NEW! (posted Oct. 14, 2010)
Resolutions Committee Workbook 2010 (doc)
Draft AASB Belief Statements and Core Resolutions with amendments proposed by the Board of Directors and member districts for consideration by the Resolutions Committee on Nov. 11, 2010.
AASB Resolutions Discussion Paper - Oct. 11, 2010 (doc)
This document is intended for use with “Resolutions Committee Workbook 2010,” the draft AASB Belief Statements and Core Resolutions that will be reviewed by the Resolutions Committee on November 11th at the AASB Annual Conference. Various changes proposed by the AASB Board of Directors and our member school districts are explained in this discussion paper.
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GOVERNANCE
1.1 PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
The Association of Alaska School Boards encourages each school board to incorporate the Pledge of Allegiance to our nation's flag in a manner that it sees fit as a regular part of each district’s daily activities. AASB further urges that every effort be made to inform students of the true meaning of this pledge to deepen their interest and understanding of citizenship and civic responsibility in a democratic society.
Rationale. Public education is the cornerstone of our democracy. School board service, at its core, is one of the most purely democratic institutions in America today. The Pledge of Allegiance is an important civics lesson, recited every day across the nation by school children. Adopted 2002, (Sunset Nov. 2012)
1.2 OPPOSING MANDATED SCHOOL CONSOLIDATION
AASB is opposed to mandated school consolidation because it will greatly reduce local control for a significant number of school districts in Alaska.
Rationale. In 2004 the Alaska Local Boundary Commission (LBC) and Department of Education & Early Development (EED) completed a report, which suggests only marginal savings by consolidation of school districts. AASB continues to seek and engage in cooperative and shared service opportunities, thereby creating a significant savings of state tax dollars for all involved.
The concept of cooperation and shared services, as an alternative to mandated consolidation, ensures local autonomy and decision-making is preserved. AS.14.14.115 provides a grant program that encourages the sharing of services to recognize cost economies. Some communities and school districts have considered it viable to consolidate, and have done so through their own volition as a local decision. Others currently participate in shared administrative services, including purchasing and other business functions, and should be applauded and encouraged in their efforts to achieve efficiencies.
No evidence has been provided to support the proposition that significant savings or improved student learning would result from the indiscriminate combining of school districts. Studies on school consolidation imply an imperceptible savings. Public perception may be different. School boards are encouraged to involve the public more thoroughly in efforts to explain their budget and to seek input throughout the budgeting process. Amended 1999 & 2003 (Sunset Nov. 2013)
1.3 OPPOSITION TO MANDATED BOROUGH FORMATION
AASB continues to oppose mandatory formation of boroughs. A mandatory borough act reduces the current level of local responsibility and control by encouraging the elimination of small REAA districts and small city districts, and would also reduce the level of local control of education, as it exists today.
Rationale. Local communities may differ in their values and the priorities associated with the delivery of educational services.
A mandatory borough act ignores the economic reality of the lack of an adequate tax base in some rural areas of the State. If the state wishes to require local communities to contribute financially, the legislature already has the statutory authority to implement a tax in the unorganized borough. Creating an additional level of local government may not produce the desired effect. Amended 2001, 20003 (Sunset Nov. 2013)
1.4 MAINTAINING LOCAL CONTROL IN CHARTER SCHOOL FORMATION
AASB recognizes charter schools as a locally developed alternative to the standard education program. AASB supports charter schools as long as the local school board
(a) retains the sole authority to approve the charter;
(b) retains options to terminate the charter of any school that fails to meet criteria set forth in the charter
or as otherwise specified by the local school board;
(c) maintains authority to require and enforce accountability, including determining the criteria, standards,
or outcomes that will be used in establishing the charter;
(d) ensures that a charter does not foster racial, social, religious or economic segregation or segregation of children with disabilities.
Rationale. Section 14.12.020 in Title 14 of the Alaska Education Laws states that a school district shall be operated under the management and control of a school board. SB 88, Formation of Charter Schools, became law in 1995. It gave local school boards the ability to approve or deny charter school applications, and not be overturned by another group, and gave local boards the ability to add other requirements for charter schools, including Principal/Head Teacher Certification. Amended 1998, 1999, 2003 (Sunset Nov. 2013)
1.5 SCHOOL VOUCHERS
The Association of Alaska School Boards is opposed to using public tax dollars to finance private, parochial, or home school vouchers.
Rationale. Public schools educate every child, regardless of race, ability, religion, economic circumstance, or special needs. Public schools, through their elected school boards, are directly accountable to the citizens of the community for the expenditure of public funds. Taxpayer-funded vouchers for private, parochial, or home school tuition and fees drain scarce resources from public classrooms and diminish revenues available for public schools. Vouchers may raise local taxes if state appropriation is insufficient.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2002 that a voucher program in Ohio did not violate the U.S. Constitution. Referenda in other states have turned down vouchers. The Alaska Supreme Court has held that the following provision of the Alaska Constitution, a restriction independent of the U.S. Constitution, bars disbursement of public funds for the purchase of private or parochial education:
“The legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State, and may provide for other public educational institutions. Schools and institutions so established shall be free from sectarian control. No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”
(Alaska Constitution, Section 1. Public Education.)
In addition, voucher funding tied to students could not fully ensure students or taxpayers the benefits of accountability measures, like state mandated content and student performance standards, and could not satisfy other state and federal mandates under which public schools are required to operate, without invading the religious and other constitutional freedoms of private and parochial schools. (Sunset Nov. 2013)
1.6 CENTRALIZED TREASURY: DISTRIBUTION OF ALLOCATED FUNDS FOR SCHOOLS AND INTEREST EARNED
AASB urges the Legislature and local governing bodies to assure that all designated funds directed to school districts, including interest earning related thereto, must go to school districts without penalty, and that all interest on school district funds must accrue to the school district.
Rationale. Educational funds appropriated by State and local governments are appropriated for the purpose of public education. The efforts of local school districts should be to provide sound planning for future educational needs. State funds allocated to school districts have been retained by certain municipalities under centralized treasuries. Some municipalities retain fund balances on school budget monies, and interest accrued on school funds are sometimes held by the municipalities. As it is unclear how interest on school funds are to be distributed, this action will make certain all moneys allocated and earned for schools are used to benefit children. Currently, with a municipal centralized treasury it is possible for school money to be used for things other than education. “Use it or lose it” is a disincentive to utilize educational funds in the most efficient and effective manner. Adopted 1998. Amended 2002, 2004, 2008 (Sunset Nov. 2013)
1.7 SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT (NCLB)
AASB urges the legislature and the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development to join AASB in advocating for the reauthorization of a significantly improved federal No Child Left Behind Act Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) by amending the law to replace arbitrary proficiency targets with ambitious achievement targets based on rates of success actually achieved by the most effective public schools. The federal law should be amended:
• To allow states to measure progress by using students’ growth in achievement over an expanded period of assessments, as well as their performance in relation to predetermined levels of academic proficiency.
• To ensure state and local control over requirements for “highly qualified” teachers for every class, especially in small schools.
• To ensure that small, rural districts wishing to expand their innovative educational practices with federal funding are not penalized for their lack of administrative capacity to compete for such funding.
• To address school improvement and student achievement goals effectively.
• To ensure that improvement plans are given sufficient time to take hold before applying sanctions.
• To raise the funding of Title I and other programs to levels required by these recommendations without reducing expenditures for other educational programs.
• To continue separate funding for programs in Title VII for the Alaska Native Educational Equity, Support and Assistance Act.
• To allow broad flexibility in improvement strategies to tailor response efforts to widely differing reasons for low achievement, especially for very small rural schools.
• To replace punitive sanctions for persistent low achievement with remedial resource availability for identification and remediation of specific actual causes of low achievement.
Rationale. Since passage of NCLB, as amendments to the ESEA in 2001, local school boards have gained substantial experience with its implementation, including the benefits of having rich data about the performance of specific schools and groups of children in their communities. In addition to these benefits, boards have concluded that NCLB ESEA places too much emphasis on one way of evaluating schools and students. Among our concerns is an over-emphasis of standardized testing; a narrowing of curriculum and instruction to focus on test preparation; the use of sanctions that do not help improve schools; the inherent impossibility of 100 percent of special education and LEP students passing tests at grade level; and inadequate funding. Without amendments to ESEA NCLB, state achievement goals must continue to ratchet up to the unrealistic goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014, when all too many public schools will be subject to arbitrary sanctions for failure to achieve the impossible. AASB also believes that nationally normed tests, such as Terra Nova, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), that are not aligned to Alaska state standards, should not be mandated. Adopted 2006 Amended 2008 (Sunsets Nov. 2011)
1.8 ACCOUNTABILITY FOR HOME-SCHOOLED STUDENTS OUTSIDE THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM
AASB urges the Legislature to give State Department of Education and Early Development the authority and funding to register and track the achievement of all school-age children throughout the state who are not enrolled in public schools or private schools that perform assessment substantially equivalent to that performed by the state. Parents of such students should be required to provide information regarding instruction of and progress of their children, to provide accountability that essential skills are being taught and learned. Public school students are already tracked through benchmark exams and the HSGQE. AASB supports assessment of all students to see that adequate, essential skills are being provided.
Rationale. The goal is to ensure every child receives a quality education. Children receiving an education outside the public school system at home are not required to register or be accountable throughout their education. The State of Alaska has no compulsory law requiring some form of educational plan be filed with the state. Whether by not enrolling or by leaving the school systems of the state, no “safety nets” for students are in place to assure that all students are receiving the benefit and right of an education. No independent or objective testing, including the high school qualifying exam, is required for these students.
Though home schooling can be very effective for some, public schools often receive students who have fallen behind due to failed home schooling or the lack of schooling. Entry of these students into public education puts the receiving districts in a position of providing substantial remedial assistance, while subjecting the students to the same testing and evaluation standards as other students. With the enactment of federal No Child Left Behind legislation, public schools are unfairly held accountable for any inadequate preparation of entering students. With the High School Graduation Qualifying Exam, inadequately prepared students will pay the price of the state’s failure to monitor the progress of home-schooled students. Adopted 2000, Amended 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008 (Sunset Nov. 2013)
1.9 COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE AGE
Current state law requires compulsory school attendance from age 7-16. AASB supports changing the mandatory age for school attendance to run from 6 to the earlier of 18 years old or high school graduation.
Rationale. State and local performance standards set high expectations in mathematics, reading and writing for children age 5 through 7. Furthermore, research indicates that earlier education is beneficial. In fact, most children in Alaska are enrolled by the age of 6.
Most 7-year-old kids are in first or second grade. With the renewed emphasis on reading, writing, and mathematics skills in the first few years, skills on which the child will be assessed, children starting school late are at a big disadvantage. With the enactment of federal No Child Left Behind legislation and state designators, the legislature will be accountable for paying the cost of remediation to overcome that disadvantage [NOTE: STATE IS RESPONSIBLE; SCHOOL DISTRICT IS HELD ACCOUNTABLE]. Importantly, reduction of the compulsory school age to 6 would not eliminate active home schooling as a viable alternative for parents.
Sixteen-year-olds are not ready to make the enormous decision to give up a high school education. Increasing the mandatory age to 18 helps ensure that students who have not yet graduated from high school and are too young to make the life-changing decision to forego basic education will stay in school and have more opportunities to meet performance standards and pass the HSGQE. Mandatory attendance laws must be enforced, but the best way to keep students in school is to fund and provide education programs that engage students. Adopted 2001, Amended 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009 (Sunset Nov. 2011)
1.10 URGING FEDERAL SUPPORT FOR STATE IMPLEMENTATION OF STANDARDS AND TESTING
AASB supports the right of local school boards to raise expectations for students and prepare them for success in the 21st century. Federal support for states and school districts could be in the form of funding for research, and financial assistance in developing and implementing high standards. AASB opposes mandatory compliance with national content standards or assessment and any effort to condition the receipt of federal aid on the adoption or use of national standards and/or tests by states or local districts.
Rationale. School boards and states understand the importance of developing students’ abilities in 21st century skills. One size does not fit all, however, when it comes to curricula, standards and testing. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) measures specific content and will require curricula changes and instructional alignment, resulting in a considerable investment of funds. Adopted 2009 (Sunsets 2014)
1.11 ACCOUNTABILITY FOR STUDENT ATTENDANCE
AASB urges the legislature to adopt incentives and restrictions to induce compliance with Alaska compulsory attendance law. Enforcement of compulsory attendance law is a challenge. Compliance must be rewarded and non-compliance must carry consequences. AASB also urges the Department of Education and Early Development and enforcement agencies to work with districts to support compulsory school attendance laws and provide adequate funding for mandatory enforcement efforts as a matter of child welfare and public safety.
Rationale. Research has documented that poor school attendance is one of the greatest predictors of student failure; yet traditional truancy enforcement efforts are expensive and ineffective. Passive enforcement, tying certain privileges and benefits of state residency to compliance with the minimal, but critical, obligation to ensure that students go to school, seems likely to be cost-effective and successful and is well worth a try. Adopted 2009 (Sunsets 2014)
