Des Moines Register. March 23, 2017
Schools shouldn’t sell extra-credit points
At first blush, the proposal by Iowa Rep. Chip Baltimore might seem like an overreaction.
Baltimore, a Republican from Boone, has introduced legislation that would prohibit public schools from awarding students extra-credit points for providing classroom supplies such as paper towels and Kleenex.
“Frankly, we didn’t know this was a problem,” says Melissa Peterson, an Iowa teachers union lobbyist. “I can never imagine a teacher saying, ’I’ll give you extra credit (for purchasing supplies),’ because there’s plenty of families who can’t.”
Yes, the practice is hard to imagine. But this sort of thing is fairly widespread and in recent years has proved to be a source of controversy in Florida, California, New York and other states. At some schools, teachers have actually handed out lists of classroom supplies - erasers, tissues, disinfecting wipes, etc. - at the beginning of the semester and promised that students who helped stock the supply closet will see their final letter grade bumped up one level.
Just last year, area teachers told a Des Moines Register reporter they could recall times when students earned enough extra-credit points by “donating” boxes of Kleenex to the classroom that they were able to squeak by with a passing grade.
So, regrettably, this does happen. While it’s the sort of practice best addressed by school boards, it appears that some of them have yet to act.
To his credit, Baltimore admits he’d rather not spend his time on this issue. “I hate legislation like this - because I think it’s stupid - but sometimes you have to legislate common sense,” he says. “If it gets some attention and schools stop doing it, maybe it has the intended purpose. Maybe we don’t have to put it in the law.”
That would be the ideal outcome, but if school districts don’t act, Baltimore would be justified in pursuing the matter.
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Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. March 21, 2017
Kudos to Waterloo schools on literacy improvements
Waterloo School District elementary school students have made some of the most significant gains in an Iowa literacy program to improve reading proficiency.
The statewide results of the new “early warning system” for students in kindergarten through third grade showed a 4.2 percent increase - 67.6 percent from 63.4 percent - during the three tests administered in 2015-16 measuring reading proficiency. The benchmarks are raised during each subsequent test.
Waterloo had the biggest gain among all urban school districts with a 14.6 percent increase, improving from 38 percent proficiency in the fall to 52 percent in the spring. All the urban districts either improved or held steady.
Some rural school districts had increases of 20 to 30 percent, but not all were success stories. All told, 139 of the 398 public and private school systems had declining proficiency and 16 had double-digit drops.
Iowa passed a comprehensive literacy law in 2012 aimed at making all third-graders proficient in reading. A Formative Assessment System for Teachers is being used to determine whether students are “progressing,” ’’at risk” or “persistently at risk” by measuring comprehension or fluency.
Early warning systems enable districts to identify students at risk or struggling with reading as soon as they begin school as part of the Collaborating for Iowa’s Kids partnership with the Department of Education and area education agencies.
Schools must provide additional reading instruction for students “persistently at risk” and intervention for those “at risk,” while monitoring their progress and adapting instruction.
Iowa never had a comprehensive system to track statewide reading results in the early elementary school grades, although many local districts may have done so. The annual Iowa Assessments, which measure reading and math, are administered in the spring for third-graders.
The law was slowly implemented because of persistent problems with its $14 million testing platform.
In 2018, as it currently stands, third-graders struggling with reading would be retained, although it would not pertain to students who take summer reading programs or qualify for another exemption such as English Language Leader or special education programs.
However, the state hasn’t funded the summer reading program included in the law, leading to questions of whether the retention provision would be implemented.
While delighted with the Waterloo Schools’ improvement, Superintendent Jane Lindaman put it in perspective during a Department of Education news conference regarding the results.
“The fact is that sometimes our instruction doesn’t work. I’m not blaming or pointing fingers, but it’s a fact that we don’t meet the mark for some kids,” she said. “But the good news is that we are now better equipped than at any point in time to identify which students are on track and which ones aren’t, and we have tools to spring into action with instruction that works.”
She added, “We had started lower than we would have liked, and we ended the year right in the pack, about the state average, which we had not been at before. Being at state average is not the destination, but it is definitely a great point along the journey.”
The latest reading results contrast with concerns about Iowa Assessments scores released in October that showed the percentage of 2015-16 fourth-graders reading at grade level had declined by nearly a point from 75.7 percent to 74.8 percent, although still up from 73.5 percent during the initial tests in 2011-12.
White students declined from 80.5 percent proficiency to 79.7 percent and African-American and African immigrants from 49.8 percent to 49.0 percent. Hispanic students improved from 56.2 percent to 56.5 percent.
Math proficiency also declined from 80.3 percent to 79 percent.
The news about the improvement in proficiency among the earliest readers is obviously welcomed, although the lack of any prior program to identify and assist them is mindboggling.
Perhaps educators in recent years were too consumed with trying to attain the unrealistic, 100 percent standards of the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind; 81 percent of all Iowa schools flunked and teachers complained about an inordinate amount of classroom time devoted to “teaching to the test.”
That legislation has since been left behind.
Reading proficiency is a fundamental skill that has been degraded by a video-obsessed culture and is in desperate need of revival.
As Lindaman stated about the new approach, “Knowledge is power, and when we know what students need, we’re much more able to provide the right interventions.”
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Quad-City Times. March 24, 2017
Students pay for tax cuts
Basic fairness will die in Appropriations. And Iowa’s busted tax policy will kill it.
That’s the fate of school equity legislation now sitting in the Iowa House, according to predictions of a half-dozen state lawmakers representing the Quad-Cities. The bipartisan soothsaying late Wednesday and early Thursday put a cloud over what, until now, had been a high-point of the legislative cycle.
The bill passed earlier this month in the state Senate, SF 455, was the “best opportunity yet” for fairness among all public school students in Iowa, Davenport Community School District Superintendent Art Tate told us. For too long, Iowa has touted a grossly unjust funding model where some districts receive more state funding than others. But, as we predicted earlier this week, years of tax cuts, exemptions and corporate welfare has hamstrung Iowa’s ability to do much of anything.
And that’s the reality faced by proponents of the equity bill, which breezed through the House Education Committee on Wednesday. Now, the $203 million, 10-year package heads to the House Appropriations Committee. And that’s where Quad-Cities Reps. Norlin Mommsen, Republican, and Democrats Phyllis Thede and Cindy Winckler - all committee members - predicted the legislation’s demise, in light of yet another revenue shortfall of more than $100 million.
For their part, all House members surveyed support the bill, at least in concept. Reps. Winckler and Monica Kurth would back it should it ever reach the floor. Republicans Ross Paustian and Gary Mohr, too, would back it in concept. But they just don’t see Appropriations freeing up the $14 million needed for its first year.
“It’s unfortunate that the Senate rushed a bill over to us without any idea on how to fund it,” Paustian said.
So, now what?
The legislation’s very existence is a moral victory, some will say. It’s an acknowledgement that the system is broken. It’s an official recognition that more than 300 districts statewide, including Davenport and Maquoketa, can’t compete with their neighbors and, as a result, are further hamstrung by incessant middle class flight and sagging property values, they’ll contend.
There can be no moral victory until the structural injustice is undone. Still, Tate would find himself facing career-ending sanctions because of his budgetary protests against an inequitable funding model. His district would continue to live under a mandate that bilks it of $2.4 million every year.
It’s possible that lawmakers will forgive Tate’s legal transgressions as a consolation prize. Bills kicking around both chambers would legalize the budgetary maneuver he enacted. A simple retroactive provision could clear Tate and salvage his career. That’s the least lawmakers could do. In so doing, they’d provide themselves political cover by avoiding a public spat with a respected school official standing on principle.
But, as Tate would tell you, this isn’t about him. It’s about his students.
And that’s who, yet again, gets failed by a state that’s gutted its revenue to the tune of $12 billion a year through tax hand-outs to special interests.
SF 455 wasn’t perfect, which the Democrats will tell you. The decade-long roll-out opens the door for future legislatures to kill it. It was, however, the most politically feasible path forward.
The fact remains, tens of thousands of children in Iowa will continue to be second-class citizens if the bill dies. And it’s those students who would pay for the state handouts for the well connected.
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Sioux City Journal. March 24, 2017
Does our city need another study?
Is it just us, or does this city study itself a lot?
On a 4-1 vote Monday, the City Council authorized staff to negotiate with Chicago-based consultant Houseal Lavigne Associates LLC on creation of a comprehensive plan for the city’s future. The consultant’s work could cost up to $300,000.
Mayor Bob Scott dissented, questioning the potential cost and the necessity.
We share Scott’s concerns.
First, $300,000 is no small number. Can the price be reduced? Is it necessary, for example, to spend more money on studying downtown? Within the last several years, studies of downtown have been conducted by Roger Brooks International, the International Economic Development Council and the University of Iowa’s Initiative for Sustainable Communities. We are unabashed boosters of downtown who wish to see continued commitment to the transformation of our city’s core, but we believe this community should be at the point today where it knows what additional focus and work are needed downtown.
Second, what is the goal here? In other words, what will result from this study? Doable recommendations city leaders will and can embrace and implement? Or, the collection of dust in a file cabinet?
As we have said before in this space, we aren’t opposed to community studies as a general principle, but we question the wisdom of taxpayer-funded studies from which nothing results. If this city doesn’t have the inclination or money to make recommended changes, what’s the point of a study?
If this study moves forward, City Council members should demand it be more than a study for the sake of study.
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