Legislature(2003 - 2004)
04/29/2004 04:12 PM Senate STA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
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+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
CSHB 405(EDU)-SCHOOL PERFORMANCE DESIGNATION/REPORT
CHAIR GARY STEVENS announced CSHB 405(EDU) to be up for
consideration.
CODY RICE, staff to Representative Carl Gatto, testified that the
bill is a clean up measure to ensure that the state has a designator
system that is consistent with the federal system under the No Child
Left Behind Act, which would eliminate the risk of losing federal
funds.
CHAIR GARY STEVENS summarized that this would simply bring
consistency to the system.
MR. RICE said one other provision may or may not be controversial
and that is the repeal of the "Thick Report."
SENATOR GRETCHEN GUESS stated that she had a number of questions and
reservations about the bill. To begin with she asked someone to
point out where the act dictates that the state must exactly use the
federal accountability system.
NEIL SLOTNICK, assistant attorney general representing the
Department of Education, explained that there is not a requirement
in the No Child Left Behind Act that mandates that the state adopt
the terminology found in the federal law. The reason for the bill is
to clear up any confusion associated with using different
terminology.
AS 14.03.123, requires an accountability system with terminology and
designations given to schools that meet various levels of
accountability. The state board adopted an accountability system
that is consistent with both No Child Left Behind and AS 14.03.123,
but the terminologies don't mesh. Because people were already using
the federal terminology, it became clear that using the state
designator system as well would be too confusing.
CHAIR GARY STEVENS clarified that there are four labels under state
law and five labels in No Child Left Behind so it would be difficult
to mesh the two.
SENATOR GUESS further clarified that there are five labels for Title
I and three labels non-Title I, but there aren't any labels for
"distinguished" or "successful" designation. It's clear that the
systems are different, but she questioned why they repealed AS
14.03.123 instead of simply adding more labels to the statute.
MR. SLOTNICK replied the bill actually repeals the statute then
rewrites and readopts AS 14.03.123 keeping the substance in place,
but making it so you can cleanly mesh No Child Left Behind and the
requirements of the statute. Something that hasn't been done yet is
to develop an accountability system at the district level, which is
something that No Child Left Behind actually requires. That isn't in
regulation at this time and the board will have to address that
issue shortly. By repealing and readopting AS 14.03.123 it makes it
clear that the Legislature would be in favor of that, he said.
SENATOR GUESS said she respectfully disagreed because she saw major
differences between the old AS 14.03.123 and the new 123. The old
one had multiple measures and the purpose when passed on SB 36 was
that you not only look at absolutes you also look at gross rates and
dropout rates. You weren't a successful school just because 90
percent of the students met the standards if half of them dropped
out.
In the new section there is nothing about "successful" and
"distinguished" designations and it's important to provide those
incentives on the high end to get schools to be more accountable.
123 is much more explicit about the improvement plan, it has a
section about using existing staff to try to help schools and it
definitely has a different take and I don't understand the take, on
what the commissioner can and can't do. It was a statute that was
fairly well thought out six years ago. Not that this one wasn't but
if it's solely about labels I don't really have a problem with that,
but you're taking away a statute and you're replacing, but you're
losing a lot of the meat of the former statute. She said she also
had other questions about the bill.
CHAIR GARY STEVENS stated that the committee would meet again on
Saturday and he had no problem holding the bill until then if she
and Representative Gatto would get together and go over the issues.
He asked Mr. Rice if he agreed with that.
MR. RICE replied he was comfortable with the Chair's suggestion.
CHAIR GARY STEVENS held CSHB 405(EDU) in committee.
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