PSFA Daily News Digest

11 January 2013

www.nmpsfa.org 

Barbara Riley, Editor  ·  Email:  newsdigest@nmpsfa.org 

Santa Fe/ Gov. Susana Martinez: Proposed Budget Seeks School Money

By Dan Boyd

ABQ Journal Staff Writer

January 11, 2013

Gov. Susana Martinez called Thursday for New Mexico's spending on public schools and Medicaid to increase as part of her $5.9 billion state budget proposal, but her opposition to salary increases for state workers prompted an outcry from one of the state's largest labor unions.

The first-term Republican governor said her budget plan for the coming fiscal year would apply spending increases - totaling $232 million - to pressing state needs.

• "This budget seeks to make New Mexico more competitive by reforming education and leveling the playing field to help small businesses create new jobs, all while protecting the safety net for those who are most vulnerable," Martinez said.

However, her decision not to recommend a base salary increase for all state workers - who have not seen their base pay increased since 2008 - was criticized by the American, Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 18.

Carter Bundy, the union's political director in New Mexico, said state workers and teachers have seen their take-home pay decrease in recent years due to an increase in how much money they have to contribute to their retirement accounts.

While Martinez's budget plan would restore the employee contributions to previous levels, Bundy said that action is not enough.

• "All her budget does is end the pay cuts, which is already in law," Bundy told the Journal. Taxpayers also contribute to the retirement plans through appropriations by the Legislature.

Education and health care

While it does not call for an across-the-board salary hike, the executive branch's spending plan would provide $11 million in merit-based pay raises for teachers who score highly in newly implemented state evaluations. Those merit-based raises could reach 10 percent, Martinez said.

In other key spending areas, such as education and health care, Martinez's budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year bears similarities to the recommendation unveiled earlier this week by the Legislative Finance Committee.

Overall, the legislative plan would increase state spending by $233 million for the coming year, while Martinez's plan would increase spending by about $232 million - slightly less.

The executive and legislative budget proposals will be debated by lawmakers during the upcoming 60-day legislative session, which begins Tuesday. Once a budget is passed, it will be sent to Martinez for final approval.

A conservative-leaning Democratic lawmaker said Thursday he saw no immediate problems with the Martinez budget recommendations, although he did note the difference on employee salary increases.

• "I don't see any major barriers at this point in time," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith, D-Deming.

The governor's budget would increase state spending on public schools by more than $101 million by hiring more reading coaches for elementary schools and expanding access to Advanced Placement classes, among other things.

Medicaid spending would also increase, including about $3 million to hire more than 100 employees to help implement the expansion of the joint-federal health care program that Martinez announced earlier this week she would implement. Federal government will pay for the rest of the Medicaid expansion, at least for the next three years.

However, the Governor's Office said the state would see a net savings of $16 million in the coming year due to additional tax revenue stemming from the expansion of Medicaid benefits to an additional 170,000 New Mexicans.

Tax breaks

Meanwhile, Martinez's budget proposal would leave nearly $50 million available for tax breaks designed to make the state more economically competitive with its neighbors.

That includes a proposal to lower the state's corporate income tax rate from 7.4 percent to 4.9 percent. That tax cut would likely be phased in over several years, Finance and Administration Secretary Tom Clifford said Thursday.

The Legislature's budget recommendation would leave only about $25 million available for tax cuts, or other similar measures.

In addition to the initiatives included in her budget plan, Martinez said she is willing to work with the Democratic-controlled Legislature to make additional changes to the state's tax structure. She said she is confident she can work well with Democratic legislative leaders, even after a bruising 2012 election season.

• "No governor ever expects to get everything they ask for," Martinez said at a news conference at a Santa Fe elementary school. "As a Republican governor with a Democrat-led Legislature I don't expect to (get everything I want approved), but I do expect to continue to have meetings and negotiations with them and advocate for my positions, just like they will for theirs."

However, the salary increase proposal is shaping up as an early sticking point for the session.

While the LFC plan calls for $32.2 million to be spent in order for all state employees and teachers to receive a 1 percent salary increase, Martinez said she does not believe the time is right for such a measure.

• "I don't think when we are losing government jobs, 400 alone in the month of November, is a time for us to start giving pay increases," Martinez said.

A closer look at budgets

Budget recommendations unveiled this week by Gov. Susana Martinez and the Legislative Finance Committee are similar in many areas, but there are differences. Here's a breakdown:

Total Spending - Martinez: $232 million increase (4.1 percent); LFC: $233 million increase (4.1 percent)

Public Schools - Martinez: $101 million increase (4.2 percent); LFC: $91 million increase (3.7 percent)

Higher Education - Martinez: $24 million increase (3.2 percent); LFC: $27.8 million increase (3.7 percent)

Medicaid - Martinez: $32.8 million increase (3.6 percent); LFC: $34.8 million increase (3.9 percent)

Salary Increases (across the board) - Martinez: $0; LFC: $32.2 million increase (1 percent)

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Santa Fe/ Governor's Education Spending Plan

By Robert Nott

The New Mexican

January 10, 2013

Gov. Susana Martinez wants the Legislature to approve more than $101 million in new spending on public education -

• some $70 million of it to support basic school services and
• the other $30 million for several educational initiatives, including the governor's "Read to Lead" program.

Martinez announced the spending proposal during her budget presentation Thursday in the library at Piñon Elementary School.

Governor's education spending plan

Almost $2.5 billion of the governor's $5.8 billion budget would be dedicated to public education.

In terms of new money:

• $38 million would go toward operational costs, such as fuel, building maintenance, utilities and enrollment growth.
• $33 million will be used to shift pension contributions from educators to the state.
• $13.5 million will support "Read to Lead" efforts to develop early-childhood literacy interventions and programs.
• $4.74 million will go directly toward the state's lowest-performing schools to improve their rankings - and student achievement - under the state's new A-F school grading system.
• Nearly $5 million will be used to expand Advanced Placement programs across the state, expand vocational and technical training for rural school districts, and offer free college placement or workforce-ready exams for students.
• More than $11.3 million will be used to offer merit pay raises to the state's highest-performing teachers.
• $2 million would go toward STEM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
• $200,000 would purchase books for all first-graders.

Martinez noted that the state must find a way to reward high-quality teachers and help low-performing schools, and she reiterated the need to shape a new teacher evaluation system, which her administration is piloting in about 65 schools this year under executive order.

Hanna Skandera, Secretary of Education-designate, said more details regarding the administration's education initiatives will be unveiled next week.

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Santa Fe/ Gov. Martinez Proposes $101 Million for Public Schools

By Milan Simonich, Texas-New Mexico Newspapers

Farmington Daily Times

January 10, 2013

Gov. Susana Martinez proposed Thursday that the state increase funding for public schools by $101 million this year. More than $11 million would go toward merit pay for outstanding teachers.

Those numbers were included in Martinez's budget plan, which totals $5.88 billion, identical to the amount that the Legislative Finance Committee recommended earlier this week.

But the Republican governor's proposal does not contain raises for state employees. The finance committee is suggesting a 1-percent increase for them and for public school teachers.

State workers have not had a raise since 2008. Martinez said the time was not right for an across-the-board increase, given uncertainty about the federal budget that figures so heavily in New Mexico's economy. Martinez said 400 government jobs were lost in New Mexico in November alone.

She said about 22,000 state workers would see a bit more take-home pay under her plan to increase state pension contributions by 1.5 percent.

Employee payments into the program would be reduced by the same amount. The legislative proposal contained this same idea.

Martinez chose Piñon Elementary School to announce her budget proposal, in part because many of her initiatives deal with education.

In all, Martinez wants $2.54 billion for public schools. That would include the $101 million in increased spending.

• About 70 percent of the increase would pay for utility costs, to accommodate higher enrollment and to shift pension contributions from teachers to taxpayers.
• The rest would be tied to academics.

Martinez proposes to spend $13.3 million on a statewide reading program to pinpoint and help struggling students in kindergarten through third grade. Legislators allocated $8.5 million for the program last year.

Another of the governor's ideas is to spend almost $5 million on the state's lowest-performing schools. New Mexico grades its more than 800 public schools on an A-F system.

A total of $2 million would pay for hiring math and science teachers in schools with the greatest need.

Merit pay for teachers is the other large portion of the increase.

Hanna Skandera, secretary-designate of public education, said many teachers were frustrated by the slow pace of salary increases in New Mexico's three-tiered pay system.

• But with a merit initiative, a superb teacher hired at the first-tier rate of $30,000 a year could be making $50,000 in four years, Skandera said. A yearly increase for a highly rated teacher could reach $7,500.
• Ratings would be linked to student achievement on test scores, classroom evaluations and locally devised measures of teacher performance, she said.

A push for merit pay is likely to be contentious in the Legislature.

Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, said in an interview that the state must focus on improving the whole system, not single out individual teachers for pay raises. If there is a wonderful success story in achievement, the whole school should share in the rewards because many people made it possible, Stewart said.

• "The problem with the governor and the secretary is that they are not educators," said Stewart, who was a teacher for 30 years.

In addition to education reforms, Martinez proposed to lower the state tax rate that large companies pay from 7.6 percent to 4.9 percent. She said this would make New Mexico more competitive with the rest of the region.

Like the legislative proposal, her budget plan also would add money to Medicaid and to the Department of Public Safety for vehicles and officer recruitment.

Martinez also wants to allocate another $2.5 million to the Department of Tourism for advertising in other markets, and $750,000 to the state Racing Commission so it can combat the doping of racehorses through more testing.

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Española/ PED Backs Off $945,125 Special Education Audit Claim Against School District

By Louis McGill

Rio Grande Sun Staff Writer

January 10, 2013

Española School District Superintendent Art Blea received comforting news Jan. 2.

He received a letter from Cindy Gregory, hearing officer of the Dec. 21 hearing regarding the Public Education Department's special education audit of the District.

The letter states, despite initially finding the District owed the Department $945,125, the hearing testimony and supporting documentation provided by the District cleared up all but $13,336.12.

 "I was expecting a little bit higher, but this is definitely a much better scenario," Blea said. After the meeting, he said he expected the District would have to pay somewhere around $100,000.

That amount remained because the District could not provide supporting documentation for the use of as much federal funding for its bilingual program in the 2009-2010 school year. Because of this, they failed to meet federal funding requirements.

• The other expenditures the Department needed the District to account for included $16,425 for a conference trip to Disney World,
• $525 on cell phone reimbursements,
• $250 for driving school for a student,
• payments to a contractor for academic support amounting to $6,175, which they claimed did not receive School Board approval, and
• $908,478 in salary payments for principals and bus assistants which came out of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Part B funding.

Blea, Special Education Director Christina Baca, Assistant Special Education Director Deidra Montoya and Finance Director Janette Trujillo, were able to show the hearing council the largest amounts found by the auditors were largely incorrect.

• Only $145,877.87 went to salaries, which the Department approved when the District applied for federal funding that year.
• Only about $3,000 of federal money went to the conference trip.
• The $6,175 for the contractor did receive school board approval.

For the rest of the items, Blea said they were able to show documentation or provide a convincing narrative for documentation they would not be able to reconstruct.

"I feel very good about the decision, and of course we learned something in the process," he said. "Even though we were not the people here at the time, we had to reconstruct records."

Blea said he credits the hard work of Baca and Trujillo, along with their staffs, for the District's good fortune.

"They literally spent hours researching records, getting documentation, putting together the big document we presented over there," he said. "A whole lot of credit goes to those guys for putting that together on a very short time line."

According to the letter, the Department undertook the initial tier I audit internally, focusing on school districts around the state which had a 200 percent increase in their special education enrollment and services.

For tier II they hired the Accounting & Consultant Group to audit nine specific districts, including Española School District. The schools were given the opportunity to respond to the audit findings in June, and Española failed to do so. Because of this, the Department called for the hearing.

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Deming/ Luna County Rejects Support of School District's 'Master Plan'

Schools need 'ducks in a row'

By Matt Robinson

Deming Headlight Staff

January 10, 2013

Luna County's Board of Commissioners unanimously rejected a letter in support of Deming Public School's efforts to, at some point in the future, hold a bond election for school improvements.

The commission met Thursday morning during which they rejected a letter that DPS had requested to support renovating Deming High School and possibly relocating Deming InterMediate School.

• Javier Diaz, who was elected Chairman of the board during the meeting, called the letter "premature" and said the district needs to get its "ducks in a row" before the county can offer support.
• "I believe the taxpayers have a voice of their own and should be heard before sending a letter of support," Commissioner Jay Spivey added.

Locals Ron Scharf and Anne Shine-Ring each spoke, saying they opposed the plan-of which details are scant.

"I have looked at the school salaries; there's an excessive number of administrators and a lack of instructional services," Shine-Ring said. "They need to be held accountable and that's why the last two bond items didn't pass."

A controversial bond election in 2008 failed to garner support of the electorate to build a new high school. The last successful school bond election was in 2006, when $11 million was approved for two elementary schools.

• "We certainly appreciate the county considering it," Superintendent Harvielee Moore said in reaction to the Thursday vote.
• "We know that they represent the people in the county, but our schools are comprised of students that come from throughout the county, so we are going to move forward and work with the commissioners and give them the information we need (to)."

Prior to the meeting, Moore stressed that the district does not have any set plans on the table to renovate Deming High School or to move Deming InterMediate School, but that the latest effort is part of an ongoing process to formulate a facilities master plan as required by the state.

"We won't even ask the (school) board to consider the question of the bond until we have heard from the community," Moore said.

A series of meetings have been held recently to seek public input on a variety of school issues and she says more meetings will be held to get input from locals.

She added that the city of Deming has already offered the district a letter of support and that the schools are working with the city council and administration.

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Santa Fe/ Students' Input on High School Reform: Keep 2 Campuses, Expand Programs

By Robert Nott

The New Mexican

January 10, 2013

• "Who knows best about high school? High school kids."

That's what Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Joel Boyd told a group of about 20 Santa Fe High students following a community forum designed to discuss the district's four possible options for high school reform.

But based on their reactions, most of the students prefer a fifth option that is not yet on the district's drawing board.

Thursday evening's presentation, held in the Commons building at Santa Fe High, drew about 60 people, including staff members, parents, community supporters and students. Boyd told the assembly that the district is working to hear all points of views before making its final decision on expanding options at the high school level, a decision likely to occur by early March.

• "Making the right decision is more important than making a fast decision," Boyd said.

The options:

• Build on current programming choices at both high schools.
• Build on current programming while creating two magnet schools.
• Create career academies at both high schools without duplicating programs, while creating two magnet schools and establishing a separate ninth-grade academy on or near a high school campus.
• Create four career academies at one high school, start an International Baccalaureate program for grades 7-12, create one magnet school and start a separate ninth-grade academy on or near a high-school campus.

After the presentation, Boyd and company split the assembly into two groups, with parents and staffers at one table and students at another. Chief Academic Officer Almudena "Almi" Abeyta and school board member Steven Carrillo sat with the students, questioning them on their thoughts.

The students didn't hesitate to offer their opinions.

• One girl said she believes none of those four options will address the district's low graduation rate (56.5 percent) because students need to motivate themselves with parental support.
• Echoing that thought, another student said, "It's not about adding more classes but getting kids to push themselves."
• "I don't think combining the two schools is a good idea," another student said, arguing that the Santa Fe High and Capital High communities are too diverse and independent as is.

Not one of the students was for the establishment of a ninth-grade academy, with several of students arguing that it would isolate ninth-graders, impacting their ability to learn from older schoolmates.

• "The problems we have with freshmen [fitting in] will just be problems for the sophomores," one girl said.
• Several showed interest in magnet schools, particularly one focused on innovation, creativity and technology.
• But several voiced concern that an arts magnet school - one option being discussed - would take students and teachers away from existing, successful arts and music programs at the two high schools. Likewise, having those art classes available as electives may keep students who are focused on other careers interested in school, one youth said.

Many said that despite the district's best efforts to help them home in on a potential career path by grade nine or 10, they prefer the option of sampling a lot of different classes and career options in high school.

• "I shouldn't have to choose whether I want to be in the arts, the sciences, literature, music," without having the chance to try them all, one boy said.
• "If I had to choose a magnet school, I wouldn't be able to choose just one," another student said.

Many students praised their teachers but said educators need to do more to connect what kids do in school with what they encounter in the real world.

• "I think students do their best work when they know there is an audience base for it," one girl said, noting that turning in a school assignment or project to just the teacher is not as exciting or motivating as displaying it for someone working within that field or subject matter - as if the students were preparing for a job offer.

When asked to choose a preference among the four options, most of the group added a fifth choice, which would involve offering more programs at each high school campus.

• "What I'm hearing is that you want options, but you want them kept here," Abeyta told the group.

Carrillo seemed surprised and impressed with the feedback and suggested that student input may lead the board to consider new ideas. Asked what would happen if adults - parents and staffers, for instance - didn't agree with the students' views, he said, "Car designers can design any car they want, but if the drivers don't want to drive it, it's not going anywhere."

The district held a similar forum Wednesday night at Capital High School. The district plans several more community forums through January.

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Grants/ Grants/Cibola County School District: Performing Arts Center Project to be Awarded

By Donald Jaramillo Beacon Managing Editor

Cibola County Beacon

January 11, 2013

Ann Marie Gallegos, director of budget and finance for the Grants/Cibola County School District, proudly announced at Tuesday evening's board meeting that the district would award the construction of Grants High School's Performing Arts Center later this month.

The center, to cost approximately $10 million, is expected to provide Grants and Cibola County residents with a top-notch performing arts facility, said Gallegos.

Bids on the project are expected to be open by Jan. 15, according Gallegos, and awarded by Jan. 22.

The arts center is expected to be complete by the end of this year.

Dekker/Perich/Sabbatini, an engineering firm from Albuquerque, designed the facility to be added to Grants High Schools fairly new music/drama building. Emphasis was on orchestral and choral performances, according to the firm. However, the GHS arts center will be flexible enough for dramatic performances.

It will seat 480 people comfortably. There are two levels, the second being a mezzanine. Every seat provides the person with an intimate viewing experience, according to the engineers.

The center was designed to take advantage of views of Mount Taylor from the lobby.

Superintendent Kilino Marquez said, "The important thing was to phase it in with the rest of Grants High School. We (Marquez' administration) feel they (Dekker/Perich/Sabbatini) have done a good job at that."

Marquez noted in a previous board meeting that Bill Griner, the band and choir director of Grants High School, has given much input as to the overall design of the center. "He's worked with the engineer on a regular basis," said Marquez. "Mr. Griner is very excited for the completion of this great facility."

A groundbreaking ceremony is expected to take place in February, Gallegos told the board.

She also noted the G/CCS matching funds for the project were only made possible through district bonds.

• "It is important to note," she said, "as the bond question is once again on Feb. 5 ballot, that the arts center is only made possible because of the bonds."

The board is requesting support from voters to authorize the issuance of general obligation bonds in an amount up to $9,000,000 for the continued purpose of remodeling, making additions to and furnishing school buildings.

• The district has been able to build facilities such as Milan and Cubero Elementary Schools, and add-on to schools such as San Rafael Elementary because of bond revenue.

Board President Joel Stewart said he is pushing for voters to vote "yes" on the bond question while he is campaigning for reelection. Former Grants' Mayor and Councilman, Ronald Ortiz, is challenging Stewart for the District Three seat.

Also, 12-year board member Dion Sandoval is seeking reelection for District Two. Charles Lundstrom is challenging him.

Jerry Smith, in District One, is also seeking reelection and is being opposed by five others: Jolyn Sandoval, Emily E. Hunt Daly, Ritz Suazo, Jack Adelacy, and Gerald Smith Jr.

Stewart urged for Smith and Sandoval to also push for a "yes" vote on the bond question.

"Talk to people; urge them to vote for the bond," said Stewart. "We need to support it and talk it up."

Superintendent Marquez said he feels the current administration has a good campaign plan in regard to the bond. "We've done this for years and feel the plan is proven," said Marquez.

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Estancia/ Board of Education Meeting: School Security, Handbook Top Topics

By Mike Bush

Mountain View Telegraph

January 10, 2013

Two topics dominated Tuesday night's meeting of the Estancia Board of Education: school security and the pending student athletic handbook.

The latest draft of the handbook generally received the approval of parents and coaches who spoke at the meeting, but everyone seemed to agree that there is still room for improvement - "tweaking" was the word most often used.

The meeting was held in the school cafeteria in anticipation of a large turnout for the handbook discussion, but the big crowd never materialized.

One mother, Angie Coburn, told school district administrators that she appreciates the changes made in the evolving document, but still questioned the district's ability to police some of the passages regarding discipline. Specifically, she objected to a provision that could wind up punishing a student athlete who might witness another youngster in the act of drinking alcohol. The proposed rules need more specificity, she said.

Estancia High School baseball coach Mike Cabber said he is very much in favor of a code of conduct for student athletes, but agreed that the handbook is still in need of fine-tuning to clear up any gray areas.

"Without a doubt we're on the right track," he said.

Another parent, Cheri Lujan, observed that a few of the draft handbook provisions contradict existing district policies.

At the end of the discussion, parents, coaches, administrators, board members and the president of the Booster Club all agreed that a little additional tweaking could bring the handbook as near to ideal as possible. The overriding goal, they said, was student safety and responsibility.

On the issue of security, specifically in the wake of the Dec. 14 tragedy in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 first-graders and six elementary school administrators were shot to death, Estancia Superintendant Audie Brown advised the board that the district is looking into installing new safety measures to protect students and staff members.

Phil Lomax, a representative of Tyco, the large security systems company, explained various access control options to the board, particularly those that would lock doors automatically from the outside but still allow students and teachers to exit a door or building if necessary.

The options, however, would be costly, perhaps as much as $4,500 per door, with three or four doors affected per school. One administrative estimate put the cost at more than $70,000.

Board President Randol Riley seemed to speak for everyone present when he lamented the need for such security considerations, then added that he didn't want to see the district turned into a prison.

Brown agreed, but said "We're unfortunately at a point where we don't have a choice anymore."

Later in the meeting, two school principals reported on new security measures they are taking, including holding lock downs, obtaining blinds for windows and checking all door and window locks with the Estancia chief of police.

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ABQ/ EDITORIAL: Delayed PEC Do-Over Cheats System, Public

ABQ Journal

January 11, 2013

The state Public Education Commission's re-scheduled vote to renew two charter school authorizations - and its plan to re-vote those authorizations at its next meeting - fail the public on several open/accountable government fronts:

• The original vote was done a day earlier than scheduled, with no public notice of the change, eliminating the opportunity for members of the public to comment. And it was done with the blessing of the commission's counsel, Assistant Attorney General Mark Reynolds.

When asked about members of the public who might show up the next day, Friday Dec. 14, and find no meeting, Reynolds told the commission chairman "I have much more heartburn with not hearing them today, rather than tomorrow. Changing around like this, there's absolutely no problem at all with that."

Tell that to the people who wanted to weigh in on the charters of North Valley Academy and Horizon Academy West. The rationale doesn't exactly square with the mantra posted on the New Mexico Attorney General's website, that "public access to the proceedings and decision-making processes of governmental boards, agencies and commissions is an essential element of a properly functioning democracy."

• The commission now plans, again with the AG's approval, to re-do its votes at its next meeting, on Feb. 1. That is unfair to the commission's newly elected members, who have not had the benefit of a full debate and possible public comment on the renewals. And it is in conflict with state open-meetings law that specifies mulligans to rectify errors must to be done within 15 days - Feb. 1 is 35 business days from the original violation.

Martin Esquivel, an Albuquerque school board member and attorney who specializes in open government issues, says the commission "can't just say, 'Oh we screwed up, we'll fix it next time.' There has to be some declaration that what happened at the last meeting is null and void."

Fixing it correctly would require giving notice and thus giving the public a chance to attend and comment before a vote.

And there should be an acknowledgment that going forward, there is a lawful, responsible way to conduct public meetings.

Attorney General Gary King says on the AG's website that "meetings held by public officials to discuss public business, particularly when conducted with the public taxpayers' money, are the taxpayers' business. The Open Meetings Act is one of New Mexico's 'good government' laws, and it deserves the full support of all New Mexicans."

And that should include members of the Public Education Commission and the AG's staff. A delayed do-over without public notice and comment on renewals for North Valley Academy and Horizon Academy West does not honor the letter or intent of the Open Meetings Act; the improper vote should be truly scrapped and the process re-started.

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Washington DC/ Discipline Policies Shift With Views on What Works [NM mention]

After millions of 'get tough' suspensions and expulsions, educators nationwide are looking for ways to assure safety while keeping students in school

By Nirvi Shah [Assistant Editor Michele McNeil contributed to this article]

Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 16  [Edweek.org]

January 10, 2013

If students aren't in school, they can't learn.

But if they are disruptive or violent, they may shortchange other students' chances at an education.

Attempted solutions to that unresolved school-discipline dilemma have yielded state and federal policies behind millions of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions during the past two decades.

The laws and policies have been applied to students wielding weapons and to those sporting a smart mouth or a cellphone. The so-called zero-tolerance approach to discipline, once reserved for the most serious of offenses, has prompted the suspensions and expulsions of students in possession of butter knives and theater-prop swords. The federal Gun-Free Schools Act, enacted in 1994, ushered in an era of tough punishment for low-level offenses.

• Meanwhile, research and public positions by psychologists, physicians, and teachers' unions denounce such practices as harmful to students academically and socially, useless as prevention tools, and unevenly applied.
• Advocacy groups-backed by that research and by data collected by the U.S. Department of Education-say the discipline machinery has a disproportionate effect on students who are black, Latino, or male and those with disabilities.

Supporters of out-of-school suspension and expulsion

• counter that students have become more combative and disruptive, problems attributable at least in part to the deterioration of students' home lives.
• Out-of-school punishment shifts the weight of discipline to parents, they reason.
• When it comes to lesser offenses, they argue that ejecting students who don't take part in lessons means students on task can benefit fully from educational opportunities. If some groups of students appear to be disproportionately affected, it's not purposeful, they say, just a reflection of reality.

Despite some firm support for disciplinary practices that remove students from school, those opposed to the policies believe there has been no better time to capitalize on the tide countering them.

• "Schools that are taking this on now are still fighting against the stream a little bit," says Russell Skiba, a professor in counseling and educational psychology at Indiana University in Bloomington. His Equity Project offers evidence-based information to educators and policymakers on equity in special education and school discipline. But "there's been some real momentum," he says.
• "If we can shift to an understanding that schools are not going to get to the outcomes that they're desiring as far as academics until they get a handle on issues of school climate and discipline," says Skiba, "then I think we might see more resources flowing in that direction."

Long History

School discipline issues had a well-warmed seat in the spotlight long before federal legislation on the matter nearly two decades ago.

Back in 1982, for example, Principal Joe Clark of Eastside High in Paterson, N.J., became famous for suspending students en masse for disrespect, fighting, and vulgarity. His toughness later landed him on the cover of Time and made him the subject of a movie starring Morgan Freeman.

Clark was only a little ahead of his time. Pressure for schools to adopt what became known as zero tolerance-a term associated with Reagan-era anti-drug efforts-gained momentum in the early 1990s amid concern about national crime statistics and the perceived need to shelter schools from "super-predators," a supposed new class of particularly violent youths.

A watershed arrived with Congress' passage of the Gun-Free Schools Act, an initiative of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and then-Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, both Democrats. President Bill Clinton signed the measure into law.

• The law requires all schools that receive federal money to expel for a year students caught with firearms on campus.

It echoed and amplified local school board policies that had cropped up in pockets, and the law is believed to be the catalyst for current practice: dismissal from school for much-lower-level misbehavior.

Since the law's 1994 passage, it has led to the expulsion of more than 25,000 students, federal Education Department records show.

Neither Feinstein nor Dorgan granted multiple requests from Education Week for comment on their legislation's legacy. Staff members for Feinstein instead offered her remarks from when the legislation was introduced.

"What kind of a nation is this when students must go to school in constant fear of being shot, stabbed, or attacked?" she said then. "What kind of a learning environment can there be when youngsters bring guns to school? How can we expect students to learn when so many resources are spent on metal detectors and safety personnel?"

Although she said in her speech that "mandatory suspension is not the only approach to addressing the problem of guns in schools," Feinstein was firm in her belief that expulsion would be a powerful deterrent.

Yet in the years since the adoption of the get-tough law, the nation has recorded some of its deadliest school violence, including shooting deaths at Westside Middle School near Jonesboro, Ark., in 1997, the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colo., and the killings at Red Lake High School in northern Minnesota in 2005.

Despite scant evidence that super-predators ever existed, "if you were to come out for prevention at that point, the odds were someone was going to say, 'What? Don't you believe in safe schools?'" says Skiba, a technical advisor to Quality Counts 2013. "Zero tolerance was a wonderful political sound bite through the early to mid-'90s. It wasn't a very data-driven discussion. It was a fear-driven discussion."

With safety at the forefront of policymakers' minds, they may have considered little else, says Daniel J. Losen, the director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, based at the University of California, Los Angeles. That "'it's in all our interest to have all our kids succeed'-I don't think that was part of [lawmakers'] thinking," says Losen, also a technical advisor for Quality Counts 2013.

Dropout Connection

Research connects suspension with dropping out, or at least with a decline in academic success.

A 2011 study of Texas students by the Council of State Governments Justice Center in Bethesda, Md., and the Public Policy Research Institute at Texas A&M University, in College Station, found that as nearly a million middle and high school students in the state moved from 7th to 12th grade, more than half were suspended or expelled at least once. Those students were more likely to repeat a grade or drop out of school than students not punished in the same way.

Losen and other critics of out-of-school suspension say they aren't asking for a full-scale ban on its use, though one coalition, the Dignity in Schools Campaign, has asked for a moratorium until schools implement workable alternatives.

• "I don't think anyone is saying we should never, ever suspend a kid out of school," Losen says, but he does take issue with the frequency with which suspensions are used.
• "Look at the sheer volume. Some of the people resisting [changing the policies] think we're only kicking out the worst offenders. How can you be kicking out half the kids?"

Another point of contention: The penalties have been shown to disproportionately affect students whose academic achievement has historically lagged.

Data collected by the Education Department's office for civil rights from the 2009-10 school year, encompassing 85 percent of public school students nationwide, show that across all school districts included in the collection, black students were 3½ times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers. In districts reporting expulsions under zero-tolerance policies, Hispanic and black students represented 45 percent of enrollment but 56 percent of students expelled under such policies.

An Education Week analysis of the same data found that while black students made up about 18 percent of students in the data set, they accounted for nearly 50 percent of students suspended more than once out of school. Of the roughly 20,500 students expelled that year without access to educational services, nearly 50 percent were black. And overall, one in every 10 students included in the data collection was suspended out of school at least once that year.

An analysis by Losen and his colleagues at the Civil Rights Project of the federal data found that one in six black students, one in 14 Latino students, and one in 20 white students of those in the data set were suspended at least once that school year.

But there's nothing disproportionate about the numbers, says Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a think tank in New York City that emphasizes free-market principles and greater individual responsibility.

"I just think that behavior is driving the discipline rates," Mac Donald says, citing crime statistics that show the rate of black teenagers who are either victims or perpetrators of homicide is higher than that for white and Latino teenagers. "It is completely fanciful to think that the types of crime rates that we're seeing among black youth on the streets do not affect how students are acting in class, how they're acting toward their teachers, toward their classmates."

She cited a greater breakdown in the nuclear family among African-Americans than other racial groups. For black boys growing up with no father figure, she says, key lessons on self-control are often absent. "To then hold the rest of the class hostage," she says, "and to say it's the school's fault, it's blaming the messenger."

Skiba counters that research doesn't support the idea that discipline is meted out based on higher rates of bad behavior among some racial groups. But it does show, he says, that black and Latino students are more likely than their white peers to be suspended for minor misbehavior than are their white peers.

Under the Obama administration, a number of school districts have been investigated for discipline rates for one group of students that far exceed their representation in the student body. Mac Donald decries that line of investigation; Losen applauds it. He argues that the past segregation of black students and students with disabilities is a reason for both groups' lopsided representation in discipline statistics.

When Congress worked on the 2004 renewal of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, one of the biggest sticking points was discipline, notes Lindsay Jones, the senior director of policy and advocacy services for the Council for Exceptional Children, in Arlington, Va.

At the core of the dispute was punishing students whose misbehavior was a manifestation of their disabilities. The revised law requires schools to ask detailed questions about an incident to determine the cause of a student's actions. Instead of issuing consequences when a student's disability is to blame, schools must adjust a student's education plan to address the behavior.

The question shouldn't be how to punish a student, Jones says, but "How could we have prevented this?"

Her organization supports legislation that would encourage the use of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or PBIS, including a bill that would infuse the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently the No Child Left Behind Act) with the approach, which emphasizes teaching students how to behave and rewarding positive behavior.

In Perspective

Although zero-tolerance policies and eye-popping numbers of suspensions and expulsions persist, shootings and other extreme instances of school violence remain rare: The most recent federal statistics available, from the 2006-07 school year, show the number of students expelled for having firearms on campus is lower than a decade earlier. Energy spent deterring potential gun-toting teenagers would be better directed at preventing disruptive behavior that teachers deal with every day, some school administrators say. That shift in emphasis, they say, could address far more common problems, including disrespect and fighting.

"Is it a crisis, a traumatic, horrible event, if a child brings a gun to school? Absolutely," says Laurie Barron, the principal of Smokey Road Middle School in Newnan, Ga. She is the National Association of Secondary School Principals' 2013 Middle School Principal of the Year.

• "But how often does that happen?" she says. "We spend more time explaining to you what's going to happen if you bring a gun to school than what's going to happen if you do the right thing every day."

At her 750-student school, changes in recent years, including an emphasis on building relationships between teachers and students, have helped cut discipline referrals from an average of 120 a month four years ago to 20 now.

Schools in New Mexico and several other states are using a program called Elev8, which is tapped the moment a situation arises that might typically result in a suspension or other disciplinary consequence.

• The Elev8 model uses school-based health centers to provide mental-health and behavioral support for students, says Frank Mirabal, the director of the program in New Mexico.
• The program also provides after-school activities for students, can connect families with medical and social services, and in some cases offers academic support. Suspensions in one Chicago Elev8 school dropped 80 percent in the 2009-10 school year, the organization says.

Wilson Middle School in Albuquerque, N.M., offers an even more powerful example. The year before Elev8 was implemented, there were 50 arrests of students on campus and in the neighboring community, Mirabal says. During Elev8's first year, there were four.

Exploring New Options

While schools continue to adopt strict discipline policies or enforce existing ones, expert voices opposing them have emerged, as have attempts to try alternatives.

• A 2003 position statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics, based in Elk Grove Village, Ill., concluded that "out-of-school placement for suspension or expulsion should be limited to the most egregious circumstances. For in-home suspension or expulsion, the school must be able to demonstrate how attendance at a school site, even in an alternative setting with a low ratio of highly trained staff to students, would be inadequate to prevent a student from causing harm to himself or herself or to others."
• In 2008, the zero-tolerance task force of the Washington-based American Psychological Association concluded that "ultimately, an examination of the evidence shows that zero-tolerance policies as implemented have failed to achieve the goals of an effective system of school discipline."
• In addition, the federal departments of Education and Justice in 2011 jointly contracted with the Council of State Governments to draw up a national consensus document on school discipline approaches. New federal initiatives also have provided states with money to train teachers in classroom-management strategies in Hawaii, develop positive behavioral interventions in South Carolina, and infuse instruction in Michigan with social-emotional lessons.

Parents, students, and school administrators pressing for changes also are gaining traction.

• In June of last year, the Chicago school board voted to eliminate automatic 10-day suspensions for the worst school-based offenses.
• District codes of conduct that rely heavily on out-of-school suspension have been rewritten several times in the past few years in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, students have tried to disabuse school administrators of the notion that they are disruptive to escape class.

"Students generally want to be in school," says Hiram Rivera, the executive director of the Philadelphia Student Union. But inappropriate behavior may be a reaction to the schools themselves. "They don't want to be in under-resourced schools," Rivera says, "or go to a school where all they're doing is test prep in crowded classrooms."

In late 2009, a fight at South Philadelphia High School, between Asian students who were English-language learners and black students, sent 13 people to the hospital. The fracas highlighted inequities in educational programming for the different groups on campus. The disparities and concerns about district disciplinary practices also were tackled by Youth United for Change, a Philadelphia group working on education issues. Reconfiguring the code of conduct cut expulsions in the district in the last two school years from 236 to 30.

But the groups look forward to this school year's data, which will show whether principals are handling smaller incidents such as dress-code violations and tardiness less aggressively than with an out-of-school suspension.

And with the start of 2013, Philadelphia is set to pilot alternatives, including restorative practices-which require students to repair harm caused by wrongdoing-in at least 10 schools and PBIS, in 10 others.

"Oftentimes, when people say we're against zero tolerance, people think we're against accountability. No," says Andi Perez, the executive director of Youth United for Change. "We think there's a better way to handle it."

Heavy Lift

Despite a will in some places, shifting away from heavy use of out-of-school suspensions can be cumbersome, takes broad staff buy-in, and doesn't provide the quick remedy a suspension offers for a student or staff member affected by student misbehavior.

• In Clayton County, Ga., the school system collaborated with the local juvenile court, revised its code of conduct, hired additional safety personnel, and added surveillance equipment. It also implemented alternative disciplinary methods, provided gang-resistance education and training, instituted in-school suspension, and evaluated its professional-development offerings, all with the intent of improving student behavior and cutting suspension rates.
• In the course of five years and all those endeavors, suspensions have dropped by less than half in the 52,000-student school district, says Tamera Foley, the district's executive director of teaching and learning.

"Every week, we're looking at discipline, how many incidents are out there, what are they for," she says. "We want to do everything possible to keep kids in schools," but there are still those among the staff, says Foley, who want students gone when they misbehave.

And alternative measures often come with a price tag.

• At one junior high school in Minnesota, adding Saturday school and evening social-skills classes for three years contributed to a sharp drop in the out-of-school suspension rate, but both options evaporated once a state grant that paid for them expired.

Political forces still play a role.

• In Louisiana, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a bill in 2010 that requires school districts to provide teachers with training in classroom management-a skill that can keep behavior issues from escalating or happening at all-but he vetoed a bill a year later that would have required school boards to define "willful disobedience," along with rules and guidelines for the suspensions issued for that offense.
• In California, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown in 2012 signed a number of measures that aim to curb the use of out-of-school suspension, but also vetoed a measure tackling suspensions on the grounds of the unspecific "willful defiance."

Long-Term Benefits

Keeping students in school as much as possible will only serve schools well in the long run, anti-suspension advocates say.

• That message has sunk in for the superintendent of the Greenville public schools in Mississippi. Leeson Taylor, a graduate of the 5,700-student school system in an agricultural swath of the state's Delta region, says he is trying to adjust the district's approach to school discipline, with students' academic success in mind.

"We know that in April we'll have to do our high-stakes assessment. We have to have 95 percent attendance on that day," says Taylor, who became the district's chief in the summer of 2012.

This year, a portion of teachers' evaluations will be based on those test scores. "Would you rather have a child who you've taught be tested, or a child who's been absent because they've been suspended be assessed?" Taylor says.

He's had conversations with a number of principals about suspensions and supports the district's shift to placing highly qualified teachers at an alternative center for students who must be removed from school.

"Too many times, the solution is to remove the child from the [school] environment. That does not mean you've removed them from a learning environment," says Taylor. "They're just, instead, learning what the streets have to teach them."

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Adelanto CA/ Board OKs Charter Takeover of California Public School After 'Parent Trigger'

By Natasha Lindstrom

Hechinger Report [Hechingereport.org]

January 9, 2013

The real-life version of "Won't Back Down" - the recent movie that promoted the controversial "parent trigger" law - appears to finally be getting a happier ending than the box office flop.

Parent union members at Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, Calif., have become the first in the nation to convert their struggling neighborhood school into a charter school.

On a 4-0 vote Tuesday night, the Adelanto School District board approved the charter school operator selected by the Desert Trails Kids First parent union, LaVerne Elementary Preparatory Academy. It took the parent union nearly two years and a bitter legal battle to get there.

"I'm excited. I'm happy. I'm in tears - I'm holding them back," parent union leader Cynthia Ramirez said shortly after the vote. "I can finally sleep at night."

California's Parent Empowerment Act of 2010, known as the parent trigger law, enables parents representing more than 50 percent of students to sign a petition to force major reforms on a low-performing school, from firing the principal and half the staff to a charter conversion. At least seven states have versions of parent trigger laws on the books, and parent trigger bills have been considered in some 20 others.

• "The idea behind this movement is not simply to find and save every single failing school in the country through community organizing," said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution, the Los Angeles-based advocacy group that trained and bankrolled the Adelanto parents. 
• "The idea is shifting the paradigm and giving parents the power to do what's in the best interest of their kids."

Tuesday's vote was quick and unanimous, and followed by a brief recess to let the parent trigger supporters celebrate. Members of the parent union and Parent Revolution exchanged hugs with each other, board members and district officials.

• "When the cameras are gone and the newspapers are gone, we're still here and we're going to work this out," said Board President Christine Turner.

It was a drastically different scene than so many of the heated school board meetings last spring, when the board twice rejected the parent trigger petition amid a counter-campaign to get parents to withdraw their signatures. The smaller, more loosely organized group of parents opposing the parent trigger argued that some parents had been misled when they signed the initial petition.

Both sides accused the other of harassment and intimidation. The parent union argued the opposition was fueled by teachers' union members.

The board's rejection prompted the parent union to sue the district. In July, a Victorville Superior Court judge ruled in the parent union's favor and said that parents couldn't withdraw their signatures.

In the fall, the district tried to implement curriculum changes and an alternative governance committee comprised of parents in place of a charter conversion. But in October, another judge ruled the district must let the charter conversion press on.

• "We do know what we want for our children," said Doreen Diaz, who spearheaded the formation of the parent union. She's since pulled her daughter, who is about to go into middle school, out of Desert Trails and stepped down from the union. "We proved that parents can make a difference."

The opposing parents didn't show up to speak at Tuesday's meeting. One of the opposition leaders, Maggie Flamenco, said she pulled her children out of Desert Trails on Monday. She and fellow skeptics questioned the politics behind the trigger push, and the motives of Parent Revolution, which is backed by major funders like the Gates and Walton Family foundations.

The new Desert Trails Preparatory Academy charter school will be run by LaVerne Preparatory Academy, which runs a K-8 school with similar demographics in the nearby city of Hesperia. In October, the parent union held a vote open only to the parents who signed the petition to select from two charter operators. Fifty of the 53 parents who turned out chose LaVerne.

Parent union leaders said they have high hopes for LaVerne, which scored a 911 on California's 1,000-point Academic Performance Index last year, compared to Desert Trails' score of 699. Based on test scores, Desert Trails ranks in the bottom 10 percent in the state and has been stuck on the federal watch list for failing schools for more than six years.

The board trustees, including two newly elected members, told the meeting's audience that they were impressed with the levels of student engagement they saw while visiting LaVerne's Hesperia campus. The school emphasizes classical literature, Latin and music classes, and it partners with the University of LaVerne to help train new teachers.

• "We've gone back to the basics, and we've raised the bar," said LaVerne Elementary Principal Debbie Tarver.

All students and their siblings will be guaranteed spots at the school, but every teacher and staff member will have to file new applications if they want to keep working there.

Tarver said she plans to start distributing fliers to parents about the charter conversion and will be holding informational meetings as soon as next week.

The school board did place a few conditions on the approval. By March 1, the operator must send proof of the new charter academy's registered nonprofit status, along with revised budget plans in case the academy doesn't get the state grant funds it's counting on.

Tuesday's victory could be a boon for other budding parent trigger attempts throughout California and other states, with several new bills up for discussion in state legislatures in coming months.

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New York NY/ StudentsFirstNY Report Links Poor Schools, Teachers

By Lisa Fleisher

Wall Street Journal

January 11, 2013

Poor and minority students in New York City are more likely to be taught by failing teachers than other students, an analysis by an education advocacy group found.

The report released Thursday by StudentsFirstNY said that in schools where nearly all students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch-a generally accepted measure of poverty-3.4% of teachers were rated unsatisfactory.

By contrast, 1.3% of teachers in more affluent schools had earned the low rating. The report examined the 2011-12 school year.

The findings come a week before the city and the teachers union are supposed to agree to a new evaluation system.

• Under the current system, principals have a stark choice: Teachers are either satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
• In 2011-12, 2.6% of teachers received an unsatisfactory rating.

There have been various explanations offered for why impoverished schools have more sub-par teachers.

• Some believe poorer schools are used as a dumping ground.
• Union officials say teachers in poorer schools receive less training and are more likely to be rated unsatisfactory.

StudentsFirstNY, which pushes for tougher teacher evaluations, didn't draw conclusions about the numbers.

• The report acknowledged there are inconsistencies in the way principals rate teachers.
• StudentsFirstNY Executive Director Micah Lasher said principals at high-performing schools may have become complacent and have given fewer unsatisfactory ratings, which teachers could appeal.
• The report argued that the murkiness is one reason for a more subtle grading system.

"This is a very complicated issue and there are a lot of unanswered questions," said Mr. Lasher. a former lobbyist for the city. "But the data is troubling and deserves a serious conversation about how teacher quality is distributed across schools."

Under a state law passed in 2010, teachers are to be rated on a four-tier scale, using a fixed set of measures throughout the district that include an analysis of student test scores and classroom observations. Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo set a Jan. 17 deadline for districts to develop individual ratings systems within those parameters.

• New York City is one of the last holdouts. If the city and the United Federation of Teachers don't reach a deal by the deadline, the city will lose $250 million.

Currently, there isn't a set rubric for how principals are expected to rate teachers, and the data showed practices vary widely.

• For example, at Bread & Roses Integrated Arts High School in Manhattan, none of its 31 teachers received an unsatisfactory rating in 2011-12, though the school received an F grade on the city's progress report for that year.
• But at Automotive High School in Brooklyn, which also received an F, 24% of teachers were given unsatisfactory ratings.

"Right now, because this is a binary system, and because there are a lot of reasons for principals not to rate teachers unsatisfactory, you have a picture that is not very robust or textured," Mr. Lasher said.

At the same time, overall, the data clearly showed trends, Mr. Lasher said: More teachers with unsatisfactory ratings taught at schools with high minority populations and low test scores.

The group listed a host of recommendations to address what it called a "highly regressive" system, including:

• the implementation of the new teacher-evaluation system,
• more pay for top college graduates who go into teaching and
• salary increases for the best teachers who teach at higher-needs schools.

The group, which is affiliated with the national StudentsFirst organization launched by former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, also recommended requiring parents to sign off on allowing their children to be taught by ineffective teachers.

"Having a great teacher is critical to our students' success," said Connie Pankratz, a spokeswoman for the city Department of Education. "We have pursued many of these recommendations, and will continue to work to improve the quality of education in New York City."

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said he would support paying the best teachers to mentor other teachers, but said the DOE had a "hands-off management policy" on schools in high-poverty areas.

NY-GPS, an advocacy group that fights the use of standardized testing in teacher evaluations, said paying for students' test-score performance wouldn't solve the problem.

"This report is full of empty, irresponsible political rhetoric that doesn't advance real solutions for improving teaching," spokeswoman Zakiyah Ansari said. "The inequitable distribution of quality teachers is the result of Mayor Bloomberg's refusal to provide adequate support and professional development to teachers."