Legislature(1997 - 1998)
02/18/1998 08:15 AM Senate HES
| Audio | Topic |
|---|
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
JOINT HOUSE AND SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION
AND SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE
February 18, 1998
8:15 a.m.
SENATE MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Gary Wilken, Co-Chairman
Senator Loren Leman
Senator Lyda Green
Senator Jerry Ward
Senator Johnny Ellis
SENATE MEMBERS ABSENT
None
HOUSE MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Con Bunde, Co-Chairman
Representative Joe Green
Representative Brian Porter
Representative J. Allen Kemplen
HOUSE MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative Fred Dyson
Representative Tom Brice
Representative Al Vezey
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
OVERVIEW OF EDUCATION WEEK
PREVIOUS SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to record.
WITNESS REGISTER
Craig D. Jerald
Project Director, Quality Counts
Education Week
4301 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 250
Washington, D.C. 20008
POSITION STATEMENT: Presented the Quality Counts '98 Report
Bridget Keenan Curran
Senior Research Associate, Quality Counts
Education Week
4301 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 250
Washington, D.C. 20008
POSITION STATEMENT: Answered questions about the Quality Counts
Report
Lynn Olson
Project Editor, Quality Counts
Education Week
4301 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 250
Washington, D.C. 20008
POSITION STATEMENT: Answered questions about the Quality Counts
'98 Report
Commissioner Shirley Holloway, Ph.D.
Department of Education
801 W. 10th St., Ste. 200
Juneau, Alaska 99801-1894
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on the Quality Counts '98 Report
Susan Stitham
Alaska State Board of Education
Lathrop High School/901 Airport Way
Fairbanks, Alaska 99701
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on the Quality Counts '98 Report
Robert Gotstein
Alaska State Board of Education
630 West 4th Avenue
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on the Quality Counts '98 Report
Bill McDiarmid, Director
Institute of Social and Economic Research
University of Alaska Anchorage
3211 Providence Drive
Anchorage, Alaska 99508-8180
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on the Quality Counts '98 Report
Skye Rubadeau
Alaska State Board of Education
Juneau, Alaska 99801
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on the Quality Counts '98 Report
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 98-12, SIDE A
Number 001
CO-CHAIR BUNDE called the Joint House and Senate Health, Education
and Social Services (HESS) Committee to order at 8:20 a.m. Present
were Representatives Bunde, Kemplen, Porter and Green, and Senators
Wilken, Leman, Ward, Green and Ellis. Co-Chair Bunde announced the
committee had gathered to discuss the Education Week Report on
Alaska's schools with the goal of learning about perceptions of
Alaska's schools, how we got to this point, and what the
Legislature can do to improve Alaska's schools.
Co-Chair Bunde noted the following people from Education Week would
be participating via teleconference: Craig Jerald, Project
Director of Quality Counts; Bridget Keenan Curran, Senior Research
Associate of Quality Counts; Lynn Olson, Project Editor of Quality
Counts; and Jessica Sandham, Quality Counts' staff reporter.
Other participants would be Commissioner Holloway and Deputy
Commissioner Rick Cross of the Department of Education, and Susan
Stitham, Robert Gotstein, Bettye Davis, Mila Williams, and Skye
Rubadeau of the State Board of Education. Co-Chair Bunde noted the
committee would take testimony from Mr. Jerald first to accommodate
a time constraint.
CRAIG JERALD, Project Director of Quality Counts, stated two years
ago Education Week received funding from the Pew Charitable Trust
to publish a report on the condition and progress of education
reform in the 50 states. The grant followed a call from governors
and corporate CEOs at the 1996 National Education Summit for an
independent, external, non-governmental report on state progress in
setting standards, improving teaching, and making technology
acceptable to schools. Quality Counts is an independent project;
it accepts no funding from any organization other than the Pew
Charitable Trust. The judgments and evaluations necessary to this
kind of endeavor belong solely to Education Week.
MR. JERALD commented at the onset of the project, the group had to
determine the components of a high quality state education system.
To do so, the Quality Counts' team reviewed the available research,
scoured 15 years of Education Week reporting, talked to experts
across the nation, and applied a "dose of good, old-fashioned human
judgment...." The team concluded that the following five
components are most important to a good state education system:
1. clear, explicit and rigorous standards for student
achievement; a comprehensive assessment system to measure whether
students are meeting those standards; and a system to hold schools,
districts, and students accountable for meeting the achievement
standards;
2. policies on teacher licensure/certification and
professional development to make it possible to create and support
a teaching force that is truly capable of educating students to
very high standards;
3. schools that are organized and operated in a manner most
conducive to teaching and learning, where teachers, students,
parents and administrators are all focused on student achievement
and have the flexibility and support to meet high standards;
4. a finance system that provides adequate levels of
education funding where funds are distributed equitably across
districts and enough resources are spent on instruction; and
5. most important, students who are graduating on time,
taking rigorous courses, and achieving proficiency in core academic
subjects.
Having identified the components of a high quality state education
system, Quality Counts' team then constructed a system of more than
75 indicators to evaluate and grade state progress in each of the
components. Some of the data was in the form of hard numbers, such
as the percentage of education dollars that go to instruction, and
some was policy-related data, i.e. whether a state has adopted
academic standards. To measure the indicators, the Quality Counts'
team relied only on the most reliable, comparable, and recent data
available and often used the U.S. Department of Education's data
because it is the most comparable and reliable. The nation's
effort to collect data on education leaves much to be desired,
especially at the 50 state levels. However, the data reveals
something about the quality of state education systems. The
Quality Counts' team worked very hard during the past two years to
fill gaps in the nation's education data.
MR. JERALD informed committee members that the Washington-based
Council for Basic Education evaluated the rigor of each state's
math and English standards this past year at the request of the
Quality Counts' team. That evaluation is now included as part of
the report. Quality Counts believes the grades and standards,
teacher quality ratings, school climate, and resources scores
reflect either real progress or a lack of progress by states in
building a sound state education system. The states that scored
high in those four areas also showed the most improvement in fourth
and eighth grade mathematics scores from 1992 to 1996. Good grades
from the Quality Counts indicators correlate to an increase, over
time, in the percentage of fourth and eighth graders who are
proficient in mathematics, and not necessarily to the current
percentage of students who are proficient. At present, no state
has a majority of students proficient in reading, math or science,
and no state would receive a passing grade on student achievement
given what this nation now expects students to achieve. This year
no state received A's in all categories; the average grade was a
solid C.
MR. JERALD gave the following synopsis of Alaska's grades. In the
first category, standards and assessment, Alaska received a D+
because Alaska does not have a comprehensive assessment system in
place to measure student achievement. Alaska averaged a D in
specificity and rigor for its math and English standards. The
state DOE plans to put a better system in place and is considering
requiring proficiency on the ninth grade test to graduate.
Alaska received a D+ on efforts to raise the quality of the
teaching workforce. That grade was based on whether the state had
in place a system that grants licenses to teachers based on skills
and performance, rather than on time spent in education schools;
whether secondary teachers have degrees in the subjects they teach;
and whether teachers have access to and are engaged in professional
development. Alaska has taken an important step forward by
adopting standards for new teachers. However, the state has yet to
adopt performance standards or standards to determine whether
teachers have the skills and knowledge to be granted a license,
whether they are supported in the classroom, and whether they are
evaluated in the beginning years of their professional lives.
Alaska received a C- in the third category, school climate. That
grade was based on a class size of 25 or fewer students, indicators
of student engagement, such as absenteeism, indicators of parent
involvement, and policies that allow for greater autonomy and
flexibility at the local level. Alaska's C- grade reflects the
fact that it is average on all of the indicators.
Alaska received a D- in the fourth category, which pertains to
resources. That grade was based not only on a cost adjusted per
pupil expenditure, but also on whether spending kept up with
inflation over a ten-year period, and the proportion of the state's
total taxable wealth devoted to education. Alaska's grade was due
almost solely to the state's failure to keep up with inflation.
From 1986 to 1996, the public education system experienced about a
25 percent decrease in real spending after factoring out inflation.
Regarding equity of resources, Quality Counts conducted an analysis
of the variation in spending across school districts in Alaska.
After factoring out very small districts that cannot exercise an
economy of scale, and factoring out some acceptable sources of
variation in spending, such as higher percentages of poor and
special education students, or geographical areas with higher
education costs, Alaska received a grade of F. After figuring out
this analysis, Quality Counts' staff looked to what state education
officials and experts had to say. Some observers pointed out that
Anchorage has about 40 percent of the student population, yet only
receives 30 percent of the state and local education dollars.
A separate grade was given for resource allocation, based on one
indicator from the National Center for Education statistics at the
U.S. Department of Education. That statistic is the percentage of
education dollars spent on instructional incentives directly
associated with teaching and learning, such as teacher salaries and
benefits, and classroom supplies. Alaska ranked lowest among the
states and received an F in that category.
No grade was given for student achievement because Quality Counts
believed such a grade would have muddied the picture. Quality
Counts believes the best indicator, and best grade, for student
achievement comes from the National Assessment of Educational
Progress. Alaska participated in the national assessment in 1996
and the results showed that the state has a fairly long way to go
on the issue of student achievement. Twenty-one percent of fourth
graders and 30 percent of eighth graders demonstrated proficiency
in math. About one out of every three fourth and eighth graders
fell below even the basic math proficiency level in Alaska. Those
students failed to meet any of the performance benchmarks on the
national test.
MR. JERALD noted to determine the resource grade, Quality Counts
worked closely with the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S.
General Accounting Office to apply the most sophisticated
adjustments currently available to the raw finance data they relied
on in the report. It was done for geographic cost differences
using a new cost of education index developed by the National
Center for Education Statistics. Quality Counts adjusted for
special student needs to account for the higher cost of educating
poor and special education students, and small districts with fewer
than 200 students were discounted in conducting the equity
analysis. Those guidelines have currently been set by school
finance analysts.
MR. JERALD advised that it is important to keep in mind that these
adjustments, while more comprehensive than those used in other
education reports to date, are still somewhat incomplete. For
instance, data does not exist to allow adjustment for expenses
associated with educating students with limited proficiency in
English. Jay Chamber, the economist who developed the Cost of
Education Index, tried to include as many factors as he could to
account for variations in spending among different geographic
regions. Adjustments for personnel costs, including teachers and
administrators, and for different costs associated with
transportation and fuel costs were included. In some ways Alaska
is an outlier state, therefore the necessary data might not yet
exist to appropriately adjust for its unique circumstances in the
resources category.
MR. JERALD concluded by saying that the Quality Counts team does
not claim that the grades given capture all of the nuances and
complexities of any single state's education system. There is no
Dow Jones Index for education. Quality Counts hopes that states
will take a critical look at the evaluations with the goal of
sparking intelligent conversations about how to improve each
state's schools and how to raise student achievement. According to
Quality Counts' indicators, Alaska is moving in the right
direction. The ongoing attempt to update the funding system, the
attempt to create better assessments for student achievement, and
to approve standards for new teachers, are steps in the right
direction.
Number 285
CO-CHAIR BUNDE thanked Mr. Jerald and stated the committee agreed
to view this report as a catalyst to help further discussions. He
referred to Mr. Jerald's statement that no schools in the nation
scored higher than a C and questioned whether Quality Counts
created a test that no one could pass.
MR. JERALD said the Quality Counts' team believes its assessment
was fair because the grades reflect states' efforts. Data to grade
individual schools or districts is not available, therefore Quality
Counts did not give grades to each of Alaska's schools and then
calculate an average. It developed grades based on state policies
and hard data. Quality Counts believes it is possible for all
states to do well in each category and to develop a comprehensive
system of high quality schools. Four states received an A and six
states received an A- in the standards and assessments component.
In the quality of the workforce component, one state received an A-
and a number of states received B's. School climate is in some
ways the most difficult category to score well on, nevertheless a
handful of states received B's this year. A couple of states
received A's in the resources category. Clearly it is possible for
states to do well in any one of the categories; the real challenge
is to score high in all of the categories.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE asked if all five components of a good education
system are of equal value. MR. JERALD said Quality Counts did not
give a composite grade to any state because it believes each
category is important in itself. Quality Counts believes student
achievement is the most important component, and the remaining four
categories are of equal importance. MR. JERALD explained that the
indicators within each category were weighted differently, for
instance, in the school climate component, class size was worth
about 35 percent of the grade while student engagement was worth
about 20 percent.
Number 329
REPRESENTATIVE PORTER questioned what figure was used as the
baseline to determine whether Alaska had kept up with inflation.
MR. JERALD replied Quality Counts compared spending per student in
the year 1986 to spending per student in 1996, and factored out
inflation. Quality Counts calculated the amount by subtracting the
state's inflation adjustment in 1986 per pupil expenditure from its
1996 per pupil expenditure.
REPRESENTATIVE PORTER asked if that method presumed that the
appropriate spending level was the amount spent in 1986. MR.
JERALD answered that is why several indicators were used in that
category. Quality Counts looked at the current level of funding
and spending in relation to wealth, and then at whether the state
kept up with inflation over time. In a couple of interviews with
Alaskans, people expressed concern that a decline in spending in
relation to inflation might result in increased class size and
fewer classroom materials. When schools are used to operating on
a certain budget, and the budget starts to decline, it is likely
the quality of education will decline as a result.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE maintained that some legislators believe the state
was spending too much in the 1980's when it was very wealthy from
oil revenues, and now the Legislature is letting reality catch up
with the budget. He acknowledged that view is not shared by
everyone.
MR. JERALD affirmed that is a difficult discussion but said Quality
Counts believes it is incumbent on the state to do the research to
figure out what an adequate spending level is. That figure should
account for all of the components that form a high quality
education system. He repeated that school districts become
accustomed to a certain level of funding, and when that money is no
longer available, something has to give.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE remarked that unfortunately, in Alaska, that give
has not been in the area of administrative salaries. MR. JERALD
said that is why Quality Counts decided to look at the percent
spent on instruction versus administration and other costs.
Quality Counts believes it is important that 70 percent of the
resources be spent in the classroom; in Alaska that amount is about
56 percent.
Number 380
CO-CHAIR BUNDE noted that one of the criteria was to compare state
wealth to the money spent on education. He asked how Alaska
compared to other states.
LYNN OLSON, Project Editor of Quality Counts, replied that they
looked at the percent of total taxable resources spent on education
in 1995. In that area Alaska did quite well. The national average
was 4 percent, in Alaska it was 4.7 percent.
SENATOR WARD asked if Quality Counts compared the United States to
other countries. MS. OLSON stated Quality Counts was not able to
do an international comparison and establish benchmarks. In areas
such as classroom instruction, the Quality Counts' team took into
account the fact that larger proportions of education dollars in
other countries reach the classroom. That is one reason Quality
Counts felt there is room for improvement. New York had the
highest percentage of its dollars reach the classroom; that amount
was 68 percent. From that number, Quality Counts set its benchmark
at 70 percent.
Number 404
COMMISSIONER SHIRLEY HOLLOWAY, Department of Education, gave the
following testimony. She noted her appreciation for the
cooperation Education Week extended to DOE as it struggled to
determine the basis on which Alaska was judged in the Quality
Counts '98 report. In the future, DOE will be given the judging
criteria prior to the time reports are completed. DOE prepared an
analysis of Alaska's grades received in the Quality Counts '98
report based on its understanding from reading the report as well
as its interactions with Education Week staff. DOE's analysis
report was distributed to committee members.
COMMISSIONER HOLLOWAY informed committee members that during the
past three years, DOE has been working on the Quality Schools
Initiative, a project designed by the State Board of Education.
The elements of both the Quality Schools Initiative and the five
components of Quality Count's report are in close alignment. The
Quality Schools Initiative's first element pertains to high student
standards and assessment processes. The second pertains to quality
professional standards, which is what Quality Counts refers to as
its teachers' ability to teach to high standards component. The
Quality Schools Initiative speaks to school standards that are far
more comprehensive than just family involvement or business
involvement, it addresses the teaching-learning environment in
schools. DOE agrees that the components being judged in the
Quality Counts report need to be judged, and DOE wants Alaska's
schools to perform well in those categories. Over the last couple
of years, the State Board of Education and the Governor have
introduced proposals to increase funds for education.
COMMISSIONER HOLLOWAY informed committee members that DOE believes
if those programs are put into place, the probability of greater
student achievement is high. All of the standards work done in
Alaska to date has been accomplished by piecemealing federal
dollars. DOE has advocated for a comprehensive assessment system
for the past two and one-half years. The Teaching and Learning
Support section of DOE is responsible for supporting public
education; it has $5 million in general fund monies. Of that $5
million, $2.5 million is pass-through grant money. In 1985 and
1986, DOE lost $12 million in just that component. In terms of
dollars available to DOE, it is highly restricted by the resources
available to it right now to move in the direction that Quality
Counts endorses.
COMMISSIONER HOLLOWAY said the State Board of Education formed a
licensure task force several years ago. The teaching quality
component of Quality Counts' report speaks to the area that the
task force worked hard on. Induction programs, teacher assessment,
and establishing an independent board equates to long term
financial investments. One positive thing that has happened in
Alaska regarding teacher quality is that the three branches of the
University of Alaska formed a committee called the Professional
Education Coordinating Council. That Council is devising a
program, based on the teacher and administrative standards, to
prepare new teachers and to ensure that graduates leave with the
ability to teach to the student standards in place.
COMMISSIONER HOLLOWAY concluded by saying that HB 351 and SB 257,
introduced by Governor Knowles, do not address all of DOE's or
Quality Counts' components, but they do take an important
incremental step. Those bills would mandate reading, writing, and
math standards, put into place a comprehensive assessment system
tied to standards, establish a school accountability program tied
to rewards and sanctions, and increase education funding tied to
improving student performance. DOE's approach has been results-
oriented as it believes no matter what system is put into place,
the final and most important judgment has to be in terms of student
learning. DOE also believes that the Legislature, the
Administration, the State Board of Education, and other constituent
groups need to work together to improve public education and
receive a better report card in the future.
Number 478
CO-CHAIR BUNDE indicated Alaska has had a program of voluntary
standards in the past. He asked Ms. Olson if such a program met
the standards that Quality Counts had in its test.
MS. OLSON said some states, such as Colorado, have developed model
standards at the state level and then asked districts to develop
their own standards at least as rigorous as the state standards.
She pointed out that in strong local control states, the idea of
having a single set of state standards may not be the most
desirable approach. The value that Quality Counts was trying to
emphasize was that all students within a state should be held to
high standards. Measuring those standards is necessary so that
expectations do not differ radically from one part of the state to
another to the detriment of students.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE thought it fair to say that Alaskans believe they
live in a strong local control state. He asked Ms. Olson if she
was recommending that the state develop a baseline to which local
jurisdictions can add to.
MS. OLSON clarified that Quality Counts does not have a particular
recommendation; she was explaining that different states have
approached the problem in different ways.
REPRESENTATIVE PORTER stated the Quality Counts' report recommended
that teachers have a degree in the subject they teach but noted
that would be an impossibility in many of Alaska's school
districts. He asked if the report gave additional points if
teachers were certified in the subjects that they teach, as opposed
to having a degree in that subject.
BRIDGET KEENAN CURRAN, Senior Research Associate, Quality Counts,
stated that indicator is defined as teachers who have a minor or
major in subjects, such as math or math education. She did not
know whether data on the number of teachers who have an endorsement
or certification in a field that they teach in exists for all 50
states. Quality Counts' staff felt it was important that a teacher
have some background in the subject to support endorsement or
certification in the field.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE asked if Quality Counts' staff members made on-site
visits to any schools in the state. MS. OLSON replied they did not
do so in any states, but they wrote detailed narratives to try to
provide some of the context that makes each state unique. Alaska's
narrative was based on very extensive telephone reporting in Alaska
by Jessica Sandham, and from responses to questionnaires sent to
people around the state. One problem staff encountered, when
trying to get comparable information across the 50 states, was that
by insisting on comparability, some of the context was lost. The
narratives were included for that reason, and that is the reason
the Quality Counts' team continued to tell states that the grades
are summaries and that it is important to look at the indicators.
Number 551
SUSAN STITHAM, Alaska State Board of Education member, made the
following comments via teleconference from Fairbanks. Regarding
the teacher assessment component, she hoped Education Week would
consider changing that standard to indicate whether teachers are
licensed in a specific area, rather than having received a degree
alone. Although receiving a degree provides the best opportunity
to get the background knowledge, standards-based licensure, in
which the practitioner is able to demonstrate that he/she can meet
the standards, is a more important criteria to move toward.
MS. OLSON agreed with Ms. Stitham and commented that states are
undergoing a transition in the way they prepare licensed teachers.
The Quality Counts' team changed its indicators quite a bit this
year to reflect the fact that states are moving in the direction of
performance based licensure. MS. STITHAM said Alaska is ahead of
the curve on this issue. She hoped everyone could work together
to find the resources to help the students in Alaska.
ROBERT GOTSTEIN congratulated and complimented the Quality Counts'
team for its accomplishment because, like standardized tests, the
report has its flaws but is very useful. He agreed with most of
the analysis, and in particular with the statement that inflation
has had a detrimental impact on wages and professional capacities,
as well as on student-teacher ratios. About 85 percent of
educators agree on where Alaska needs to improve, therefore it is
important to focus on the things they agree upon.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE stated, regarding administrative overhead, Alaska
has many single-site schools. He asked if that situation exists in
any other state. MS. OLSON could not say offhand, but she believed
there are one-school districts in very rural areas of New York and
elsewhere. CO-CHAIR BUNDE commented he believes Alaska has 49
schools with a student population of 20 or less. MS. OLSON agreed
that makes Alaska quite unusual.
REPRESENTATIVE PORTER asked if schools with less than 200 students
were omitted from the assessment of the percentage of funds used
for instruction.
MS. OLSON replied variations in spending across districts were
reviewed in the equity analysis because there are no efficiencies
in cost in those extremely small districts. The districts with
fewer than 200 students were excluded from the equity analysis
specifically. CO-CHAIR BUNDE maintained that meant half of
Alaska's districts were probably excluded.
Number 557
DR. BILL McDIARMID, Director of the Institute of Social and
Economic Research, University of Alaska, made the following
comments. He agrees with a lot of the previous speakers' testimony
about Quality Counts' work but understands the kind of pressures
the group was under. The Quality Counts' team had to deal with
data available, and useful data was further narrowed by the fact
that it had to be comparable across states. He expressed concern
that the sum of the group's findings might be used as a basis for
deciding policy in Alaska. He does not believe it is clear that
Alaska should be compared to all 50 states and thought it would
make more sense to compare Alaska to other large, sparsely
populated Western states. Regarding the components, he stated
Alaska received a grade of D in the teacher quality component, yet
achievement data showed that Alaska ranked ninth in the country in
the number of its eighth graders who achieved at the proficient
level in math. The real measure of teacher quality could be
student learning.
MS. OLSON clarified that Quality Counts was not measuring the
quality of teachers in Alaska; it was looking at state policies
that are designed to strengthen the teaching force, and
particularly at policies toward new teachers who will come into the
profession in the future. In terms of student achievement, one
must look at progress over time, as well as where Alaska currently
stands. A pattern seems to be emerging showing that states that
are moving in the direction of, and scoring high on, the indicators
are showing gains in national assessment scores over time. Student
achievement is due in part to school efforts, and in part to the
demographic backgrounds of the students. The issue of what value
the state adds over time is an important one.
DR. McDIARMID noted when people read in the newspaper that Alaska
received a grade of D, they are concerned. MS. OLSON stated the
report is complicated and long, and it does, in some cases, get
simplified. Quality Counts tried to present a more complicated
picture of education than the public, in some instances, is used to
dealing with.
Number 577
CO-CHAIR BUNDE asked if Education Week would consider ranking
schools regionally, or in some other grouping, in the future. MS.
OLSON maintained that one could compare states within specific
regions now, since the report was based on comparable data. She
added there are pros and cons to clustering states. Education Week
did not want to send a message that different things were expected
of students in some states than in others.
REPRESENTATIVE GREEN asked if the make-up of the grading board was
primarily urban, and why the bar was set so high. MS. OLSON
replied the grades were the responsibility of Education Week alone.
They did not use an outside board to grade. She explained the
purpose of setting the bar high was to reflect the fact that states
are working hard to improve their education systems. Survey data
from businesses on student performance from the national assessment
from international comparisons show U.S. students are doing well,
although they are not where they need to be for the modern economy.
Education Week did not want to set a bar that reaffirmed the status
quo. Whether the bar was set too high is debatable and is where
human judgment comes in. Education Week was also trying to reflect
changes in states over time. For example, in the first edition,
states were given an A simply for having standards because at that
time states were just at the beginning of that process. This year,
Education Week decided to look at the rigor of those standards, and
by doing so raised the bar.
MS. OLSON said when Education Week decided how to weight each
indicator and how to put the grading system together, that decision
was made by the Quality Counts' team. There was no group of
outside people who graded states.
REPRESENTATIVE GREEN stated he was trying to find out if those
grading the states all came from an ideal setting in a metropolitan
area, and set these standard without traveling to the states. He
wondered if there was some error in first setting up the goals,
especially for the more rural states.
MS. OLSON replied they did not have an ideal suburban community in
mind when they set the goals. The Quality Counts' team selected
indicators from research findings about what makes for an effective
education system, and based on what states indicated is important
in terms of their own efforts to set standards, to develop
assessments linked to those standards, teacher licensing, etc.
DR. McDIARMID added that the various indicators represent a best
guess about what would improve teacher quality. He felt it is
important to be upset about the fact that there is not a lot of
research that shows that implementing the changes will improve
student achievement. MS. OLSON noted they drew on the best
research available and the National Commission on Teaching pulled
together the best research it could find on the relationship
between teaching quality and student achievement. She agreed that
educational research is far from an exact science at this time.
DR. MCDIARMID explained he did not mean his comments as a criticism
but rather as a disclaimer because everyone needs to be honest
about what is known and unknown.
Number 433
CO-CHAIR BUNDE asked Ms. Olson which of the criteria, if there was
improvement in that area, would have the greatest impact on student
achievement. MS. OLSON answered the team determined grades for
each category because they felt when looking at a comprehensive
education system, all of them are important, and create a delicate
balance.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE asked Ms. Olson if she would agree that reducing
class size has the greatest impact on educational achievement. MS.
OLSON said the research suggests that smaller class sizes,
particularly in the younger grades, are important, specifically for
minority students. She warned that California's experience has
shown there are tradeoffs, however. In California, class sizes
have been reduced, but as a result more inexperienced and
unqualified teachers have been put into classrooms. States, in
weighing those policies, have to look at how those tradeoffs relate
to each other.
COMMISSIONER HOLLOWAY added that she hopes this meeting represents
only the beginning of the conversation on which indicators are the
most important, and that DOE believes any plan must be designed to
be incremental.
SKYE RUBADEAU, student advisor to the State Board of Education,
thanked the committee for meeting on this issue. She thought it is
very important to focus on the plan for improvement.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE thanked the staff at Education Week and all
participants. MS. OLSON thanked the committee for taking so much
time with the Quality Counts '98 report.
REPRESENTATIVE GREEN asked Ms. Olson if she has had similar
conversations with other legislatures, and if so, whether a
"Readers Digest" version of their concerns and comments available.
MS. OLSON said Alaska is once again unique since Education Week has
not yet had a similar conversation with any other state. She
offered to share feedback from other states, if and when it becomes
available.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE thanked everyone for participating and stated he
looked forward to having a similar conversation next year.
CO-CHAIR WILKEN announced the Traumatic Brain Injury Act
presentation was delayed due to weather, and would be rescheduled.
CO-CHAIR BUNDE adjourned the meeting at 9:30 a.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|