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Articles of Interest
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State & Local Policy
Virginia House, Senate back pay raises
The Daily Press
February 8, 2015
State employees, including teachers and college faculty, would see raises under the budget proposals legislators rolled out Sunday.
State revenues have been buoyed by recent upturns in tax collections, particularly compared to previously dialed-back projections and budget cuts made as recently as five months ago. The result is enough money to fund widespread agreement that state employees have waited long enough for salary bumps, and no need to cut public schools or higher education to pay for it.
Under both House and Senate plans, state-supported teachers would get 1.5 percent, provided their local systems cover half the cost. Both plans also include 2 percent raises for college-faculty.
Proposed Loudoun budget leaves schools facing $25 million shortfall
The Washington Post
February 9, 2015
Loudoun County Administrator Tim Hemstreet presented the Board of Supervisors with a proposed $2.2 billion county budget for fiscal 2016 on Wednesday, a plan that would keep property tax rates steady but leave the school system facing a potential $25 million shortfall.
The presentation came less than a week after the school board adopted a $982 million spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year, after adding about $1.2 million to the budget proposed by new School Superintendent Eric Williams. This year’s budget cycle marked the first time in recent memory that the school board added to — rather than cut — the superintendent’s proposal before sending the budget to the county board for review.
Del. Nick Rush, R-Christiansburg, sponsored legislation that enables students to earn a flat rate degree in high demand fields. The bill, sponsored by Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge, creates a discounted bachelor’s degree program earned primarily through online courses, but also through community college and four-year university courses.
Cline’s bill proposal was prompted by the rising costs of college education and some constituents’ inability to afford higher education, he said.
“The current system is asking 18-year-olds to go into debt for the rest of their lives for over $100,000 and that’s just outrageous,” Cline said. “You shouldn’t have to go into debt for the rest of your life to afford a college degree.”
Formally, it’s the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA. The last time it got a major overhaul was in 2001, with President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. But nothing much has been done with the law since 2007.
If Congress does finally get to it this year, What can we expect?
For some pregame analysis, we asked a few key players in the process what they’d like to see emerge from the process.
Teachers, unions weigh in as Senate panel starts rewrite of federal education law
People's World
February 6, 2015
With the key Senate committee on education issues off to a fast start in the latest attempt to rewrite the nation's federal education aid law, teachers and their two unions are weighing in on the federal role and the key issue of "teaching to the test."
What the outcome will be is anyone's guess. Ever since GOP President George W. Bush, the GOP-run Congress and top congressional Democrats pushed through the last rewrite - No Child Left Behind (NCLB) - in early 2001, teachers, parents, administrators and lawmakers have been at loggerheads over how to judge schools, kids and teachers.
In FAFSA Simplification, Complexity
Inside Higher Ed
February 9, 2015
It seems, all of a sudden, that there’s a rush among policy makers in Washington to chop off questions from the 108-question Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA.
Senator Lamar Alexander, who has been beating the FAFSA simplification drum for several years, has said that the Senate education committee he chairs will take up his bipartisan bill for a two-question aid application this spring.
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How should we improve failing schools?
Last week we touched on the complex subject of testing, pointing to some of the heated debate on the topic. But if we assume, at least for the sake of discussion, that tests provide a common measuring stick, what policy solutions exist when schools consistently fail to live up to expectations?
Enacted policies have included:
- implementing an easy to grasp rating system for schools,
- developing turn around plans in collaboration between the state and school systems that have failing schools (for one example, read Secretary of Education Anne Holton's recent Op-Ed in The Progress-Index about efforts to turnaround Petersburg City schools.)
- having the state or another entity takeover of a school or system.
As David Blount points out in his weekly update on the General Assembly, after enacting an A-F rating system for schools two years ago, legislation this year seems poised to repeal the system with widespread support - even from some members who voted for it previously.
(Weekly updates are posted to the website each Monday detailing the progress of education related budget and legislation.) Increasingly, as evidenced by HB 1873 and SB 1320, the movement has been to provide ratings to the public that have the capacity to note relative progress (i.e. better than last year) while also still incorporating a measure of whether a school fails to meet a common benchmark.
Of course part of the reduced enthusiasm for ratings that limit nuance could be due to the drop in average pass rates as reading tests were made harder in 2013 and the number of schools falling short of full accreditation mushroomed.
Our Poll Snapshot this week looks at public opinion on one potential policy that periodically has been considered here in Virginia - the takeover of a failing school or system by another entity. Information from the recent release of our Commonwealth Education Poll that looked at this question is reviewed below.
And in honor of President's Day weekend (honoring Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson) try your hand at the Washington Post's 2013 presidential knowledge quiz.
Sincerely,
CEPI
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Poll Snapshot: Takeover of Failing Schools
As we reported last week, respondents to our annual education poll indicated they see SOLs as providing equal standards and accountability to school systems. Policy-makers have also frequently debated what to do when schools consistently fail to meet standards. Among the proposals to deal with such situations are measures that take authority away from the local school system and give it to another official entity. We asked respondents whether they favored or opposed the idea of having consistently failing schools taken over by another entity. A majority, 57% oppose the idea of school takeovers.
There was significant variability, however, between different geographic regions. The West (78%) and Northwest (66%) regions are most likely to oppose the takeover of failing schools by another entity. In contrast, South Central (48% oppose) and Northern Virginia regions (47% oppose) are almost evenly split on the question.
Other demographic cohorts demonstrated differences of perspective between them. Women (60%) are more opposed to school takeovers than men (53%). Those respondents with household income of $50,000 or less also opposed school takeovers more frequently (63%) than did those with income between $50,000 and $100,000 (56% oppose) and income above $100,000 (52% oppose). Respondents with educational attainment of a high school diploma or less are more likely to oppose school takeovers (64%) than are those with higher educational attainment (some college, 54%; college grad or more, 52%). The breakdown of respondents by age shows that opposition increased with age (see table).
To read the full results of the second release, visit our website.
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General Assembly Update - Week 4
Excerpted from CEPI's weekly General Assembly Update
" State Budget Issues
The clock is ticking for General Assembly money committees to release their proposed amendments to the introduced budget. The House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees have been busy figuring out ways to pay for the spending plans they will propose. The committees will announce their recommendations on Sunday; line item amendments should be available by Tuesday and floor votes on the respective plans are expected next Thursday.
Governor McAuliffe on Friday announced a bump in estimated revenues for the remainder of the biennium. The governor said the State is projected to have $338 million more than anticipated through the end of FY16. Subtracting required deposits to the “rainy day” fund leaves about $162 million to devote to expenditures. The forthcoming House and Senate budget proposals may include revised revenues as projected by General Assembly leaders. As previously indicated, House leaders want to include salary raises for several classes of public employees, including teachers, in their plan. Senate budget writers also are believed to be looking to increase worker pay, and scale back or eliminate the $30 million reduction in aid to localities.
Education Legislation
Legislative committees worked frantically this past week to clear their dockets of bills in order to beat the Tuesday deadline for each chamber to complete consideration of its own legislation.
Both chambers continued their push to repeal the A to F grading system approved just two years ago. HB 1672 is on the House floor for approval after having been unanimously reported from the House Appropriations Committee. It would repeal the system and require the Board of Education (BOE), in consultation with the Standards of Learning (SOL) Innovation Committee, to redesign the School Performance Report Card by July 1, 2016. Meanwhile, the Senate version of the bill, SB 727, was approved on a 32 to 6 vote by the Senate today.
Legislation to direct the BOE to establish additional accreditation ratings for individual schools is moving forward in both houses. The bills recognize the progress of schools that do not meet accreditation benchmarks, but that have significantly improved their pass rates; are within specified ranges of benchmarks; or have demonstrated significant growth for the majority of their students. HB 1873 is on House floor for approval, while SB 1320 has passed the Senate."
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