Legislature(2009 - 2010)BELTZ 211
03/30/2009 08:00 AM Senate EDUCATION
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Moore V. State | |
| Best Beginnings | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE EDUCATION STANDING COMMITTEE
March 30, 2009
8:05 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Bettye Davis, Vice Chair
Senator Donald Olson
MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Charlie Huggins
Senator Gary Stevens
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
Presentation: Moore v. State
HEARD
Presentation: Preparing Children for Success in School
HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to record.
WITNESS REGISTER
NORMAN ECK, Superintendent
Northwest Arctic Borough School District
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on Moore v. State.
SUE HULL, Best Beginnings
Early Learning Council Member
POSITION STATEMENT: Offered a presentation on early childhood
learning.
MARK LACKEY
Alaska Head Start Association
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on early learning issues.
ACTION NARRATIVE
8:05:41 AM
VICE CHAIR BETTYE DAVIS called the Senate Education Standing
Committee meeting to order at 8:05 a.m. Present at the call to
order was Senator Davis.
^Moore v. State
Moore v. State
VICE CHAIR DAVIS announced that the first presentation would be
Moore v. State by Norman Eck.
8:06:38 AM
NORMAN ECK, Superintendent, Northwest Arctic Borough School
District, said he wanted to commented on two issues important to
the district. Specifically, he wanted to address some of the
findings in Judge Gleason's most recent decision regarding the
Moore case and Alaska's appropriation of the federal stimulus
money.
He said that five requirements set forth in Judge Gleason's
recent decision in the Moore case impact the Department of
Education and Early Development's (DEED) plans related to
district intervention, and they have a direct impact on his
school district.
1. The first is that district intervention plans must include
attention to the content subjects that are not tested in
the State's standardized testing. This is welcome news, but
the narrow focus of the department's intervention plan on
language arts and math has been disruptive to his district.
This intensive focus has turned teaching and learning these
subjects into an unpleasant task. He thought they would
improve student learning more by including some of the
content subjects that they have already worked so hard to
align to state standards.
2. Second, he said the intervention plans to date have not
addressed the strengths and weaknesses of each chronically
underperforming district. He explained that he worked for a
year and a half with John Holst, a coach assigned to his
district by the department. As he became familiar with
their improvement efforts he recognized they were making
every effort to follow the department's directives.
Furthermore, he realized that the department's
recommendations for improvement failed to include his
district's input were frequently off the mark, and at times
a hindrance to progress.
He said that Judge Gleason recognized the value in
identifying on the talent and strengths within his school
district to design and implement an intervention program
that will help make needed gains. The decision to allow
them to be part of the solution has created new
opportunities to work collaboratively with the department
to craft lasting solutions.
3. Pre-Kindergarten education and other intensive early
learning initiatives need to be addressed. His district
needs an early childhood program taught by certified
teachers using a standards-based curriculum, and that
program needs to be fully funded by the state. This is the
single most important action the state can take to help him
improve student achievement.
4. Teaching capacity must be addressed as teacher inexperience
and unique challenges must be considered if student
achievement is to be attained. Despite all efforts so far,
teacher turnover in rural districts remains high. He
recommended three specific actions:
The Department of Education and Early Development and the
legislature should support local initiatives to increase
the number of regional residential high schools
throughout the state. The evidence is clear that the few
they have are far more successful than small rural high
schools. Schools that have critical mass and a controlled
environment enjoy high levels of student success.
Additional state resources should be directed toward
developing the technology infrastructure to improve
distance delivery of basic courses to students. Distance
delivery is the most cost-effective and efficient method
of improving instructional delivery. The public sector
and federal-rate subsidies along can't be relied on to
get this job done.
Education courses such as response to intervention,
formative assessment, classroom management for classrooms
with high numbers of intensive needs students should be
included in our state's teacher education programs.
5. The Department of Education needs to assess and improve its
own capacity to intervene effectively. Judge Gleason said
that no evidence was presented that the department has
undertaken any effort to assess its capacity to determine
what it would require to effectively assist districts and
schools to provide students with a constitutionally
adequate education. If fact, he didn't think the department
was able to provide the intervention his district requires
even though they were willing to try. Rather he felt the
department should contract with a company that has the
experience and expertise to provide an independent
evaluation of its ability to assess intervention districts.
Finally, he recommended the two best ways to improve his
district's scores would be to fund the above referenced
preschool program, and fund over and above their regular funding
formula 2 school psychologists, 3 reading specialists, 3
language -learning specialists and 11 school/village liaisons
for the next five years.
8:13:07 AM
VICE CHAIR DAVIS thanked Mr. Eck for his testimony.
^Best Beginnings
Best Beginnings: Preparing Children for Success in School
CHAIR DAVIS announced the next order of business would be a
presentation on best beginnings.
8:14:19 AM
SUE HULL, Best Beginnings, Early Learning Council Member,
offered a brief presentation on early childhood learning. She
covered three major topics: What they know about early
childhood, a Best Beginnings Update, and their 2009 legislative
request.
They know that a big part of synapses develop very early in the
brain. They also know that families matter most; they are the
most influential figures in a child's life and they set the
pattern for things that come later. Longitudinal research showed
the greatest gains for children were those that were more about
family intervention than more traditional pre-K programs.
Children, families and communities are different especially in
Alaska where there is a broad range of needs, she said. Whatever
solutions they craft should meet and address that diversity.
They also know early care system for children is fragile. This
is important because whatever they do in the area of early
childhood shouldn't undermine the existing care system. For
example, if the focus is just on four-year old programs, what
happens to pre-school programs that presently are able to spread
the cost of their program for the highly expensive infants and
toddlers to the four-year olds that are less expensive to
handle? If those four-year olds were put into a public system,
what would happen to the early care?
MS. HULL said that local control works best when local people
are involved in the decision making, and the programs must be
high quality.
8:19:28 AM
She reviewed that a few years ago they had "Ready to Read, Ready
to Learn." Then Best Beginnings was formed as a public private
partnership originally under the auspices of the Alaska
Humanities Forum, but now under the Anchorage United Way.
Significant private funds were contributed from ConocoPhillips,
the CIRI Foundation, BP and other private sources. Best
Beginnings has formed multiple work groups in the last few years
to discuss early childhood and what solutions might work best
for Alaska. The governor held an early childhood summit and Best
Beginnings received a Smart Start Technical Assistance Grant,
which is key to their work going forward. The Education Summit
that was held recently had an early childhood component to it.
MS. HULL said Best Beginnings is a public private partnership
that mobilizes people and resources to insure Alaska children
begin school ready to succeed. The model has been used in other
states quite successfully for as long as 15-18 years. It is
governed by the Early Learning Counsel, a group of business and
community leaders including two commissioners of DHSS and DEED.
She said that Best Beginnings is the only all-sector statewide
entity focused solely on early development and it is called
Alaska's Early Childhood Initiative.
MS. HULL explained that Best Beginnings has convened a wide
array of Alaskans in various work groups to make recommendations
for Alaska's early learning system involving care providers and
school districts, parents and business leaders. It developed the
Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) that will be key in
the future; it conducted a public media campaign and funded
local statewide projects such as Imagination Library, the Early
Learning Guidelines activities guides in different languages,
ABC Talk with Me in Anchorage, the Nuniaq campaign, and other
similar programs. One of the projects they developed in
Fairbanks is a website called Fairbanksfamilies.org that is one-
stop shopping for families with activities and resources.
She explained that Best Beginnings is currently involved with
developing an early learning system based on Alaskan
recommendations with assistance from Smart Start's technical
assistance center. They are working to coordinate the
development of a statewide Imagination Library Program that is
an early literacy program run by the Dolly Parton Foundation
where for $30/yr. young children get books in the mail every
month starting at birth until five years old. Ms. Parton insists
that enrollment should not be tied to payment. It's such a cost
effective way to serve children and Fairbanks now serves 2,700
after just one year. Best Beginnings is working to coordinate a
statewide program and is convening a business summit this fall
with the partnership for America's Economic Success. They are
also participating in developing the departments' Pre-K pilot.
MS. HULL said that field testing the service delivery model and
quality rating system are key for the future as well as
encouraging a variety of small effective, support activities to
address the needs of young children by thinking outside the box.
They want to increase collaboration between service providers,
state agencies, employers, school districts and others.
8:26:51 AM
She provided a list of a few providers in the arena of early
childhood learning that can have input: Head Start, the Pilot
Pre-K, Child Care, Title I Preschools, Infant learning program,
Parents as Teachers, Imagination Library, private preschools,
parent Co-ops, Parent Resource Centers, Play Groups. This could
also include health providers as it does in some states. She
showed an organizational flow chart of the model starting with
Alaska's Early Childhood Initiative going down to the topical
work groups at the local level.
She explained that dollars would flow to local partnerships in
local communities who would then distribute dollars and
coordinate services among the various providers and
possibilities within a community. This model has worked in a
number of states; it gives a lot of flexibility. Both
Commissioners are looking at how to formalize the relationship
between state government and Best Beginnings if need be.
8:29:01 AM
She summarized that the notion is to change the mindset, to
strengthen families instead of just fixing kids, to serve kids
where they are (not just get them into a program), to think
broadly about early learning (from birth to 5), to have more
options and choices for families, to look at ways of giving
people access to a diversity of things rather than one-size fits
all solutions, to think about having locals making the decisions
about what their children need most, and to partner for success
and have long-term gains.
MS. HULL said that three programs showed long term gains over 40
years: the High School Perry Project, the Chicago Parent Child
Project, and Ava Sidarian from North Carolina. All three
populations were significantly at risk and the focus for two of
them, even though they were preschool programs, was family
intervention (at around four years old). Ava Sidarian's average
entrance age was four months, not four years. So Best Beginnings
is trying to get people to think about early learning in a
variety of ways.
Next Ms. Hull went to their legislative requests either from the
general fund or stimulus dollars; the first of which is $200,000
matching with private dollars to expand Imagination Library to
approximately 13,000 children statewide; second is $150,000 to
field test the local partnerships because they are such a key
component to the early learning system; and third, $50,000 for a
public engagement campaign to help get the word out to everyone
the importance of early learning and the activities and that can
be done to help young children develop. The future is a question
that children will answer.
8:32:36 AM
MARK LACKEY, Alaska Head Start Association, Anchorage, AK, said
last summer they worked closely with Department of Education and
Early Development, to come up with a two-year plan on what
additional Head Start services could be provided and what
grantees had the capacity to serve children. This plan was
presented to the legislature prior to the beginning of session.
He said the governor had proposed an increase to Head Start
funding, the House approved, the Senate increased it to $1.6
million; so they are very encouraged about the emphasis on early
childhood education, and they have a huge waiting list.
MR. LACKEY said that with this discussion comes additional
challenges that need to be addressed. One big challenge is
professional development; another is creating a coordinated
system that allows providers to work together toward serving
more children. Another area of need is Denali Kid Care; he knows
legislation is pending, and he is hopeful. He offered to answer
questions.
VICE CHAIR DAVIS asked what the total amount of requested funds
to field test the rating system.
MS. HULL replied they originally asked for just over $1 million.
VICE CHAIR DAVIS asked what other system they wanted to field
test.
MS. HULL answered that they wanted to field test the local
partnerships where Best Beginnings would provide funds.
8:37:58 AM
SENATOR OLSON joined the meeting.
VICE CHAIR DAVIS asked the number of students statewide in the
Imagination Library.
MS. Hull replied that they just started the program in March and
registered 500 kids at the Home Show alone, then 500 more a
couple of weeks later at the Women's Show at the Carlson Center,
and then more at the State Fair. It's really taken off. It is a
national project for the Kiwanis, Rotary, and lots of other
community service groups.
SENATOR OLSON asked how much federal participation they are
getting.
MS. HULL answered none that she is aware of.
8:40:06 AM
VICE CHAIR DAVIS agreed that she is not aware of any federal
funds for Best Beginnings. She stated that the House and Senate
have passed resolutions to accept stimulus money and the
Governor has allowed her commissioners to fill out the
applications.
8:41:46 AM
MR. ECK said the Northwest Arctic School District has 12 schools
in 11 villages with no roads in between, so the stimulus money
is very important to them. Everything has to be flown in. The
money can be used also to purchase materials for students who
are academically performing below grade level as well as for
improving their technology infrastructure and better distance
delivery programs. The fact that it is one-time money is great
because they can do things that will help them leap forward.
8:43:17 AM
VICE CHAIR DAVIS said she knows people are concerned about
funding for schools, fuel and transportation and she thinks they
will come out pretty well in terms of the stimulus money.
8:44:06 AM
SENATOR OLSON said he has heard consideration of Power Cost
Equalization and how to make villages eligible (bill by Senator
Hoffman).
8:44:39 AM
MR. ECK commented that his district had to purchase its fuel at
$145/barrel last summer before freeze-up and are still paying
for that; their district expenses are about $1.5 million higher
than the year before. That is an additional $1.5 million that
does not go to children and classrooms.
8:45:46 AM
VICE CHAIR DAVIS thanked everyone for their testimony and
adjourned the meeting at 8:45 a.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|