Some people may get glum around certain times set aside for celebration (i.e., the broken-hearted are usually none too happy on Valentine’s Day); however, we hope this week, National Teacher Appreciation Week, gives everyone a reason to celebrate. Here at the OEP, we’re reflecting on Cindy Barker, a 9th grade geometry teacher at Fort Worth Christian in Fort Worth, TX who made proofs fun and understandable with her wit. We are also thinking about John Sanders, who taught AP English at Greencastle Antrim High School in Greencastle, PA and took a chance introducing his class to Albert Camus and existentialism. More locally, we are thinking of Kim Boyd at Eastside Elementary in Rogers, AR. These individuals impacted the lives of our OEP Staf, and served as models to us in our own work within the field of education.
We hope you all will reflect on your wonderful teachers this week, and perhaps be in a position to communicate your successes with them as Donna Moss does below:
You can learn more about Teacher Appreciation Week on the NEA website. They are even promoting a Twitter hashtag: #ThankATeacher. We would like to see your own tweets for National Teacher Appreciation Week with this hashtag show up in our OEP Twitter Feed.
Although we are going to be a bit late, we at the OEP will be showing our appreciation of teachers and all the work they do at this year’s OEP Conference when we hand out OEP Awards Certificates to the top performing schools across the state in the various categories recognized in our Annual OEP Awards. These awards are earned through teachers’ hard work and dedication to student learning, and we appreciate them everyday for it! (you can see the schools earning awards at this year’s conference by clicking this link).
We at the OEP are no strangers to fantasy sports, where we gather with our colleagues and draft the “dream team” of players that we think will produce the best result. Sometimes…just sometimes it’s fun to take this approach with non-sport areas. That said, OEP readers, Imagine if we were to hold a “draft” for Education Conferences! Our early draft picks would look something like this:
APSRC Conference TODAY!
First, we have a hot one that we need to act on quickly! The Arkansas Public School Resource Center (APSRC) is having a “Charter School Law” Conference today, April 30, 2013 at the Holiday Inn Airport in Little Rock. Click here to view the agenda. Although it may be too late to attend, anyone can follow along with the APSRC’s live Twitter feed with updates from the conference.
OEP Annual Conference: Wednesday May 15th, 2013
Next on our list is a DEFINITE pick for us! On May 15th, the OEP will host our annual conference in Little Rock at the Peabody Hotel.
The theme for this year’s conference is “Arkansas’ Educational Future: Literacy, Math, and Beyond.“We are planning for a ½ day conference that will include the following:
A student and two teachers from Caddo Hills High with their OEP Award certificate
Legislative Review of the education bills proposed and passed during legislative session
Legislative Panel featuring members of the Arkansas House and Senate Education Committees
Keynote Speechfrom Commissioner of Education Tom Kimbrell
Panel/Speeches on Expanding Education Beyond Just Academics (arts/extra-curricular education/community involvement)
Presentation of the annual OEP Awards (our favorite part of every conference!)
This conference will be FREE to all attendees. Better yet, since our sessions will take place the morning, you will be dismissed after lunch (at which time you can return to your school or enjoy the amenities of our state’s capitol city).
If this sounds interesting…visit the registration page and sign up to attend…we look forward to seeing you there!!
University of Central Arkansas 2013 Summer Leadership Institute: Friday June 7th, 2013
The topic for this year’s Summer Leadership Institute is “Building Trust Among School Stakeholders” and will feature Keynote Speaker Megan Tschannen-Moran who is a Professor of Educational Leadership at the College of William and Mary. Dr. Tschannen-Moran earned her PhD from The Ohio State University and has 14 years of experience in education. Her research on trust in schools explores how teacher, student, principal, and parent trust are related to important outcomes such as teacher professionalism, academic press, and student achievement.
The $50 advanced registration fee ends June 1st! Act quickly and register here (or, if you need a few days, you can pay the $65 on-site or $35 students registration fees after June 1).
It’s going to be a GREAT conference season…and we are pretty excited about our picks so far! Keep checking back as we continue to bring you more information on interesting conferences!
It is an exciting time in for schools and students in Arkansas…
With the passage of Senate Bill 66 (now Act 601), the General Assembly has paved the way for Districts of Innovation. SB66 was filed by Senator Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock).
Senator Elliott described that the bill was designed for districts with a “brilliant idea” that “want to do things differently from what the rules say.”
Interested schools will apply to the Arkansas Department of Education to become a School of Innovation (more than one school in any district can apply). An applying school must create a plan that will increase academic performance by improving teaching and learning. To create the School of Innovation plan, the applying school must create a School Council of Innovation that is composed of teachers and classified employees (elected by the school), the principal (or an administrative appointee), parents, community members, at least two students, and other stakeholders. The School Council of Innovation is to lead the creation the School of Innovation plan. After the plan is created, a minimum of 60% of eligible employees in the school must vote to approve the plan.
The commissioner will determine if an applying school is accepted to become a School of Innovation. By becoming a School of Innovation, a school will receive the necessary waivers from laws, rules, and local policies to implement an Innovation plan. A School of Innovation will be approved for up to 4 years and then can apply to be renewed every 4 years. The ADE will now create the governing rules that must be approved by the State Board of Education. The governing rules will provide more specific details on the application and ongoing process.
The idea behind a School of Innovation is similar to the idea of District-Conversion charter schools. Currently, there are 14 District-Conversion charter schools. District-Conversion schools ares started and run by their local school district (unlike open-enrollment charter schools) but receive freedom from certain rules, regulations, and policies of the traditional public school.
The ADE, with the University of Arkansas College of Education and Health Professions, has opened the Office of Innovation. The Office of Innovation will research innovative practices in education to promote increased student achievement.
Districts of Innovation are found in other states across the United States:
The Boston Public School Districts established pilot schools in 1994, and currently, there are 21 pilot schools in the district. Pilot schools are granted autonomy over certain regulations and policies, so that the schools can increase academic performance. The National Bureau of Economic Research has conducted a study on Boston’s pilot and charter schools.
In Colorado, in 2008, the “Innovation Schools Act” was passed and allows schools or groups of schools can apply to be an Innovation School. As of the 2012-13 school year, there are 37 Innovation Schools. The Colorado Department of Education has information and a number of resources for Innovation Schools.
In the 2010-11 school year, the Houston Independent School District implemented a program, called Apollo 20, in 20 low-achieving schools. This program, in partner with Harvard University’s EdLabs, is seeking to mimic best practices from charter schools, including five main strategies: effective leadership and teachers, more instructional time, use of data to drive instruction, intense tutoring, and a culture of high expectations. Early results show increases in math scores and attendance rates, as well as a decrease in suspensions. The success in math is attributed in part to intensive tutoring that the students receive. We highlighted the model in a policy brief this past fall.
In 2012, Kentucky (a state without charter schools) passed a bill that allowed traditional public school districts to become Schools of Innovation. The bill will become law in the spring of 2013; but the Department of Education in Kentucky has already released the application draft for school districts to apply in 2013-14. Arkansas’ proposed bill is seemingly modeled after Kentucky’s bill; therefore, there is room to believe that Arkansas’ application will be similar to Kentucky’s application and rubric. Additionally, the Kentucky DOE has released a number of helpful resources for districts applying.
It is exciting to hear about the innovations occurring in schools districts across the United States; and so, we look forward to the future of Arkansas’ Schools of Innovation.
After generating a lot of ‘hoopla’ on the OEP Blog here and here, and in the form of an OEP Policy Brief on Categorical Funding in Arkansas, our authority that the Senate Education Committee would be hearing legislation on potentially changing the way National School Lunch Act funds are spent in Arkansas schools fell flat. The Committee decided that SB811 (the NSLA Funding legislation proposed by Senator Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home) and SB 508, a separate NSLA funding bill filed by Senator Joyce Elliot (D-Little Rock) would be considered together at a later date…the reason, according to a tweet from the Arkansas Public School Resource Center (APSRC), was that Senator Elliot acknowledged that “one reason to not act on NSLA right now is because schools have already made plans for next year.”
So we didn’t hear debate on changing the NSLA Funding law…but the excitement didn’t end there. In fact Senator Elliot was “on deck” to present SB 915, commonly referred to as the Arkansas DREAM Act. The purpose of the bill would be to allow children of illegal immigrants in Arkansas to attend an Arkansas college at in-state tuition rates.
For example, the proposal would grant in-state tuition rates to anyone who has attended an Arkansas high school for at least three years and has an Arkansas high school diploma or general education diploma in the state. According to a March 24 article posted on Americans for Legal Immigration, supporters say it would more fairly treat students who came to the U.S. illegally as children, who have attended school here, but have to pay out-of-state tuition rates that are about double the in-state rates.
If passed, Arkansas would be the 13th state to enact such legislation at the state level. As of November 2012, twelve states passed their own versions of the DREAM Act. These states are Texas, California, Illinois, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, New York, Washington, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Maryland. Not bad company, huh Arkansas?!?!?
However, the Senate Education Committee would see to it that Arkansas would not join this list. After passing the bill “viva voce” (by a voice vote), a roll call vote was requested, and ultimately led to the bill’s failure.
This was the third time the Arkansas General Assembly has attempted to pass DREAM Act legislation. 2005 marks the first time Senator Elliot proposed the legislation with the backing of then-Governor Mick Huckabee, a similar measure also failed in 2009 (which lacked the support of Governor Mike Beebe). The latest version of the bill not only passed the House Education Committee, but this time had the support of Governor Beebe. In fact, Senator Elliot was quoted in the meeting as saying “versions of this bill have been passed by the House twice.”
Unfortunately, the Senate Education Committee meeting today was standing room only, and most of our information was supplied by tweets from individuals in the room, and conversations we had with attendees after the meeting. Regardless, as advocates of education, we all have hope that our elected representatives keep the best interests of our state’s school children in the forefront of their decision making. At this rate, it looks like we will have to wait another 4 years to see this legislation cycle back around.
The OEP has recently been spending a great deal of time studying the categorical funding in the state of Arkansas as our state legislators wrestle with ways to improve the funding mechanism. We have written on this in a recent blog post and in our new OEP policy brief, Categorical Poverty Funding in Arkansas.
A quick refresher — poverty funds have been allocated to districts based on the numbers of disadvantaged students served since the 2003-04 special legislative Lakeviewsession. The categorical funds for poverty students are allocated in an odd manner in that the funds jump sharply up at 70% poverty and 90% poverty; these jumps were intended to assure that districts with higher concentrations of poverty receive additional resources to combat the ills that go along with concentrations of poverty. HOWEVER, there is no good reason for the jumps at 70% and 90% and most agree that a more reasonable “smooth” formula would be appropriate.
Fortunately, SB811 sponsored by Senator Johnny Key (R-Mountain Home) and Representative James McLean (D-Batesville), brought forth a bill that made common sense modifications to the poverty funding formula (see earlier post on this issue). Unfortunately, the reaction by most lawmakers and stakeholders had little to do with the logic behind the changes and revolved much more around the question of “Will my local district get more or less?”
This is quite a headline and it sounds like a big deal. Indeed, this immediately reminded me of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers’ movies, as shown below:
Let’s start with the press, and then on to the lawmakers. Stories on SB811 have, in my view, exaggerated this issue. (An April 5 story in our local paper boasted a much more moderate headline: “Schools Concerned over Legislation“). While stories have mentioned the potential losses of “millions”, these losses were never placed in the context of total budgets. Indeed, the sum total of all poverty funding in the state of Arkansas approaches $200 million, which represents under 4% of the total Arkansas education budget of more than $5 Billion.
And yes, some districts will lose millions…and some will gain millions. But, in each case, before we overstate the importance of this, we must realize that most districts (win or lose) in the state will see differences of 1% or less of total education funding. For example, under the new method, the Little Rock School District, would receive approximately $4 million less than it would under the current scheme. For the sake of context, it is worth nothing that the total annual district budget for Little Rock hovers around $350 million. Thus, while not trivial, this new funding method would result in a budget decrease of just over 1% in Little Rock (the reason the new formula would negatively affect Little Rock is that the district sits atop one of the formula’s “cliffs” — that is, the district serves just over 70% FRL).
However, some districts who sit just under the cliffs (with poverty percentages in the high 60s), such as Springdale, would stand to gain “millions” of dollars. Specifically, Springdale would gain $2.5 million in an annual budget of over $200 million and thus see a gain of over 1%.
YES…if the formula changes, some districts will get less than what was expected and some will get more. Moreover, many of the districts that would receive less under SB811 are relatively wealthy since the proposed formula is tilted in favor of high-poverty districts (after all, the category is intended to address concentrations of poverty).
And, this leads us to the lawmakers…some of whom represent these affected districts and may be more concerned with bringing in a share of the funding than with the appropriateness of the policy. As reported in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette April 4 edition, one lawmaker was particularly clear in his sentiments during legislative discussions:
When he says “from where I stand”, I wish he were describing his principled beliefs on how these funds should be distributed … but it is far more likely that he “stands” in a district that would lose some funding in the proposed scheme. And this is a problem.
However, it is possible that some districts are actually upset about the potential loss of funding, simply because they are losing overall revenue. We are concerned that the focus on the “bottom line” is taking away from the focus of low-income students, as these funds can be spent across number of different categories – not necessarily those that specifically benefit low-income students. In fact, this concept is not lost on some. In the same April 4th article, Jerri Derlikowski, Education-Policy and Finance Director for the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, was quoted saying:
However, we also know that there are districts who are spending their NSLA funds with the intent to benefit their low-income students. In fact, we applaud these districts.
We believe that this system should be fixed, so that poverty funding is more effectively directed to the students who need it the most…and hopefully those who are benefiting from the problems of the system will not stand in the way of its improvement!
Over the past several weeks, one of the many challenging financial issues tackled by the legislature involves the pot of school funding often referred to as NSLA (National School Lunch Act) funding. Interestingly, this funding category has nothing to do with lunches or nutrition; rather, the NSLA funds refer to the compensatory funds that are allocated to districts based on the level of economic disadvantage facing the student body. The general idea is that these “poverty funds” are intended to allow the schools to develop programs to “compensate” for the additional educational challenges faced by economically disadvantaged students. (To learn more on this, check out our brand new OEP policy brief, Categorical Poverty Funding in Arkansas)
Poverty funds have been allocated to districts since the 2003-04 special legislative session (responding to the Arkansas Supreme Court ruling in the Lakeview case), in which the state’s lawmakers substantially revamped the state school funding system. The new funding system incorporated (wisely, in our view) a category for additional funding for districts based on the numbers of disadvantaged students served. The categorical funds for poverty students, first allocated in 2004-05, is tiered so that districts with higher concentrations of poverty receive more funding to equitably educate students. In 2012-13, ALL districts receive at least $517 per poverty student (as measured by a qualification for federally-subsidized free or reduced-price lunches). Districts receive twice as much as that ($1033) per poverty student when 70% or more of the district’s students qualify for FRL (free or reduced lunch) and three times as much ($1,549) when 90% or more students receive FRL.
It is easy to see that a district serving 70% FRL students would receive twice as many dollars in poverty funding than would a district serving 69% FRL students. Similarly, there are large differences in funding between districts serving 89% FRL and those serving 90% FRL. These “cliffs” are arbitrary and result in districts with VERY SIMILAR student bodies being treated VERY DIFFERENTLY in the poverty funding formula.
Senator Johnny Key (R-Mountain Home)
All of these issues are explained in great detail in a brand new OEP Policy Brief under the informative but not very exciting title of “Categorical Poverty Funding in Arkansas“. Please check out this policy brief (and our new and improved web site!) to learn a bit more about this issue. In particular, we highlight some of the recent legislative activity related to this issue: SB811 sponsored by Johnny Key (R-Mountain Home) and James McLean (D-Batesville) and SB508 sponsored by Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock).
In the policy brief, we discuss in detail Senate Bill 508, which aims to restrict the use of these categorical funds. We also discuss SB811, which is consistent with the recommendation of the OEP that the state adopt a “smoother” funding model without the arbitrary and tough to justify “cliffs” at 70% and 90% FRL.
In particular, the biggest changes incorporated in the SB 811 model include:
Higher levels of poverty funds for the state’s poorest districts,
Lesser funding for the districts without great concentrations of poverty,
A smoothing of the spending curve such that similar districts are treated similarly, and
A mechanism which gives greater weight to free-lunch students than to reduced lunch students (since students eligible for free-lunch face more dire poverty) .
The graph below highlights the differences between the proposed smooth model (in black) from SB 811 and the current tiered funding model (in green).
School choice has been on the mind of many a legislator, school administrator, and reporter at the Capitol this legislative session. One of the most strongly debated topics has been how to resolve the issues surrounding the Arkansas Public School Choice of 1989.
The Arkansas Public School Choice Act of 1989 allowed students to transfer to a district other than their residentially zoned district. However, there were race-based restrictions. Specifically, students could only transfer into districts where the student would be part of the minority racial group–with a few exceptions made for less diverse areas of the state. In the 2011 case, Teague v. Arkansas Board of Education, a group of parents from Malvern challenged the law, so that students could transfer despite the race barrier. In June 2012, the US District Court ruled that the law violates the 14th Amendment, and so the law was deemed unconstitutional. The decision was appealed. In January, the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis heard oral arguments of the case. The Federal Circuit Court has not yet ruled on the choice law.
The court issued a stay that allowed students who previously transferred under the law to remain in the transferred school district in the 2012-13 school year. In 2012-13, nearly 16,000 students in Arkansas have transferred districts.
As Senator Jason Rapert explains (in support of district choice), there is much to consider regarding the idea of district school choice: “Co-sponsors of the school choice bill want parents to have every opportunity to send their children to the best possible schools in their area, regardless of district boundaries. [...] On the other hand, legislators don’t want to create a system that returns Arkansas to the days of segregated schools.”
SB65 would remove race as a factor in district choice. In the bill’s original state, it would allow any student in the state to transfer districts. However, the Senate Education Committee added amendments to create regulations regarding choice. The following amendments will be added:
An expiration date that is effective in 2 years. This expiration date will allow the legislators to look at the data to determine if any changes should be made
Cap transfers to each district at 3%
Provide an exemption to districts on desegregation orders
Allow previously transferred students to remain in districts
Require the ADE to collect and report data
Senator Joyce Elliot (D-Little Rock)
Senator Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock) previously filed Senate Bill 114 regarding district choice. As we wrote earlier, SB114 would allow districts to opt out of school choice and would restrict choice for only educational purposes. However, Senator Elliott has now voiced support for SB65 with the proposed amendments to SB65. Additionally, another choice bill filed by Representative Kim Hammer, HB 1507, (R-Benton), would use both socioeconomic status and district poverty level to determine whether a student could “choice” into a district. While there is certainly merit to Representative Hammer’s bill, there was some question about whether that bill resolved the legal issues raised in the current school choice bill. House Bill 1507, was rejected by the House Education Committee.
Representative Hammer (R-Benton)
Representative Hammer also proposed a second school choice bill, which passed in the House, but failed to pass on the Senate floor by one vote. This bill, HB 1294, would allow the 16,000 students who have “choiced” into non-residential schools under the old school choice law to remain in their current districts. The bill has a substantial amount of support from many in the educational establishment. The vote was expunged which allows it to be voted on again. It is on Monday’s agenda for the Senate to hear again. However, should Senator Key’s bill pass, this bill will no longer be necessary to consider.
Senator Key’s SB65 has made it through three of the five hurdles it must pass before becoming a law. The only two hurdles that remain are the vote on the House Floor and the Governor’s signature.
A student and teachers from Caddo Hills High look at their OEP Award handed out at the annual Office for Education Policy Conference in Little Rock (photo courtesy of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette).
We write you today with exciting news! We will be holding our annual OEP Conference on Wednesday May, 15th at the Peabody Hotel in Little Rock, AR from 8:00 AM until noon. Thus, please consider this post as your “Save the Date” notification.
The theme for this year’s conference is “Arkansas’ Educational Future: Literacy, Math, and Beyond.“We are planning for a ½ day conference that will include the following:
Legislative Review of the education bills proposed and passed during legislative session
Legislative Panel featuring members of the Arkansas House and Senate Education Committees
Keynote Speech from Commissioner of Education Tom Kimbrell
Panel/Speeches on Expanding Education Beyond Just Academics (arts/extra-curricular education/community involvement)
Presentation of the annual OEP Awards (our favorite part of every conference!)
This conference will be FREE to all attendees. Better yet, since our sessions will take place the morning, you will be dismissed after lunch (at which time you can return to your school or enjoy the amenities of our state’s capitol city).
As the details of the conference begin to take shape, we will send out more information, including the detailed agenda, a registration link, and literature on local hotels and eateries. We are also trying to assess interest in providing professional development credit for attending the conference. If you’re interested in receiving PD credit, please email us at oep@uark.edu. However, for now, we hope you will mark your calendars for Wednesday May 15th from 8:00 til noon so we can see you all at the OEP Conference. Take care.
On Monday March 18th, former Lt. Governor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Halter announced a proposal called the “Arkansas Promise,” which aims to cover the costs of college tuition for any student who meets the eligibility requirements of the Lottery Scholarship. Under his proposal, Arkansas students who earn a 2.5 high school GPA or a 19 on the ACT will receive a scholarship equal to the amount of the highest in-state tuition, which was $7,332 per year for 30 credit hours in 2012-13 school year.
As you may remember from our blog post, on March 1st, Governor Mike Beebe signed into law HB 1295, which reduced the amount of the lottery scholarship in anticipation of a budget shortfall for the program. Halter estimates the Arkansas Promise will cost $50 to $75 million a year and says funds will come from the existing Lottery Scholarship, federal grants, additional private scholarships, and charitable support. He emphasizes that he would not raise taxes to fund the program.
In his 26-page plan outlining the Arkansas Promise, Halter describes the current landscape of educational attainment in Arkansas and the negative implications for Arkansas’ economic prospects. Arkansas ranks 49th in the nation in percentage of adults holding a bachelor’s degree, ahead only of West Virginia. Halter asserts that the Arkansas Promise would be a necessary investment in the state’s long-term economic future.
To bolster his case, he cites two examples of similar scholarship programs in Arkansas: the El Dorado and Arkadelphia Promise. Both the El Dorado and Arkadelphia Promise provide eligible students with scholarships equal to the highest in-state public tuition. Both programs appear to have led to positive outcomes for both the school district and the community as a whole.
Former President Bill Clinton greets El Dorado High School Seniors on the El Dorado Promise “Signing Day” Ceremony.
We at the OEP have looked in particular at the impact of the El Dorado Promise and have found significant positive impacts in both math and reading achievement by the 8th grade, suggesting that students may be more academically prepared for college as a result of the Promise. It’s important to note, however, that the El Dorado Promise is designed differently from the proposed Arkansas Promise. Unlike the Arkansas Promise, the El Dorado Promise does not have any high school GPA or test score requirements, and students can use the scholarship to attend out-of-state higher education institutions. Since it has the same eligibility requirements, the Arkansas Promise is more directly comparable to the Arkadelphia Promise.
One concern that may arise is the sustainability of this measure. In a recent study conducted by the Kingsbury Center examining college readiness standards, Arkansas was one of the states profiled in their report. According to the graphic displayed on the report’s web page, not only does Arkansas have more students deemed “college ready” according to our state’s definition of the term (i.e., earning a 19 on the ACT) but we also boast the smallest college readiness achievement gap between our high- and low-poverty students (also measured by ACT performance in math and reading). In all, nearly 100% of the students in the Arkansas sample from low-poverty schools are “on track for scholarship eligibility” as measured by their ACT scores in math and reading. We see even see large numbers of students in high-poverty schools on track for scholarship eligibility (83% received a 19 or above on the ACT reading, and 91% received a 19 or above on the ACT math). Despite the fact that a majority (60%) of the students in Arkansas qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch (a measure of poverty), this still suggests that a large number of students will be eligible for an Arkansas Promise Scholarship under Halter’s plan.
It will be interesting to see how this plan progresses. On one side, we can boast our large numbers of college-ready students; however, some may note that of all the states profiled in the Kingsbury Center’s graphic, Arkansas’s “college readiness” standards are among the lowest (our neighboring states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Missouri are among the other states profiled).
It is difficult to say how much the evidence of small place-based scholarships such as the El Dorado Promise and Arkadelphia Promise is directly generalizable to a state-wide version of this program. In a future OEP policy brief, we will describe and review the available evidence on other states’ merit-based scholarships to gain insight on how Halter’s proposed Arkansas Promise may work.
Welcome back from Spring Break! We hope it was relaxing and restful, and if you traveled out of the state, hopefully you got to spend time where the weather was warmer! Although the public schools and colleges were on spring break last week, we stayed busy at the OEP fine-tuning our NEW website. In cased you missed this news, we blogged about it yesterday, so we hope you get the chance to check it out.
Not all public employees were on vacation last week. In fact, our state legislature was hard at work pushing new laws through the legislative system. We took advantage of the break from classes and spent some time in Little Rock, thus, today we want to fill you in on what has been happening at the Capitol – as both the House and Senate continue to be busy!
After much compromise occurred to create HB1528, the Senate passed HB1528 (sponsored by Representative Mark Biviano, R-Searcy, and Senator Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale) in a 32-3 vote. The bill now has to be signed by Governor Beebe. The bill establishes a 5 to 11 membercharter authorizing board within the Department of Education – with members appointed by the Commissioner of Education. The State Board of Education will only play a role in charter school decisions if the State Board requests to do so by majority vote.
Both the House and Senate Education Committee agendas are filled with bills – here are a few that were discussed last week:
The House Education Committee passed HB752 (sponsored by Senator Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, and Representative Debbie Hobbs. R-Rogers). The bill creates an A-F rating system for public schools to replace the Arkansas’ current system (Exemplary, Achieving, Needs Improvement, Needs Improvement – Focus, Needs Improvement – Priority).
The House Education Committee also passed HB425 (sponsored by Senator David Johnson, D-Little Rock, and Representative Robert Dale, R-Dover). The bill amends the distribution of state funding (the foundation formula) to school districts based on 98% of the uniform rate of tax in a district. If a district collects more funding than the foundation formula, the ADE will not distribute funding to that district. This law may be an attempt to prevent additional lawsuits such as those brought by the Fountain Lake and Eureka Springs School Districts in 2011.
In a 26-8 vote, the Senate Education Committee passed SB58 (sponsored by Senator Eddie Joe Williams, R-Cabot) to align School Board elections with the general November election (instead of in a separate election in September). The bill has now been referred to the House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs.
The Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee votes on an education related bill, SB740. The bill, sponsored by Senator Jane English (R-Little Rock) and Representative Charlie Collins (R-Fayetteville) failed in a 3-2 voice vote (5 votes were required to pass). The bill sought to create tax credits for contributions to a non-profit scholarship fund for low-income students to attend private schools.
This week the House Education Committee will meet twice today (once in the morning, and also this afternoon) then again on Thursday morning (the running agenda for House Education Committee meetings can be found here). Don’t forget, you can stream live video of all House Committee and House Floor meetings on the Arkansas House Website (Note: The House Ed Meeting will begin streaming at 10:00 AM!)
On the opposite side of the Capitol building, the Senate Education Committee will meet Wednesday (the committee’s Monday afternoon meeting was cancelled). We will keep you posted on this week’s events…until then, have a great first week back after spring break!
