Education Committee Senate & House (All Day)

Good morning everyone we're going to get started forget or by to find a seat. I will. Like call this meeting to order good morning glad to have everybody today we have a pretty good bunch of stuff to look at today so we're gonna try to get started madam chair you have any remarks. Remarks I don't see on the gender approve the minutes of November the ninth two I have a motion and lots of second okay all in favor say aye. All opposed. Motion carries. All right item do you will get cranked up the presentation of Arkansas school finance study draft report. Eight I will let Justin and Amanda come up. And Justin manner if you don't mind you will you can't take those mask often talk it's a little easier to understand you so. All right it. Yes it is your ball game go ahead. Thank you all it's good to see you again it's been a few weeks and the. We give you two hundred three pages of report to read over thanksgiving so we figure everyone's angry and is ready to attack stop start with a pop quiz and then we today clearly cannot dig three two hundred three pages in there would be no good reason to try to dig through every page in the report instead what we're gonna do we just go to the next slide. We're good first start with just a recap of everything that was in that or if he we've gone through this a couple times but just a reminder of how much and the breadth and the depth of different areas that we are studying amend is gonna spend sometime talking about the report structure we are pretty deliberate in a report structure trying to create some more digestible pieces so if you have a specific topic area that you are interested in there should be no more than about fifteen pages that you need to pull out and read about that topic area we're trying to make every chapter can attend fifteen pages and we'll walk through that then we're gonna walk through a two chapters two through twelve one at a time we'll talk about our key takeaways So can what we studied then the key takeaways and let you will ask questions on those chapter one is the intro and that's basically everything we're doing on the front and here we want to recap the recommendations a mental walk through those we did make a slight adjustment to two of the recommendation so we want to based on the feedback received at the last meeting and then review next steps with this a process in the wrapping up in a couple weeks. Okay these are probably familiar tables to you the next four slides are just this recap of the study areas. if you remember we had the three sections to the RP it's a B. and C. eighty. It has come some really key components and some of the components that are are drive in the early have recommendations directly linked to them the first one is the re reviewing the methods for routinely reviewing adequacy we clearly have a specific recommendation there we did a lot of what we did on our big data analysis was in two three and four five and six year which one the review of the adequacy stays in the matrix that comes a little later in the report and then number seven here is also chapter seven of the report which is the college and career readiness. The next slide. Section B. was really about school and district sites so there's a lot of information there we're gonna have a big appendix report that's just on be that will come in a in kind the next week or so but we do have one chapter specifically on this the kind of one piece we pull out here is on seven where we look at class size requirements and to teacher ratios and salary that that was actually play out in a couple other areas in the report but otherwise this section report was all about school district's size and comes up in chapter seven and then the appendix that will be included. And then we have C. which I think could be called the place where everything else got put that anybody else wanted to study a lot of what is in see links back to what's actually in a meeting and so there's a lot of cross walk there in one of our goals with the whole report was wherever there was a line item in either of the in any of the three sections that aligned with another item we put it into one chapter and so what you will see is that chapter ten has a number of sections that you just that piece then relate to anything else in the study it was really a standalone otherwise there's a lot of relationship between all of these but some of the grief groupings in C. include trying to identify the right proxy for low income are economically disadvantaged kids we're looking at equity we're looking at traction retention mental health and then if you go down to the bottom side of this we're looking specifically capital needs that's a piece that stands on its own in that other in chapter ten which has the kind of the other sections but then we are also looking at the impact of vouchers we have the case studies which in the end really our thread throughout all of the chapters so we learned a lot of information from case studies and we put in different places that is also true with some of the district survey information comes in a number of places and so and so we've got all that and we've also got those educator panels which some of that information is a thread throughout the whole report. Okay. So how did we do all the work there really are six main kind of study areas that we use spat. A research activities that we used I would say we're gonna walk through it's a little bit more detail but we did a lit review for every area we did we had to sell a survey will talk more about we have that large scale fiscal in performance data review which is going to be part of this chapter for we did this case studies which have information sprinkled throughout the report similar with educator panels and stakeholder engagement and then a number of things came up that we just had to cry more data and we had to do more quantitative and qualitative work. So with our literature reviews they're really the first step of everything we did we went out we took a look at what was going on nationally and then we also took a look at what was going on with our comparison states as you all remember early on we decided that this as sorry be states and Massachusetts would be our comparison states as you read the report we just call them comparison states because writing out that's already be state and Massachusetts became a little redundant over two hundred three pages so when you see comparison states that's who we're talking about we looking at both the academic research and policy research and then really just how other states are implementing similar areas of school finance in their in their in the state school finance systems. The L. A.'s survey so the only survey here highlights that we have to go out and get more data for some areas where data wasn't collected I want to take a step back there you all have robust data being collected and the department of ed has a really robust system that you can go right online on my school info you can pull a ton of information out thank you can't get and most other states so we started off in a really really good place I don't want to say like we had to go do this because there's no did and we had great data and we had a really really good cooperation and help from the department anytime we asked they helped out so we just want to thank them because we couldn't of done the study without them really being responsive in the way they were but there were a couple areas where we need to get more information so what we did is after we had done our initial data collection we identified those areas and then we sent out a survey if you remember back in the spring kind of when all of this craziness was starting a new one none of us that we'd still be here today in this way And we send it out to every district superintendent and every charter system director and we asked them about a couple areas some of the school district's size policies that's not information that's collected we'd have to we had to ask about those and that includes how public is involved in those school districts size policy setting. How to use their poverty funds or that so they're ESA funds their capital needs and how the address capital needs what they do for professional development and how that impacts collaboration and how that impacts extra duty time and then whatever kind of the educational opportunities for students so when we think about a P. increase tech offering so we those are the the focus areas for Ellie Acer back. And we have our fiscal and performance data analysis this is really what we'll be talking about with it when you read chapter four this is the focus we used a technical analysis and you'll learn about things like lasso and regression analysis and and things that I have to keep asking questions about as they are are methods folks but those in the play but the girl was first to identify the growth and achievement areas for student groups so really what we're trying to do first is where the gaps are there differences in student performance based on different student characteristics we didn't want to know are those really highlighted at all if you have higher concentrations of poverty in schools so we take a look at that we want to look at the relationship between spending of performance that was a key aspect here we also wanted to understand the impact of class size on performance of those are all pieces we've we've talked about and then we took a look a little bit further at the alley expenditure data and I didn't say this early on but I should have and then I'm gonna pass it off to me and everything in here or maybe it did say you already see we presented everything in this report at some point to you all some of it was in March and some of it was in April and that feels like three years ago this year and we're saying even as we were going back through it all right so our goal here was that is to give you a little bit of a reminder on some of these and the key takeaways what we want you to take away from each of these areas. So one of the main other study areas that we study activities with case studies that we selected fifteen successful schools around the state and the way we did that was our our partners at west said look to to measure how well schools were beating the expectations that the performance levels you might expect given their demographics A is that those schools are ranked and then we looked by region and we use five regions in the state to see what was the top performing elementary middle and high school in each reach and so that's how we selected are fifteen the you can see kind of that the criteria for how they needed to be created and in particular we were looking for schools that had a higher than average low income percentage or higher than average English learner percentage because the goal of these case studies to to look for places that are performing well with the students and then learn more about how they're doing that. So once we identify those schools be interviewed us school leadership teams at each school and teachers using a protocol that was based on trying to see if what it was leading to their success and how well did it aligned with what research might say are affected practices in characteristics that schools so that included looking at information about how are they staffing how are they using their non personal resources what curriculum or they're using are there specific interventions are strategies that they're employing how are the leveraging professional development collaboration time with their staff how are they using eight thirty that how is that informing both their interventions and their instructional practice and then what's the overall school culture with the leadership like so as just mention this is one of the threats that kind of carries through multiple areas so you won't see within the There there is a chapter in kind of this key themes but they also come up throughout. The next piece with stakeholder engagement we really did that through two avenues the first was a targeted educator panels with educators around the state we also did an online stakeholder survey that was open to all educators as well as community members and it the intention of those was together some feedback and in key areas including college and career readiness how to support low income students in use the resources to serve them staff attraction and retention and the perspectives on the funding system including specifically the funding matrix and in the resources within it. So we can means over twenty educator panels in these rolled on virtually that included ten kinda district or system level panels we did the is regionally to try to see if there's a difference in story between place communities within the states that we did to per region and again we divide that the state and five region we did to see if in business manager panels and those were statewide for school administrator panels and six teacher panels of the of across all of those panels we had a hundred twenty five percent participants an eighty five of those were kinda district or charter system administrators or business officials this year was very difficult to get school level staff to participate they just have a lot on their plate this year so you'll see this was little more geared to the district folks but we had very good participation from school level staff in the online survey which was just a little bit more open accessible Avenue for folks this year. And again participants were from all regions in the state. Then the online survey with also open in September for two weeks including both educators and the broader public so parents students business leaders and community members and we did two versions of the service of the educator one was kind of more in depth assuming a little bit more background knowledge we try to keep that community member one a little higher level a little more accessible overall we had three thousand individuals participate in the survey and they're pretty evenly split seriously fifty fifty between educators and community members and respondents represented over a hundred seventy different districts are charter systems in the state three pretty pleased with that representation. Then just mentioned we did some additional qualitative and quantitative work so that includes additional data analysis that is looking at that equity of the system looking at the impact of enrollment changes or vouchers OR waivers differences in education opportunities in the work force across the state interviews with eighty staff for education coop staff when necessary and then mapping a lot of the information in your we don't show a lot of the maps here but that something that'll be in the appendices that really request visualization. And this is where we attempt to show you how we brought all those thirty one areas into something digestible so as just mentioned we have twelve chapters where we can it trade that group things that were related and had a team so intro is mostly what we've walks through so far the methods the activities how the report structure the background to provide some information on the court decisions in the funding system overall it provides some of the broader feedback from stakeholders survey such as general perception that the system and areas of concern or feedback that they had the next chapter is on the equity analysis and the uniform tax rate. Chapter four indicator system performance really where we look at what's the relationship between student groups and performance concentrations of poverty funding in performance as well as looking at the impact of class size so all of that that performance related outcomes are in that chapter as just mention we split one chapter into two so addressing poverty and achievement gaps is in chapter five and six the chapter five is focused on really how do you think about targeting funding to those student groups including all those questions around what is the best proxy measure for low income look like and what's the impact of of some differences there funding for concentration of poverty and then including current use of poverty funds and perspectives from the alley a survey of what are the most effective uses. That then leads into what are the strategies to address those achievement gaps that you're seeing this is where we do have the summary of the the key study findings research on addressing concentrations of poverty and invest programs and strategies to address achievement gaps. A chapter seven is then college and career definition. Chapter eight is where we group all of those pieces that were in section be of the R. P. everything related to size goes into this chapter and again we try to keep it fairly concise here so you'll see some more depth and and appendices for this one but this is where we talk about what our current size practices how is the public engaged in determining the size of schools is there research out there on either best programmatic clear most cost effective A sizes of distance schools and districts this is where we also have class size requirements. Both within the city and then looking at how to other states both address class size in school sized. Then how do you think about providing that adjustments to meet the needs of small or remote districts or isolated schools or districts and then any recommendation so everything you want to know about class school and district sizes in that chapter. Chapter nine is then focused on attracting and retaining staff including administrative and teacher staff nurses those where we look at the information about how does the work force and salaries ferry across the state. Other topic areas is is where some of those pieces that are little standalone they they play out later in some of the recommendations but. Where we group them so PDT collaboration an extra duty time for staffs to mental health waivers and Roman changes vouchers and capital so that's a little bit more for grab bag chapter then a chapter eleven is where it all starts to come together which is reviewing the resource matrix in the approaches for routinely addressing adequacy and chapter twelve is the recommendations in those recommendations or what we presented at the last meeting will highlight where we made some slight two weeks from. Then to now and those across all study areas. And with that Justin's gonna walk through some of the key takeaways from the first several chapters subcultures I think this is a good time if there's any questions on process anything like that we we should take this now and then we can get into the chapters. Senator Elliott you're recognized. Thank you Mr chair and and you might have told us this sometime back and whatever year it was but on page fifteen where you talk about the folks that participated on I think it was the online survey I'm just curious about the do you have any data on where of the public of folks were who participated did you keep that kind of data. What what what parts of the state which regions participated. And and we do so as I mentioned about half of the the participants were community members we did have a quite a few coming from a couple districts but largely there was representation from across the state within responses We do have that information both for kind of parents and students what district where they in and then for community members more what what county port they and I do have some information about that I don't have the split right in front of me with that that but I I would love to see that and one of the reasons is kind of a short coming of our phone in our state in that though so many people who are not connected to be able to do something like that and that would be great to have if you would send it to amend appreciate that very much that's in Mr chair thank you I thank you. All right any other questions. Seeing none continual okay so we are gonna walk through each of the chapters now in the way that we have this plant we promise or not fourteen slides on every chapter there's two to two to four slides in each chapter and we'd like to just go and take a stop after each one just to see if there's any specific questions and that way we you know it's it's fresh in our minds we do that so our first chapter really is background but it's also it's really context ending for the study and so here's where we looked at the court decisions you know we're we're kind of here because a lake view and and so were were walking through that we're review the current state funding system. And then we also talk a little bit about the stakeholder perspectives that we are finding from that stakeholder engagement in any of the key concerns that they had coming from that. And so the key takeaway is an let's just friends again and I just wanna keep saying it's when you get to a chapter you are going to see about a paragraph on what's in the chapter. Then you're going to see a big green box that has the key takeaways and so in theory if you do not have time to read a chapter I know you all want to read every word of everything but if you need to read we have a if you need to be refreshed on what's in that chapter we are trying to placed out what we think are the key pieces that we took away from all the research we did any chapter in those key takeaways you then have all the flesh of everything we did and at the back in the conclusion which is just a little bit more narrative really on the key takeaways so that's how we chapters is laid out so we are just gonna highlight in each of these the key takeaways what we think we should take away from from each of the chapter so the first piece is that the lead you to shoot decision really is leading this work there with a nine action steps that that kind of for the constitutional obligation and a big piece of that is the adoption and then that review of the funding matrix. As a state and I've said this before you know you leave it really it having a meaning behind your system and and all the review you do of that system that has included the three adequacy studies really to full studies at in all three and sex and the audit in fourteen and then you also have bill are doing advocacy work over that two year cycle reviewing all aspects of the city so you have a lot of information that's coming in in a really frequent manner. Then when we think about the feedback we are getting we were splitting the sat between educator feedback and community members feedback just because we think those are you know key different lenses here we think of the educators they think of the funding system they do believe it respond to different needs of students but even with that they are not sure that it's providing similar educational opportunities for students across the state or that it fully responsive district needs of students or that really has the actual distribution so they see the intent but I don't think they reading this here they they feel that it's doing everything that they might want to do. But if I go to the next slide. The community members are actually more they they feel the system is doing more of those things so they booked out the funding system responds to the different needs of students that insures similar education and response a different needs of districts so a little bit different lands if you're an educator versus a committee member on how well the system is addressing needs or how well the the funding system is addressing needs across the state. Both the educators and committee members did have concerns the key it concerns for educators were salaries. The class sizes and student mental health I mean those are others but those are the three that really stood out community members first concern was school safety next was the mental health so there's crossover with the educators and then it was those resources for the student groups like low income English learner special education and gift so that that's kind of feedback we received. Okay and that is chapter two so we were gonna go ahead and take questions there. They had see we have any questions so we can move right along back. So chapter three is one of those areas where we make instrument lost chair I think we presented the equity piece back in April or may so it is been quite awhile since we talked about this but here we were doing an equity analysis and we're doing impact of the uniform tax rate so that's what is in this chapter in the focus of our study. We want to be clear we did not go out and replicate the equity announces the bill or does in their two year cycle we agreed only for started that we weren't just gonna bring you information that your state already does right that's not a big value at but we did review would be our is done in BLR has found your system to be equitable using traditional equity measures and fiscal neutrality measures over time it's the original approach that pages in on put in place the state replicates that year to year and uses all the same a classic Jeannie coefficients and all the all the fancy equity language and and metrics. What we did notice though in our analysis is that. Though it's not driving in equity in kind of the classics and yet you first you do have a strong relationship between the property wealth of a district. And the amount of additional dollars they bring in and let these locally so above the twenty five uniform rate. Your wealthier property wealthier districts are more likely to have additional mills and they raise more mills per student when they have that so over time that is the type of thing that can drive in equity in the system there is not a lot of use of those additional bills yet so it's not creating equity concerns but it's just one of those places where you want to keep an eye on it and so we wanted to make sure we highlight that. As far as the uniform rate of tax no it's a very classic foundation formula structure every district has to have the twenty five mills you know they get some state funding lesser at ninety eight percent of that of the funding level You know overall there's not a high reliance on stay on local funds within the state you rely pretty heavily on state funding so you know that's just the truth the Justin is but the structure of the system itself very reliable and it's working quite well. So what we really focused on in our equity study different than what BLR does the are the resource and that the opportunities for students in looking at property wealth and so we looked at the district personnel resources so the teachers and and other staff related to property wealth the type of program offers the offerings in the student outcomes and overall if you remember we found this is me really pretty equitable there's not a lot of relationship between your property wealth per pupil and any of these kind of these metrics across the state. Now couple key things and be a large told you this before in and we found out you do not actually have as a state a high correlation between the income of the students in the community and the property wealth of the committee those two things are not highly correlated so it's actually not surprising that you don't see some of these equity correlations but what is true and what we'll talk about here in chapter for a minute is that it is clear there are student groups who have real impacts on both the availability of resources and the outcomes for the students and that's what we found and FOR so it's not related to the property wealth of your district but it is related to the student characteristics of those kids which will talk about and FOR. Okay. Questions on three. See senator Chesterfield the thank you madam chair and good morning is good to see you are allowed in living color. I am just interested in a I need to go back to page six just one moment if you don't mind. As I look at the schools that made up. The the grouping and I guess I'm just interested in Ste in the central region which is the little rock school district north little rock Jacksonville Pulaski County. And then the bulk of your. Of your data came from Lisa could you tell me why I chose lease academy instead of say a Central High School or meals middle or something of that so absolutely So I would say as you remember but this was back in March so as no remembers unless recently our goal was the the process was we we actually went and we are looking at growth for for us schools and so that was our metric for performance was student growth and we listed every school hi its growth to Los growth top to bottom and then we a new ran our filters for the percent of economically disadvantaged or ELCA at a higher rate of one of those two to qualify rates of some schools just came right off the table because they didn't have high economically disadvantaged and any other of an eighty year be or and and this senators on things we talked was up there with you about we did include schools who had grown from like a deed to a C. but you had to have that great so you could be a C. but your bill had to be growing on your current. And so as we listed them out we actually it's really hard to find and this is not just for Arkansas in any place middle and high schools when you start to do this type of analysis or doing really well it that's why it's harder all across the country we we just did this and you talk in over the past couple months also in and it's just harder and so in the end we did pick a school in little rock to to eat B. R. high school they over time to decide they couldn't participate due to what was going on and The academy actually had been our highest rated high school and middle school in that area so since we are already talking to them we went ahead and use them for both because there wasn't another school who was gonna public we had gone through at that point three schools in that region and so we we had so that that is why we why we did that thank you. Sir really. You're recognized. Thank you Mr chair on page twenty four about the property well for the district but that is not does not seem to be correlated It did it did you find or do you know if you can go back and figure this out If this same notion is shared by the community folks who participated in the and well and the educators as well is this something that they Perceived to be the case despite what you're finding showed a or or they in sync perceptually with this finding about the property wealth that does not seem to correlate. The level of personnel resources and program offices and so forth let me let me start a little bit and then I'm I'm gonna have amended to because she really ran the survey one of things I have learned now and twenty almost twenty five years of doing this is that even educators don't think a lot about property wealth in their lands of the this type of information I think I I'd we didn't ask but in part because they don't think of the wealth of their community as the property wealth of their community as much we a school finance expert always take into that because that's how we raise the funds locally so on average they probably will I and eight and I don't think we asked that specifically said on that we can pull that out but in a conversation you know CFO or super that it might say we have a hard time raising funds but a community member that that's just not necessary gently away they think about wealth they think about the income of their community and those impacts less about the property wealth and how you raise funds out yeah and I know I think I think a lot of times what when it. Educators are actually substituting at language about wealth in general that of course would go back and and and connect itself to property well so I think sometimes they are talking about the same things but using different language so I I I suppose then we should look at it through the lens of educators and other stakeholders and and I guess public stake holders in the community Remind me whether or not. We were able to figure out if as a teacher I saw it. That the. Income in the district which I'm likely substituting for property wealth. If the income has era a significant impact one of those course on friends and the kind of person if we are able to maintain personal resources and so forth and then out comes in Senator just building out of what Justin said that was not a lens we took for for splitting out survey responses with different property wealth of of communities both to see his point they don't think about it and the other comment on within the state there's not a strong relationship between property wealth and income so teach your point often people when they think about the wealth of their community they're not just thinking property wealth there thinking about how much money are they in there thirty first making so that was not a lens we took we took more of a focus on looking at a difference is an education opportunity bye bye districts by need in some of the other areas where we had A more quantifiable data again these are just more general perceptions and they tended to be pretty positive from the community perspective so we just we did that further drill and where we had more specific date on what those education opportunities word than trying to split out perceptions. Community but I will say and that this isn't specifically from this piece but when you think of the case studies and educator panels there was a lot of discussion of when you're in a poor community the things that you have to do to that get a student ready to learn so I think that's more to your point that there are in packs of the the wealth of the community in the just the starting point for kids and we talked about this a little bit more recommendations and other places but the wraparound services needs. But again because you know I think likely there's a lot of property wealth in in more income for communities that's commercial right so that I'm unity can raise dollars in the school finance lands but the students coming to school for don't have that wealth and that's the disconnect when you don't have that that strong correlation in it happens in many states rate you have urban populations of a lot of commercial well so they look wealthy for a school finance folk. But their students are not wealthy anyway right so the community can raise a lot of dollars but the students are coming with in with the the needs that are associated with low income versus you know high property so an example of that maybe that state you know pick a place Elliott city and I might have say a big factory or maybe a couple located in my district and we've got a lot of uh parents working there at. But it's probably pretty low wages but it looks like high dollar we look at it from the outside that things should be and and they may be a compass of taxes perhaps but not of when it comes to the income of of their parents that's exactly and that's you know as we're gonna chapter four that's why don't the last statement on slide twenty four is that the relationship with property wealth is in there but the relationship with student characteristics are Absalon okay thank you I'm ready to go. Representatives bring your believe. Yes yes Sir thank you Mr chairman good morning I'm over here. The. Are you a. Thank you all for being here again I want to follow upon of Centerville elites question I'm having a difficult time with the conclusion that to reach with respect to the property wealth of districts does not seem to be correlated to the level district personnel resources program offerings or student outcomes can you give me something more specific of concrete as to how you arrived at that conclusion I guess some have a hard time understanding how you arrived at that conclusion absolutely and so in chapter three we we show it through these core tiles Tarquin tiles but what we did is we actually created a per assessed value per ATM for every district in the state and so that is your wealth measurement on a property wealth value and then we to we went in and so we we brought that up that's forty seven districts in every quintiles and we actually went in and we said okay if we now look at their teachers per thousand students. Do you see you know more teachers in your welfare places for property wealth and less in your in your poor places and you don't there there just isn't that relationship so we literally ran a correlation analysis of the it's a correlation analysis it's on regression but it's a correlation or analysis between these indicators of different resources so the types of courses you have the the personnel those those areas and the wealth for people of every district in when we run those correlations there just isn't a strong correlation we think in part because there isn't a strong correlation with property wealth and income and so it's not to say there are not in equities in this is some things that need to be addressed it just that you can't do that just to property. Okay and adjustments for property well differences okay alright then so it may be some other things other than it may be the experience of teachers or something of that nature all right there are other things I promise you on our our. Thank you very much. Representar. Yes thank you Mr chairman. Flipear thank you I'm in your in your work are there other states that you something different than property taxes are don't use that don't use property sacks taxes to fund their districts and if so what do what do they do. So what state general use property tax to fund districts they might measure the capacity of the property tax bill differently so some states include income in that measurement so they take then tell both property wealth and income so a Maryland does that I think New Hampshire does that there's a handful of states to try to take in both and I'll take a step back so Bob place you who was one of the names on the door of or for most talked about you pay your property taxes with your income right so they're trying to walk through that theory of action that you can have a lot of property wealth but not necessarily the capacity to pay for that you know to pay the assessed value of the property so states do you have that inclusion where they measure Cup capacity through first assessed value and then some adjustment for the wealth of the community also. And have you seen a difference in the equity in those states. I I would need to go back and it can go both ways truthfully it it's not perfect and so it and it is also how you apply the the income adjustment Rhode Island does it through a quadratic equation if you can believe that which. If I had to re learn the quote at crowd quadratic equation for that but it means you have these really weird tales at the either and some do it in and out of the process some do it multiplicative which we then creates more spread so. You can do it well I don't think it's the wrong way to do it per se but. There's not a lot of say to do it because they can get a little bit can get complicated okay very good thank you very much thank you Mr chair. All right I believe that's all the questions. Let's go to for so chapter four is the. You know really in depth multiple higher it is the typical analysis we did with our partners at west and who led that they are on the phone so when you ask things about last so or anything that's really technical we're going to that but what we are trying to look at here is identifying those gap student groups that was our first thing trying to understand the implications of concentration poverty on student performance we want to look to see if there's any correlation between performance in funding and then also any correlation between a performance and class size so again we've talked about all this but but here we go. So the first take away and I think this is really important and gets a lot of the questions here. Under the current measure of economically disadvantaged for low income which is in the state for reduced price lunch. The majority of students in Arkansas identified as low income so you know that's kind of the starting point. Then you know so that's about two thirds of your students are identified as a low income but those tunes are concentrated in your black and Hispanic let next groups they're also concentrated it in your if you students migrant or homeless or English learner you have higher rates of economically disadvantaged for special education students and your higher rates and rural areas some of that probably just a it can also be a bit of the cost of living issue. So though you have really high rates almost any metric you pick it still we were still far more likely to be economically dispenser low income if you come from one of the sub categories of students so that's a really important piece to go into as we start to walk through performance. So as we then took a look at where the student gaps were they fall into those categories of lower where there's those low income kids so low income students English learners your special education students in your other under represented minority students have a lower both growth and absolute achievement and what's worrisome is that you have gaps between with those groups but those wrapped are they are drinking and they're not saying the same the growing at this point overtime so you have student craps and they're getting worse in our we had a four year data set at the student level you mean the it was a very big data base a lot of data there and your caps are getting worse. It's also true is. If you want to understand of students not gonna perform well being low income is that best predictor so being a high concentration poverty school hasn't impacted it you would be protected have lower overall performance but a higher impact is simply being a low income students and so that's you know kind of a little inverse of how your current yes a formula works that Tripoli to little inverse of some of them by the past decades research going on around the country but it is something that's been found more and more is that if you're in a fifteen percent at risk pool or seventy five percent at risk pool if you are low income students you have a high you're in a high rate of lower performance and so that's just a test to clean true. In the last on on our key take aways is looking at that relationship between funding and performance so we talked about before we didn't see a relationship so you do not get better performance taking account everything else if you He does if you spend more but what was really clear to us is that the differential of more was really small and so you have district to spend thousands of dollars more than other districts but when you look at this that the student group level and you compare single dissident groups no student group was spending more than eight hundred dollars per pupil more than another right so that's a pretty small. Between the two student groups so that means between stern group there was never more than a nine percent difference in spending if you think about kind of national research on average you know you're talking twenty five thirty forty percent more being needed for an at risk or low income students to news that right so when you benchmark the differences in spending between groups. Very positive you provide more dollars to your higher need populations the populations were currently not performing as well but the differential is just not that high we can't so. There is in a relationship you are putting the dollars to the right place as far as differential the question is is there enough scale there to get that done we your course not here to tell you what's going on but that was just clear to us that that the differences and and funding or spending are pretty tight. And that is chapter four. It one more quick thing before questions this is this chapter is where we do get into a lot of the recommendations about with an additional kind of new lands on adequacy review focusing more on your economically disadvantaged your special let your E. L. students and kind of what's needed there and and how you think about that in your system so that's coming straight out of chapter four. So really. Well this is. What you just said is so interesting Senate leads me to two things I guess a two questions. So what could this possibly mean and I know I'm not asking you to tell us what to do policy Weiss just how to get my head around it. If we are of funding for a quickie let's just start there if we're funding for equity and the amount the amount of the difference between say the students across the state under eight hundred dollars in additional funding per student and that's pretty tight and that's pretty incredible. We are still not getting the results that we want so. Maybe one of two things come to mind for me. Are we doing enough. because they're still so tightly they're so tight lease. Funded this and we can call that equitable but is it equitable in terms of students having what they need especially if they're from the lower income students so to me there there is an equity issue that we made the. A equitable in a down way is there enough. A and the second thing is. Something that I've been trying to get my head around for a long time. Are we doing under. And at the same time see in these. This pair is used to spirit is persisting. And it is a matter of. Other. Variables that are causing the disparity not what we are doing sitting here in the Education Committee. Just your thoughts about that up because I'm a book about this is a comment what what do we do I have a suspicion if the difference were. Ten thousand dollars we might be getting similar results because we are not addressing the things that really are or the bar at the at issue in causing poverty so center I think those are all great questions and and I think I hope they frame our recommendations pretty well in that Thank you know first and foremost. Me take one step back you can have a very equitable system without actually having a lot of additional dollars going to certain populations because equity really is relational right as long as you are doing more for the for the populations that you feel more for in an in a kind of classic equity sense you get equity right when you run the numbers so your point you're asking about kind of what's the right scale that I think that's what this last board is we're not being as to tell you what the scale is and so that's where we within our recommendations focus on as you would do what additional review having a little bit more focus on what needs to happen there but I also think you know we did the case studies to really talk about one of the characteristics of successful places right you would you don't wanna make sure there's the right resources but you want make sure they're implemented correctly also so you want to take a look at case studies and and how did schools with similar populations get the type of performance that you might wanna have and then we also have the recommendation about trying to create. The overall picture of what's needed for students and increasing the been diagram of where do those resources because to your point the they can't all set under center in Washington DC if you look at the vendor I agreement everything most of it thank you runs through a lot of it runs to the department of that they have a lot of social workers and other folks but here we're trying to say you know what's the overall picture that would be with the task force does and then who owns which pieces of that as a as a entity in the state so that it doesn't all fall in this budget so I think you're right there's a lot of different pieces of this in our goal with recommendations is here's how we think. As an education here the pieces that you would chunk out for yourselves and that's kind of that review and and thinking about special ed funding and some of those places. but that bigger picture on what's everything that might be needed isn't doesn't just get owned by the year yeah yeah because it would it would it would not be the case that you could still have equity but still not have a good week equity cross opportunity to learn. Opportunity to be successful yes and I think that is one of the things that we saw and in that chapter two key take away is that educators felt like the system was providing additional resources for the characters we need to but not at the level that allowed for that equity of opportunity in okay alright thank you thank you Mr chair. Representative Springer. Me again thank thank you Mr chair I'm I'm back on page twenty six and I guess I'm trying to. Get an understanding though what's being said here with respect to this bullet number two. The study the study teams analyses indicated that poverty is link total for economic performance. Further attending the school with a high concentration of poverty was less the terminal to students academic proficiency then that student individually be identified as a low income students so what are you really saying here yeah I I means thank you it's what we are trying to say is that. The best predictor of of having a gap in performance is that you are identified as low income so it is not sitting in a higher concentration of poverty school but is simply being any student anywhere in the state identified as low income that is a projector that you I believe in. Getting a little bit over a year the tips of my skis here That it's not a seven percentage point difference in your outcome if you're economically disadvantaged verses you part regardless of the concentration of poverty of your school now if you have a high concentration of poverty or school that has a an additional impact but really what impart we're trying to say and this is part of the recommendation we have on ESA funding is that currently that funding is really weighted towards high concentrations of poverty schools verses being more evenly weighted towards just being economically disadvantaged students and so what we're really saying is that we would want that that those are targeted to all economically disadvantaged students first having it weighted towards the concentration of the school all right so do you actually stated somewhere in this route what is recommendations something that I do not have memorized but it is and and there and and a mental walk through okay insult so what you're actually saying that there are some things that can be done to address students who fall into this cat particular category absolutely all right thank you. Ray continual okay so that was that let's put fiction segue the next two chapters really do talk more about how to identify the students with the right metric because we've had some discussion about you know is that for you this price lunch the right metric we'll talk a little bit about how other states target these funds and then we start to talk about the use of poverty funds here in in in chapter six so when we focused on the funding approaches which is chapter five the majority of states have some sort of adjustment for what many call at risk or we can call economically disadvantaged or we can we can call combat the either use a single weights or multiple weights some sort of concentration adjustment some use categorical grants and others use resource base but the key here is I think all but four states in the country provide some sort of additional funding for students are at risk of academic failure the majority of those identified those kids through some sort of metric like free or reduced price lunch. What is also true though is that the implementation of the community eligibility provision and so that is where if a school or district can directly certify forty percent of their students as low income they can receive funding for meals for all students in that school but it also means is that they do not have to collect forms for three years at a time so if as a state you're using that metric there are schools and or districts you don't really have an incentive to collect that information in part because the department of agriculture actually built this so that there wouldn't be the burden to collect those forms right so there's this give and take that states now have states use this form to fund kids and the schools and districts no longer have the incentive to actually collect the form so we're done we're taking a look at that there was some impact of the the chapter talks about some ways that States are trying to address that. in the one of the appendices will walk through all of the different iterations but what is true is that there are other ways you could identify we talked simply not you could remove reduced price lunch and we did some analysis that we showed you last time about the in done some the correlations with resources when you do that but you could also use things like direct certification with a multiplier which is one of the things the federal government's talking about so you take all the kids are directly certified through federal programs and you multiply it the federal commend a one point six multiplier. So there's other ways to collect this data what is true is the minute you change how you collected you will change the current distribution of those funds and often with the multiplier you'll change it dramatically and will we we model that out for you all here so there's absolutely way to change it if you do change over time we don't record make a recommendation on this you want to think about the impacts overtime and how you might can assault and up local if you just turn on and off you're going to have the distribution of funds across different different districts what we also took a look at is how we're district spending their ESA funds So the first but it must have only on curriculum specialists and then coaches and instruction facilitators there's this transferred to other categorical and we've talked a lot about that there are a lot of ESA dollars going to special lead and yell and so they're kind of take coming out of the essay funding going to those others and then there's other approved activities I think I've mentioned this every time. As we talk to specially superintendents and CFO's and educator panels they really like the flexibility of yes a funding because it covers a lot of gaps other places. Our worry though of course is that those dollars who are meant for certain population kids are being used on other resource some of those resources are very directly aligned to the students some might not be in clearly there's an indication especially with special ed and yell that they're being moved to cover costs that are covered in a different way. When we take a look at The kind of the survey and those things the what alleys were telling us they think is most effective the is a funding is pretty close to how other spending so that's a good you know those are two different analyses and they line pretty well so that's always a positive. I'm so that is the kind of focus on the. That the funny approaches in the how to and then we can take questions on that now and then we can talk about the strategies we identified I'm in the next chapter. Chief seat forty I'm not sure who that is that of represent Lowery that you yes Sir go head. Thank you Mr chair. Is the the gathering of data through forms you talked about the different approaches of trying to eliminate that burden but is that not the only data that we have to tell us where are where there are specific poverty gaps in learning. Of because I know you make a reference inch in the previous chapter about low poverty schools versus individuals individual students in the the impact Are there other ways of collecting the data so that we know whether we are directly addressing the poverty gap. So that absent but it it's a very good point so. If you're using time like direct certification those students would be directly identified in the system and they currently are so that the current reduced price lunch really is free it's our it's really reduced free who are not directly certified and then those were directly certified to do that qualify for free if that makes any sense if you look if you already are directly certified because of a different federal program we have that information but you're right if you just rely on Direct certification then some kind of multiplier. The let's let's say we use the But on one point six that point six will mean those bill students don't exist your point in any kind of line of sight I will tell you and we talked a little bit about it in the chapter even. We went through this for like three years in Maryland and we got back to the point of saying DO a state wide for so it it's bad right it's it it doesn't help with the lowering the burden for the district who are getting CP but your point it allows for direct correlation between the students were qualifying and both data in the in the intent to get done I will tell you this year's going to be a mass we think regardless because the federal government in with all that's intentions and and doing the right thing has allowed for a lunch is to be free through the end of this year and so there's been very little to no incentive specially for kids who are more remote to felt for family to fill out a form because you're getting the lunch anyway so the date is going to be a little bit rough in the short term kind of regardless right in this and this is kind of points to the concern that I have had about eight the shift to the use of the community eligibility provision is that if you're just looking at the community demographics due to make decisions. For school funding as you know it related to. Poverty and trying to address that then you really don't have targeted information to be able to show over time that you're actually impacting us to proficiency it is with that be a correct assessment I I I think that is that is fair if if you really want to look at that student by student lands you know we did in our analysis as a state you don't see a lot of degradation of kind of the data of the CP this works we we don't see a lot of weird fluctuations which is which is a positive here in the state but your point you're having that's too much to do that is is important if if the you know kind the lands is trying to dig down to that that's to level detail okay and Mister chair for packages for more follow. Okay I think that's a yes I know you relied on in relied on a number of not only the the research that you did but also passed research that BLR is provided related to different issues and and I'm curious especially since we just discussed this issue of whether. The difference in funding Because I think I saw one slide the reference that that there's only an eight hundred dollar difference and so it really that prompted the and I think rightly so the question will if it's only an eight hundred dollar difference and we're not seeing improvements that does that tell us that we need to have be spending more. So I'm curious if you relied or or looked at the statistical analysis that was provided to this committee I believe three four years ago by Richard Wilson in BLR where he fell set up the up basically to try and prove the hypothesis that more funding does improve student proficiency and he found that it was a null hypothesis that there was no evidence for that that you found high achievement in high dollar areas and you had you know and some even some load load that they're just really was a mixed bag of findings is that is that any kind of analysis that you either look at specifically or that you've also seen that and other in other forms. We did not look specifically at that piece this analysis was much more on the that statistical analysis that that west it leads to we we we can definitely go back and review that I think there are different conclusions in that area eight absolutely have seen studies were folks pick you know maybe pairs of the of school or district to look demographic very similar and and spend this amount summer high performers of summer low performers and that's kind of hit that conclusion that it's not the money in and I would say the way we think about is this it's not only the money it is never only the money part of the reason you do case studies and that you look at the research on what best practices that you need to be doing the right things I mean you have all the money in the world and you're just not doing the right things you're never gonna get performance but I think That the school finance world is really moving towards and and and maybe not like your can you check and a couple others but most folks are moving towards there is a relationship between the resources and the outcomes specially for students who are are coming from low income backgrounds and that we have seen in state to have put in more dollars into those areas higher overall performance new Jersey's an example and a couple others that the you can change performance but again it's not just the money right you can't just keep putting in money if you don't see the outcome you want to make sure that but the money's gonna not the excuse if that makes sense right it's not the level of differential funding at that point it's what are you doing with it that becomes the reason and I think finding that that right middle ground is really important because it's not you know you don't need four times as much necessarily. I think one thirty just came out with three times as much which was a little scary but you need you need you know you need to have the the the right level of addition resource and they have to implement it the right way and so part of what we talking about all these as in effect fixing some your teacher pipeline issues right getting better qualified staff more distributed across the state that will help there is some funding to that but part of that is just having the right folks creating some of your you know you can you know making sure yes eight dollars I don't have to go from is aids things like special at right so you start to actually see what those dollars can do that's kind of the first steps in all this is to make sure the dollars heard right. we can take a look at that I don't think that's a promise we Nestle believing but again our analysis to didn't show the relationship and we're trying to come up you know we're kind of tell you why we think it didn't show that relationship because in most other places in most of the research there is the belief that you you should differentiate. I have a question back to the chair if if I may is this the this upcoming legislative session is this the. For lack of a better word the deadline for us actually implementing and voting on legislation that does. Clear five ESA spending seems like there was some date certain that if we did not actually set specific categories for that spending that it was just gonna be wide open it yes I believe we have to do with this section because it comes up and twenty two okay we would have to do it there twenty one is that do you know if that is something that the department is working that's something they're working on yes okay we'll have some recommendations and we can also. Come up our own recommendations to rise so yeah yes okay thank you thank you. All right. So the last couple slide you have to hear from me and then the demand is going to take over so. The transitioning out of chapter five to what it says chapter five again but it's actually chapter six now yes we we all miss that one is that we now are really taking a look at you know what the gaps are you know the funding approaches what should you be doing what can you do to try to address those gaps so we're take a look at what this case study schools were doing. The different ways the research has to address concentration of poverty and a program to address those achievement gap so first and foremost the you know the fifteen schools we talked to do a lot of what the national Research would say you need to do to be an effective school so they have It can very strong leaders they have staff and we talked about this most of the time that staff is treated as professionals is relatively autonomous in the classroom when we talk to them so the school wasn't intentional culture everyone knows the direction Audi and the teachers are asked to implement that without being told exactly how to get that done that's one of the kind of things we saw here You get it all functions under that school culture and then these schools are really targeted and data driven so they they knew their kids they knew the the the data about their kids and they're using that data to really implement those kinda tier two if if folks kind of think about the the R. tier MTS as process right they had good cheer one base education for all but they were really focused on knowing and this is key the skills gaps of students so not the content caps but the skills gap that gets kids to the content and then addressing those in tier two interventions that was something we saw throughout policy that a lot of schools but what was clear here is that folks knew why they're doing it they're doing a facility and they did that in part through collaboration and things like PLC's. when we look at the research you know we do know that a student at the property it's a highly correlated with that academic achievement outcomes and that that can it's kind of bi directional part of that is the community there in and it can also that affect the community the other direction if there's low performance. Unfortunately there's not a single by silver bullet so we can't come and tell you do this in every school and that's going to get to the performance because context matters clear there are different things that need to happen if you have different communities and schools and students but again effective leadership and really pushing effective leadership so get folks who who created attention culture it doesn't have to be the same culture you know if you look at these fifteen schools or other case any schools with an across the country they're not all doing. They're not calling it the same thing they're not implementing the same way they have the same characteristics but they are owning it themselves and not just trying to implement with someone else told them to do so having that really clear culture is very important through that effective leader you need that cable instructional staff so that's part of our recommendations making sure that you spread out your highly trained highly you know more years of experience making sure that's available to all districts and that they were able to implements. The best reddit Jeez in in implement those successfully. When you look at the national research on what in fact affected for kids Things that come up you know can across the board all studies pre K. programs so pre-kindergarten is very important full day K. for kids the smaller class sizes which I know we've talked a lot about the smaller class sizes in the early grades keep coming up having tutoring programs for kids were behind or extended and extend the learning time for those kids and we're getting more and more about having effective social emotional learning programs I think I talked about this before it's unique to what we've seen in other states the schools we talked to all had access to community based mental health services through partners now that can be more weighted towards kids you are lower income because that can be then covered by federal funding but it is pretty unique and it's a it's a real positive that every community has those relationships and those partners and so that was really good with mental health. And then last in those higher concentration of poverty communities this is where you do think about school committee school based programs and wraparound services so this is where we talk about in a recommendation picking up kind of who owns what pieces of that but making sure that the whole child is supported because again what we did here frequently especially in this case study schools is that you have to address their basic needs before you can dress educational needs and we have a really high concentrations of poverty they're coming to school with a lot of issues that you just have to take care of before you can start teaching kind of the academic side of things. And that is chapter six. Questions for that okay I am turned over to amend. State the next chapter is college and career readiness and the key take aways in this area is that national research is identified and number of reading is indicators and predictors of postsecondary success so there's certain assessment outcomes behaviors grades coursework in skills that are aligned with a student being successful after they graduate high school and we go into that in the chapter of what we found is that and we mentioned it before Arkansas just has a really robust set of data pretty much any of the the measures in indicators that you see the state has data collected on that you can leverage that to measure how well that's going the one area is around kind of that soft skills assessment which has been to the challenge nationally to figure out a good measure of what what does it look like when those skills are in place and there's a couple assessments out there like the work he's that due to some measure of of those soft skills of time management critical thinking problems on those sorts of pieces. A many states have adopted what we are calling actionable definitions for college and career readiness meaning that you can measure them that they have a key indicators and up pieces that you would be looking for to know they've been implemented versus just saying we would like everyone to be college and career ready they have some meat on the bones of what does that mean what does that look like us that can include core academic knowledge behavior skills and dispositions learning capabilities the sum of the soft skills and career planning and preparation we're recommending A definition that focuses on career readiness recognizing that college is one Avenue to get to a career A and the recommended definition is based upon the key components of those actionable definitions using both the research and best practices in other states and are also. Well supported by the stakeholder feedback that we collected on what they think it means to be college and career ready in the state and we don't list the the specific languages this is one area we made a slight tweak and the recommendation based upon our conversation at the last meeting to focus the definition on the preparedness versus being college credit being for ready right when you leave so being prepared for the next step so we've creek that just a little bit and language there. And that is the last fight on through reading this any question. Senator senator English do it in I I I will I was particularly interested in the career readiness because I have that that is a big passion of mine but one of the things that you all mention wind and I it just looked at a Port from the Georgetown University and and basically what they were talking about things I think that we have forgotten about that somehow were there years ago at a maybe it's because of the kitchen table a on families and so on and so forth but but basically I think some of the things that we're talking about the are they helping people develop those skills that no matter what they do where they go not only for was a graduate from high school but when the thirty five or fifty years old these are the same skills that they have to have and be able to communicate be able to get along and be able to to have critical thinking to do without and I'm and I think sometimes we we forget that we think about a skill or think about college but if you don't have all these other things and I don't know how we put that in the schools but it's really critically important because without those kinds of skills people don't have a future. I've no matter what they decide to do it be an accountant or whatever but so I I I would certainly like to be able to take out the college out of it just have career ready because that is only one Avenue to a future for somebody and people don't know what they're gonna be doing I college graduates from this year who thought they were going to be going off to do all the change that they have to use those same skills that they should have been learning to figure out where they're going to go for their future and I like what you've done yes senator we we definitely agree with all of that you're saying. Senator Elliot. I was just trying to figure out a way as I was reading the definition and I appreciate you know the other of tweaks that you made here I have you know you know it's how it's so hard to define a word by using the same words. This. Well what we've done here and I get it when we say that the study team recommends a college recommends a college and career readiness definition that focuses on. Career reading this. And it. So we. It seems like you've reset some like it this study team recommends a college and career definition that focuses on gentle roll career readiness are over all correct maybe overall career readiness that might be helpful at and then at the recommended definition is based upon key component of actionable definitions I and I think that's really good so is this on the maybe on the next page I haven't turned to if there is not. said I understand what we're saying here but I but that's just kind I don't want the public to the to the No be. Of for any of us to to be confused by Senator and I think it may be helpful to look at that the recommended language which is at the very end of the chapter and also appears in the recommendation chapter optional definition yeah the the actual language definition I think as much more articulate than the the bullet summarizing I can hear what you're saying. We're going to define as culture but we really say are career ready miss definition is that what it means to be career ready one that's going to be helpful but yeah when when somebody says to me your exasperation means to be exasperated or not okay. Thank you so. We look at I think is what you get there and I take your word for that that be this eighty nine okay that's great yeah we'll have the the specific language of the recommendation which I think again I hope is much more that's going to help the audio yeah thank you yes absent a mix. Thank you all right thank you I'm on this bill what plexiglass over here using help clear plexiglas can get very opaque once you get. Of all the question I have is on the top bullet point there many states of our doctors actionable definition someone or if you can on full that a little bit for us What would be an actionable definition water some of the actions of state would take so for example if a school is not meeting the career ready ness criteria or the spending additional resources or additional money hi how they how are they actually implementing the actionable part or are they great thank you that's a good question and all that just and build on what I'm going to say I think the first step is establishing the what we're calling an actionable definitions of something that has the the key knowledge that you're expecting students that have if you're expecting to have. Canceling or a plan in place or if you're expecting to the bill to the specific skills you set that foundation which then your your curriculum in your standards are lined with making sure that definition can happen some states of action not. Action ized that's not the word I'm looking for the taking the next step to then look at how the align their their graduation requirements with making sure those things are happening even there the diplomas there's number of states have done specific endorsed implements if you can demonstrate that you've met this criteria there's also some looks at some different assessment pieces as I mentioned there are up ACT were keys it's just eight example I'm I'm not advocating for them they don't pay me but that looks that really developing a portfolio that documents the skills and taking those kind of attitude and skill assessments so looking really that the body of a student's work so both the the content knowledge that they're expected to build which Arkansas already has well articulated within its graduation requirements Arkansas savings as a step toward of than articulating that you should have some career focused credits And then it's looking at how is your accountability system then set up to measure are those things happening in within your schools rating system there are high school a school success school qualities SQS at their some letters and I'm not thinking of off the top of my head but that measure how many students are completing ACT courses on the you're taking AP so you have a lot of the pieces in place I think it's just the first establishing that definition to make sure everyone knows what the target is that you're going for Justin. And I think to amend its point you you've got the salvation the definition and then I think cross walking what are the pieces of data you could use to then put ensure accountability system to hold schools or districts accountable to the outcomes and again you collect a lot of data as a state you you you know you're you're you've got a lot of opportunity here I don't think this is a massive step it's really saying okay we are to do most of this not legis codify it and then put it back into the the accountability system what is clear and and system centered emotions point. This is what educators are talking about that you know you are you you have to prepare folks to have skills not just academic skills but life skills in order to be successful and and they say it's hard to measure but we've got to figure it out right because if we are doing it top can are class can go to university and and they don't do great because they don't work well with others I don't know how to to sustain on a project this sort of thing so it is a really key to figure out what it is and then what are the best measurements and they're not going to be perfect measurements right now but one of the best that you have a bill. Thank you. I have someone that sent me a question I'll just ask for them Hey we encountered other states that identify the soft skills that are integrated into the academic standards for example having collaborative conversations and discussions with others and is already in the English language arts standards solving problems with of press marked perseverance direct is written into the mass standards all skills are already in the academic standards so the other states that have pulled out the soft skills from the standards are least leaving amend their. We know that. That is a great question I know some states get very specific in their definition of how they're measuring whether those soft skills are in place and the indicators of them I know I'm not sure of the directionality if they pull them out of the standards they had already or if the then they made the definition and then speaks them into the standards but that is what you would want to see if these are not intended to be standalone things that are taught separately but should really be within the entire scope of K. through twelve creek all classes should be focusing on students collaborative Leigh working together and problem solving and time management and communication skills none of those are in a vacuum they should be embedded within the curriculum and the standards so I would not think that you would pull them out of your standards that they would be should be an integral piece within it but that I think would be the next step of working from the definition and then it's working with the the department that and then the districts at to see how they integrate with an art thank you. All right no more questions next. eight chapter eight is then where all those and related pieces coming out of that section be of the R. F. P. around district school and class size are together is that including the school bus practices at the research other states what our current school size policies how are they engaging the public to determine the size but our classes requirements again both within the state compared to that comparison states. A student teacher ratios as well then the impact of school districts sinuses were really explored some of those differences and educational opportunity that we saw based on size within the state then how do you go about addressing small districts size remote this a solution looking at how to other states approach it based on partner last conversation we also make sure to include some examples of how would you apply those types of sites adjustments in Arkansas But if you so chose be that it is part of our recommendations we talk about it's a piece you want to look at so we give some examples of just what that might be that still needs to be kind of adopt reviewed to make sure it fits the Arkansas context. And then recommendations for ideal size of schools thank you take is here is that we really did see variation in the size of districts and. Within the state you have a lot of fairly small districts over all you don't have quite the the range that you might see in some other states we know through some prior practices can you put your mind just a little closer some of or not here thank you is that better sorry is so we're seeing that there is a very ation in size of school and district within the state you tend to have pretty small districts and pretty small schools over all and you don't have the particularly very many small very small districts less than three hundred fifty because the past policy decisions but I think there's still enough variation size that something that's important for the state to look at. Particularly in light of we are seeing some differences in education opportunity of for those smaller places particularly around their work force that came up in the the preceding chapter. Or sorry in the next chapter. Home and that should be considered the research is pretty mixed regarding what the ideal size of school or district should be both coming at it from two different lenses of what's operational efficiency for a districts the what size you need to me absent those economies of scale but then also from a programmatic perspective so the research is not particularly a specific there's been some ranges of of you want to see districts over a thousand or two thousand to start seeing those economies of scale but that you're not seeing it really educational opportunities improvement over five hundred students so it depends on which perspective you're taking in the overall the research is pretty mixed on on either and. States also you state that specific policies around ideal or maximum school size most of this plays out in your facilities planning Again we saw the districts face differing economies of scale for personnel based upon their size in particular around their classroom teachers in their district administrative staff However in the state we found that there was less of a correlation between person costs and districts size than you might expect but is in part because receding the trade off the districts are making so in smaller districts they have many more teachers per student or much smaller class sizes but they also have lower salaries you can see where they're making the trade between what they can pay their staff to be able to afford this additional teachers and then they're also using the services of education cooperative so we think that's why we're seeing some less a correlation or at that district level but the really accessing those services that they might have authorized me to do in house. Okay an overall we found that small settings a period to be able to provide a strong curriculum but it tends to be more weighted toward C. T. E. verses AP or foreign language this is a bit of a split on what they're able to offer their students and again this is what we reiterated it's just important that funding system take into account the cost differences that that districts face due to size and something that many states to through a size adjustment again we modeled a few examples of what some other states to typically you see both within the states in within finance research that it's a a reverse J. curve so your costs are to get in exponentially higher as your size decreases so we modeled a few examples of what that might look like in the state. To pry those additional resource they needed in the small settings to ensure the same level of education opportunities. None of my last fight on this chapter. Representative Lowery. Thank you Mr chair under this this heading of chapter eight. You have listed district school in class size but I don't see any takeaways related to class size at the than the one comment that you made about CT programs tend to have smaller class sizes if you remember from previous meetings I have raised this issue about the wealth of research that is out there related to the smaller class sizes that the kindergarten through fourth grade levels or the are there not any take aways that that we will see in our report related to to that specific class size piece Representative talk a little bit more about that in chapter eleven we we focus that more in our review of the matrix okay and and we brought that in and there is that a specific recommendation as part of the matrix review to review because that's all I said to review the case through three ratios in light of the fact that all the other and adequacy study costing out worked on across the country lends itself to that lower class as is more K. through three and also the research so we definitely have that it just didn't come out as clearly In this chapter on the school size these other than the fact that there's these trade offs in order to have smaller class sizes in the smaller districts they have to basically have lower salaries to get that done okay great well I just wanna make sure I understood which yes section that reference might be bay I thank you very much thank you Mr chair. All right receipt. Sir chapter nine is then attraction and retention of staff in the areas we're looking at here both administrative attraction retention teachers nurses and then the analysis we looked at differences between what person salary variation across the state. So the key take aways here are that nationally there's a teacher shortage and so the what we're seeing in Arkansas is not unique nationally that They're just less teachers coming out of the the preparation programs servicing gaps between the number of available staff to hire and positions available. and educators. Through both the educator panels an online survey indicated that salaries were a large factor in teacher recruitment and retention that was one of the key areas they thought was an issue we also talked about it's not shown here there are particular hard to staff and hard to fill positions that tends to be around here special education staff in particular and math and science though we're starting to see gaps in other areas to English and social studies that you'd in traditionally see because at this gap in the teacher pipeline over all. The T. does show disparities in teacher workforce when you look at that of district need and size of district districts with higher up for all percentages as our our measure of what low income is and smaller districts tend to employ teachers with your years of experience and lower percentage of master degrees up this is then paired with that salaries tend to be lower in these places and part that's related if you're paying for experience and education it makes sense that you would have lower salaries and places it in but it's also we're we're seeing some of the trade off particular brand size in the last chapter two oh for the smaller class sizes to afford those additional F. T. E. per student that they're making some of those trades. Then when we look it up administrators and the nurses overall there's just less research out there there's a quite a quite a bit of research around attracting retaining teachers and what it takes but less so for administrator It it though it is an area of concern because that that strong continuous leadership is an indicator of how well a school is going to do and districts also face high cost when they're going to have to replace the principles the retaining that staff is particularly important states to create a number of approaches to support and grow administrators that includes direct support for new administrators have those principal academies and preparation programs and evaluations to identify skills gaps in and support so again hoping them grow as leaders overtime. Nurses very little research on what it takes to attract and retain their says we do see that there tends to be issues around salary competitiveness if you're in an area that has a hospital or other communities they can work you Tennessee this tension in all of your positions where there is a strong private sector opportunity for for work so that will always be an issue but we did see that nurses can provide savings the schools by reducing the workload of other staff So there's some cost savings to having these positions within the school but that many schools are currently without full time nurses still gap area. Any questions in this area. Have you found that possibly the school safety has been a factor in some teachers retention of teachers or reluctance to even be a teacher we found that in other states or anything here on that I mean I don't know if you mention that I guess I missed it but now that's a great question I I don't think there's any particular research out there on that factor And it didn't come up during the educator panel specifically about teachers feeling and safe and as a reason for leaving and we did ask in the survey what would you think or other factors that are contributing I know this year in particular is is challenging for teachers so we're seeing a higher percentage than normal leaving the profession because of that the unique nature of what's going on right now. But I do think there there's research at the overall working conditions and and safety is going to be part of that you know class size that behavior issues. The as part partly leaving the profession but also that kind of migration from kind of harder to serve can you know schools to to maybe less hard to serve school to working conditions come up frequently at the you know when you think about their traction retention of of teachers okay just curiosity the article if you questions we started the central it. Thank you Mr chair I'm wondering it if doing it during and if your research you're seeing more evidence of why I'll leadership say as a principal matters a great deal but in some cases well and and especially in other places equally eight as important is leadership among the teachers they're actually not so much acting as if a king or queen can come in and everything's going to. People say sometimes are you gonna do is get a good light one leader. that's the cell evidence of that been flattened out and leadership is more distributive than it used to be so if that principal leads all is not lost and added to that time at the time of regarding this professions nine Ingersoll we always study his work at NCSL and sometimes is are you be that working conditions do indeed come up almost every time because I notice a difference here is we're talking tracked and and retention that celebrates matter and they do but those working conditions as so huge on every survey of ever seen and so if you would could just speak to if you know of or seen evidence of that flattening out and how if the majority of the folks in the school helping to set the working conditions. They're going to want to stay to work among their own working conditions that they sent. Yes some of this really up center came up if even in the case studies that. There there's definitely a leader right having a leader with two sets a clear culture and mission is important but it's the actualization of that leadership and the plan by teachers and ownership that was really important and so I think your point what we're seeing more and more around collaboration and and professional learning communities come up a lot but doesn't have to be that teachers are working together to implement they they feel supported with one another I think in every case study we heard that folks said well I can go to so and so's classroom it doesn't even teacher same thing is not the same great but if I have a question. They'll help me answer Rafe I don't know how to do acts I'm gonna go there so I do think to your point. The bill the research and and then on the ground and from the case studies it was clear that teachers felt that they had the agency kind of do what they needed to do and then the support of the community in order to get better at being a teacher and that's part of working conditions right to write by our nature all of us want to get better what we do is we need people around you who push and pull you in and make you want to get better and so I think that is a big a big part of what we found. Okay I would just add to that that that distributed leadership piece came out strongly in the case studies and we've seen that time and time again and in the research is making sure a strong leader is not someone that just makes all the decisions and doesn't listen to others but incorporating that teacher voice and community voice in the decision making process we saw many examples of schools that just have strong leadership Councils in quite the right word but a decision making is more distributed there including teachers and staff in in that by in process art thank you thanks with. I just finished. Thank you madam chair I just have a quick question about the nurses are that it is their apartment that there are ins are they LPNs or did a very. When we're talking about salary competitiveness that makes a huge difference. There is a there is variation generally there is an are in it and inserting Mr bigger districts would oversee if your bill peons but in there that definitely has a variation of. You in salary but the competitiveness it's still a team kind of across the board is a little bit tough what what folks are trying to do is to to highlight the fact that when you work in a school system you can a nine ten months a year verses the twelve and since I was might be a little bit different but that that kind of fun. Work life balance may be a little better I think after this eight or nine months that could even be more highlighted for folks but you're actually right there is a difference in in the salaries but again there's not a lot of research but districts are struggling to get nurses when they need them and in part it's just because there's also nursing shortage generally across that that sector right or are you finding that most district require an are in at some point or other smaller districts that that deal only with an LPN you know I don't think we have that specific information I know from some of the states we look that there is a requirement for an R. and to receive in the district overall and then I can be a state policy that would make sense yeah thank you madam chair. Rep Jeremy secure now. Is that correct of my my question I'm kind of along the same vein here I got thinking what you're talking about the hospitals and and in the schools and you may not know the answer to this question but have any schools or whether it be an advantage to to school system instead of going out hiring their own it nurse. Contracting with the hospital system allow the hospital system to supply the nursing or create kinda like a clinic within the school system and that way the schools itself doesn't have to worry about hiring the right people maintaining enters their contracting out that service and it could be a benefit both to the school and potentially the hospital. And. I don't you are absolute right when you lead with you might not know that that is not something that came up I think there are that you we do have community health centers and in some schools and and those can often be linked without a professional organizations I think that probably is a model that starts out eight thing that will get harder and harder as you get to more remote places you don't have quite the same link to a larger possible system or even small rural hospital. Okay. Reserve all thank you Mr chair and one you've alluded several times to a culture change within our schools. How are you all today thank you for coming to Arkansas and A so I want to thank you all for that because we have been working on something called professional learning communities within our state I'm trying to get amend more more of our schools it started off as a trial top error and it type thing and so we're glad to know that you all agree with us that that is the way to go because you show that time and time again and presentation after presentation so I'm glad to know that that's money well spent within our state so that that's been a good outcome for me and then of represented makes this is comes to you I have a school that to do in the the clinic within a school and it's actually had great results within the school system at teachers not having to miss school their kid can go to the clinic to see if the child needs to go home or not and it's also helped out a lot with their covert testing so that that's been a very beneficial thing within our school and one of my schools so thank you. All right that's all the questions for the. Okay chapter ten as again I described it was a bit of a grab bag chapter where I couldn't fifties into other ones topically but here's where you talked about the professional development collaboration extra duty time for teachers still mental health the impact of weavers and Roman changes and vouchers and then capital needs so we we try to highlight the key take away for each of those areas. research is really identified as that of characteristics of effective PD and what we found is that the intended purposes of Arkansas's PD funding approach are well aligned with it so your approach includes both designating PT dis within a teacher contract providing F. T. for coaching a time for collaboration and planning during the day and having limited extra duties outside of instruction which is in part funded by having those supervisory aids as part of the me tracks. so those of those pieces are well aligned again you have the the coaching the time that's of sufficient duration and that the ability to make it part of embedded practice within the school and appeals the model is one that particular stands out as from the educator panels in the survey but a strong use of PT fun. we did find that districts are historically spending more on PT an extra duty compensation than they receive and this is both when you look at all funds and when you exclude federal funds is there a federal funds out there for professional development. Instant mental health we founded the Arkansas Eleazar staff to better ratios than comparison states but those ratio still tend to be lower than what you professional associations like your associations of school counselors or school psychologists and social workers would recommend as just mentioned at the the districts and also the case to the schools that we spoke with are using a variety of strategies to make sure that they have student mental health services in their school including employing their own staff as well as leveraging those outside stew mental health resources. Been using their cooperatives one thing to mention on the the outside agencies is just and mention they tend to be than bill to a Medicaid so you can create a bit of a gap in the middle from families that can afford to provide it themselves and those they can leverage federal funds in the middle it can be challenging for those families to then pay for those services and again getting families willing to Senate access these can be a bit of a stigma issue. defending matrix outside of cancer nurse does not. Right specific staffing for others you mental health positions such as psychologists or social workers. Okay for waivers nearly all districts had waivers for flexible schedules it was nearly universal followed by a waivers FOR teacher licensure attendance and library media specialist and teacher licensure was about twenty percent of schools that are in a traditional districts so for analysis we had excluded charters since they had a longer tenure being able to have waivers. When we looked at those district schools that had waiver so outside of flexible schedules so in those other areas we found that the peer to have minimal impact on expenditures or student outcomes once you control FOR soon to demographics and prior expenditures or performance levels so we saw a little variation between the two groups between those that had waivers and did not but the it did not appear to have an impact. A when you look at current approaches to addressing district in Romans both so growth and both declining enrollment we found that the Arkansas's current approach really fits well within the accepted methods across the country we don't see a reason to to change what you're doing in this area. Then looking at vouchers nationally the research is pretty mixed on with the impact of vouchers is and generally just has been conducted not significantly there are a number of states that do have vouchers or tax credit scholarship programs and and generally the programs tend to be targeted towards specific student groups and had a very bill impacts on state revenue of funding for traditional K. through twelve education based upon the structure of the program so a mixed bag nothing really to grab onto in this area of the capital program is similar to those used throughout the country and in comparison state. Of the system has been designed and has recently been modified to really think about increasing the capacity for lower property well districts to access funds for capital projects and less wealthy to strix tend to use the program more frequently for major inefficient while wealthier districts related on local bond capacity. Any questions in the same question senator Elliott. That was quick. A senior. Get it by my question okay question on page seven sixty. six forty one party page forty one and about the waiver Do you know how we. What curriculum expectations are for both career and attack me both college and and encourage check out how we compare in our expectations are outcomes with say Massachusetts as one of our as one of our state how are they doing with waivers and that kind of thing and. So a I may need a little more clarification so waiver verses the C. T. because none of the neighbors are specifically around career technical education so I just need a little restaurant we can just drop the the city that might that might make it an easier question if we if we were to for example look at what Massachusetts required of their students to be ready as is just a say academically here and compare it to what we require. Of how do we stack up in those requirements if you know and or is Massachusetts using any waivers or. In what areas might they be if they are I just wanted this kind of have some kind of comparison. Thank you senator so as far as requirements of what they ask for students to be ready so the the most drug court comparison would be the graduation requirements and the graduation requirements in Arkansas and the SRBs as ari B. state the Massachusetts are pretty similar in terms of the number of credits that they're requiring for English math and science there are a couple states within their that are requiring A couple additional credits such as and try to remember off the top of my head of Arkansas on the requires three years of math and they require force that there's some some variation not a lot I think what we're Arkansas is particularly strong is that it calls out career readiness as part of its credits and very few other states to thinnest first weaver's we don't really have a comparison for Howell. of their waiver process versus what's in Arkansas the waivers in Arkansas tend to again be around teacher licensure so about twenty percent of them are. To have of a non fully certified teacher in a in a particular course and I think we see this play out in what we are seeing around the variation in overall A percentage of teachers that are fully qualified so I think there's some linkage between or sitting there and the the waivers that we have there is some waivers around attendance trying to members about ten to fifteen percent of schools were having a waiver for student attendance which tended to be in the high school so that. High school students taking the full day or full number of credit hours is wary it is that variation a waiver for your secondary schools but as far as how that compares to other states we don't have that information a night at my other question has to do with something you don't have to try to tease out now but I'm just wondering if we work if I were curious enough to want to know of. Massachusetts I think still does the best on seven eight tests and so forth. A I love the in Arkansas but I want to compete with Massachusetts and be as good as they are case may however we might say that is there a way for us to or can you help was not hearing now figure out what is it that's a different about Massachusetts what is Massachusetts is doing that we could learn from and maybe two or three years from now we could at least be Massachusetts then Arkansas are they requiring any kind of courses that are better preparing students you know for I'm gonna be in more prepared than we are is that something that is doable I would just be too subject. Senator I I think you. There's a lot of research out there on kind of that the Massachusetts plan and and really try to think about fifteen years ago and how they they stepped up so I think that's definitely something that you know through research analysis you you can you can bring kind of almost a white paper on kind of the Senate they took I think you also clearly want to map across the similarities and differences at my understanding is Massachusetts is a little bit more homogeneous of a state the many people think right so I think in part of that mapping it's taking the things and making sure they're doing as well for their their students are economically disadvantaged students of color and and what they're doing there too so it kind of peeling back the onion of just not that you know it the Massachusetts miracle kind of peace but what are the specific pieces but I think that's doable could not in the scope of specifically what we're doing here but I think it is doable to take the and it could be a really useful tool in mapping kind of the recommendations that we've laid out here and and seeing overtime are there some of those recommendations that map back to some of what Massachusetts done to to get to the top of that board because they are one of the top I think you know they're a top ten country yeah if you pull them out separately on the PSAT right so they do very well overall with their with their stick it but it does it just picks me that they are not in country and and that that's good for the I'm not a good thing it's a really good thing and if so if if if that's something you know I can just do on that's fine but I just think that's something we and we ought to be thinking about and reaching for a on out I think people often surprises well that Arkansas as a whole lot more homogeneous and they think we are like people tend to think the black population is real big and is not real big so the art thank you. Total removal. Okay I promise we are getting towards the end we only have five slides laughed so the next chapter is the review of the resources in the matrix and methods for between the reviewing adequacy and both these we've presented on fairly recently is that their little fresher but the topic areas in this area was reviewing. What came out of the prior Arkansas studies conducted by partisan Aden adequacy cities in other states review of the resources in the matrix and methods for routine the reviewing adequacy. So in this chapter you'll see the same sort of tables information that we presented in prior presentations for each matrix item the ten different can adidas sources and what they might say about that item so comparing again the prior studies to what's currently in the matrix other. A adequacy study is what came out of the educator panels the stakeholder review the case studies the data analysis so each of those items is cross walked to the matrix area and after doing that cross all we really found there's a number of areas where the evidence is is fairly consistent tends to be pointing in a particular direction so we highlighted those areas where the resort research is most consist consistent that something different might need to be considered a number of areas where the resources the research was pretty well and with what's in the matrix of those are highlighted here. But areas where that A bill bill data was most consistent about doing something different where in Q. three student ratios non core teacher staffing at the secondary level secretary staffing library media specialist and instructional materials there was also a few areas where that are not currently addressed in the matrix that that we think there is a body of evidence that says that might be an area to look at that includes assistant principal which is not specifically separately called out to mental health and school safety and security and touched on these throughout the body of the report particular this in mental health and the safety and security as being areas of interest. key takeaways we feel very strongly that the state is meaning as like you obligations by having constant study review an adjustment to the funding system both through that the work of the outside consultants and the work that BLR does every two years. The cabbie ought to that being that there have been a number of adjustments me to the matrix sense implementation but the means staffing permit parameters have changed little over time so those F. T. allocations at the top of the matrix. Those are the key takeaways from from that chapter any questions. A reserve Larry. Thank you Mr chair of and thank you for addressing the K. three student ratios under key takeaways I I know that you've been. Kinda shackled little bit in Ken through categorical money which would be the ESEA a money so as were tightening that up I just wanted to get your feedback on how that could be one specific target area specially since the research is so compelling that it can impact and you reference that you want to be careful in a dressing. K. three and and not addressing the other grades but again the research shows that if you can impact that K. three is going to overtime Jerry over a generation or or whatever it's over time it is going to impact this higher grades because the students are going to be reading at grade level and and able to then be poor proficient. So it's kind of a. a priming the pump kind of mentality of that. It can lead to the concept of a short term and long term dollars I think you're right which is you know if you start now with that kind of P. you know what that implementation you have a a number of years so it's close all the way through the system so you have to think about those who didn't get that intervention and making sure that you're covering their needs also I think that's one of things we talk a lot about as we build formulas is the idea that if you have a new program putting that you know we don't lend ourselves a lot to categorical. Too much overtime because they can just kind of set out there but they're really good. We want to try something new and we want to target dollars that's a really good thing to do with the categorical right you started out you if you have a robust and I you we should plan. Got metrics on how long you're gonna take to evaluate that and then maybe overtime once you've shown it really work you would roll then but you're barbers and of if as a. Legislature you decide to target class size reduction K. three three more towards your your lower need students you really can't put that in the matrix that goes to everybody so. It's a good policy discussion to have about how you want to do the right. And though the accidental the timing seems to be good that were also addressing the ESA categorical spending at the same time that we're getting this reinforcement of the research related to Kay three staffing allocation so thank you very much and I would just add one one comment on top of that I think a number of our recommendations are also focused on addressing those matrix areas or the other categorical swear ESA dollars are being redirected to so I think any conversation about tightening the use the BSA funds needs to have some recognition of what other areas of those dollars been flowing into because if if yes they funds are not restricted from those uses a particular special education those dollars have to come from somewhere because of the the requirements for maintenance of effort and things like that so which is a little aside. Thank you thank you Mr chair. Senator Elliot. Well I I'm referencing page forty four where it one of the key take aways is where there've been a key number I have been a number of adjustments made to the matrix since implementation the main staffing parameters of the matrix have changed little over time the this seems to me to be very key in terms of what Representative of what represented Larry just talked about you know taken the chance to say the matrix is not wholly out would it not be A way I'm not asking you to do is just say this is a good way or bad way. But with this in mind that we particular haven't changed it in a staffing that much overtime if we wanted to have a class size requirement save for you know K. three three and think about it more for me. I'm asking chairs and everybody else in here I guess not so much you know our guest. If we could amend the matrix could we not to say just have a line in the matrix about K. through three we might want to define it defined it further and provide the funding for that. And then when we talk about it's of funding matrix that does not let any school district get by doing what it says in that matrix because this is what we are requiring you to do. I said we say we require you to have a principal. A principal we put funding in there for a principal if we require one point five we put funding and that major four one point five whether or not you put the funding to it that your business but you don't get by A bill we say it's going to be required you have this is per of our what we require you to do with this money for the all the way to do it may be to fund to to amend our standards and actually say that but then provide the money in the formula so you can find it heard the amendment to the US standards because you don't get the opportunity not to follow the standards and I'm thinking the second way may be a much cleaner way to do it just amend the standards of and funded in the matrix is that an offer is that a way to do that that is logical in practice that was the with the second one the senator it I I do think part of the question may be sent to the chairs and the rest the committees on but there is there's the two pieces that you mentioned there's both what's provided in the funding matrix and then what's required under accreditation standards and we talked a bit about the differences between the two What is the accreditation standards tend to be higher for your maximum class sizes than what is currently funded in the matrix the exception to that is your kindergarten where the matrix funding level and the accreditation maximum or the same amount and we pointed out that's just an area that can be difficult for districts because we know students don't come in perfectly class sizes of twenty kindergarteners and every place so that creates challenges for districts so I think there there needs to be the flexibility within the funding system to allow for the accreditation standards to be met so I think when you think your first step would be thinking through what's that class size expectation that we have that sent in the accreditation and then making sure the funding can allow for that to happen again in this is part the size piece in a variety of different school sizes and settings some. At a C. two pieces to your question that would need to be addressed but the key I thank you for the to the committee already I'm thinking that the key would be to I don't think school districts will be resistant to it I think the key is for us to fund it and the research is rather clear. The just one little copy out that's a problem for me about this it is not it is not A clear though that class size does not matter in higher grades so that we will take the position of okay we will make the grades higher so we'll clean have more money we will just increase the great sizes as we go up and so we and hire fewer teachers and have more money at the lower level the research on doing that is really not clear because there is so much that matters about in places where people increase their grade solid state have issues with with that. Albums especially with management and it matters who those students are if they show up at school board prepared to have a larger class sizes that really matters Senator just just a bill on that quickly. We we have worked in states where they have very strict lower that kind of K. through three class size requirements and they do some funding for it but it's not at the scale the news about and what you actually see between let's say third and fourth grade is kids going from a twenty student classroom to a forty. Right so you do want to mitigate if you have the requirement you want to make sure you mitigate the need to it to take it from somewhere else to make that happen yeah because I'm telling you when you have thirty in a class already which is required which is a cut off in Arkansas you have a very full class thank you Mr chair. Rex's speaks you may speak. Thank you Mr Mr chair I'm over here. Thank you all for coming. I've had a question for and you've been working on this now for a year or close to it and you've done so much research and we've heard a lot of research. But my question is when you hear the we are Arkansas is at the bottom in education. And I just would like a bottom line answer from you a we hear of educators say well it's because of the poverty level it's parent sin it's this or that but other states have the same kind of problems that Arkansas have but they are achieving what do we need to do as a state to get our schools up. And and start gaining and and not I'm not happy to be at the bottom of the barrel and I don't think anybody else is but I just would like a straight answer what we do need to to get off work with other states in order to start achieving here in Arkansas. Absolutely so we hope that our recommendations are are can the password providing for that and it's not a one line right that's not a silver bullet but we think first and foremost in this is gonna start to get into the next chapter a little bit is that. You know you need to take a look at your overall funding structure and how you are funding those groups that we see significance to achievement gaps and and make sure that they're that the room resources are available for those students at at the scale that's needed so we again we are not asked tell you how much that is but we think. Branching out a little bit from the evidence based approach which we we just and we've used that approach in other states we don't think it has the Quite a line of sight on those at risk yell and special education students and the other purchase deceive gotta figure out and what that need is you've got to make sure teacher quality is high and that it's distributed you there you know that that's going to be really important we talk about there are needs that are in your schools and you just talk about educators talk you know mentioning some of those just needs actions come to school with that education K. twelve might not be the best place to address them and so really mapping out scoping out fully what is that range of needs and creating that that diagram to ensure that that's happening I think those are the places and then when you think about your current funding streams for special ed and others you know a lot of dollars are coming from other places to make that happen to to actually fill that out which then takes dollars that you were targeting over here and targeting it to other groups of kids so it's trying to find that balance that you have the right resources but we don't want to forget you know look at what successful places do and have expectations that the use of resources are in the appropriate way you know we it's not just money it it's it's also making sure that that the schools are doing it the right way. May I have the another question. So. I never felt that is just funding because I think you can pour money into a hole in it never achieved what you really want so in other words you think that we need to look at how this funding is being use. I think yes two things I think there there's always the making sure it's used wisely right so we've talked about the state pushing for professional learning communities and making sure you have strong collaboration you know you can have a professional learning community where folks are not bought in right there are plenty of schools who who do get PLC's unanswered but bought in the queue with professional learning communities is that they have collaboration that is directed to use data and then that data is used you know to identify school gaps for students and then they go and they do tier two so it's it is doing it the right way but it's also making sure that the resources you have as you distribute them are distributed in the pattern that best meets the gaps but you have so if we are seeing low differential between your economically disadvantaged funding per pupil and you're not economically disadvantaged funding per pupil which is what we found right there's not a lot of differential in the funding system but we know there's massive gaps in performance then you know just making sure that the the system itself is targeting the dollars you have in any new dollars you might get to the places that are or can a in most. Do you feel that not one. One plan meets every school I mean that there would be two different things at each school would need to do themselves to meet these needs I think that's absolutely true and I think But there but there does need to be a plan and I think we do know the general constructs that you'd want to see so. You know if I walk into a school that had no collaboration time for teachers and was successful I'd just be shocked right of way in and not just that they. Block a period a week for them to sit around a top but they actually have you know instructional coach or prince was coming in and making sure that there's kind of a plan and that it's student focused I I would just be shot no not everyone has to do the same what some folks do it they redo an early release some folks do up common planning time you know every school could do it a little differently some schools have eight instructional coach you on all the data other schools have teachers on their own and there's a lot of ways you can implement that particular parameter that we see in most successful places but if you didn't see it at all I'd be shocked if we went into a school and the principal did not happen at and kind of intentional culture and the culture can be different every place. You know we just be surprised so in part it's that you would it's hard to be successful as a as a school entity without having most of the characteristics we find in kind of the literature and so you want to promote. that goes to the fact of you know needing some additional intervention for kids who come academically behind and making sure that you have those resources please thank you. Represent word up. Thank you chair for allowing Speaker thank you guys for being here is. You know over the months in time to did you provided a whole lot of data conversation in an assessment and do you work in appreciate that a I just continue to feel that what we action not to do. Is the finishing of the work. To me. Because we action not to talk really about what we should do what we should spend money really what we should should do that we're not doing and eight four and I think that the finishing of what you're really talking about you given a lot of precursor type information building up to a finality or summation of this would now what we feel like you feel like should happen you really delved into this. And we as policy makers you know we have our bits and pieces that shot but I really think you could really help us if we allow to to really finish the work because at the end of the day I think what happens is we get to a point what we've got for many years as we do these assessment spend money with entities such as yourself and we take in this information and the we're still limited by. Our sales. And we need to hear the truth because you're talking around that you're talking about if you hit edit on this and to resent speaks and Ellie all is is a lobbying see it. You know we talk about the proviso of funding for after the assessment and in the balancing act to districts must do with what you're given in because we don't have any standards really do with making them use dollars a certain way for the funding that they get their robbing Peter to pay Paul because you under funding here. You know you may be over funding there and I just really think that you know We need to be able to finish. Would you would would you really doing for you to really help us. Yes I don't I don't have a question I think that's one to make a statement observation of what I'm seeing red they were asked not to do that so they can't do that no I know that that's that's that's that you you know you can't you put him in a spot they just got it is no no no you you can understand each year I'm not asking them a question. And I'm not putting them in a spot I make an observation of what they can't do what I think will help us which is what we need. See we've hired you to almost do object. And FOR other reasons the not of your like the chair miss it is not of your you but anyway I do appreciate what you've done thank you give us a lot information but I think we need to finish and we have problems finishing this ourself. Thank you our job to put that number there is to do what that's our job to put that number in there but that money amount yeah we have problems with it that's that's it that's what we do that. All right the continual. Okay last that a chapter twelve is the recommendations the last presentation we really spend a lot of time walking through each of these and the recommendations are across the the body of work that we did and across study area as and and again to the point they if they're areas that we are not identifying a specific resource but areas for the the committee to take the next step and consider. subcommittee tions are adopting a hybrid approach reviewing adequacy so in addition to the regular review that BLR does be thank you would be good on a state basis something like six to ten years to take a step back and really think broadly about what are you asking of your students schools and districts and how well line does your funding system to those expectations we think a part of that work would be really focusing on those soon populations reversing the achievement gaps and also looking at that districts sized to those are two particular areas that we think would be important to address as part of the review. the next would be to address the discrepancies in teacher quality between schools who modified a recommendation appear to recognize that there a number of structures and programs in place including loan forgiveness an additional stations that are happening in the state so would be reviewing those to make sure AT are are they being funded are they being implemented as fully as you would like and what impact are they having we to think a couple of the recommendations are related to this if you were looking at addressing more resources for districts size or for looking at your yes they funds for your low income communities that you might be able to address some of the discrepancies that you're seeing based upon districts size and need in those areas as well. The next is to develop a legislative task force to investigate an address out of school factors that inhibit performance we've had a lot of conversation of last time and this time about looking at the needs of students and bring together all the relevant committees and agencies and efforts in the state that are addressing those issues knowing that the full burden of addressing childhood poverty in generally tional property is not sitting at the education system the next would be adopting adopting the recommended career readiness definition and the specific language is not here but it is in that chapter. A minute including both the academic content knowledge calling out the specific behavior skills and dispositions that we want to see for students and then also allowing for college and career planning and preparation to be apart of the Keith your topic curriculum so that exploration in early grades the developing of the plans and having those next steps in place. A continued. The recommendation five is around current matrix resource levels in the area where the body of evidence is most consistent we have about six of those areas that we talked about him on the last slide so including your key three three class sizes your non core staffing at the secondary level to allow for those college and career courses to be occurring it's your system principal staffing separating out nuts so separating out the assistant principal's secretary staffing instructional materials and then the additional areas we think should be added in around student mental health and security at those are two areas where we see that the estate funds are being used to fill they particularly resonate with your community members and educators as needs in the state. The next recommendation is reviewing that using funding formula to focus resources that lower concentration levels move funding cliffs and to use A weighted adjustment tied to the foundation amount some packing that just a little bit is as we pointed out Being a low income students being identified personally is low income students is a bigger indicator of your academic success than it being in a school with high concentrations and right now your formula is tiered based upon the concentration of school we would suggest a a formula that targets resources at lower so you're not seeing that differential by the tears you sing similar levels of resources even in your lower concentrations would be beneficial to meet that need that we saw in the performance in office moving it cliffs because of that creates difficulties for districts both and the predictability and stability of the funding they receive and it can mean when you have an extra percentage of low income students and tip into the next year you can get double the amount of money than you did at the lower tier so if you've any districts that are right on that borderline can create a lot of challenges for them. And then the recommended being awaited adjustment so that it's growing at the same scale over time as the matrix of the dollars are buying similar things over time if you tend to be adjusting the one FOR inflation and not the other they're not moving at the same pace so just tying him so it moves more protectively. Of the final area is to consider moving special education funding from the matrix and providing funding based upon actual student service so what what is in the recommendation chapter is that you have differences between your Eleazar the percentage of special education kids the half and also very large differences between the amount of money they're spending on students of suggesting that there's a real difference that cannot be met through what is essentially a census approach when you break it into the matrix is assuming that you have a similar level of special education students in all your districts and we're not seeing that so we would rip recommends that bring it out and thinking about looking at both the resource that you had provided in the matrix as well as what you're fighting separately for high cost special education think about it as as a pool of money for special education and differentiating by students need. And without this is their last slide before question do we want to take questions on the we just wrap this up okay so the next sent a city team we're going to incorporate any needed changes to the draft report I will be adding the executive summary and the appendices that we talked about the appendices are where a little more debt than some of the areas more tables more reference materials will get added in and then the meeting on the fourteenth this to adopt the report so any questions on the recommendations or anything overall. I don't see any question so well. Like Senator next step will be to incorporate the needed changes into this draft report and that's what everybody has a draft report in front of them. That's what we get to You're all work on every night. Here's thanks for her it or whatever and and I think what we've decided is a need to look at it. If you have any suggestions on changes modifications or deletions to it we need to know those before we get here on the fourteenth if possible. What you would like to do so we can be ready to make those Changes or modifications to it and and be able to put a title report together so we will of the voting on those things that and on December the fourteenth y'all will be on soon for that align with this right. Okay so they will be on line if we have any questions or things that we need to reference to that will be here to do that are there any other things questions on this before we move to the next item. I appreciate you all having come down this time the last time merchandise or be able to see your faces table to interact with the appreciate all the work that you put into this I think we have a lot of work to do B. our next of Education Committee will be taking tackling this so we appreciate you thanks very much thanks so much. Of representante. Thank you thank you Mr chair I again want to thank you all I'm way over here on this side. For common I I do have a quick question though because I was reflecting on what Representative Murdock said. And and I want to kind of go back in my head because I think I heard you all say several times not throwing more money at it necessarily will fix education in Arkansas is not throwing the money at it may be it's trying to figure out where to effectively spend what money we already put into education could you correct me if I'm right or wrong on that assessment yeah I think. Let me try to say it better So it is not just money that will affect change I'm not saying that they're not areas where you there are additional resources needed either right right it's the combination of the two so it is ensuring that folks have effective practice in real incentivizing and sent them back to practice but also insuring and some of that money and is in the excuse right so that people can't come back and say why just there's no way I could do this for this can you wanna make sure the the level of resources needed is available but that if then there's of feel your underneath that it's not about money it's about not using the money in the right way so it's finding the right balance and that's really tough for states because you know it has unlimited funding so it's turning into the right places making sure the levels are correct and making sure it's used wisely I thank you I just wanted to ask that because I as I go back and reflect on the US on a make sure that I understand everything correctly so thank you Mr chair. Welcome just really another quick thing anything that you have that you want to see brought up modified changed total out whatever of we need those by the tenth please so we can get all the gender to be talked about and that can go to Michelle or to Julie that one if you would email them to them because you sent it to me a lot to lose. So please okay Senator Elliott last question Mr chair and just of the to the chairs well the process be if if there is a. A suggestion for change submitted by the tenth and by that amount to if a change can be made a vote by the committee will be a vote by the committee alright thank you okay. Thank you again thank you for all you all have done and we've enjoyed having you here more so that all that video to it is very good to see you guys again and and so we'll we'll actually see on the screen on the fourteenth and thank you for all you've done and have a safe trip home I know you guys get reply back in a little bit so anything else you have for weekly what we do want to thank you all in case we don't see you in person again I will say the fourteenth as my wife's birthday so that is why I was not travelling down because that is a I have learned many things about marriage and being home on her birthday is a very smart thing to do. but the collaborative process and and your your all's ability to do that as we weren't here in front of you has helped us a ton and so we do really appreciate that and we hope that we found that you know when we hear things and you all provide the context it's really helped us line this up much better than we could have done without we appreciate. Thank you we have one more item on the agenda today. We have Represented Brecht mac back you're welcome to take the. The podium down there you have five minutes all women I'm sorry I was a seven and a half. Fifteen minutes that's what we agreed on it because of fifteen year old welcome stand up leave not just kidding. Rosa Beck you've got all that you have a long as you can keep them there. Carol. Turn up my counseling area. Guy maybe on I'm not sure. House better that's better I think judicial well that up there I'm going to tell you that we're we're about to shift gears here right Uh because we're going from the thing what we did and we we didn't talk about money we didn't talk about funny to where we're gonna talk directly about funding and money we also talk about some other things in the. I thank god for. Some of some other things now. This is salary A is as it's covered in the funding matrix and the one thing that I wanted to bring up here is this this study is is really about. Yeah within how the matrix affects the funding of the teachers the salaries in the in the teachers the teacher salary in the matrix. Hello Rick I think your buddy's having trouble finding your stuff is clipped on the very bottom of your of all the information that you got today so. If you need five that go ahead all right so that the study is is all about it's it's it's really a deep dive into a single line on the matrix of funding matrix in that line has to do with classroom teachers salaries and that's it I want to thank Julie and Adrian back there for all the work the and and all the people of it to be a lot for the because I've done a lot of work on this helping me not only collect the data and and putting in a manner that we can say but also to be able to the their their device it is the how this thing is going how shall this was was was very good and I would highly recommend if you have a question related to anything in education you go to them because I've done a great job also one thank the chairman for allow me this time to take a look to show you this what we found. Try that okay. As I mentioned the what we're gonna be talking about is the classroom teacher salary line on the funding matrix it represents forty nine percent of the total funding that's in the foundation funding so forty nine percent of all the money that flows out the foundation funding is actually accredited to this single line on the matrix the study only deals with classroom teachers salaries it does not deal with the support staff or special ladder and or anything like that I think it's very important when you look at things as an engineer I always find that when you're trying to quantify things it's best to drill all the way down on to these things and try to keep looking at a single items and not trying to look at too many items up high so that's what we're looking at the single line in this thing online as I mentioned earlier does represent forty nine percent of the foundation funding. The focus of the study is to quantify the effects of school district's size on this particular line. So that's the that it's important to remember. It's important to route I think I'm a jumbled. Stay here it's important to remember that. Of the funding mattress funds per student now I know we all know that but I want everyone to remember that we fund per student we do not fund for teacher we do not fund for class we fund for for students in the foundation funding and that's a significant thing and you'll see the effects of that as we get a little bit into the study. Thanks a lot talk about a little bit about Where the data the day that we use and some the nomenclature that we're gonna use in the study the make sure that we're all on the same page the data that we use in the study is two thousand nineteen two thousand twenty the enrollment data from Arkansas school districts so what you're gonna say is a data from all the school districts across the state two thousand twenty two thousand nineteen. The date was actually collected all the way down to the single class level so if you think about that we looked at every district we looked at their kindergarten we looked at their second go look at third and fourth grade we look at all those down all the way down to the grade level on on all that data. A. Get you familiar with and you probably already it's kind of self explanatory is the the the fractional class size. In a fraction class size is simply that this is a class size that smaller than the class size it's called out in the matrix. Now. At we collected all the data at the grade level we we kind of did a little magic to it you might say we are we we what we did is we said okay let's apply all the guidelines that are available the guidelines are in the principal the asking the guidelines are in the matrix and all the guidelines as far as the accreditation the school Arkansas's department of education's accreditations and all the flexibility that we could and what we're gonna do is we're gonna try to minimize the number of fractional classes. Cell okay what that says is if I have all of the whole class. That teachers fully funded if I have a fractional class that teachers not fully funded the salary for that teachers not fully fund so that's that's what we're going after so by minimizing the fractional the number fractional classes were in effect we're maximizing the amount of funding for the teacher's salary. Just a quick group of the examples here is this if you had a if you had a kindergarten and school districts have kindergarten I have forty students they divide thousand two classes the funding matrix funds those teachers at a hundred percent the next example is quite simple now you have thirty. The the accreditation standards would require that you split those thirty students into two classes it's class seven fifteen and those teachers would be funded at seventy five percent of their salary. That's pretty simple another factor to contribute though is that if you if you look at the mattress call C. what you'll find is is that as you shift from kindergarten first grade and then actually third grade fourth grade we actually change the numbers so it's almost impossible for school district to not have fractional classes it is almost built and it's a mathematical thing that's in the matrix that that they can't beat. And as it turns out it has much more of a negative effect on smaller school districts and we'll talk a little bit about that. This. So I'm looking for a consent to now you're looking at the kindergartens and I wanna talk a little bit about this this chart and then. There's there's quite a few similar charge to this but will spend a little time on this one so what I want to look at as far as the the first two sets a call all the way to the left and you'll see that that it says zero out of five hundred in there what that is that's the category is a schools districts in Arkansas that have zero five hundred students and if you'll notice there's a prince is behind that number and and the number fifty threes in there that means that they're fifty three school districts in Arkansas that fall into this category. Also notice that the the four percent is behind the is also in princes what a four percent stands for that tells you that four percent of all the students in Arkansas are in this category it could skew the kindergarten students are in this category I wish you the next one up goes from five five a one to one thousand so and so forth so the increments across this at the bottom of this thing is actually five hundred school increments we go all the way up to the largest school district in Arkansas. Things in the number of school districts that are there and the number and the percentage of students that are In each one of those districts. Also you'll notice that there's some percentages on find over here and what I want to talk to you about is the to bar charts that are associated with the each category the blue line is actually the funded that's the the average teacher kindergarten teacher in that slot is funded by the matrix at this level is if you can look in this example looks like it's about seventy eight percent of the of that teacher salaries so on average all the kindergarten teachers that are in this category are funded through the matrix at about seventy eight percent. Obviously that leaves twenty two percent on funding which is represented by the red. Call. So as we look at the DO chart and we go back after we see will definitely what's happening here right as a school district gets smaller you start to see the amount of funding drop off it actually dropped off a little there's a curve here that occurs the taxi dropped off a little bit quicker as you get to the smaller school districts. Now. It's it's somewhat easier to follow other the the red Collins as you go across because what you'll see is what you get to in this case about that four thousand school dishes four thousand that the amount of one funding it's very small. So. If you look at this pattern I'm gonna switch over to the to the action out to the second grade if you look at the second grade it almost looks like an identical chart you will see that is a little bit different is a little little bit more of the unfunded portion there but for the general rule the curve of the grass stays identical. Going to the third grade once again you see almost identical chart again all right now what's happening here is what you're saying is a mathematical problem are the smaller school districts have a problem there's nothing they can do to to fix this now I remember when I started this thing I told you that what we did we got these these great in numbers and number students around it's great we maximize the perfect the the fraction minimize the fracture class to maximize the teachers efficiencies far as in the amount of funding that's for those teachers so this is the best against guys this is the very best to get now the point of this study is not to talk about what the best class size is or how to the poor the study is to show you that there is a mathematical problem there are that we we have to address with these so. The next slide might be a little bit more revealing that you. And that's this site so what this represents is a little bit different but it's it's it's someone very wide what we did is we took all the great we would to we took the kindergarten the the second grade third grade and fourth grade and we advise them altogether and this is this is the same graph that you saw earlier but you see how similar the curve is but you may notice the line that goes across the top that's teacher salary. Going across in any if you look although there's not a direct correlation between the two it's of it there is a correlation between the two as we start to underfunded schools the teachers get paid less money. There's. It's the districts have to find the on funding money somewhere. And one was that they're finding it this chart shows that one of the ways that they're finding it is their pain their teachers less I'm not trying to pick good bad guys here I'm just trying this is the reality the numbers that you're looking at is the reality of the situation right now. Hope fund I'm the moved along quick enough for a check up there. All right so let's take a closer look at this thing what is this thing look like in terms of money. Well. If you look at is the if you look at this chart zero three five hundred it gives you the breakdown per classes exactly how much money those unfunded salaries represent. You also say the next category up the same analogy now what we did is we went down to bottom if you if you see the twenty one point seven million dollars that represents actually we put the first grade back in there if you notice on the charts that we did not have first grade data. Looking at the data and how repeatable it is it's probably would county injected second grade date in there said you'd see about the same effect and as as a second grade so this number right now this twenty seven I can be twenty one point seven million dollars shall to shortfalls that the first two categories just only the first two categories and those charts shall so if you want to what that would do is if you pump that money into their you'd see that at the very end of that chart that those lines would be equal to the opposite in the larger school districts. In summary. I want to go back and I want to reemphasize some of the things that we saw in the data. First of all as I mentioned earlier there's just a mathematical higher probability that you're gonna have a fractional class if you have a small school district if you think about it there's there's some things that We do that just make that it's it's it's gonna happen right the smaller school district when I have a fractional class size also has another problem which is the second point the additional salary related to the that a fractional class is distributed over smaller pool of money if you if you tackle I have a school of around I will go back to kindergarten you take a school that's probably around five hundred or so they're probably have to. The poll have to kindergarten classes they may not be a hundred percent full but let's so they have to that a hundred percent full if they get just a few more students in there they have to put a third class in there that the the cost of that teacher salary now is distributed over three. State I mean yep three three classes and very few students so you see a big dramatic shortage in the teacher's salary and and that's one of the key factors that that we see in this it affects the smaller school districts much higher now there are some things the board of educational aus and some adjustments that they can make you we utilize those we we built this data larger schooled a school district can action flicks or school size a little bit we heard some references to that earlier that the that they're allowed to move their schools sizes up so that the day that we use would allow them to flex up to students per grade in the first grade lease first grade is an example so if you do that if you think about that if your school district of about eight first grade classes are in you're allowed to flex up to students per class well you can simply flecks of your classes as you need to be as you need to do and and tell you get very close to another full class. All right and then when that other student comes in it's much less of the destruction it is far as financial destruction I should say as far as what happens to the school district another thing that's that's. Noticeable here's this there is a financial advantage to the school district to. Take in the case of first grade which is twenty three students to take that class up to twenty five if you have a teacher the teacher class of twenty five percent that that individual salary is over funded. In the matrix the mattresses funding per student this twenty five students in that class. It's set up to twenty three so just the opposite effect and that's one of the advantages that the larger school districts have over the smaller school district they can use the credit Dacian standards much more effectively than smaller school districts they just can't really get to that point. So what I'm recommending health. Well tell the chairman that we were putting all this together and if so what are you recommending out the only thing I would really recommend is that this their line items within the matrix and I think one of the false things that we do in the matrix is this with Jeff sort of dump money into the matrix without really taking a close look at how the individual line items affect the different schools they're different line items in the matrix that will affect the transportation is and is one that's a great example effects rule school districts and much more than effects maybe some of the urban school districts so there there's some school districts that you might see. That we need to make an adjustment there there's there needs to be adjusted but the problem is you're not gonna be able to it yes and this is the point I would like to make you're not gonna be able to make an adjustment say this is how we fund all schools because the different line items are gonna affect different. School districts based upon their size different Weiss. So. What I would recommend is this. That list. As a committee we start talking about funding of our schools we should look we should do more studies more studies on the individual line items and how they affect schools one of the attributes that affect those schools are it might be a rule versus urban schools and they're they're a lot of different factors Sir but once we look at all those different factors we can actually put adjustment the actors and their. That will actually make our schools findings flat it'll it'll make it. I hesitate use word echo rule but will make it more even from the school district you won't have smaller school districts that are literally out there starving. One was you could do it is is a multiplier you can take the curve that shall this cracked and you can actually create a multiplier and you and you could say if you multiply. The school size by this the it would be it would actually level out the the it would actually level out to cost and that would be that would be one way to approach it but there's other ways to approach it we need to look at class size. I'm not saying looking at class size to maximize cost efficiency that's not my point but whenever we are just the class size we're going to change the curves. Now the raw data that we collected we've got all the big spread sheets purposes we've built a so that we can. When we put a class size we actually see the curse far too she at the cars will she have left or right depending on the class size as you might imagine that would hi so there there's different things we can do the credit Dacian standards are are do you know although there's a saying for all school district right they do that there obviously there's more there for the larger school districts in the small school districts so I think that's that's a. This is what I want to say before open up the question I want. Tell you about a discussion I had this weekend a lady that I'm not used to be a school principal she just recent retired as a school principal or one of our local schools and I've I do a total what I was doing what we were talking about something and she was a school principal of an elementary school. And she said and I noticed how her voice county dropped and sat because she's very dedicated she was very dedicated to great great principle and she said they have forty seven kindergarteners. And I saw this as a whole was a problem with that it uses you don't understand she said forty seven kindergarten students cost us a fortune in any to start explaining that we can have two classes we act at three classes and are to be. And I thought what a spot. Thank you thank you know because she she recognize how devastating that was for that flowed through their school district so that ballot dates everything I said and with that if there's any questions I'll gladly try to answer I have a question yes Sir. A committee twenty three students and a first grade class right yes Thomas is that bring into that school as far as dollars and it should it should. Pretty much match up to teacher salary now this double teacher's salary it's double double but it's so it's a hundred eight thousand all right but but the point is is you need to look at what you're looking at there the whole because there's different there's different things on the on the in the funding matrix that well that's exactly what all under it all under just bring a little bit of logic to it it's it's exactly what the school gets for teacher salary for twenty three kids is a hundred eight thousand dollars now they not going to pay that teacher hundred eight thousand dollars you know it's sixty that would be a Max so right yeah and in two classes is two hundred sixteen and so you know there a oops I'm just saying there is money there for a little bit of an over drafted to that third class if you roll over but I mean I'm not disputing what you're saying but you just got a look at all the factors that numbers that that we used or whatever this teacher salary that are in the fund that they're in the matrix sixty seven to that's what benefits from a right with with the benefits and all that and then we multiplied the body that out into the deal in. Do you have twenty one sign. I made. We need the percentage that you multiply with this just for those K. E. N. one through twelve teachers for not the support staff so it's not that forty five sixty three per student it's more like twenty seven hundred dollars per student. That it does not close with a single line item out. But look at that. What I do have mine but it that the show for teacher salaries is forty seven hundred something dollars for twenty one that's what we have figured for twenty one so is this coming up forty six something now. So the point I'm making is is it's not necessary that these numbers are there that time presenting either the necessary the gospel but we should look in the matrix at the things in and and and try to make this matrix. Level under yell a lot of what we're doing guys right now a lot of what we're doing now is there's a tendency to to to throw money in from below the line to try to make corrections so what's not happening in the foundation funding I agree we need to look at risk I think you've done a great job what I do have some question there's one question for you correct all right of rex's prayer. Thank you Mr chair I'm I'm I'm trying to understand of your of study here so I have several questions with respect to the different classroom sizes so you're saying that was the average size of the can I'm from speaking specifically for those fifty through school districts that have students between of enrollment between zero and five hundred so can you tell me what the average classroom size was at the kindergarten level first grade second grade and third grade in those fifty three school districts what was that average classroom size for each one of those schools in those fifty three school districts for those K. through three grades I I do not have that data that raw data here I can tell you that within the within the study what we use is all the guidelines that were available. To maximize the two so we would put on this because as we could to twenty. Okay with me out house the actual what you're you're right to actually would have been different the other you might ask why we wouldn't use the actual data and that's in that's a good point to make the reason we actually did start using the actual data and what we saw was that it really introduce some air in and the question because some school districts if you look at all of it and how they they make a conscientious decision that they want Rep to rile pride like to hear this that the one fifteen students in there enter kindergarten so that would actually even though they would they could match up better than what they did they actually chose to put fifteen students there so what we were doing is to try to race what any in in these. School district was doing and saying aye this is the best that they could do so these numbers represent the best I can to so I guess follow up questions chair so is it that data available the and that that I've asked for with respect to each one of those. Yeah we we we we do have we do have that data and now it may require. A little bit of explanation as to how with the different columns that we use to to to get to it but the turnout is as matter of fact I was going to make that offer I'd encourage if anyone wants to look at the data the route that I would be more than willing to the top I would like to I would. Okay does have that data. Okay please thank you yes. She can get that to Michelle if you want to let me show no you want to see it anybody. To read I need to send you an email okay thank you. Put a thank you Mr chair and and represented that. That's what right here I I do thank you for doing this this is this is good and it's instructive we've talked about a lot but it's good to see the representations on paper is so when you were talking about add in the multiplier for you talking about added a multiplier that would affect students all the way down to what ever size the school district is live favorites that what what's the number we had three we. Take it down now to the small was three fifty of someone. And this is so that if we were to do this for at in the future whatever size we determined a school district may be that that would simply apply without further discussion if if we did the multiplier right without further discussion to create some and I think the right word is equity that the that you're talking about here because if we if we don't if we don't make it something that is that floats and affects whatever decisions that we make will find ourselves but if we were to change it we find ourselves back in the same position perhaps if we start to have school sizes even smaller than that three fifty so it wouldn't be on numbers change about the number of students in a school I'm assuming is to that we would have this the multiplier that would reply to what ever size the school district is right it is in the reason for that is the curve does the car you could follow the car down and it would give you the exact numbers is okay this is what they need to to bring them up to exactly what the percentages as compared to the other now the other thing that to the chart does shall. Is this an this might be the lead to some of the confusion the chart is showing that the percentage of of the salary that's being funded so you see that when you get to a larger school district you see that larger percent being funded versus the smaller school district so it it's not necessarily a hard amount that's why we went to the last slide it actually shows if you look out to the far right hand side you'll see the actual salary the salaries are not with the The benefits to that those are just of Ross salaries that those those dove explain the benefits is what I should. Okay because I I know that we've had all this discussion about the use of the S. of a of well I guess the enhancement funding them that we've been talking about and one of the things that a lot of the administration what Thomas's we use some of that funding and FOR teachers like if we need to hire whatever kind of teacher. And then we get I think justifiably concerned about why are we spending the money when things we thought about originally and part of that may be That we just really need to rethink how we are funding teacher salaries period not to create this kind of perceived in equity and at any rate I won't be so concrete about it I mean I just hear that a lot from it from administrators and I think that's kind of helps to demonstrate that the that that thank you for that though the one thing that I found it in the matrix when I look to the matrix is there. Everyone uses in its true this is a finding by actors it's not a spending matters not expenditures majors it's it's truly is a funding matrix and and I understand that so what happens is is that the school district's we and in fact I use example we figure out per student this big thing we take the numbers two and you have we multiply that we give you a big check and say here's your money and and I spent the weather want to in the and I will argue this point that school districts spend the money in a manner to try to get what they need to do you know that they're trying to help their students so we need to do is make sure that each line in the matrix actually is a to representation of what the school district depending on the size actually needs you want to do that well to get that. Zero down I don't think it's that hard to get it'll take some work but it's not that hard to get done if we get that drill down we know what those things are we could put multipliers or maybe multipliers and other things that actually reverse multiply that would be negative all tires and and and and take some balances down but to try to get the funding right because what's really happening in the majors right now anybody's an education on the other end of the single tell you this they take that money and they just shifted around to pay the bill that you've heard the term out here often Peter to pay Paul or whatever the that's exactly what they're doing and school districts and lastly isn't it just numerically should we justice expect that reasonably if we are finding of three hundred fifty district school district as if it's five you know it's five hundred and then make the adjustments with which is what we do you're not actually five hundred you three fifty how is that not a built in the and I cleave based on what you're saying is is it just built in that is going to be an equitable somewhere you will we are we are concentrating right now on teacher salaries. I it in I don't know that I can actually. Answer that question to drink but I could say this I think it would be incorrect to assume. That because a lot of people to make this assumption that well it all kind of works out may we short the kindergartners but of a make up the first grade I don't think that's necessarily true and I don't doesn't go direct. Okay because if you could read that that's roles like this I mean that's that's close enough I don't know how we do it we just made a bargain that I think at some at some point the you know the chickens is going to come home to roost and I think they are you know I think the actual the rooster that they're growing at us so thank you thank you. Anything else any other questions. Anyone would like to look at the the raw data I I'd be more than one to cover that with them so that they can do do a deep dive into this thank you record projection doing that and We will work on that this next year. Yes great all right RT one thank you I remember what you've got to do this next couple weeks got all work and send those a. Of discussion items changes weeks whatever you wanna call to Michelle or to jail and we will be back on the fourteenth and some of you all in here that are not house we'll see you tomorrow. So thank you all for coming we are Jr.