Education issues and the 2015 General Assembly

Season’s greetings! I hope that readers of this blog will take time over the next couple of weeks to relax and spend time with family and friends. The holiday season is an excellent time to recharge your batteries.  I plan to do just that, so this will be my last blog for 2014, but will return to the keyboard for a January 9, 2015 entry.

As we look forward to the New Year, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) is preparing for a busy legislative session. Here are some of the hot topics we predict will be on the education agenda for the upcoming General Assembly.

     1)  Charter Schools – we will again see legislation to create charter "
     schools in Kentucky. Our state is one of only eight states without
     charters. I am hearing about the possibility of a small pilot of
     five to six charter schools in districts that have very low-performing
     schools with significant achievement gaps.

     2)  Teacher Pension Plan – the Kentucky Teacher Retirement System
     has asked the General Assembly to consider a plan that would require
     a $3.3 billion bond to shore up the underfunded retirement system.
     This system is critical for recruitment and retention of high-quality
     teachers.

     3)  School Funding – while 2015 is not a budget session, there are
     a number of funding issues that could surface. The Council for
     Better Education report recently released at the Kentucky
     Association of School Superintendents’ winter meeting will garner
     a lot of attention. The $2 billion-plus price tag is sure to get attention. |
     Also, KDE will be releasing a report on funding of the career and
     technical education programs in Kentucky. Finally, we may see
     discussion of impact of revenue shortfall and SEEK shortfall.

     4)  Dual Credit – a recent set of recommendations from the dual
     credit task force will generate discussion about how to ensure
     quality, access, funding, and transferability of courses.

     5)  Merging County Systems – several county school systems
     have been identified for state assistance and state management.
     Some county systems are very close to not having a 2 percent
     fund balance. The General Assembly previously enacted legislation
     that allowed a financially insolvent independent district to merge
     with a county system; however, currently there are no statutes that
     allow for the merger of an insolvent county system to merge with
     another system.

     6)  Closing Achievement Gaps – this issue will be part of the
     charter school issue but will also be an overarching theme of the
     Education Committees. The achievement gap in Kentucky begins
     before students enter kindergarten, continues throughout P-12,
     postsecondary, and is very obvious when we look at labor and salary
     studies for adults.

At the national level, KDE will be working to support reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) – most recently dubbed the No Child Left Behind Act – and the Carl Perkins Act which is the primary vehicle for federal funding of career and technical education. We are very excited about the potential of both bills moving forward very quickly under the leadership of Sen. Alexander of Tennessee and Majority Leader McConnell.

Supporting Kentucky’s future – or not?

This week, I was reading the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) legislative update and received an e-mail from Stu Silberman over at the Prichard Committee. Stu had been reading the same update. Here is the body of his e-mail.

The Southern Regional Education Board has released its most recent legislative update. As you will see in the chart below, Kentucky funding is falling behind and steps must be taken in this next session so we can be competitive.

State	K-12 Budget	Higher Ed Budget
Alabama*	Up 3 %	Up 2.4%
Delaware	Up 4 %	Up 4% (approximate)
Florida	Up 13.9%	Up 34.2%            (state universities)
		Up 3.1%            (state colleges)
Louisiana*	Down 1.7%	Down 10.0%
Oklahoma	Up 3.3%	Up 3.5%
South Carolina	Up 8.5% Charters up 40%	Up 9.4%       (4-year colleges & universities) Up 3.1%       (2-year colleges)
Tennessee*	Up 4.3%	Up 9%

*Also provided pay raises for teachers

In Kentucky, base student funding (SEEK) has remained flat in recent years, but an increase in the number of students has effectively cut per pupil spending. Basic grants (Flexible Focus Funds) that are used to implement Senate Bill 1 (2009) have been reduced by more than $61 million per year. The SREB report, however, shows other states are re-investing in education.

The Kentucky Board of Education is currently reviewing priorities for FY15-16 budget request. At a minimum KBE wants to see restoration of SEEK funding and Flexible Focus funding to 2008-09 levels. For SEEK, this would require an additional $60 million in FY15 and $90 million in FY16. This level of funding would only get us back to $3,866 per student which is woefully inadequate when compared to other states. To restore Flexible Focus Funds would require an additional $61 million in both FY15 and FY16. Flexible Focus Funds provide textbooks, digital resources for teaching/learning, extended school services, pre-school funding, and professional development to help educators implement Senate Bill 1 (2009).

Here is the big problem facing our legislators: there is no new money! Recently, the Consensus Forecasting Group, a non-partisan team of economists, predicted that FY15 state revenue would be fairly flat and indicated that with state obligations such as pensions and debt retirement, there is no new money for education.

Our schools have made remarkable progress in the last 25 years. More students are graduating from high school and reaching college- and career-readiness than at any point in our history. Our educators are taking money out of their own pockets to support children. Our parents are doing more fund raising to support basic needs in schools than ever before. However, this heroic effort by educators and parents cannot continue without a negative impact on morale. Teachers and parents will become extremely frustrated (if not already so) because they are being asked to fund items for students that should be provided through state and local funds.

The answer to this issue is NOT to pass on the reduced state funding costs to local property owners. Funding basic education needs through local property tax only exacerbates the inequities in education funding across 173 school districts (remember the Rose case). The answer to this issue is bold leadership from our state legislators.

As commissioner I am using this blog to announce my strong support for state legislators to address two possible funding sources during the 2014 session. I strongly support efforts at tax reform and also strongly support expanded gaming. These are not popular issues and they are extremely difficult to deal with during an election year, however, my job is to alert decision makers that without adequate funding, Kentucky educators will not be able to maintain current levels of student performance and certainly will not be able to continue improving student performance.

It is apparent from the SREB Report mentioned above that other states are re-investing in education because they know that education will have a positive impact on employment and the economy.

The upcoming session will be a make or break year for education in Kentucky. There are basically two choices – support restoration of funding for education so we can continue to make progress or don’t support restoration of funding. By not supporting restoration of funding, decision makers will be supporting the decline in outcomes for children that will have long term negative impacts on the futures of our children and the future of the Commonwealth.

Legislative Agenda for 2013

As legislators return next week, I want to ask superintendents, local boards and readers of this blog to contact their local legislators to push for a couple of issues.

1 – Raising the dropout age – I recently sent Governor Beshear a letter supporting this legislation. The legislation is also a priority for the Kentucky Board of Education. I hope readers will review the letter and contact their local legislator to support this important legislation.

2 – Preschool funding – This is a fairly straightforward concept and one that I know local superintendents support. We need to move from the complicated formula that has been used for preschool funding since the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) to a fairer and simpler formula.

3 – Career and Technical Education (CTE) – The Governor, through executive order, merged the Workforce Cabinet CTE program with the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) CTE program and placed the merged program under KDE. We need legislation this term to sustain this merger.

4 – Teacher/Principal Effectiveness – Last session we were able to get legislation through the House and a resolution through the Senate to implement the work of our Teacher/Principal Effectiveness committees. The session adjourned prior to the House and Senate agreeing on a compromise bill. A similar bill will be filed when this session reconvenes and we need strong support from all stakeholders to move the bill through quickly. Failure to move the bill through this term could have a negative impact on federal funds and Race to the Top grants.

Finally, I sent a letter to Governor Beshear that expresses my concern about support for our schools. I hope that readers will take time to review this letter and contact their local legislators to express concern about school funding.

Kentucky has made tremendous progress as evidenced by recent EXPLORE/PLAN scores, AP scores, ACT scores, NAEP scores, and Education Week’s Quality Counts report. However, we will not be able to maintain our progress without some restoration of funds for schools.

I am concerned about the recent announcement by the Kentucky School Boards Insurance Trust (KSBIT) and the Kentucky School Boards Association (KSBA) about the unexpected $50-60 million assessment to districts to cover shortfalls and the increased costs for districts that will come as result of having to procure new insurance coverage once KSBIT is closed.

Also, I am concerned that federal sequestration (cut of 9.2 percent) will happen in March with impact seen in the 2013-14 school budgets.

Given that this is not a budget session for our legislators should not deter readers from beginning this conversation with local legislators about additional education funding. We do anticipate discussion at some point, possibly in a special session dealing with tax reform. It is critical that education be a primary consideration of any tax reform discussion.

I hope readers will use the information in my letters to the Governor and this blog as you contact your local legislators.

Kentucky Is Committed to Education Technology

Since coming to Kentucky in 2009, I have been very impressed with the commitment to technology that is apparent throughout the commonwealth’s schools. I believe this commitment originates at the state level with a great plan and support from the General Assembly. Kentucky is certainly a leader among states with regard to state solutions for software and 21st-century classrooms.

Kentucky has a distinct advantage with the uniform student information system (Infinite Campus). This tool allows parent, student and educator access through a variety of platforms. Also, Kentucky has a strong advantage with the live@edu product from Microsoft. Kentucky was the first state in the nation to use cloud services for e-mail and storage. This was made possible by having a statewide active directory for e-mail addresses for educators and students. This active directory also has opened many other software solutions.

The Continuous Instructional Improvement Technology System (CIITS) is a powerful tool for educators across Kentucky. This tool provides educators with access to resources to support the implementation of the common core standards and teacher/principal evaluation systems.

The ASSIST software is another exciting tool for Kentucky educators. This tool will provide a single source for the development, implementation and monitoring of comprehensive school and district improvement plans. Schools and districts will not have to complete separate improvement plans for a variety of funding sources, and the plans will not have to be submitted in paper format. Also, schools and districts will submit Program Reviews required by 2009’s Senate Bill 1 through the ASSIST software.

MUNIS is our statewide solution for school finance. Over the past few months, we have been moving school districts to the MUNIS cloud solution. To date, we have over 100 of the 174 districts on the cloud. The cloud solution helped those districts impacted by recent storms meet payroll and financial obligations.

Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) are available for every student in Kentucky starting in 6th grade. During our recent Operation Preparation focus, we were able to increase the use of the ILPs by over 50 percent for parents of 8th-grade students. The ILP is an excellent way for parents to have conversations about long-range education plans for their children.

iTunes U is another great source for educators, students and parents. The resources from Kentucky educators, colleges and other sources are growing exponentially through this free and easy-to-access tool.

These are just a few of the great tools available to Kentucky educators, students and parents. Kentucky is certainly a 21st-century state when it comes to the use of technology. Again, this is due to strong financial support from the General Assembly; however, the FY 13 and 14 budget has taken a step back from this commitment. While we understand the short-range revenue shortfall, it is certainly our hope that the General Assembly will renew the commitment to education technology as soon as possible. I hope educators will let legislators know what a great impact technology has on the students, classrooms, schools and districts across Kentucky.