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.