lot of other states do it. He said Alaska is the odd one out.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT asked if he uses his knowledge of Oregon
history now that he is an Alaska resident.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVENS said he did when he taught history.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT asked if it would have been better if he had
been required to take additional economics or world geopolitical
economics. He said the State of Alaska sells resources on the
world market and thinks people have no concept of how to sell a
commodity on the market when they tell him Alaska should just
make the oil companies pay more. He asked if a better
understanding of that process might serve Alaskans better than
knowing when the czar bought Alaska.
SENATOR WILKEN said this is a local control issue. He said
people should look at how Fairbanks taught Alaska history to see
how it ought to be done. Pieces of Alaska history were taught
throughout school. That culminated in one course, Alaska Studies:
Historical Survey of the Last Frontier and Its People. He read
the following from the course description:
During this semester survey of Alaska's history and its
people, students become knowledgeable about the
historic, economic, political, geographic, and cultural
influences on Alaska and their impact on Alaska
development from pre-European settlement through the
th
end of the 20 century.
He read five bullet points identifying the specific goals of the
course:
· Understand Alaska political, economic and military
positions;
· Examine and contrast the social and cultural differences of
Alaska immigrants and native Alaskans at the beginning of
th
the 20 century;
· Identify the major players, movements, obstacles and
legislation that led to Alaska statehood;
· Review the issue of subsistence and the legislation and
rulings regarding rural Alaska; and
· Identify and review the contributions of pioneering women to
the cultural and social development of modern communities.
He said the school board chose the curriculum to teach the
material to students. If the board said Alaska history would be
mandatory, then it would be mandatory. But they chose not to
make it mandatory. He felt a proposed Alaska history requirement
implies that school boards don't really know what is best for
their students and the Legislature does. He said mandating
Alaska history isn't a bad idea, but local school boards who are
elected to represent the students, administration, parents and
community should make that decision. He said that is why he
objects to an Alaska history requirement.
SENATOR OLSON agreed and thought that is a very respectable way
to address the issue. He applauded Fairbanks for putting forth
the curriculum and assumed Fairbanks students are well versed in
Alaska history. However, he said it is unfortunate that other
school districts throughout the state do not have the benefit of
teachers who have been in the system for long periods of time.
He said those are the districts mandatory Alaska history is aimed
at. He said they want to make sure students in the rest of Alaska
have the same opportunities as Fairbanks students.
SENATOR WILKEN said every school districts in Alaska could
mandate an Alaska history curriculum tomorrow and use the
Fairbanks curriculum.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said if a good curriculum was available to
every district in the state, each district would probably have
discuss and adopt it. He wanted to allow them that opportunity.
SENATOR OLSON said there have been 30 years of districts not
doing that. He said we lost a generation and are starting in on
a second generation of people who don't know Alaska history.
REPRESENTATIVE KAPSNER asked how many students took the Fairbanks
course.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said the course is an elective but components
of Alaska history are taught throughout grade school. He was not
sure how many students took the elective.
SENATOR WILKEN agreed that components of Alaska history are
taught throughout school and that in one of the senior classes,
civics, a two-week section on the Permanent Fund is taught. He
said a student could go through school without taking the
elective course and still learn bits and pieces of Alaska
history.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVENS noted that the State requires teachers to
take Alaska history or Alaska studies to get certified. He said
the State felt it is such an important topic that teachers should
know it to be able to teach in the state. He said there ought to
be a connection between what teachers are required to know and
what students are required to know.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT asked how long that requirement had been in
effect.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVENS said at least ten years.
CHAIRMAN THERRIAULT said he had no delusions that the committee
would resolve the issue that day. He hoped the original intent
of SB 11 didn't get lost because [sporadic attendance] is a real
problem that cannot be dealt with by local school districts and
will require legislative action. He said the committee would try
to meet again in the next couple of days.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business before the committee, the
Conference Committee on Senate Bill 11 meeting was adjourned.
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