Legislature(2021 - 2022)SENATE FINANCE 532
02/15/2022 09:00 AM Senate FINANCE
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| SB111 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| += | SB 111 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE
February 15, 2022
9:04 a.m.
9:04:47 AM
CALL TO ORDER
Co-Chair Bishop called the Senate Finance Committee meeting
to order at 9:04 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Click Bishop, Co-Chair
Senator Bert Stedman, Co-Chair
Senator Lyman Hoffman
Senator Donny Olson
Senator Natasha von Imhof
Senator Bill Wielechowski
Senator David Wilson
MEMBERS ABSENT
None
ALSO PRESENT
Heidi Teshner, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Education
and Early Development; Deborah Riddle, Division Operations
Manager, Division of Innovation Education Excellence,
Department of Education and Early Development; Susan
McKenzie, Director, Division of Innovation Education
Excellence, Department of Education and Early Development;
Senator Shelley Hughes; Senator Tom Begich.
SUMMARY
SB 111 EARLY EDUCATION; READING INTERVENTION
SB 111 was HEARD and HELD in committee for
further consideration.
SENATE BILL NO. 111
"An Act relating to the duties of the Department of
Education and Early Development; relating to public
schools; relating to early education programs;
relating to funding for early education programs;
relating to school age eligibility; relating to
reports by the Department of Education and Early
Development; relating to reports by school districts;
relating to certification and competency of teachers;
relating to assessing reading deficiencies and
providing reading intervention services to public
school students enrolled in grades kindergarten
through three; relating to textbooks and materials for
reading intervention services; establishing a reading
program in the Department of Education and Early
Development; relating to school operating funds;
relating to a virtual education consortium; and
providing for an effective date."
9:06:55 AM
HEIDI TESHNER, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT, relayed that the testifiers would
discuss the departments ideas for implementation of SB
111. The legislation was called the Alaska Academic
Improvement and Modernization (AAIM) Act. The bill had
multiple components for implementation, and they would
share what was being done and the steps for moving forward
to fully implement the bill. She elaborated that the bill
provided an exciting opportunity to make important and
positive changes to Alaskas educational system and if
enacted, the bill would ensure success for all Alaskas
students. The bill established a statewide policy for
ensuring access to universal voluntary Pre-Kindergarten
(pre-K), a statewide Parents as Teachers program, and
guarantee early learning reading intervention services to
ensure universal culturally responsible access to every K
through third grade reader. In addition, SB 111 ensured
that the proposed virtual education consortium builds on
current efforts. She pointed out that the Department of
Education and Early Development (DEED) valued and would
rely on the states Board of Education extensive public
process for writing regulations to implement statutes. She
notified the committee that the department did not have all
the answers regarding who qualified for the early education
grant program or which districts were qualified to enroll
into the foundation formula as half-time Average Daily
Membership (ADM) due to processes and regulations that
needed implementation to fully provide the data. She
furthered that DEED would work closely with the state board
and other education stakeholders. The department would
embrace the state boards public process because it
resulted in more effective implementation with school
district partners. She indicated that bill had 5 fiscal
notes with fiscal impact and was a huge lift for the
department that required it to expand its capacity. She
furthered that she provided the committee a high level
outline for the meeting and planned to discuss the areas of
the bill that directly impacted students: early education
programs, comprehensive reading intervention programs, and
the virtual educational consortium.
9:10:53 AM
Ms. Teshner stated that there were two components of the
bill that would not be addressed in the presentation:
teacher training and preparation, and accountability. The
components were still under development.
9:11:42 AM
Co-Chair Stedman remarked that he was not familiar with the
intricacies of education but observed from a prior hearing
on the bill that the state ranked last in eighth grade
reading and fifth in third grade reading and towards the
bottom in mathematics out of 50 states. He wanted to know
if the proposals were a solution to the problem that he
wanted to fix. He requested information regarding the
districts' statewide rankings and their trends over the
last several years. He wanted to appropriate the money to
where it was most needed. He was confident the problem laid
in the rural northern areas of the state. He encouraged the
department to share its solutions to the problem. He
characterized the states schools scores as alarming. He
found it unacceptable that Alaskas students were scoring
last out of 50 states. Ms. Teshner replied that she hoped
that the other department staff would be able to provide
the answers. She agreed that students scores needed to
improve.
9:15:31 AM
Senator von Imhof remarked that one of the steps of being
able to address the problem is to first identify the
problem of students not reading to the national standard.
She wanted to know the reason why and where the problem
existed. She remarked that the solution in the bill called
for reading interventions and to identify the worst
performing schools and provide more resources. She wondered
whether DEED knew if the approach worked. She referenced
the national data that from 2003 to 2019 eighth grade
th
reading was steady and dropped precipitously as well as 4
grade reading. She deduced that COVID affected Alaska worse
than other states according to the data and wondered
whether it was COVID or something else. She stressed the
th
sharp drop in 4 grade reading levels and asked why it
happened and why DEED believed that its intervention plan
would solve the problem.
9:17:28 AM
DEBORAH RIDDLE, DIVISION OPERATIONS MANAGER, DIVISION OF
INNOVATION EDUCATION EXCELLENCE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT, replied that in 2012 the state
adopted new content standards for reading and mathematics
and in 2013 a new assessment based on the new more rigorous
standards was implemented. She believed that was a reason
for the drop in scores.
9:18:10 AM
Senator von Imhof ascertained that if the state adopted
more rigorous standards the teaching should have become
more rigorous, and students would be closer to the National
Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) average. She
wondered how a more rigorous curriculum could make the
students perform worse than before they were adopted.
9:18:56 AM
SUSAN MCKENZIE, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF INNOVATION EDUCATION
EXCELLENCE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT,
appreciated the question regarding why it was happening.
She pondered the same question and spent the last six
months researching for the answer. She was still learning
all the reasons. She referenced a reading survey DEED sent
out to all districts that alluded to what was happening at
different district and school levels. She was also engaged
with the states education service agency to disaggregate
all the assessment data to determine where it was happening
and discern why it was happening. She felt that there was a
lot left to learn.
Senator von Imhof asked what the results of the survey was.
Ms. McKenzie replied that she did not have the survey in
front of her but remembered that there was a variety of
curriculum being used in the state by different schools,
which might offer useful information. She learned that
there was a variety of different screening assessments for
the K-3 district students and some districts were not
progress monitoring. She discovered that districts were
using a variety of interventions and offering professional
development. She questioned whether consistency was an
issue.
9:21:54 AM
Senator Wilson determined that there was a lack of
standardization and consistency. He wondered whether the
department was still in favor of local control. He had
heard inconsistency was a problem.
Ms. Teshner responded that local control was necessary in
some respects but might not be the best method when
ensuring reading success. She offered that the department
would discuss the issue if the bill was enacted.
9:23:37 AM
Senator Hoffman asked if there was anything in the bill
that eroded local control.
Ms. McKenzie replied that there were some options in the
bill that provided menus for intervention materials for
districts that were struggling in addition to curriculum
support but still allowed the districts some local control.
9:24:30 AM
Senator Olson wondered whether the information included
private schools.
Ms. Teshner answered that it was solely public school data.
Senator Olson believed that the data was alarming.
9:25:37 AM
Ms. Riddle discussed the current plan for early education.
She explained that currently there were two program
managers for early learning: a state funded program manager
and a Head Start liaison. The department provided oversight
for four different programs. She elaborated that the pre-K
grants were voluntary and comprehensive based on 4 and 5
year old students with 17 grantees serving 714 students.
She mentioned the Head Start and Early Head Start grants
that DEED supported with a General Funds (GF) match of
about 13 percent. The grants served 17 grantees in 98
communities serving 3,469 students. She highlighted the
Parents as Teachers program supported by DEED with 5
grantees serving 164 students. She underlined the Best
Beginnings program that provided books to students through
the Imagination Library as well as Little Learner Camps
serving 324 students.
She continued with the resources the department provided.
She offered that in the prior year early learning
guidelines were adopted by the State Board of Education as
a set of standards from birth through kindergarten that
were culturally responsive and aligned to current
standards. She elucidated that the department utilized a
pre-K assessment called Core Advantage that was provided
to all pre-K grantees and Head Start grantees in the state.
The Alaska Developmental Profile, which was a kindergarten
assessment, was required for all kindergarteners when they
began school. The department also had pre-elementary
activities and program goals that were provided to all
grantees.
9:28:12 AM
Senator Olson voiced that his four year old twins were
enrolled in Head Start and he was impressed with their
reading skills.
9:28:52 AM
Co-Chair Stedman wondered whether DEED would provide the
status of all the districts. He requested that the
commissioner attend a future committee meeting and share
the data in order to focus on the solution. He wanted state
funding to make a difference.
9:30:13 AM
Co-chair Bishop referred to the programs available for
early education and asked if they were all grants and not
programs for all children in every district. Ms. Riddle
answered that when DEED provided pre-K grants, they also
provided some oversight through a program manager that
approved the budget and programming. She added that the
funds for the other grantees were in support of their
specific programs. Co-chair Bishop reiterated his question
regarding whether every district participated in the
programs. Ms. Riddle replied in the negative. Co-chair
Bishop deemed that it likely contributed to the problem.
9:31:29 AM
Senator Wielechowski was still listening for the answers to
Co-Chair Stedmans and Senator von Imhofs questions. He
wanted to hear a definitive answer and believed that it was
time for a frank discussion because the problems were
serious. He asked what the top indicators of children
performing well in school were.
Ms. McKenzie replied that there were many factors that
affected a childs progress at school. She listed poverty,
demographics, adverse childhood experiences, limited
parental involvement, disabilities, language barriers, etc.
She emphasized that addressing the problems was a science
that was developed over the last 40 years. She discussed
teacher development and preparation as a skillset based on
the science of reading that she had observed helped
children become successful readers. She expressed certainty
that what was developed for helping children read worked.
She voiced that many of the tools from the science of
reading were included the bill. She mentioned the prior
discussion regarding local control and determined that
working with the districts on their assessments and pairing
the needs with an intervention based on the science of
reading and specific to what the individual child needed
was essential. She viewed it as a first step in solving the
problems.
9:35:49 AM
Senator von Imhof surmised that teacher preparation and
teacher development was important and wondered whether it
was being done since 2015, when fourth grade and eighth
grade reading began to significantly decline. She wondered
what efforts were done in the areas statewide from 2015 to
the present. Ms. McKenzie remarked that she could only
answer from the time she began working for DEED. She
thought that what had been done in the last 6 months was
significant. She noted that the Alaska Reading Playbook was
recently completed with a series of webinars contributing
to professional development. She elaborated that the
division was working with NWEA [it did not correspond to an
acronym] and the Consortium on Reading Sciences to offer a
science of reading class online that was currently full at
100 participants. The department was offering two classes
based on the science of reading, one for administrators and
one for teachers. In addition, the department would host a
science of reading symposium at the end of April 2022.
9:38:49 AM
Senator von Imhof asked for the department to provide the
answer prior to Ms. McKenzies tenure. She commented that
the school district had the Performance Evaluation for
Alaska's Schools (PEAKS) data, which was the annual April
school assessment. She shared that her office obtained the
data from 2016 to 2021 that was available per district, per
school, and per grade from third through tenth grade in
math and language arts. She noted that DEED collected all
types of demographic data. She assumed that DEED looked at
the data and its trends over time. She wondered whether
anyone had analyzed the data and seen trends up or down,
and then had discussions with the teachers to identify the
strengths and weaknesses across the state. She shared that
she had engaged in the conversations, and it was
illuminating and detailed. She wondered whether DEED
performed that detailed analysis and if so, could they
present the information. Ms. McKenzie replied that she was
currently engaged in the analysis and would present it in
the future.
9:41:43 AM
Senator Wilson queried what barriers the school districts
faced for applying the techniques. Ms. McKenzie responded
that many of Alaskas teachers came from different states,
and some were not well educated in the science of reading.
She addressed leadership and offered that if school leaders
were versed in the science of reading it enabled teaching
it in the school. She emphasized that teachers needed
leadership and training and that curriculum played a role.
9:43:52 AM
Co-Chair Bishop interjected that she described a hiring
issue at the local level regarding reviewing the resume of
the teacher.
Senator Wilson suggested teaching school board members the
newest science of reading practices so that districts know
their importance and adopt them as best practices. He
wondered whether the state board was engaged in the
process. Ms. McKenzie strongly agreed with Senator Wilsons
comments. She stated that was the reason for the symposium
where one of the goals was to instruct participants on what
the science of reading was, and the second goal was how to
move the dial. Senator Wilson recommended required
attendance and thought that more accountability was
necessary to justify more spending. He asked about the
early reading programs and wondered which one worked the
best since they all had a different price tag.
9:46:17 AM
Ms. Riddle responded that Head Start was the most
successful early childhood program and the department had
the most data on the program. Senator Wilson spoke of the
cost of each program. He referenced statistics that Head
Start cost $2 thousand per student, Parents as Teachers
cost $3 thousand and Pre-K cost $4.5 thousand per student.
He wondered why Head Start was not being expanded since it
was effective, and it cost less. Ms. Riddle relayed that
she had not heard him include pre-K in Senator Wilsons
question and answered that the department had the most data
and oversight over pre-K and obtained the Head Start data
from the federal government. Senator Wilson stated that he
did not receive a clear answer regarding which program was
most effective and asked for the department to follow up.
9:48:31 AM
Senator von Imhof cited that as of FY 2022, $3.2 million in
funds for 714 students in 17 school districts had been
awarded. She wondered about data for pre-K grants. She
asked what data was available and whether it was collected
and compared to Head Start grants. Ms. Riddle agreed to
provide the information to the committee and stated that
she misspoke earlier and had as much data about pre-K.
Senator von Imhof requested trend lines over time and an
analysis that compared and contrasted programs to determine
what program provided the best bang for the buck and
analysis on how dollars were used.
9:49:59 AM
Co-Chair Stedman recognized that solving the problem would
be expensive and wanted the funding directed at the
solution. He referenced the significant amount of funding
coming to Alaska for broadband and he wanted the department
to examine whether lack of communication was part of the
issue in some school districts. He hoped to direct funds to
areas of the state that experienced more broadband
challenges. He wondered whether there was a correlation.
Ms. Teshner responded that the department reached out to
school districts asking about broadband capacity for
assessments. She offered that the department had not done
an analysis of the correlation between learning and
bandwidth and would investigate the issue.
9:51:46 AM
Ms. McKenzie spoke to how the department would implement SB
111 as it pertained to early learning. In addition to the
already adopted early learning guidelines for early
education, the state Board of Education would need to adopt
standards for approving early education programs. She
delineated that the standards would be a set of criteria
DEED would use to measure and approve early learning
education programs. She exemplified that one standard
would align an early learning program with the emphasis on
early literacy concepts. Besides adopting standards, other
steps for implementation would include compiling a list of
early learning programs that would be evaluated by the set
of standards adopted by the state board. A process would be
developed for providing .5 ADM to districts that utilized
approved programs and funding would be implemented. She
furthered that a supervision and monitoring process would
be developed for approved early education programs.
9:53:35 AM
Ms. McKenzie continued her remarks. She indicated that
another step taken would be to begin or improve early
education programs by determining which districts were
eligible for a three year grant. Prioritizing the grants
would be determined by using the existing accountability
system and keeping within the $3 million annual budget. She
reminded the committee that districts were eligible if DEED
determined that an insufficient number of children attended
high quality childcare programs. High quality would be
determined by the programs meeting or exceeding the set of
standards. She noted that the last factor in eligibility
was to ensure the existing programs would continue to
operate after a district early education program was
established. The goal was not to replace high quality
programs. She provided an example of grant eligibility - a
village program that had high quality standards but could
not accommodate all its children. She stated that how long
it took to establish early learning pre-K programs in all
of Alaskas schools depended upon approval, priority,
funding, and interest as participation was voluntary.
9:55:33 AM
Senator Wilson asked about the standards and what would
happen if some districts opted out. Ms. McKenzie responded
that DEED would adopt a set of criteria that would
determine whether an existing program was approved. She
explained that the department would examine each existing
program and use the criteria to decide whether it was
acceptable. Senator Wilson reported that currently school
districts were not required to submit daily attendance
records to the state. He wondered how DEED would obtain the
records. Ms. McKenzie replied that she did not discuss
daily attendance however, she acknowledged that districts
were required to submit attendance records.
Ms. Teshner interjected that when DEED took the regulations
to the state board, they would include the steps the
districts had to take to be accountable.
9:57:45 AM
Co-Chair Bishop asked how long Ms. McKenzie had been
working in education and her background information. He
wondered whether she was new to the department. Ms.
McKenzie answered that she worked for 39 years in
education. She listed the positions she held: teacher,
special education teacher, Title 1 reading specialist,
principle at all grade levels, special education director,
and district superintendent. She clarified that this was
her first year with DEED. Commissioner Bishop recognized
that she worked for the department for 5 months but spent
her lifetime in education.
9:58:36 AM
Senator von Imhof ascertained that the committee wanted the
testifiers to start with a story. She suggested the story
start with what was currently happening in Alaska, its
successes, weaknesses, and progress and identify where
additional resources would help. She asked Ms. McKenzie to
share data and stressed that the state had limited funding.
She wanted to make targeted investments. She wanted more
much more relevant details regarding the key and strategic
investments the bill offered to move the needle towards
improvement. She asserted that she had not heard the
answers in the discussion and offered to work with Ms.
McKenzie.
Co-Chair Bishop opined that the departments commissioner
or deputy commissioner should testify in response to
Senator von Imhofs request.
10:01:48 AM
Senator Wielechowski agreed with Senator von Imhofs
remarks and wanted to better understand the history of the
issue. He relayed that Senator Begich was involved in the
Moore lawsuit and believed that an explanation of the case
would be helpful.
10:02:56 AM
SENATOR TOM BEGICH, SPONSOR, observed that the testimony
lacked the larger context of the lawsuit. He related that
the Moore lawsuit was filed by the Citizens for the
Educational Advancement of Alaskas Children of which he
was a member. The lawsuit was successful, but it took two
years of litigation. He elaborated that experts testified
from all over the state and DEED testified at length. The
federal judge, Judge Sharon Gleason, ruled that the state
had failed to meet its responsibility to public education.
He emphasized that SB 111 came from those involved in the
Moore lawsuit and not the department. The lawsuit
identified that the state had failed to ensure that each
school districts curriculum aligned to the states
standards. He noted the prior discussion regarding
consistent standards and stated that inconsistent standards
were part of the reason the lawsuit was successful. The
ruling stated that the state failed to pay attention to
content areas that were not covered by the states testing
and programs. In addition, the court ruled that the states
interventions were limited in scope and had not addressed
the specific strength and weaknesses of the underperforming
districts regarding meeting the constitutional criteria for
establishing an education. The court ruled that the state
had not considered pre-K and other intensive learning
designed to prepare students to learn and the states
intervention failed to address teaching capacity due to
high turnover. He emphasized that all the findings were
incorporated in the bill. The current department leadership
was not the leadership involved in the original lawsuit. He
indicated that what the bill tried to achieve was to answer
the question why the students were performing poorly and
what could be done to solve the problem. He shared that
Judge Gleason and the experts had outlined what could be
done to address the problems, but the department had lacked
the capacity to achieve the solutions. He suggested viewing
the broader picture that he interpreted as the solutions
lied in the evidence of what was currently known to work.
He continued by addressing Senator von Imhofs request for
data. He stated that the state had the data that could be
found in the Early Learning Coordination document that was
on BASIS. He emphasized that the department had the
information and showed all the early learning outcomes,
kindergarten preparedness, and pre-K grants outcomes. He
countered that the bill was built on exactly the answer to
the question asked in the Moore lawsuit, which was what
were the things that could be successfully accomplished to
properly educate Alaskas children. He furthered that in
analyzing that question over the last decade the state
identified a number of areas that were successful. The case
spoke to the areas of accountability, content standards,
and concluded that local control was important but had to
be responsive to the requirements laid out by DEED. He
commented that how local school districts carried out the
departments requirements was designed locally but DEED had
a role to ensure the curriculum met the highest standards
and that was lacking. He offered to share his notes on the
case with the committee.
10:08:04 AM
Senator Hoffman wondered what the state was purchasing
for the significant cost of the legislation. He asked
whether the proposal included evaluations, benchmarks, and
targets. He stated that the state was already spending the
highest per capita on education in the country. He deduced
that the committee needed the answers concerning its
expectations of success.
10:10:36 AM
Senator Begich replied that the bill was replete with
strong reporting requirements from school districts
annually and spoke to the establishment of an evaluation
team comprised of early learning experts. He informed the
committee that it took four years to demonstrate adequate
progress in reading. The annual review would provide the
answers to what was working on statewide and district wide
levels. He offered that the provisions were the first time
measures and outcomes were required in legislation. He
hoped that an amendment was added to the bill that required
the department to be accountable to the public as well. He
agreed that if the bill lacked accountability it was a
waste of money. The annual review process would determine
whether the bill was accomplishing what it was designed to
do.
10:12:57 AM
Senator Hoffman commented that regardless of the bill, he
hoped that DEED had plans to improve education since the
state was testing at the bottom. He believed that the
department should find the current situation unacceptable
and should adopt a plan regardless of the bill. He asked if
Senator Begich agreed with his statement. Senator Begich
replied in the affirmative. He added that DEED identified
actions they were working on that were built from the
concepts in the bill. Senator Hoffman stressed that SB 111
should include explicit expectations for improvement
targets and thought that was lacking in the bill. He
reiterated his question regarding benchmarks and what
defined success. Senator Begich replied that he would defer
to the department whether it was possible to set specific
benchmarks and added that there was no limit to what could
be included in the legislation. He deemed that a realistic
goal could be established. He recommended asking the
department.
10:16:09 AM
Ms. Teshner interjected that the Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA) provisions included targets. She exemplified that
the proficiency for English language should be 70 percent
by the 2026 2027 school year.
10:17:34 AM
SENATOR SHELLEY HUGHES, SPONSOR, addressed the concerns of
the Senators. She shared that the state had not had
intensive reading intervention strategies, so state data
was lacking. She indicated that the data for the solutions
in the bill came from other states and the sponsors found
it was necessary to identify programs that worked. She
exemplified Mississippi and noted that the state ranked in
the bottom 10 percent and within 5 years the state ranked
in the top ten. She stated that it took at least 5 years to
see results because the students had to begin in
kindergarten and advance through grade 4. She believed that
it was reasonable to set a goal of 5 years. She noted that
impoverished students and students from different ethnic
groups increased their proficiency in multiple states and
believed that it demonstrated evidence that the proposals
worked. She furthered that the teachers in Mississippi
admitted that they lacked instruction in the science of
reading and once they received the training the states
improved ranking demonstrated that it helped students.
10:20:51 AM
Senator Olson cited an opinion published by the Bush Caucus
on the bill that was unfavorable towards the approach in
the legislation. He wondered whether the sponsors had
comments on the issue. Senator Hughes replied that she did
not question the concerns raised by the caucus regarding
the students in their districts. However, she believed that
the information the caucus had was lacking and incorrect
regarding SB 111, which made the conclusions erroneous. She
deferred further answer to Senator Begich.
10:22:11 AM
Senator Begich specified that the House rural caucus
members and the First Alaskans Institute wrote the article
for the Alaska Daily News that made incorrect statements
and he wanted to correct the record. He indicated the
article stated that the bill was English language only and
that was incorrect. The bill supported the local
development of language education. He cited references in
the article to high stakes testing and noted that the
fault for that perception rested with the bill and
testifiers misusing the words tests and assessments.
The provisions referred to screeners that were simple one
minute tools used to identify if a student was struggling
with a specific task, whether it was in Yupik, Spanish,
English, etc. and placed an intervention for the child if
necessary. He emphasized that the bill was not replete with
high stakes testing which was antithetical to what the bill
was trying to accomplish, reading proficiency. He noted
statements that the bill eliminated local control and
commented that on page 25, line 22 of the bill that allowed
local control of the screeners. Finally, he specified
comments in the article that the bill took away the power
of parents. He remarked that it was not the case and the
bill allowed for parents input. He believed that a deeper
issue was that the Moore case demonstrated that there was a
lack of faith that the department could deliver on
education, and it lacked follow through on prior
legislation. He heard from school districts asking what the
proof for things like cultural responsibility was. He
assured the committee that the bill considered all
viewpoints. He was troubled that the implication was the
sponsors were not paying attention and emphasized that they
had. He shared that Alaska had standards from the 1990s
that were established for Alaska Native Cultural
Responsibility and Competency in the classroom that were
written by elders but had not been updated since then. He
spoke to the need to update the standards and felt that
could be accomplished in the bill. He wanted to update how
the concepts of parent and guardian were defined to reflect
societal changes. He suggested that increasing the
engagement of the indigenous population in formulating
evaluations would be beneficial. He offered that reading
specialists were an integral part of the bill that would be
DEED employees placed in districts. He noted that the
article implied that the positions would be an unfunded
mandate for the districts. He cited issues around writing
the regulations if the bill was adopted and suggested
including a provision requiring regulation review by the
bills stakeholders. He reported that he was initially
embarrassed and angered by the article until he realized
that he was not listening very well and believed the bill
could incorporate ideas outside the context of the
sponsors.
10:29:07 AM
Senator Wilson asked whether all districts had the capacity
to perform the reporting requirements or would the
department provide technical assistance to help the
districts.
Ms. Riddle answered that DEED currently collected data from
the districts and had systems set up to provide technical
assistance and training and the bills reporting
requirements would be added to the established systems.
Senator Wilson clarified that the department would provide
the capacity for the reporting requirements. Ms. Riddle
replied in the affirmative.
10:31:49 AM
Co-Chair Stedman followed up on Senator Hoffmans comments.
He was not convinced that the states scores could not
decrease further, but the rankings would not reflect it
since the state was ranked the lowest. He recognized that
the state had severe financial constraints and was
uncertain whether that affected the rankings. He stated
that there was interest in increasing the states education
spending. He wanted to hear from the commissioner regarding
all that the department was doing to address the issue and
its thoughts on the legislation and how success would be
measured. He assumed that the status quo was not acceptable
to the department and wondered whether it was internally
developing a response.
10:34:40 AM
AT EASE
10:36:25 AM
RECONVENED
10:36:31 AM
Senator Wilson wondered whether the commissioner would be
agreeable to setting up a taskforce to address increasing
the Base Student Allocation (BSA), so it was not and ad
hoc increase and it benefitted all districts.
10:37:15 AM
Senator von Imhof felt that there should be a question of
how the Base Student Allocation (BSA) translated to
results. She wanted to discuss the structural, financial,
and accountability elements and how it intermingled with
the BSA formula. She did not believe the issue was solely
the BSA.
10:38:17 AM
Co-Chair Bishop requested historical data, specifically to
Alaska's rankings.
10:38:40 AM
Co-Chair Bishop discussed committee business.
10:39:24 AM
AT EASE
10:39:38 AM
RECONVENED
Co-Chair Bishop cancelled the afternoon's meeting.
SB 111 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.
ADJOURNMENT
10:39:56 AM
The meeting was adjourned at 10:39 a.m.
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