House Education Committee
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Transcript
Bills discussed (6)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
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HB1770
· 3 mentions in chapter, transcript
Matched: “HB1770”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1686
· 2 mentions in transcript, chapter
Matched: “…k, if you are available, sir, you are recognized to present House Bill 1686,”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1948
· 2 mentions in transcript, chapter
Matched: “…. Representative Jean, if you're available, sir, to present House Bill 1948, you are”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HB1528
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1528”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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HR1035
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HR1035”
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Pre-2017 bill | ||
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SB509
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB509”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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Chair
Unverified
0:00
Presentation today for Mr. C.T. Turner, who is Vice President of Public Affairs for GED testing. He's going to give us a briefing on GED testing in the state of Arkansas, some of the changes that are taking place, some of the proposed changes that are taking place. After that, members, we will get into our agenda pretty fast and furiously. As you know, yesterday Today over 500 bills were filed, so Mark is going to be very, very busy in the next few
days kind of working out what's coming this way, what's not, what's going to be a regular agenda item, what's going to be a shell bill, and things that are going to have to pin to fiscal impact. I would just remind you that if you do have a bill that's on the regular agenda, let's go ahead, if we can, with great haste to get that through the committee if you're near ready to present it. So with that, Mr. Turner, if you are available, sir, if you make your way to the end of the table, there is a button on your microphone. If you push that, then
you will be ready. And with that, Mr. Turner, you are recognized.
Speaker 6
1:12
Thank you so much. I know you all have a full agenda, so I won't take too much of your time this morning. My name is C.T. Turner, and I'm from the GED Testing Service. And And I want to thank you for taking time to listen to me this morning to talk about the changes to the GED testing program and about preparing adults for the workforce and for post-secondary education. I want to talk this morning quickly about the credential and how it helps adults for
careers and then also in terms of economic development. I also want to talk about the changing workforce and the need for adults to have additional skills to earn a family-sustaining wage and what we can do to better prepare these adults in terms of education, credentialing, and training programs. I want to start by thanking the state of Arkansas and its leadership over the past seven decades for its commitment to and dedication to helping adult learners earn GED credentials and open doorways to jobs and career training programs.
Arkansas should be particularly proud of its pass rate, meaning the number of adults who who sit for the GED testing program, which the test is about seven and a half hours for those of you that don't know, and covers five subjects. That's the number of people who sit for that test and actually pass a test and earn a high school equivalency credential. That rate in Arkansas is traditionally very high compared to the national average, and it's one of the highest typically of every state that comes in every year. It hovers is around 85 to 87 percent. The national average is right around 72 percent. At the same time
the pass rate is doing really well in Arkansas, I would like to also thank you all for your commitment to adult education and the GED testing program itself and to adult learners. As you all have read the headlines, many states have been gutting their adult education programs. Some states have completely eliminated all funding for adult education. Arizona would be one example of that. California is a state where local school districts are in control of those funds, and 11 of the largest 23 school districts in California have either eliminated or completely gutted their adult education funds. So Arkansas has had a strong commitment
to this, and I think you all understand the economic impact that the GED testing program can bring to the lives of adult learners and to the economy of Arkansas. I think part of this is due to the good leadership in the agency. I think you all have some very common sense approaches in terms of policies. When people come in to take the GED test, they're required to take an official practice test. That is one of the best predictors of someone's preparedness for the GED test. So when you pay or you subsidize the GED test, if you know someone passes the official practice test, you know you're making a wise investment
in that person, and that's why your all's pass rate is high. It also helps with momentum. Those people are prepared. They pass. They go on to the next thing. So I would applaud you all for taking those steps as well. From a national standpoint, the GED testing program has been a solid pathway to careers and college programs since 1942. Over 18.5 million adults in this country have earned a GED credential. They work in every sector of the workforce, teachers, policemen, police chiefs, a governor. There's even a U.S. presidential candidate last year that was a GED graduate.
I think we also know the cost of adult education without a high school credential is staggering in terms of what it costs the individual and families, but it also significantly impacts local, state, and the national economy. A recent study that just came out said that an individual without a high school credential costs $260,000 for each person over a lifetime. That's in lost wages, spending, tax revenue, and oftentimes social services, and sometimes even more with incarceration.
We also know that without a high school diploma, excuse me, those without a high school diploma earn significantly less than those with a high school diploma and even more significantly less than those with a GED or without a high school, or excuse me, with a high school diploma compared to those who have some form of post-secondary education or some college, basically. We also know that the unemployment rate obviously, or not obviously, is higher for those without a high school credential, it's less for those with a GED credential or a high school credential,
and it's significantly less for those with some college, an associate's, or a bachelor's degree. I think everyone in this chamber understands the importance of equipping adults with the basic skills they need to be employed and to support themselves and to support their families. And I think everyone knows also that the workforce has pretty dramatically changed over the past 20 years. And the skills and education adults need to be successful today are pretty different and the skills and knowledge that they needed just 20 years ago. Just 20 to 30 years ago, Michael could graduate from high school.
He could get a well-paying job, General Motors. He could work 40 hours, put in a little bit of overtime. He could maybe even have some money left over to buy a nice cabin on the lake, right? And all of this with a high school diploma, and he probably had a pension on top of that. So that was the ticket to the middle class, all on a high school diploma. Today, the ticket to the middle class is quite different. Let me tell you about what we at the American Council on Education saw in 2009 when we were getting ready to prepare to release a regularly scheduled GED test.
We do so basically every 10 years since its inception. It was time to do that in 2011, 2012, and we were well down the path to do that. We had some pretty startling statistics. Our president at the time, Molly Corbett Broad, challenged us to really look at the numbers and said, do we just release a new version of the GED test, or do we need to do more? do some research and come back to me. We hashed this out over half a day, and there were some pretty surprising statistics that came that I want to share with you all. Within the next two years, 63% of jobs will require some form of post-secondary education, whether that be a
certificate, an associate's degree, or a bachelor's degree. And that number is expected to be 75% by the year 2020. So just think about that. Three-fourths of every job in America could require some post-secondary education or training by the year 2020, not just a high school diploma. We also looked at low-skilled jobs, and we know that those jobs are going to be increasing in the next 20 years, but guess what? There aren't enough low-skilled jobs for the people that don't have a high school diploma or just have a high school diploma in the next 20 years.
We saw from labor data there will be significant jump in the number of middle-skilled jobs, jobs that require some form of post-secondary education or training. And this isn't just talk about the future. We're already here now. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country, and I'm sure that there are thousands of jobs in Arkansas right now that go chronically unfilled because we don't have people with the right education skills to fill those jobs. So it's critically important that we prepare adults to fill those middle-skilled jobs. We specifically need to do that as well with the adult learning population.
Again there aren't enough low-skilled jobs to fill for the number of folks who would be filling those. So the question we ask then at ACE is how do GED graduates stack up? If we know the future is some post-secondary education, whether it's ingrained with career training programs or not, how do they stack up? Well, we did some research on that. We did the first large-scale longitudinal look at our data, and we looked at post-secondary education attainment. About 65 percent of GED graduates say they plan to go on to post-secondary
education. In fact, I was just told by the agency folks here that the number one reason that folks report to taking the GED test is because they plan on going to some form of post-secondary education. So how many of those folks that actually apply for post-secondary education enroll? We're looking at 35 percent or 34 percent in that range. Then we have to take another step down and we say how many actually complete some kind of certificate or training program at the college level? That number is 12 percent. So 63 percent of jobs requiring post-secondary in the next few years, 75 percent of jobs in 2020, and
we have 12 percent of our GED graduates actually earning certification. So what that told us is we really need to do more to prepare adults, give them more information about their skills and knowledge, and help them before they enter into a college classroom, as well as helping them with the transition piece. And certain states are doing very well in both of those regards. But the GED test as it stands now is basically, if you've ever looked at a score report, it's fail, you know whether you've passed the test or failed the test and you know by what margin. So that's about the extent of the information that it provides you now.
As you all know, several states have signed on to common core state standards and there is a national movement towards college and career readiness standards. So what we've done is we've looked at these college and career readiness standards. The U.S. Department of Education is doing that as well and saying how do we trim this down and how do we say what are the core skills that adults really need to be successful in high-level career training programs, and what are the skills that are going to be necessary for them to enter credit-bearing classes? If someone enters into a, what happens a lot of times with GED graduates, is they earn their credential, they go to post-secondary
education, and what happens? A lot of them get put in remedial education, right? When you get put in remedial education, what does that do if I were in that situation? What it does, it costs me financial aid dollars or it costs me tuition dollars for a class that doesn't bear credit and it doesn't earn me any kind of credit towards the certification that I'm looking for. I lose momentum, I slow down, which is a terrible thing with this population at any step. So that's something we really needed to address. So in 2014, we'll be releasing a new GED test.
It's going to continue to measure high school equivalency. That's our history. We will not walk away from that. We've been doing that since 1942. So in 2014, the GED test will continue to measure high school equivalency. And the level of rigor on the test for high school equivalency will still be a reflection of what's happening in high schools. So the difficulty will be pegged to the performance of graduating high school seniors as it is now. What we will also be doing on top of that, however, is we will be adding additional information towards college and career readiness information.
So part of the way we're going to do that is with a detailed and rich score report. Remember, I was talking about that score report now that's fairly lean. The new score report is going to give you very detailed information about your skills and knowledge in each of the subjects. So if I didn't pass math at the high school equivalency level, I would know in 2014 where specifically I need some help. It may be geometry, actually it is geometry for me probably. I would know geometry is an issue for me. So I could take that back to my teacher, or if I'm one of the 50% of people in this country who sit for the GED test and don't have a teacher and don't go through state-sponsored
adulthood programs, I would know exactly what to study. I could go, I could study algebra, and I know what it would take to be successful to pass that test. Right now, those people are frustrated because they don't know what area they have weaknesses in necessarily. And if they don't go through adult ed, they're more likely to just give up, be frustrated, and drop out of the program. And none of us want people to be unsuccessful on the GED test. Let's see. So not only towards high school equivalency, I want to talk about credit-bearing classes.
If I knew I was coming out of the GED testing program in 2014, and I was going into a program that required a certificate degree, and part of that required Math 101, a credit-bearing class. If I took the test in 2014, I'm going to know I met high school equivalency, but it's also going to give me very detailed information about am I ready or do I have the chops to enter credit-bearing classes in Math 101. If I don't, what I could do is then I could find tutors, I could go back to adult education, I could look to many other resources to get up to snuff so I know that I could enter credit-bearing classes instead of being put back in remedial education.
So I think that's the core synopsis of what we're gonna be doing in terms of the test content and the different performance indicators and level of information folks will be giving back. In order for us to do this, measure both high school equivalency and college and career readiness and to be able to provide this rich level of detail back that will be helpful for candidates. It will also be helpful for teachers. It will be helpful in the future for employers and for colleges and the military to better understand skills and knowledge that a candidate has to make some decisions
about them rather than just saying, well, they passed the test or they didn't pass the test. Right now, as you know, with the military, it's a Tier 2 credential. There's a quota, only so many GED graduates can actually go into certain armed forces because they have a GED credential. And part of that is because right now you either pass the GED test and you have a credential or you don't and everyone is painted with the same brush. There may be someone who has a GED credential and excels in math and would be perfect for a certain program in the military. The military in 2014 will have that information and be able to make better decisions about
candidates and I think give people more opportunities. In order for us to be able to do this, to give this rich level of detail, measure all of these indicators, we really have to have access to different types of questions. We can't have multiple choice in one essay that's unrelated to subject. We really needed to look at the way the test was administered. So we're moving to a computer-based version of the test so that we can have drag and drop items. We can have short answer items that are embedded with context, which is more like a work setting. You read a manual and then you have to infer and you have to say what it means and what
it means to your job. So those are the types of things we'll be able to do on the GED test on computer. Also the GED test on computer we think is very important. Basic digital literacy skills are vitally important today. Jobs are mostly posted online. The ten largest employers in the U.S., and this includes Walmart, McDonald's, IBM, Fortune 500 companies, are all moving to online job applications or have goals of most of their online, excuse me, job applications being online. So it's critical that folks have those abilities to find a job, to apply for a job, and then
to be hired and maintain that job. I think my time is up. I know you all have a packed agenda. So I did want to draw this to a close, but I did want to say again, I really do applaud you all, and I think we don't say this enough when we go out and we talk with folks. Arkansas is doing some things very right, and you all have had a really strong commitment to adult education. We look forward to raising the awareness of this issue, and I think you all understand the economic impact of this issue, and we look forward to raising it with more
Speaker 14
15:42
states and at a national level so that we can help more adult earners. Thank you.
Speaker 15
15:46
MR. Mr. Turner, we appreciate your presentation today, very valuable information. Madam Vice Chair, do you have a
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
15:59
Are you ñ I appreciated you addressing, you know, the use of the GED for military entrance. Are you doing anything to, for lack of a better word, educate them on what the GED test is testing? Because I'm hearing a friend of mine's child wanted to get in, had a GED, and she said, well, they can only accept, you know, certain branches don't accept any, certain branches will only accept so many GEDs.
Speaker 20
16:26
So can you talk about maybe what you're doing to educate? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker 21
16:30
On that front, they have their own studies, and they've looked at some things, and they
Speaker 6
16:36
see that GED graduates are less likely to re-enlist and some other things that's costly to the military at this point in time. So what the current test measures, they believe, is helpful, but it doesn't give them the information they need or those candidates aren't ready for the things that they're necessarily looking for. So what we really hope is with this, it's more than hope.
We are structuring the 2014 test to measure things very differently. It's going to be very applied. It's going to be less, I don't want to say academic, but it's going to be more in a real world setting. Each of the contents, things are going to be more integrated. Writing is going to be integrated. So we hope that we are measuring these things and we're giving really rich level of detail back so that we have conversations with DOD and branches of the military so that they better understand what the new test is measuring and how that's applicable for what they need in terms of people that are coming into the service and their branches.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
17:27
Do you have a goal for raising that awareness and getting more GED, a higher percentage of GED successful test takers accepted? We absolutely do. I personally think it's a black mark on the
Speaker 21
17:41
GED testing program. We started as a military program in 1942 because the
Speaker 6
17:46
GIs went away to war, couldn't finish high school. They needed to come back, take that test so that they could take advantage of the GI bill. And now it's a Tier 2 credential.
I think that's something we, at heart, the leadership team, has talked about multiple times. So that is not something that will ever go by the wayside,
Speaker 20
18:07
that endeavor. Okay. Thank you very much.
Chair
Unverified
18:09
I appreciate you being here. Thank you. Ms. Turner, we appreciate you very, very much, sir. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being here. Okay, members, we're going to go ahead and get into our agenda. Representative Jean, if you're available, sir, to present House Bill 1948, you are
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
18:36
recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee.
This bill, 1948, to amend the Arkansas Existing Workforce Training Act of 1995 and raise the instructional hours from $80 an hour to $100. This is an Arkansas economic development bill, and with me I have Mr. Morris Jenkins, And he's going to explain the why and the where we're going to get this money from. Thank you. Mr. Jenkins,
Speaker 31
19:05
you may proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Morris Jenkins with AEDC.
This program has been in existence for a number of years, and it trains people that are working in existing industries. The bulk of this training is provided by higher education institutions. It's been about six years since there's been adjustment in the payment for these services, And we felt like the time is right. As the preceding speaker noted, the training is getting more technical all along, and the cost of that training is increasing. And we felt like it was time to raise the amount. I'd be happy to take any questions.
Chair
Unverified
19:43
Do we have any questions from the committee in regard to this bill? Representative Cronin, do you have anything to add? I'm closed, Mr. Chairman. Seeing no questions from the committee, do we have anyone in the audience who would like to speak against this bill, for this bill? If not, Representative Cronin. Motion do pass. We have a motion do pass. All in favor? Aye. All opposed?
Speaker 15
20:14
Motion passes. Thank you very much, Representative Cronin. We
Chair
Unverified
20:20
appreciate you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, thank members of the committee. Representative Romack, if you are available, sir, you are recognized to present House Bill 1686,
Speaker 39
20:30
sir. You may proceed and you're ready. Thank you, Mr. Speaker and members of the committee. This should be pretty simple. It's a very simple bill. It simply allows, and that's the key word, school districts to do background checks on any volunteers that are in the school system.
it does not mandate it just gives them a mechanism to do so which was previously not in place and there's a minimal impact on the fiscal impact statement and when I asked why it was minimal and none instead of none they said well if a school district chooses to go down this path then there will be some charge but the beauty of it is it's left up to each individual school district to determine how they deal with it at least they have
Chair
Unverified
21:15
the option now Representative Womack, is this a bill that you've run by all the stakeholders involved, agreed upon bill?
Speaker 39
21:22
Yes, sir. There's no known opposition. Okay, very good.
Chair
Unverified
21:24
Members, do we have any questions for Representative Womack? If not, anybody in the audience wish to speak against this bill or for this bill? If not, what is the will of the committee? Representative Letterman has a do-pass motion. All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Representative Womack, thank you for being here today. We appreciate you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Committee.
Representative Perry, if you are ready, sir, you are recognized to present House Bill 1770. You may proceed when you're ready, sir.
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
22:06
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Committee. I want to ask Jeremy Lassard with the Department of Education to join me. I'm sorry, got Dr. Kimbrell instead of Jeremy. Jeremy will be on here. House Bill 1770 is a bill that would allow the Department of Education to maintain control of a school district from two years to five years.
It redefines some issues. As you can see, it's 26 pages long. also add the fiscal impact there's revenue impact is none it doesn't do any effect on the flip side of that actually it would be a positive because all of these districts if we could keep them out of fiscal distress it saves us all money but would be glad
to answer questions we can go through it any section you want to jeremy's here chief counsel with department of ed dr kimball's available for for questions members do we
Chair
Unverified
23:22
have some questions representative armstrong you're recognized what's
Representative Eddie L. Armstrong
Unverified
23:28
the advantage of moving it from two to five
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
23:32
years two years from five years will allow the department of ed to maintain and and not have to consolidate or annex
a district, you know, you look at a couple of districts in the state, mainly Pulaski County, which is the second largest, they've been in fiscal distress three times in the last 12 years, twice in the last 12 years. You know, having more time to fix a problem
on a school district that size would only benefit. Or
Representative Eddie L. Armstrong
Unverified
24:04
you don't think you can fix it in two? What's the theory on two years?
What brought about the two-year fix, Dr.
Speaker 54
24:17
Kimball? Representative Armstrong, if I may, Tom Kimball, Commissioner of Education. What we
Speaker 56
24:22
found is Pulaski County School District was put in physical distress this time, the second time. And actually, Representative was correct. In fact, it really is three times in reality, because the second time they were put on for material findings and audit and not following policy and reconciling financial statements.
When we got into the finances, we found out that they had actually had financial balance problems. And had it not been for the 2011 session in which we changed the formula around 40 percent pullback and had one year of accrual that got to be part of their ending balance, we'd actually ended the year in the red. So we were actually qualified them again the third time in financial
and fiscal distress because they had a declining balance. When you start getting into these districts, you begin to see that there are many, many more problems that exist, particularly in large districts where you can't get your hands around everything in a short period of time and you can't begin to put policies in place. You can't begin to deal with some of the issues that take time to fix. Helena West Helena is another great example. We continue to see the loss of
students because the community is losing population and trying to get out ahead of loss of students with the reduction in employment issues, closing school buildings, trying to maintain a qualified staff. It's just been very, very difficult to get all those things put into place to just stabilize the situation so that you can get everything back moving in the right direction.
Speaker 57
26:25
And it's just two years isn't enough. Would
Representative Eddie L. Armstrong
Unverified
26:29
audits and stuff like that keep schools from going in physical distress? Because as we know, the public school system is usually the backbone of the community, and citizens are very concerned about takeover of their schools. So we need to do something prior to putting
them in physical distress. And what's the solution to that? Yes, sir. And every school district in the state
Speaker 56
26:52
is required to have an audit. School districts can use legislative audit or they can hire a private audit.
Those audits, of course, then are brought to you, our committee here, and sometimes they are able to show some of those issues, such as Pulaski County. That's how that all got uncovered and was brought to the legislative audit committee. As a matter of fact, there was a recommendation made by that committee to the commissioner to take over Pulaski County and to operate that school district. So that is one way that it gets there.
Representative Eddie L. Armstrong
Unverified
27:32
I guess the main question is what can we do to keep them
Speaker 57
27:41
from getting there prior? We've put into place, and this came out of some
Speaker 56
27:47
legislation that happened in 2011, what we call early intervention. and we have a staff of now, I think, three people in that division, and we're doing early intervention work in which we identify looking at key factors of material findings in audit
as well as declining balances, and we contact these school districts. In the case of this year, I think there were about 22 school districts that were on the initial list that we made contacts. Now, we made a couple of school administrators mad because we called them and said, we want to talk to you, and we have a form that we need you to complete. That form is an indication. There's some indicators that we're aware of from your audit, from your balance sheet, et cetera,
that show that there are some early indicators that you may be on your way to physical distress. They didn't like that. Some of them were fine. They said, yeah, you know, we think we know why. And we look at the information that is shared with us, and we make a determination that, okay, that's a good explanation. You built this facility. That's why your balance went down. It's a one-time capital expenditure. You've shown us that your expenditures, you know, are not exceeding your revenues.
It was a one-time expenditure. Other cases, you know, you've got to get control of your spending. And they moved not only from the watch list, they moved to the distress list. And that sometimes is a two- and three-year process. We've actually moved the district from a watch list of two years ago to the second-tier list last year to the fiscal distress list this year. Now, not only do we talk to that superintendent, we also send that letter to each board member of that school district.
So typically it's a three-year process before they ever land in physical distress, and that school board is made aware of
Speaker 69
29:57
those situations. Thank you. Dr. Kimbrell, is there a particular type of
Chair
Unverified
30:02
spending issue that you may see more than others, Is it something that you can identify that is broad in regard to these issues, these problems with schools?
Speaker 56
30:15
Two areas typically get school districts into trouble, personnel and facilities. Over-expenditure, when you begin construction projects, where your construction projects get out of hand, you begin to change orders, you build bigger than what you anticipated building, you expand that project. And then typically when we see districts who are losing students and you don't begin to pare back your personnel to meet those loss of students.
And those are tough decisions in communities, particularly where the largest employer in that community is the school. And those are hard things for local school board members to look across out in that audience at a school board meeting and make a determination that we've got to reduce the teaching custodial bus driving force by ten people, and you're looking at your
Speaker 60
31:06
neighbor, you're looking at your Sunday school teacher, et cetera. That's hard. Thank you,
Speaker 15
31:13
Dr. Kimbrell. Representative Lowry, you have a question, sir?
Speaker 73
31:18
Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have several questions. Most of the discussion, even today, has been about fiscal distress, and even when it was discussed with me about coming on as a sponsor, fiscal distress was the main issue. However, this bill does deal with also academic distress and facilities distress, correct? Yes, sir. Okay. What would the standard be in stipulating that a school district is in facilities distress? Yes, sir.
Speaker 56
31:48
So in the case that we haven't seen, we've seen one situation several years ago in which that the school district would not deal with some health and safety issues within their school. The health department had come out, outlined some issues that needed to be dealt with, that dealt with some safety issues with cleanliness and sanitary issues, and the division stepped in and placed that district under facilities distress until they corrected those issues. currently under the code there is several things that can put a district in the facilities to
distress if they find that they do not have adequate safe facilities and their housing students in those facilities and they don't develop a plan fund and create safe and adequate facilities for those children to be educated in then the division of facilities can place that school district in distress mr. Lasseter has the
Speaker 76
32:51
code and he can specifically give you those those indicators mr. Lasseter
Speaker 77
33:00
Jeremy Lasseter general counsel for the Department of Education representative Lowry the indicators for facilities distress are found in 6-21-811 and And as Dr. Kimbrell mentioned, there can be a wide variety of things. You can talk about a violation of local, state, or federal fire and safety codes, building code violations, violations of the law governing purchasing and bid requirements, defaults on school district debt obligations. So there are a number of things in that statute that would potentially trigger an identification as being in academic facilities distress.
Speaker 80
33:36
Follow-up, please. Yes, sir. On the area of academic distress, from the point that
Speaker 73
33:42
this statute was first written and now we get to the point today where we are extending the period that the school district could be brought under control of the State Department of Education 2 to 5, our standard for academic distress has changed, right? Yes, sir. All right. Is that not problematic in terms of, you know, we gave authority for academic distress under one set of guidelines,
Speaker 84
34:10
and now we're giving even more authority under a
Speaker 60
34:15
new set of guidelines? Yes, sir. We're actually extending that authority. The authority
Speaker 56
34:21
was there, has been for many years. We just changed the criteria for placing a school or school district into academic distress. The guidelines that were in place from Act 35 years ago were pretty lenient. We really never had but one school district that ever qualified for academic distress years ago.
That was, I believe, the Alzheimer's School District at that time, and then it was consolidated with Dollar Way. So when our state board began looking at some of the very, very lowest-performing schools, They challenged us to look at redefining that particular rule that we had and looking at how we could do that to better serve the children of our state, to better serve and have an expectation that our schools are meeting the needs of those children. So when we looked at that, under our current rule,
any school that has 49.5% or less of its students not proficient or advanced could be placed in academic distress. Any priority school that does not meet its priority improvement plan, intermeasurable objectives could also be placed in academic distress. In other words, you create a plan. If that school or district does not follow through with its plan, implement the plan, meet the needs of those children by putting those interventions in place.
In other words, we're going to hire tutors. We're going to have after-school programs, summer programs, and we're going to do these things. If they don't put those things into place, meet the needs of those children, start doing that stuff, then the state board could put them on notice, put them in academic distress. Of course, they have due process rights. They can come and appeal that to the state board. But, yes, it could do the
Speaker 80
36:12
same thing and put them in the distress. Okay. Last question, if
Speaker 73
36:16
I may. The word academic distress, it seems to be used as an umbrella, I guess, that would cover fiscal distress as well.
I'm looking at section on page three, starting with lines 28 through 33. These seem to be the most critical lines about extending from two years to five years. But this section seems to apply to academic distress and not fiscal distress. Is there a different section in here that? Yes, sir. Okay. One of the things
Speaker 77
36:47
that we've attempted to do with this legislation is to, when you look at academic distress, facilities distress, and fiscal distress,
is to harmonize all of those provisions. So you'll find identical provisions for the other two types of distress in
Speaker 73
37:02
the bill. Okay. And could you point me to the fiscal distress? Yes, sir. Give me one moment. And while he's finding that, I'd like to ask specifically about the Plasky County School District. They're currently under supervision of the state, and you're extending this distress. Are we extending for five more years, or are we extending for, because it does say here in this section on page three, and it may be different on fiscal, but five years from the date of classification of academic distress?
Speaker 56
37:33
It's actually up to five, so it would be one more year at a time. So what the State Board would determine is if they're not able and we're not able to certify that they're no longer in fiscal distress, then they could actually remain in fiscal distress an additional year. So they would be in there for year three. Towards the end of year three, if we're not able to certify that they're out of fiscal distress, then you could move into
Speaker 75
38:05
Okay, so this is a year-by-year determination. okay the last thing I said
Speaker 73
38:10
I only had one question I've got one more there's a reference on page 5 about returning the administration of the school district to the former board of directors why would we want to do that I mean if they've been found in academic distress or fiscal distress why in the world would we want to even have something in there that leaves that opening Oops
Speaker 10
38:41
I'm looking Oops Chairman Representative Lowry, that's something that's an existing law It's an option that's already there
Speaker 77
38:47
The idea here is to have the flexibility to be able to do a wide variety of things I'm not aware of an instance where you might want to turn it back to the same board that ended up in fiscal distress in the first place, but that is an option that is currently available in the existing
Speaker 73
39:06
law. Well, this is line 16 on page 3, and it's new language. Return the administration of the school district to the former board of directors or,
and it does give it or, or to a newly elected board of directors. And I'm just, you know, while we're dealing, while we're here working in a very substantive area of trying to improve our schools and get these schools out of fiscal distress, Why not just go – let's just go ahead and deal with the elephant in the room, which is somebody was asleep at the switch, and we could assume that it would be the school board. Why would we want to return it to their control?
Speaker 77
39:49
And, again, if you – it's not in the bill, but in 620-1909 in current law, in A-5, one of the options in existing law is to place the administration of the school district over to the former board of directors or to a newly elected board of directors. And so I think the idea behind this is that we weren't going to eliminate any options in the bill and recognizing that that was already in current law to leave it there as an option.
Speaker 73
40:20
Okay, so you're just trying to be consistent
Speaker 77
40:23
with current code? yes sir and to answer your earlier question about where you can find the equivalent language for fiscal distress if you look on page 13 section 14 of the bill beginning on line 25 you can find similar provision for fiscal distress sorry i'm looking at page 13 beginning section section 14 i see okay
Speaker 15
40:49
thank you madam vice chair has something she wants to add
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
40:53
Well, and I'll ask in the form of a question to Dr. Kimball or Mr. Leicester. Would it not be true that once the school's out from under the state's control, there would be no – we could not place a limitation on who would serve on the school board? I mean, once they're outside of the state's control, they're going to elect their school board members, and the public can elect
Speaker 76
41:17
whoever they want to elect, correct? That is correct. You know,
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
41:20
and I think it... There's no way for us to permanently disqualify someone from serving.
Speaker 56
41:24
That's correct. And I think the idea was, again, we don't want to take any options that were in the current law. I mean, we look at each individual situation and we look at what we find to be the factors that have created the fiscal distress issues. And at times we found that it's been not the board that was at fault, that the board was given erroneous information, reports that were not generated from AppScan but were actually doctored and given to the board,
and the board had no idea. So there was no reason to remove the board but only remove the administration that had done that. So you
Speaker 13
42:05
could actually leave the board in place. Thank you for that clarification. Representative Catlett, you have a question, sir. Yeah,
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
42:11
thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Kimbrell, you know, we've talked about management issues with most of the schools that we've discussed, the scenarios we've discussed here today. But, you know, some school districts, out of no fault of their own, their assessment drops, or they have the unusual shift in student population for maybe a factory closes or anything.
Do you think this additional time, would it allow these communities to adjust their property tax assessment, if they so choose, raise a millage? And would you comment on that, sir, and what are your thoughts on the additional time? Yes, sir, and I think what it does
Speaker 56
42:43
is it takes the pressure off the local people, and it puts the pressure on us, and sometimes it's easier for us to take the heat to be able to do that. I mean, Helena West Helen is probably one of the best examples that we can share with you.
That school district has lost close to 500 students in the last year. Now, in the last 10 years, excuse me, in the last two years, in the last 10 years, they've lost, you know, several thousand students. In those two years that we've been in control, we've had to close three schools and lay off almost 200 staff members. You know, that's hard for local school board members to do because there are so many connections to community members.
Ms. McCommon, who is the co-op director in that co-op, is serving as the CEO of that school. She has a lot of community connections, but she's been able to pull that off with Mr. Reed, who was the former superintendent at Marvel. But, you know, we're the bad guys at the state. So they're able to go between, and we're able to absorb that and keep the harmony there within the community. So I think sometimes that helps. It also helps that we're able to kind of deflect some of the need
and be able to explain why a district may need to look at what they need to do with their taxes, what they may need to do with their assessment as that assessment either falters or is growing at such a rate that you have rollback. How do you deal with that, those kinds of issues? And sometimes it's, you know, how do you handle that lack of leadership that's there during that interim until you can
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
44:34
find leadership? Thank you, Mr. Chair. One follow-up, and, you know, the objective of the department is to hold the school together.
I can see that. And the additional time will allow you to hold that school district together. Don't you agree with that? I mean, that's your motive, objective,
Speaker 57
44:51
is by extending it. Yes, sir. That is. And the other thing that we have in this
Speaker 56
44:57
piece, which was a suggestion by Senator Elliott, to bring the community back in in year three by having a community advisory board that does some work within the decision-making around personnel and students that are in the community as far as hearings are concerned and then
do training and create some capacity for leadership in hopes that they begin to understand what that role of a school board member is and how it should work and in hopes of getting input and having that transparency and discussion with that school leader that's placed there so in year three that begins and if you have to go to year four it even grows and in hopes that at that time in which the state board turns them loose you know that's the problem with our current elections between the time you turn them loose on June 30th until that next
school election there's no board so in this piece of legislation as we propose that community advisory board becomes the interim board until that election occurs. So that helps fill that void also. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair
Unverified
46:03
Thank you, Representative Catlett. Do we have any other questions for Representative Perry? Representative Douglas.
Speaker 107
46:12
Did I miss anywhere that you talked about the enrollment distress?
Does this apply at all to schools that drop below the enrollment to give them some more time or? The
Speaker 70
46:25
350? No, ma'am, it doesn't address that because we can't address what the law says as far as the
Speaker 107
46:32
350. So what, we would need to go back in there and include that in
Speaker 56
46:37
your bill? I don't know how you would include that as far as how we supersede a law that says any district that drops below 350. I'd have to consult with not only our attorneys but probably the AG's office.
Speaker 107
46:49
I know there are several school districts to be very interested in some help getting their enrollment back up. They've got everything else right, just a couple of kids short, and that might be something for us to look at to include in this process. So thank you. Yes, ma'am. Wouldn't you agree, I guess? I have some
Speaker 56
47:15
great concern for those districts. Yes, ma'am. I do. Okay, thank you.
Chair
Unverified
47:19
Thank you, Representative Douglas. Do we have any other questions in regard to this bill? I do believe we have someone who wants to speak against the bill. Mr. Nagel, if you're available, sir, if you make your way to the end of the table. Mr. Nagel, you are recognized to speak against the bill.
Speaker 113
47:49
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Rich Nagel with the Arkansas Education Association, and I want to make several points in opposition to the bill. First of all, we think that five years is far too long. In fact, we believe that in just about every situation within a two-year period, school districts can get back to a sound fiscal condition.
If this bill merely did one thing, and that was to put in an advisory board to cover the bridge that Dr. Kimbrell was mentioning, in other words, from June 30 until the time there was a school election, we believe that would be appropriate and sufficient. Anything beyond that we think is inappropriate. We think the biggest problem with the bill is that it removes any expectation on the part of the community to be able to take very positive and affirmative steps to get the
school district in an even better financial situation. In many school districts that are initially placed in fiscal distress and the board is retained, virtually every one of those communities rallies around the schools and does things to improve its financial position. I know of one school district that even went so far as to hold bake sales and do other
kinds of things to keep their schools open. We think this period is just far too long. It disengages the patrons of the community and the people who have their children in public schools. It disengages them and doesn't give them much hope or expectation that the schools will be returned to them. Thank you very much.
Chair
Unverified
50:00
MR. Mr. Nagel, will you entertain a question, please?
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
50:03
MR. Be happy to, Mr. Chairman. Madam Vice Chair. Thank you, Mr. Nagle, for taking my question. My question to you is, wouldn't the five-year period more or less freeze anything from happening to that school and in a negative way as far as closing or anything of that nature? And that would kind of give the community a chance to start working on it? I mean. In
Speaker 113
50:32
my comments, I indicated I felt two years was sufficient.
I don't really see it. It's an over – it's too harsh, too long a
Speaker 20
50:44
period of time. And I'm not trying to ask an antagonistic question. I'm asking, you know, if the school
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
50:50
is in danger of closing, if the state takes it over for five years, and this may be a question that Dr. Kimball can answer, would it not keep it at least for five years? Would it
Speaker 113
51:06
be a stopgap? I understand your question and the position I articulated, and I'll just say it again.
Chair
Unverified
51:10
We believe two years is sufficient. If we could get the bad guys to come back
Speaker 121
51:19
to the table. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that
Chair
Unverified
51:25
comment. But you're the good guy now. And, Dr. Kimbrell, if you could
Speaker 124
51:28
just kind of illuminate us on that aspect of the five years and what's the status of the schools during
Speaker 56
51:34
the five-year period? Well, at any point during that time, right now, currently, the law says at the end of two years, if we cannot certify that the district is out of physical distress, the State Board has one of a couple of options,
and that is to consolidate or annex the district or dissolve the district. So in the case of Helena West Helena, I can assure you right now we cannot certify that at the end of this year that they can be out of fiscal distress, which would leave us those couple of options. So we would either annex them with another school district in the vicinity, or we would dissolve that school district and consolidate or annex them with some of the surrounding school districts. So
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
52:12
the five years doesn't really help in that regard? Yes, it does.
Speaker 56
52:16
That would be the issue. The five years would give us an opportunity to stabilize that district, stabilize their finances, is try to reengage the community and get capacity of leadership and stability in their finances so that we wouldn't debate, the board would not have to do one of those two actions, but would be able to maintain a viable and generate capacity of leadership in that community, in that school district, so they can remain as a school district.
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
52:43
So in your opinion, it is, I mean, it's a rescue operation,
But, I mean, it extends the life of a potentially dying school. Yes, ma'am. That's
Speaker 63
52:52
why we're here today before you. It'd be a lot easier for us just
Speaker 56
52:58
to do the other. But we're here today because of that very reason is to try to give some more opportunity for us to try to help that community grow, their leadership capacity, their ability to keep their school district intact as it is, not
Speaker 105
53:14
consolidate it, not dissolve that school district.
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
53:17
That's our goal. Thank you. Richard and Viviano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Noble, you described a scenario where you perhaps thought that the school districts weren't given enough opportunity before they were placed in a fiscal distress, and then you described a scenario where once they were, the community reacted and responded. And so my question is, don't you believe the act of them being placed in that fiscal distress finally was the motivating factor and what long-term will be the savior of that school and that community?
Speaker 113
54:00
I'm not sure how your question differs from my answer
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
54:06
and my testimony. Well, I guess I'm asking you to
explain why you think that by the state not taking them over, the fact that they did created this event and the community reacted to
it. And ultimately, I believe probably we'll end up saving a
Speaker 113
54:29
lot of these school districts. MR. I understand your question to be consistent with what I've said.
My difference is I think a period of five years is far too
Chair
Unverified
54:42
long. MR. Okay. Thank you. MR. Thank you, Representative Biviano. Mr. Nagel, thank you very much as well, sir. MR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. MR. Do we have anyone else who wishes to speak for or against the bill? Mr. Harder, you're recognized to speak for the bill. you
Speaker 122
55:04
may proceed when you're ready sir thank you mister chairman ron hunter arkansas school board association
Speaker 136
55:09
i'd like to give just a little bit of history uh... on the origin of the two years which was at fourteen sixty seven of two thousand three which at that time was only academic distress The facility's distress and the fiscal distress were added subsequently as those came into being statutorily. I mean, 05 and 06, I believe. But we were concerned in 03, in Act 1467, that two years was too short.
ASBA talks a lot about culture and you have so much culture within a community and within a school in two years we just don't believe is adequate time to change the inherent culture both within the district and within the community and the community as part of the district or vice versa so that we think this bill is an attempt
to be realistic to allow the department to actually have the time to do what it needs to do but I would also emphasize all throughout the bill and each section, academic facilities and fiscal for the most part mirror each other and throughout it there's no requirement that it go for five years there's an allowance that it goes by five years if that's what the department is determining is necessary.
The department doesn't want to be in this business. It's not what they're about, so that they have no inherent interest to make a district stay in any distress any longer than is necessary. So we support the bill. Thank you very much,
Chair
Unverified
57:06
Mr. Harder. Do we have anyone else who wishes to speak for or against the bill? Mr.
Speaker 139
57:18
Abernathy? You're recognized, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Richard Abernathy, Director of AAEA.
Speaker 140
57:22
And we also are in support of this bill. This bill concept was brought to us several months ago. One of our concerns was a transition period from time the state relinquished his authority to giving it back to the community. The department, along with their staff, wrote in the advisory board concept, which we think would be a step in the right direction. We did have another concern, particularly with academic distress, because if you look
at physical distress, that's ultimately the superintendent and board. They're the ones responsible for making those decisions. Facilities distress the same way. Academic distress, there's more involved in academic distress besides the board and superintendent and we thought the fair dismissal should have been waived down through that particular school and obviously we were not able to get that written in the bill but that's the only thing that we had concerns on but ultimately we do think that this is a good bill and gives the the department
of the authority to do the things they need to do
Chair
Unverified
58:28
thank you very much Dr. Abernathy anyone else who wishes to speak for against the bill if not Rep. Perry, do
Representative Mark Perry
Unverified
58:40
you have anything to add, sir? A lot of good testimony, a lot of good questions. Appreciate the committee, and I appreciate
Speaker 15
58:45
a good vote. Thank you, Rep. Perry. Chair will entertain a motion. Rep.
Speaker 13
58:48
Catlett. Yes, Mr. Chair. I'd like to make a motion that
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
58:50
we do pass this bill. We have a do pass motion. All in favor?
Speaker 15
58:55
All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much, Rep. Perry. We appreciate
Chair
Unverified
59:05
you, sir. Rep. Biviano, if you are ready, sir, the committee will hear House Bill 1528. You may proceed at your convenience. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
59:20
going to ask Mr. Wood and Mr. Smith to join me.
Members, I appreciate the time today to present House Bill 1528. This is a bill I probably thought
initially its origins that myself and somebody from the Department of Education wouldn't be sitting at the same end of the table co-presenting the bill, but it shows what good hard work will do and clear heads will work out what's in the best interest of our children in the state of Arkansas. You've got to believe, or I certainly believe, that one of the tools that we have at our
disposal in the state education is the use of charter schools and the formation of charter schools, and we believe that's a valuable tool. We've seen proven charter school success, and I think this gives us an opportunity to continue to evaluate that as a tool, do it in a fair way, consistent way that will refill in those certain areas that a charter school has justified that everybody is in agreement
and we can move forward to make progress in that area. So what this bill will allow, it will allow for the Department of Education to become the authorizer for charter schools where they can review, revoke, authorize new charter applications. It gives them the opportunity to make sure that they're done in the correct and proper way, and allows us to use that, as I said, as a tool for education.
I've asked Mr. Wood and Mr. Smith to join me, and at this time I'll let them introduce themselves and add any comments. Tony Wood, Department
Speaker 144
1:01:14
of Education. We were appreciative of the opportunity to be part of the process, and the Department supports
Speaker 146
1:01:20
the legislation. Scott Smith, Director of the Armisville Public School Resource Center. to work with charter schools around the state and through
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
1:01:30
the application process? This bill will allow the charter panel within the Department of Education
to have up to 11 members, which will form the duties of authorizing, reviewing, revoking,
and in case, if need be, putting on probation or denying any applications. So with that, I will
open it up for any questions.
Chair
Unverified
1:01:51
So Rep. Viviano, if you could just kind of walk me through who ultimately is going to have the final say in blessing charter schools. Right now,
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
1:02:03
with this bill, the charter panel that employs within the Department of Education has the authority, but the State Board of Education has the ability to appeal that decision.
And there's a process to do that. But they have to do it within 30 days, and they have to do it in an open format. So ultimately,
it still lies with the State Board of Education. Thank
Representative John Catlett
Unverified
1:02:30
you, Representative Viviano. Representative Catlett, you have
a question? Yes, Representative Viviano. I read through the bill briefly, and I noticed that most of it is just changing State Board of Education authorizer. What is the motive behind just changing the definition of that?
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
1:02:45
Well, the idea here is obviously the State Board of Education has many things on their table. They're dealing with a tremendous number of issues to run our school systems. This charter panel gives them focus on the whole issue of charter schools and allows them to do all the evaluations and then become ultimately the authorizer. So the State Board of Education would only get involved in a situation where there's an exception. For some reason, they want to appeal that decision.
But it really gives focus around this issue of charter schools as
Speaker 34
1:03:20
a tool. Thank you, Representative Callett. Do we have any other questions? Representative Armstrong? Who makes
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
1:03:31
up this charter panel? It's members of the Department
Representative Eddie L. Armstrong
Unverified
1:03:33
of Education. Is this a new layer that's going
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
1:03:36
in? No, no. Those members are designated by the commissioner. Thank you. Thank you,
Chair
Unverified
1:03:43
Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Representative Armstrong. Do we have any other questions from the committee?
Representative Ann V. Clemmer
Unverified
1:03:48
Madam Chair. Are the members on the panel the current people within the department that are supervising and overseeing the charter schools? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So it's just empowering the people that are doing the supervision on a daily basis. Well, daily, but to the extent it can be done daily. but a continuing basis to make the determination on those schools that they're currently supervising, whether they should stay open and making recommendations.
I mean, they're going to make the decision and then only open to subject to appeal if the State Board does not like their decision. That's correct. I'm just going to guess I'm
Speaker 146
1:04:32
going to add. Madam Vice Chair, to be clear, it also helps reduce some of the duplicity in the process. The Department already conducts a review of the charter applicants and makes a recommendation to the State Board. They conduct a very thorough and exhaustive review. So this just, in fact, eliminates some of the bureaucracy or one of the steps in the process. Thank you very much.
Chair
Unverified
1:04:52
Do we have any other questions from the committee? If not, Mr. Nagel, you are recognized to speak for the bill.
Speaker 113
1:05:16
Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Rich Nagel with the Arkansas Education Association, and we want to thank the sponsor for this
bill and the other parties that were here before for working with us and other interested parties in bringing this bill forward, and the Arkansas Education Association initially supported the first charter school bill that came from the – I think it started in the Arkansas Senate with two members over there. So we look forward to you approving this bill and letting it go to the other end and become
Chair
Unverified
1:06:00
law. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nagel. Mr. Scott Smith, are you available, sir? If you are ready, sir, you can speak for the bill. Okay. You gentlemen are recognized to speak for the bill. I'm
Speaker 158
1:06:25
John Bacon. I'm the Chief Executive Officer for East End Public Charter Schools. And just to be brief, I think Scott said it best.
It's just about reducing redundancy, and I'm all about making government as efficient as possible. This group already exists. My school just went through the renewal process. It's a very arduous, rigorous process. They do a great job with it. We've always been treated fairly at the State Board level, but it seems like this could just really create a more efficient system since the work is already occurring at that level.
Speaker 162
1:07:01
Rob McGill. Rob McGill, Executive Director of Academics Plus Charter School.
I also support the bill just for the same reasons that have just
Chair
Unverified
1:07:09
been said. We appreciate you gentlemen very, very much. Dr. Abernathy, do you have anything to add,
Speaker 139
1:07:21
sir? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And again, we want to
Speaker 140
1:07:24
thank the sponsor for working with us. As you know, when a similar bill came out, we had some minor concerns. The major concern was keeping it under the State Board, and this bill does exactly what
we asked to do on the front end, and so we want to thank Mr. Biviani for working with
Chair
Unverified
1:07:42
us, and we support the bill. Thank you, Dr. Aberneth. Do we have anybody else that wishes to speak for or against the bill? Representative Biviano, would you
Representative Mark Biviano
Unverified
1:07:54
like to add anything? I want to thank everybody for taking their time and attention to this matter. It has created an opportunity to highlight charter schools in
the state of Arkansas, and that certainly is one of the objectives.
Now with this legislation, I hope it will be a
focus going forward. Thank you, sir. I thank the committee. Representative Armstrong, do you have a question? Motion to prop it
Chair
Unverified
1:08:17
down. Motion to prop it down. The chair will entertain that motion now. Mr. Armstrong? move do pass we have a do pass motion all in favor all opposed motion passes thank you represent Viviana thank you mr. chairman thank you to the committee represent corner if you are ready sir we are going to take up house resolution
1035 and ruptured corner you are recognized to proceed when you
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:08:53
are ready, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Bobbitt, if you would join me at the end of the table. I'm going to take just a minute to just brief the committee.
This is actually a resolution that I'll be, and I'm not going to read it to you word by word. That's a promise. On the other hand, I do want to kind of give you some general information regarding the resolution, and the reason I'm not going to read it word by word is because in the House, come before a committee, of which you obviously are going to agree that this is an important
resolution, and we're going to read it to the whole House. Okay? So saying that in a very positive way, this is a resolution that talks about supporting the growth and quality of affordable online education in the University of Arkansas system and for other purposes. Now, saying all of that, with me is Dr. Bobbitt, as he has joined, rejoined, actually, the state in a little different position as our president of the UA system,
has been an advocate for some time of expanding online education in a digital format for the purpose of providing high-quality programming to students all across the state pursuing a higher education degree. Now, saying all of that, I'm going to turn it, actually, to Dr. Bobbitt, and he will introduce himself and tell you a little bit about this resolution and then the purpose of it, and then I have just some brief comments to close.
Speaker 172
1:10:51
Dr. Bobbitt. Thank you. Thank you, Representative McLean and the committee for this opportunity. I do want to take a moment and just introduce our new Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Michael Moore. He comes to us from Texas. I asked Michael to stand up, but he's a lot taller than me. You can probably see him as he's sitting down. Michael has been an award-winning teacher, particularly in his online courses, but also is a researcher recognized by the Texas State Bar and a tremendous citizen of the states.
We're glad to have him here. And, Michael, as part of our plan to expand online education, some of you have heard me talk before know that in reviewing the history of higher education, effectively, if you look at it closely, you see that we haven't changed appreciably in about 1,000 years. And the question that I have been asking across the system, across the state, is whether that is the most appropriate approach for us to reach the students that we see nowadays with the resources that we have nowadays.
And I guess I would suggest to you that the answer is no, that's my conclusion, and it's the conclusion of many others. So we have been expanding this effort. The Board of Trustees have been extremely supportive, even though you understand that when you change paradigms that have been in place for 1,000 years, you're likely to see some resistance. And we have seen that resistance, but it has not been significant, and we're addressing it. I hope that the committee will look favorably upon this resolution because I think our Board
of Trustees has shown some real courage in moving the university in a different direction. The hope is by taking advantage of technology that is being brought to bear, we can reach more students and do so with the resources that we have available at the moment. So thank you again for this
Chair
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1:12:42
opportunity. Well, Dr. Bobbitt, we appreciate you being here very much, and I know that this is an area of expertise as far as you're concerned. very passionate about this and I think we're very fortunate to have someone like you who
clearly sees the future and this indeed is the future and so we appreciate you very very much and we appreciate your service to the University of Arkansas system and to the state of Arkansas as
Speaker 28
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well. Do you gentlemen have anything else to
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:13:11
add? I want to just close with a note and kind of give the committee a little bit of perspective on this, and I said that in most instances we usually start off with the K-12, the early childhood, and then on up to the university.
In this case, the university has, in fact, created this initiative through the Board of Trustees, and I think as we talk about this over the next few weeks and then as we do adequacy during the interim, you're going to see that K-12 also has very much a similar initiative that's ongoing. We have not brought forth any type of legislation for your review, but because of the way that
it's being constructed, you're going to see, as we unroll Common Core, as you see college and career readiness be, again, more and more important on our palate, you might say, as committee members, as we talk about transitional courses, all the kinds of things that shifts in terms of remediation, you're going to see the digital format become more and more important to K-12. Now, looking at it that way, it's in a hybrid sense, which is a little bit different, but
The impact is all going to be on the fact of increasing the readiness of our young people for both careers and college and employment beyond the university years. So we are talking about this as it really is an economic impact to our state because of the workforce of which will be created in the future. There will be a piece brought to you. Most of you have seen at least the first draft of it in talking about enhanced college and
career readiness and completion. A lot of that will depend on a digital format. In final comment, I might say to you how important this is to all of our schools in the state. You recognize that, and I'm going to say this to 42 to 45 school districts, actually enroll 80 percent of the students in the state. Now, at some point in time, you say, well, if that's the case, how many school districts? We're talking about, are we down to 237?
239. I knew we were right close on that. I have to ask them each day to remember which is the correct number. But if you think of that, that means that there's approximately 190 districts that are considerably smaller. And when you talk about increasing staff to handle transitional courses and all of the other issues that they must actually work with, you can understand that the digital format is really the only opportunity they're going to have to be competitive in this whole
process and to be able to get the job done. So it's something that as they have brought forth the university look at this, and many I know with our community colleges and our other secondary institutions all exploring this, high-quality program is an absolute necessity. And I think that's really where the rubber meets the road. This is going to be part of our future in this state. And I certainly can't say any more in terms of applaud the university systems and also
Also the K-12 work that Dr. Kimbrell is doing with his staff. And I think as we unroll this over the
next few weeks and months that you are duly going to be impressed.
Chair
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1:17:05
MR. Well, Representative Carnine, I wholeheartedly agree. I think an enhanced and broadened digital capacity is going to ultimately save our rural districts. I'm very happy that you brought this resolution to the committee, and I think it will be widely accepted and embraced in the legislature do we have anyone else any other questions from the
committee if not anyone wishes to speak for against the bill from the audience the chair will obtain a motion representative tally motion do pass we have a motion do pass all in favor all opposed motion passes thank you refer to car and dr. Bobbitt thank you very very much Representative Cornyn, do you want to take up Senate Bill 509 today? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, we understand there's an amendment to Senate Bill 509. We'll take that up first. The amendment is being published now. The amendment adds a sponsor, Representative Feit. We'll give you a moment to pull that up on your tablet. But if not, Juanita will get you a hard copy. Just again, this is an amendment that is adding Representative Feit.
With that, the chair will entertain a motion to adopt the amendment. Ratlitt do pass on the amendment. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Amendment is adopted. Representative Carnine, you are recognized to
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:18:49
present Senate Bill 509 as amended. The establishment of the Advanced Placement Training Incentive Program has actually been ongoing. However, with the change in funding sources through the Fed, this has created a need for
us to create a framework so that this particular initiative could be ongoing. And this bill essentially is all it is, is a framework or a conduit for not only state grants but also other private grants to have a funding source so that we can on the program can be ongoing. I will say this about this particular program. If you look at the, and as it's been presented to you, if you see the results of it at the
various high schools and communities that this has been, they've been involved, it's really impressive in terms of the level and capacity that have been developed in those schools. I'll be glad to entertain any questions regarding it, but again, it's a framework for continuing a program for the advanced placement, which obviously more and more of our young people have
been involved in in the state.
It is really paying dividends. Thank
Speaker 34
1:20:16
you, Representative Carnine. Do we have any questions from the
Speaker 66
1:20:19
committee, Representative Armstrong? How many schools are participating in
Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
Unverified
1:20:24
this program? We were, let me call Ms. Anthony to the table and let her answer that. I know it, again, it's kind of like the number of high schools I refer to. You know, it changes each year just a little bit, or school districts. Well, this has been an ongoing increase, so tell us where we are right now.
Speaker 183
1:20:45
Ms. Anthony, you're recognized. Anthony, Tommy Sue Anthony, Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science. This year we have 38 schools participating. However, we are probably, even as we speak, scheduling visits to eight more who wish to participate next year. We are statewide, though, in terms of the scattering across the state. One other question, Mr. Chairman. Are you
Speaker 55
1:21:13
recruiting schools to come in, or is this something they volunteer to do?
Speaker 183
1:21:21
The answer is probably yes to both questions. We sent out an invitation, which I suppose could be a recruitment. We sent out an invitation for schools to apply. We have had eight say they are interested. We do a visit, though, to make sure they're really interested, because if they're not committed to doing this, then it doesn't work well. Thank you, Ms. Anthony. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Representative Armstrong. We have any
Chair
Unverified
1:21:47
other questions from the committee? If not, do we have anyone from the audience that wishes to speak for or against the bill?
With that, the chair will entertain a motion. Representative Lowry has a due pass motion as amended on SB 509. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much, Representative Carnot. Ms. Anthony, thank you very much for being here as well. Ms. Thank you very much, committee. Okay, committee, I believe that that takes care of our agenda for today. Once again, we have done yeoman's work here, often imitated, never duplicated house education. With that, we will entertain a motion to adjourn.
Agenda
PRESENTATION REGARDING GED TESTING Mr. C. T. Turner, Vice President for Public Affairs, GED Testing Service
HB1948
HB1686
HB1770
HB1528
HR1035
SB509
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Chair
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Representative Ann V. Clemmer
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Representative Mark Biviano
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Representative Mark Perry
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Representative Eddie L. Armstrong
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Representative John Catlett
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Representative Les "Skip" Carnine
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