Legislature(1993 - 1994)
02/08/1993 01:40 PM Senate HES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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+ teleconferenced
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SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION & SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE
February 8, 1993
1:40 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Steve Rieger, Chairman
Senator Bert Sharp, Vice-Chairman
Senator Mike Miller
Senator Jim Duncan
Senator Johnny Ellis
Senator Judy Salo
MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Loren Leman
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
SENATE BILL NO. 61
"An Act implementing certain recommendations of Alaska 2000
to improve the state's education system; and providing for
an effective date."
PREVIOUS SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION
SB 61 - No previous action to record.
WITNESS REGISTER
Jerry Covey, Commissioner
Department of Education
801 West 10th Street, Suite 200
Juneau, Alaska 99801-1894
POSITION STATEMENT: Gave overview of SB 61.
Vince Barry, Director
Education Program Support
Department of Education
801 West 10th Street, Suite 200
Juneau, Alaska 99801-1894
POSITION STATEMENT: Answered questions on SB 61.
Abbe Hensley, President
Alaska State PTA
P.O. Box 201496
Anchorage, Alaska 99520
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on SB 61.
Claudia Douglas, President
NEA-Alaska
1411 West 33rd Avenue
Anchorage, Alaska 99503
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on SB 61.
Judy Norton, Teacher
Atka Circle
Eagle River, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on SB 61.
Steve McPheters
Alaska Council of School Administrators
326 4th Street
Juneau, Alaska 99801
Alaska Council of School Administrators
POSITION STATEMENT: Commented on SB 61.
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 93-8, SIDE A
Number 001
CHAIRMAN RIEGER called the Senate Health, Education and
Services Committee (HESS) to order at 1:40 p.m.
Number 010
The only order of business to come before the committee was
SB 61 (IMPLEMENT ALASKA 2000 RECOMMENDATIONS). The first
person to testify on the measure was JERRY COVEY,
Commissioner, Department of Education. He explained he
would give a brief overview of the legislation. The
committee member's packets contained a sectional analysis,
the governor's transmittal letter, a fiscal note, and some
additional information on the extended school year, charter
schools, and the research and development fund.
Commissioner Covey referred to increasing the school year
and explained the proposal is to incrementally increase the
school year from now until the year 2000, until a 200 day
school year is reached. The intent is to make a greater
commitment to public education of Alaska's students. The
proposal, developed by the State Board of Education, was
discussed during the Alaska 2000 hearing process and a
number of comments were received. There is a great deal of
support for the longer school year; however, the concerns
received related primarily to some communities on
subsistence reasons or summer work. He said the cost, if
schools were to operate as they do during the other 180
days, would be $3 million per day. He noted there may be
many alternatives which would be far less expensive.
Commissioner Covey referred to flexibility in funding grants
for school improvement and said there is currently a public
school trust fund which has approximately $125 million in
it. The interest is available for use in K - 12 education.
The administration's proposal would seek to transfer 50
percent of the interest earnings annually into a fund for
school improvement. The money would give the state an
opportunity to make a significant investment in new
programs, research and development, and advancing new ideas
to make improvements in education. This proposal was
strongly recommended by many of the Alaska 2000 committees,
he explained. As a state that puts up to $700 million in
the foundation program, $4.5 million aimed at research and
development is a realistic figure and would be sufficient to
provide opportunities for significant program improvement.
He said it is being targeted towards grants for education
technology, student achievement, reducing student dropout
rates, parental and community involvement, summer school
programs, etc.
Commissioner Covey said the proposal would also make changes
in the fund for public school performance. It currently has
an existing cap on any grants of $50 thousand. The cap
would be removed. Currently, a grantee may receive an award
for up to two years and the provision would allow them to
receive an award of up to three fiscal years within a five
year period. It would require the State Board of Education
to adopt regulations setting out grant award procedures. He
explained how the grant application process would work and
the requirements.
Number 167
Commissioner Covey referred to the establishment of advisory
school boards and said the goal is to increase parent
involvement in public schools. The language would allow
each school district to either elect or appoint their local
advisory board. It would ensure that there is some parent
group actively involved with each school in Alaska.
The next component of the bill is the establishment of a
tenure review committee. Commissioner Covey said they are
trying to ensure that people who acquire tenure, teachers
and principals, are people who should be getting tenure. He
said they are trying to focus on increasing the confidence
of the public in making those decisions and to do so by
involving them. He said they are looking at having one or
more tenure review committees in each school district that
would advise the local board on granting tenure. The
committee would have to be made up of at least five and no
more than nine members, consisting of at least two teachers,
two parents, and at least one student over sixteen. The
rest of the members could be comprised of people who have
involvement with education. Commissioner Covey said they
would evaluate tenure applications and make a recommendation
to the school board who would maintain final authority in
that decision. If the recommendation is to deny tenure,
under current statute they would have to be terminated.
Under the new legislation they would not be terminated, they
could reapply after 120 days.
Number 216
Commissioner Covey said the next component is the
establishment of charter schools. The charter school
concept is established as a pilot project for three years.
He said they tried to draft the legislation so that it falls
entirely within the public education system and all
applicable laws and regulations. It does not permit a
charter school to employ persons not currently employed in a
public school system. To give them an opportunity to
experiment with new ideas, it frees them up from some state
requirements in terms of programs and many local
requirements. He noted there is significant control
maintained by the local school board over the process. They
have final authority in the matter entirely.
Commissioner Covey explained that because the charter school
concept is a pilot program, they are limiting the
availability of the schools to approximately 10 percent of
the schools in the state, roughly forty schools.
Number 239
SENATOR SALO indicated that she was involved in some of the
early aspects of the Alaska 2000 project. She asked the
commissioner to explain the process. Commissioner Covey
said at the beginning of the committee work on Alaska 2000,
it was explained to all participants that the process would
be developed in such a way that all recommendations and the
rationale for them would be made to the State Board of
Education. The board would have the opportunity to modify
any of those recommendations. Commissioner Covey said there
were nearly 100 recommendations; the board had to get them
down to a manageable package. He said out of the 100
recommendations, many were redundant and some were not
policy recommendations but were administrative
recommendations. The board wanted to focus more on policy,
so the administrative recommendations were eliminated.
Commissioner Covey continued to discuss the two different
stages of how the board narrowed down the recommendations.
CHAIRMAN RIEGER referred to the proposal to take 50 percent
of the earnings of the public school trust fund to go to the
fund for school improvement and asked if the 50 percent is
in the bill. Commissioner Covey indicated that it is not in
the bill. The department will be doing a budget amendment
or a transfer proposal for that, it will be introduced
separately. The amount will be approximately 4.2 or 4.3
million. He noted there is a current balance of $125
million and it generates about $8.5 million in interest.
Chairman Rieger referred to the section of the bill relating
to tenure review committees and questioned what the
rationale was for a student over sixteen years of age to be
on the committee. Commissioner Covey said he believes that
high school students do have the ability to participate and
they do sit on almost every school board in the state. They
are aware of the importance of the tenure decision and how
well people perform. He said it would be ultimately
beneficial to have them participate in the process.
Chairman Rieger referred to page 5, line 14, "(c) the local
school board may not serve as a local tenure review
committee," and asked if that would preclude an individual
member of a school board from participating. Commissioner
Covey said it would because the committee would be making
recommendations to them.
Number 363
SENATOR SALO asked how many days does a student have to
attend school to receive credit. Commissioner Covey said a
Carnegie Unit requires it to be 8,100 minutes. Senator Salo
said if 8,100 minutes are required for a year and a student
attends 4,000 minutes, what is the consequence.
Commissioner Covey said there is no consequence at the state
level as districts have their own attendance requirements
and they vary significantly. She said if students are
significantly below optimum attendance rates, increasing the
number of days may not be the solution.
Senator Salo referred to funding grants for school
improvements and asked what problem it would address.
Commissioner Covey said as expressed by a number of
committees, there are tremendous opportunities to develop
new programs, in a variety of areas, that would enhance our
public school system. There currently is not adequate
funding under the foundation program for that. The state
has not invested continually to provide any support for this
type of program development in any significant way. Senator
Salo said she would like some information as to how much
money is currently being appropriated and how many of the
grants have been extended to teachers and principals. She
asked what the fiscal note is on that section. Commissioner
Covey explained it is $4.3 to $4.5 million which is a
considerable increase from the current smaller type
projects.
Number 441
VINCE BARRY, Director, Education Program Support, Department
of Education, explained that a majority of the money for new
programs are federal funds. For example, the department put
out a call for fifty teachers to receive $1,000 to do
innovative and creative activities in language arts, math
and science. He noted those were federal chapter 2 monies.
SENATOR SHARP referred to page 5 of SB 61 where it discusses
what kind of background the first five members of the tenure
review committee must have - two parents, two teachers and
one student over the age of 16. It says that the remaining
members must be involved or must have been involved in the
district's educational program. He asked exactly what that
means. Commissioner Covey indicated it could be teachers,
retired teachers, PTA members, administrators, etc. It
should be someone that the local school board feels has an
accurate understanding of the importance of the decision.
He noted that no member of the school board may be on the
review committee.
Number 483
ABBE HENSLEY, President, Alaska State PTA, testified from
Anchorage. She reviewed the procedures as to the process of
how the PTA took a position on SB 61. Ms. Hensley referred
to the increased school term and said her organization
expects the intent is to improve education by increasing the
amount of contact time between teachers and students. She
said her organization wonders if increasing the school year
is the right way to do that. She noted that another idea
that came up during the Alaska 2000 was perhaps in-service-
days shouldn't be counted. The issue of money was another
concern of the PTA.
Ms. Hensley referred to funding grants for school
improvements and said her organization thinks it is a great
idea and they appreciate the wide variety of ideas that
might be covered by the proposal. She discussed research
being done at John Hopkins University by Joyce Epstein in
relation to parental involvement. Ms. Hensley said they
hope money that might be appropriated to the fund would not
be put into the foundation program.
Ms. Hensley said they want to make sure that already
existing parent groups aren't pushed out to make way for a
new advisory school board. Should the legislation pass, her
organization would not like to see PTAs relegated to fund
raising, etc. Ms. Hensley said if the provision for charter
schools is adopted, would there then need to be another
advisory school board. She suggested that to get increased
parental and family involvement, one way might be to ensure
that every district has a written policy on parental and
family involvement.
Ms. Hensley said the idea of alternative schools is
interesting and has come about because of parental push.
She indicated that there is concern about alternative
schools whether they are called charter schools or something
else. The schools shouldn't lead to segregations such as
race, socioeconomic clout or disabilities. She said they
want to make sure there is meaningful parental involvement
and an evaluation process in place to determine the
effectiveness of the program. Ms. Hensley said while we
want to make sure every child's need is met, we also want to
make sure that children aren't trapped or segregated.
TAPE 93-8, SIDE B
Number 001
Ms. Hensley said she will be reviewing the legislation with
PTA members across the state.
CHAIRMAN RIEGER referred to Ms. Hensley's statement
regarding charter schools being used to trap students and
said he would like her to comment further. He also asked
how it contrasts with the current practice in schools. Ms.
Hensley said there is a much greater emphasis in
mainstreaming special education children in making sure that
children aren't segregated into special classrooms or
schools. There is an increased interest in keeping children
together and trying to meet all their needs. Many people in
Alaska don't want to have a school based around what a
particular achievement level is.
The next person to testify was CLAUDIA DOUGLAS, President,
NEA-Alaska. She explained that she is a little
schizophrenic about the issue because as she reads the
purpose and reviews section 1 of the bill, she agrees with
all of it. NEA-Alaska certainly wants to improve the
state's system for education for the future. Educators will
do their very best in flexibility, meeting the needs of
students in society, and meeting the diverse needs of
Alaska's children. She said she believes that is the hope
of Alaska 2000. Ms. Douglas said as she reads the bill, the
components in terms of the school term, funding for
improvements of school performance, advisory boards, charter
schools, and the tenure review board don't address the above
mentioned issues.
Ms. Douglas explained she is a counselor at an alternative
program and there is currently a great concern for the kids
that don't come. On one hand, the bill talks about
flexibility for school districts to have hours and days,
then on the other hand, it speaks to having a mandatory
number of school days in the school year. She said it seems
to her that it is taking away the idea of local control.
Currently, school districts can have more than 180 days if
it is negotiated, and the districts decide if they want it.
Ms. Douglas referred to page 3, Section 5, where it says,
"A governing body, district advisory board, or a nonprofit
organization located in the state," and asked if "nonprofit
organization located in the state" could possibly be a
private school. She asked if a private school or a
nonprofit organization could apply for the grant.
Ms. Douglas referred to the issue of advisory boards and
said she believes it is taking away local control.
Currently, all schools have the opportunity to set up their
own advisory board. She said she would rather see the money
spent on advisory boards because even though they are not
compensated positions, there has to be some staff time, a
place to meet, there has to be some kind of a resource for
advisory boards if they are going to operate and be
effective. She explained that there has been some turmoil
in some communities when an advisory board makes a decision
and then the school board makes a different decision.
Ms. Douglas referred to the tenure review board and said
NEA-Alaska strongly supports competent professional
qualified teachers. She said they also support a very
strict serious approach to the evaluation process. Ms.
Douglas said often times a principal's responsibilities are
so wide and far reaching that they are not given the time
and resources to do a really good job. If the evaluation
process were looked upon as a very serious time consuming
effort, through the evaluation we would find out if the
principal has the ability to share and build on expertise to
improve instructional quality. NEA-Alaska has been asking
for years to have a better evaluation process with more
evaluations. SB 61 does not address that. Ms. Douglas
continued to discuss her concerns regarding the appointment
of the members of the tenure review board.
She referred to charter schools and said she also has
concerns that schools would be set up for kids with
particular learning styles or kids that would benefit from a
particular teaching method or curriculum. She asked who
would and would not be eligible to go charter the schools.
Ms. Douglas urged the committee to give the legislation very
serious thought.
Number 222
SENATOR SHARP referred to tenure and said it appears to be
automatic which leads to a loss of faith in the value of
tenure and standards set by the profession and the school
board administrators. Ms. Douglas said her organization had
requested a breakdown from the state, on the number of
tenured versus nontenure teachers. There are about 1,100
nontenure teachers and approximately 6,000 tenured teachers.
She said in Fairbanks, as of last year, there are about 100
nontenure and in Anchorage there are about 400 tenured. She
expressed that if half of the teachers come up for review,
it would be a time consuming activity.
SENATOR DUNCAN indicated concern with the lengthening of the
school year, teacher ratios, tenure review, and charter
schools. He said there are some very serious policy
questions that need to be discussed in more detail.
CHAIRMAN RIEGER explained it is not his intention to move
the bill. If it is the will of the committee to review each
section in detail, he wouldn't object.
Number 285
JUDY NORTON, Teacher, testified from Eagle River. She
referred to increasing the school terms and said she
supports the concept and believes the extra time is needed.
Ms. Norton said she thinks that three months is too long to
be out of school. Educators need to start looking at
different options and try different things. She said as a
classroom teacher, she needs more time each year. She said
that perhaps the in-service-days should be added on over and
above the time spent with children. Ms. Norton said she is
excited about the funding grants for school improvements and
it is a way to bring teachers and people together to talk
and do exciting things in education. She referred to
advisory school boards and said PTAs currently exist and
some schools do have parent advisory boards. The
establishment of a tenure review committee is an issue. She
said she has heard from many school board members about the
problem of tenure in their districts. The issue needs to be
reviewed as parents should have an input regarding the
teachers being hired at their schools. Ms. Norton referred
to the establishment of charter schools and informed the
committee that she was the chairman of the Alaska 2000
Choice Committee. The charter schools would be controlled
by the local school boards and would follow all state and
local regulations, she concluded.
STEVE MCPHETERS, Alaska Council of School Administrators,
referred to the 180 day school year question and said it
does provide us an opportunity to see if we can provide a
better education with the extended year or, if not, what can
we do under the existing structure to improve what we are
currently doing. He referred to research and development
and said it is a prime opportunity for the issue to be on
the table. He said industry provides research and
development money every year for their products and this
would allow us to have some money set aside for our own
research and development. As we continue to provide public
education for the children of the state, at the same time we
could continue to do the research development, and changes
needed to improve what is currently being done. Mr.
McPheters referred to people from the private sector saying,
"what can we do to change what is happening in schools.
Because we have this tenure business, teachers are in there
and you can't get them out." He said you can get them out
but it is very expensive and is very time consuming. The
issue has been around a long time and the council is willing
to review better ways to do the business of tenure. Mr.
McPheters referred to the advisory committees and said he
agrees with previous speakers that they do not want to set
up another cumbersome bureaucracy. Mr. McPheters said
before his organization could support charter schools, there
are a lot of questions that need to be answered so his
organization can understand just what they can't do that is
currently in law.
SENATOR SALO asked if the advisory committees can be
mandated. She also asked if in order to have parent
involvement, would it have to be mandated. Mr. McPheters
said he believes it already has been mandated in the rural
districts of Alaska. It can be mandated in urban areas if
the intention is to provide more public input to education.
Senator Salo discussed parental involvement in the Kenai
district in relation to mandated involvement.
TAPE 93-9, SIDE A
Number 001
Mr. McPheters urged there either be a subcommittee or a
committee of the whole review each issue of the bill and
make necessary changes before sending it to Finance.
SENATOR DUNCAN referred to extending the school year and
said nobody is opposed to more school days as long as they
are good school days. He said it has been estimated it will
cost $3 million, per day, and asked Mr. McPheters if he
believes that is the wisest use of the money. Mr. McPheters
said if it were to be business as usual in extending the
school year, it is an issue that his organization cannot
support. There would have to be something else to make it
better. If the school year was extended to provide science
or math camps, or support programs for carrying over the
retention from one year to the next, etc., they may support
it. Senator Duncan asked Mr. McPheters if he believes there
is anything that can be done to the present 180 day system
that will help improve the quality of education. Mr.
McPheters said he believes that several things could be done
such as the number of days a child would be allowed to miss
during the school year and early childhood education.
Senator Duncan said if the legislature could appropriate an
additional $60 million for an extra twenty days of school,
what should the first priority be in using the additional
money. Mr. McPheters said he would put the money into a
strong early childhood program.
Number 150
SENATOR SHARP asked if there would be some built in
constraints on considering extending the day instead of
extending the year. Mr. McPheters said he understands that
is a possibility, but would defer the question to the
department. Senator Sharp said there would be some built in
savings on transportation. Mr. McPheters said there would
also be savings in utilities and the maintenance and
operations of the buildings.
SENATOR SALO said she believes that the $60 million figure
is a low figure as it doesn't count any of the inflationary
costs over the phase in period. She said she believes the
figure would be between $60 and $100 million. There was
general discussion regarding increasing the unit value.
CHAIRMAN RIEGER asked where the 8,100 minute school year
figure came from. COMMISSIONER COVEY informed the committee
the figure is in statute. He said for students grades 4-12
the requirement is five hours per day, grade K-3 the
requirement is four hours. The origin is the Carnegie Unit
for that standard. Chairman Rieger asked if the subject of
strengthening the truancy and attendance laws was brought up
during Alaska 2000. Mr. McPheters said if there could be a
statute or something that would require students to attend
class, it would be a big help.
Chairman Rieger said the bill would be heard again the
following Wednesday. He noted that committee members are
welcome to bring any suggested language changes.
Number 250
There being no further business to come before the Senate
HESS Committee, Chairman Rieger adjourned the meeting at
3:27 p.m.
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