OSBA Executive Director Emielle Nischik (left) and COSA Legislative Director Parasa Chanramy testified Monday, March 10, before the House Education Committee that they support Gov. Tina Kotek’s school accountability bills but are concerned about some implementation issues.
Gov. Tina Kotek’s long-discussed accountability bills hit education committees this week. Education advocates were generally supportive but expressed concerns about the details.
Emielle Nischik, OSBA executive director, testified to the House Education Committee on Monday, March 10, and to the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, March 12, that OSBA supports the bill but thinks the language could be improved to incorporate the extensive feedback of the educators and leaders actually in the schools.
“Public accountability is at the core of school board members’ role in the community, and we want the best for our children,” Nischik said after the hearings. “Everyone in education agrees we are all in for shared accountability when we are measuring the right things with the right supports.”
Kotek worked with education leaders to develop a proposed $11.36 billion State School Fund that more accurately calculates schools’ needs, but she has paired that funding correction with a call for greater accountability.
“Our Oregon students deserve more than the status quo,” Kotek said Monday. “We have a responsibility to use state dollars in a way that delivers the best education for every student.”
Kotek’s team has been meeting with education advocates, including OSBA, for a year to prepare accountability legislation. Oregon’s major education associations as well as interested nonprofits and advocacy groups offered input. The first hearings on the place-holder bills included full amendment replacements because the bills were still being worked right through last week.
The resulting legislation, House Bill 2009 and Senate Bill 141, had public hearings Monday and Wednesday respectively. The bills are identical and were scheduled in both education committees to ensure policy discussion in both chambers.
The 56-page amendments have numerous requirements. Among the legislation’s most important aims is to increase transparency in the workings of the Oregon Department of Education and schools and to reduce the administrative burden on schools by identifying the most important reporting standards and aligning grant applications.
ODE manages 140 state and federal grant programs and requires more than 300 data reports and collections from school districts a year.
The bills would also require all school districts to be monitored on eighth grade math proficiency and early grade school attendance in addition to the already collected rates for on-time graduation, five-year completion, ninth-grade on-track, third grade reading proficiency, regular attendance and one locally determined metric.
Under the bills, ODE would develop target rates for similar districts and provide technical assistance. Education advocates, though, question whether Oregon’s current low participation rates for standardized testing will give an accurate picture to act on.
Districts that don’t hit their goals after two years must accept ODE coaching. After three or more years of falling short, districts would move into an intensive program. After four years, ODE would be able to direct spending of up to 25% of the district’s budget.
“Things like this have been tried in other states,” ODE District and School Effectiveness Director Tim Boyd said in response to a legislator’s question. “They call it takeover.”
He went on to explain how it might work in Oregon but said the details and implications had not all been worked out. Advocates want to know specifically how districts would move into and out of the various stages of ODE oversight and how ODE will be held accountable if their measures don’t move the needle.
Research has “found no positive learning impacts of takeovers on average,” according to a report from the National Association of State Boards of Education. Takeovers also produce significant potential for inequity, the report said.
The House Education Committee peppered Boyd and ODE Director Charlene Williams, Ed.D., with questions. Williams said efforts to ease the district reporting burden and to increase the agency’s support capabilities are still in progress.
Boyd said ODE does not have the capacity to help the roughly 10% of districts that are falling short of the metrics now and finding qualified people is challenging.
Jackie Olsen, Oregon Association of School Business Officials executive director, said she supported the bill but redirecting a school’s budget is complicated and time consuming.
School districts spend roughly 85% of their budgets on staff with much of the rest spent on fixed costs such as transportation, utilities and supplies. A change in spending would almost certainly impact union contracts, requiring collective bargaining. It would also require multiple public steps to meet budgetary law.
Olsen questioned whether ODE had the people for such undertakings.
“Financial planning and budgeting require specialized expertise,” she told legislators. “Redirecting budgeting is not a skillset most instructional coaches possess just as school business officials are not equipped to provide instructional coaching.”
Amber Eaton, the Oregon Association of Education Service Districts executive director, also testified in support but called for more details in the bill, with an eye toward investing in regional infrastructure such as coaching, technical assistance and aligned systems.
“Accountability must go hand in hand with strong, sustained support for schools,” she told legislators.
Much of the testimony in support of the bills called on the need to do something because Oregon generally ranks near the bottom of national academic progress measures.
Krista Parent, the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators executive director, hears that urgency.
She has been in education for 41 years and has seen numerous accountability efforts that have floundered. This time could be different, she said, if the effort stays focused on shared accountability with appropriate investment that recognizes that $11.36 billion is enough to maintain current services at most districts but falls short of a true investment in improvement.
COSA supports the bill but with reservations.
If districts are to be held accountable, they need qualified state and ODE assistance to meet researched, aligned and clearly defined goals, Parent said. The need to help children in the system now should not push Oregon to create laws and requirements that leave crucial details still to be worked out, Parent said.
“We want all of our kids to be successful so there is urgency, but I don’t want it to be rushed,” she said.
– Jake Arnold, OSBA
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