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5 BEFORE THE WYOMING STATE LEGISLATURE
6 JOINT EDUCATION COMMITTEE
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9 JOINT EDUCATION COMMITTEE PROCEEDINGS
October 24, 2002
10 Volume II
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 (Meeting proceedings reconvened
3 8:30 a.m., October 24, 2002.)
4 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yesterday we had three
5 sheets of paper related to the Wyoming cost of living.
6 One, you remember, was this little graph, and then the
7 other two were a very long spreadsheet like this and
8 another shorter spreadsheet that looked like this. If you
9 would get them out -- and I know that may take some
10 digging. It was a very long day late in the day.
11 (Discussion held.)
12 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I think that we kind of
13 went right over some really important things that I didn't
14 realize until last night, and I might be the only one that
15 missed this, but we started down a path I'm not sure we
16 want to go there. I don't think we have solved the
17 problem. I think we're still majorly right in the same
18 spot we were before. And I'm going to ask Mary if you
19 will assist.
20 But if you take a look at this short piece of
21 paper, this short spreadsheet we looked at, the columns D,
22 E and F, we sort of looked, I believe, at E, wasn't it,
23 where we would take Teton County out, calculate the rest
24 and then put them back in at 141 index. That's what we
25 had sort of talked about with Dr. Godby.
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1 Well, you see, I was tracking down and that
2 appears on column E to be about a 5.7 million solution.
3 The problem I didn't pick up yesterday and I'm asking if
4 other people are in the same spot, what we still have left
5 and will have left at the end of the eight-year period of
6 time is an 8.8 hold harmless there.
7 So we're talking about a situation we have added
8 money to probably those that don't need it as much and
9 probably have it and we have not helped those that were
10 hurt by the court decision. They're still losing at a
11 much greater rate than I realized yesterday.
12 Mary, tell me, do we need to go over to column H
13 to see those pieces?
14 MS. BYRNES: If you go to G, H and I, and
15 G looks at it without the hold harmless. I ran it both
16 ways. Column H, you can look down that column and see
17 that particularly the districts -- just look at Big Horn
18 County districts, they're all hold harmless districts.
19 They're now going to lose even more money by raising the
20 bar on the regional cost adjustment because now what
21 happens is the loss of ADM becomes much greater issue for
22 them. We've raised the dollars up and now they're losing
23 money because of more kids. It is not that they have less
24 ADM, it is just that it is exaggerated by this process.
25 What you've done on this run, and this was
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1 really done for an illustration requested by Del McOmie,
2 was it illustrates what does Jackson do to the index. It
3 really does not affect overall the situation that has
4 occurred for the small districts and the ones that we term
5 hold harmless districts. This is not really a solution
6 for them, if that's your intent for this type of operation
7 for the regional cost. I think you've exaggerated perhaps
8 the issue for some of these districts.
9 Like Senator Devin says, you still have an 8.8
10 million hold harmless, and you've added another 5.7
11 million to the system. It is not alleviating this.
12 The only relief you can see, it cut away 1.4
13 million of the hold harmless but that's an incredible
14 relief you've provided, 5.7 to the system and you buy off
15 1.4 of the hold harmless. So I'm not certain this was the
16 intent of the committee to review the regional cost of
17 living adjustment. Most districts that are benefiting
18 currently under the regional cost adjustment will continue
19 to enjoy the benefits of this.
20 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: And maybe even see more
21 to the tune of 5 million. Maybe I'm the only one that
22 didn't realize this was part of the picture, but the light
23 bulbs didn't go off until Dr. Godby left and I talked with
24 Mary on the interaction.
25 Representative Shivler.
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1 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Mary, you said it
2 compounded it beyond the loss of ADM.
3 MS. BYRNES: Madam Chairman,
4 Representative Shivler, it becomes a greater loss per ADM.
5 When we heighten some of the base level funding it becomes
6 a greater loss. So the number of ADM that have been --
7 we've already accounted for as a loss, they've become more
8 expensive of a loss. And maybe that's a better way --
9 they're a pricier loss than they were before and this is
10 why we see negative features there in column H for those
11 that we're holding harmless. They actually have a smaller
12 guarantee under this scenario.
13 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: I understand what
14 you're saying, if the cost per ADM goes up, but conversely
15 you gain more ADM for the kids you have.
16 MS. BYRNES: The offset is a negative
17 situation for these districts.
18 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Thank you.
19 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: So, you know, Committee,
20 I guess one of the things I'm asking you this morning, do
21 you want us to try to get Dr. Godby back here for us to
22 visit with? I think what we're seeing is that there's a
23 misperception that in any way Teton County affects anyone
24 else. They don't. They're out there. They really don't
25 have an impact.
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1 The problem is when you come back to the other
2 areas, the original challenge in the court case was that
3 essentially small districts were -- which were sometimes
4 referred to as rich districts were getting too large of a
5 part of the pie.
6 The more recent Supreme Court ruling exaggerated
7 that problem from where we started out on the first
8 decision by saying you had to put back in housing and
9 medical and even with Teton County out, there are still
10 such dramatic differences on housing costs in these small
11 communities and so forth that it is still there.
12 You know, one option that you can look at is we
13 leave it the same and let the external cost adjustment
14 that we add each year eventually eliminate the hold
15 harmless piece. Now, that means there are not additions
16 to those small districts, but I really hesitate to go
17 forward on a system that adds 5 million, doesn't solve the
18 problem and, in fact, hurts them more. I mean, that gives
19 me heartburn.
20 Representative McOmie and then Senator Scott.
21 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Thank you, Madam
22 Chairman. I guess I'm confused. This hold harmless
23 includes the hold harmless for small school districts,
24 small schools, is that correct?
25 MS. BYRNES: Madam Chairman, that is
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1 correct. It is the losses due to the new small school
2 adjustment and also the regional cost adjustment but
3 primarily for most of the cases the majority is related to
4 the regional cost of living.
5 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: But my point is,
6 Madam Chairman, if we do something about the actual costs
7 of operating small schools in small school districts, that
8 will raise the amount of money that they would be
9 receiving which is -- which would affect their loss here,
10 is that not correct?
11 MS. BYRNES: That's correct.
12 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: But the ADM
13 problem is still going to be there but not in the amounts
14 of 2 and 3 million for like, say, Pine Bluffs. If we
15 raise the small school districts, they get more money
16 because it costs more to operate them than what we were
17 showing. At least we hope that's the way it is going to
18 come out, but we don't know.
19 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: That's what I wanted to
20 say, that's an assumption we can't be assured of. It may
21 if we can demonstrate there's greater cost there and
22 demonstrate there's more need for a different profile,
23 what you say may be entirely accurate.
24 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: But my point was,
25 Madam Chairman, is that right now we've looked at -- we're
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1 looking at this 8 million, $10 million and we're saying it
2 is all tied to the cost of living or whatever it is index
3 and it is not. It is also -- they're losing money because
4 of small schools, what our present formula shows small
5 schools should get and small school districts should get.
6 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: It does, but I think I
7 have been into the spreadsheet enough to understand that
8 that is a small fraction of the impact compared to the
9 regional cost adjustment.
10 MS. BYRNES: That is true in certain
11 districts in certain schools. They work in tandem, as you
12 know. If you get one a little bit higher and you still
13 have the regional cost adjustment that is taking, say, 13
14 percent away from some of these districts in the end of
15 the day, it is a factor that -- it is a very large thing
16 you would have to overcome.
17 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: I see. I
18 understand.
19 MS. BYRNES: So I'm not certain, not
20 knowing what will happen with the small school adjustment,
21 since they do work in such -- they're companion pieces and
22 right now they're sort of in conflict. One tries to go up
23 and the other one will come in and lower all of those
24 features in the end.
25 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: You know, because another
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1 option the committee can think about recommending or
2 discussing with Dr. Godby is that instead of adding 5.7
3 million to the system that doesn't really assist those
4 feeling the hurt in this issue, or the greatest impact of
5 this, you could use that in external cost adjustment
6 amounts, gradually reducing that hold harmless piece so
7 that everyone is brought up somewhat by external cost
8 adjustment if that's justified, and I think some probably
9 will be from what I see from inflation. That is also a
10 guess.
11 But that option is there to use some of that
12 money that way, eliminating it, at least get people
13 perhaps back all on a certain base.
14 Those are the things you need to weigh, and what
15 we're asking is do you want Dr. Godby back here this
16 afternoon to discuss some of this?
17 Senator Scott.
18 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, I think
19 this does provide major relief for the districts that need
20 it the most. When you look at it, three things: The hold
21 harmless is just for a limited period of time, is it not,
22 and that's going to expire. So this long term is a
23 benefit to those districts even though because of the
24 mechanics of the hold harmless you see a one-year loss
25 year.
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1 Second, an important benefit to some of the
2 lowest funded districts in the state, including Cheyenne,
3 including Casper, including Albany County. And those are
4 really hit by the cost of living adjustment with Teton
5 County in it.
6 So I think some version of this system continues
7 to have a great deal of merit. So I think we ought to
8 continue to pursue it. Now, whether we need to get the
9 doctor back or not, I think that's a matter for the
10 committee's judgment, but I think it really does a lot of
11 help.
12 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I think you're accurate,
13 it does help Cheyenne and Laramie and so forth. But the
14 percentage impact on their budget compared to the small
15 districts we were looking at who have 13 percent
16 adjustments, that's huge. The percent of their budget was
17 huge in terms of the impact, which is why we did the hold
18 harmless.
19 My point is, yes, the hold harmless in the
20 statute is only there for one more year but what I want
21 this committee to be aware of, if you proceed down this
22 path, the substantial part of 8.8 million in perceived
23 losses is still going to be there at the end of the
24 two-year period and you're going to face exactly the same
25 thing.
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1 You will have added money to the system in some
2 magnitude and you will not have solved the problem that is
3 perceived to be out there in terms of the small districts
4 and the small schools that lose dramatically.
5 So, you know, there are -- that's where there
6 are gains and losses in this piece.
7 SENATOR SESSIONS: Madam Chairman, I would
8 like to have Dr. Godby come back for the reason that when
9 he left we gave him -- I think with the understanding, he
10 said, well, if that's what you want to do, that's an easy
11 thing to do, but he had some real concerns with all of the
12 other stuff.
13 But I think he has some other things in mind and
14 I think we ought to have him come back so that he
15 understands to pursue the other methods that he maybe has
16 in mind that would do what we want it to do.
17 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Madam Chairman.
18 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes.
19 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Madam Chairman,
20 again, I would like to get some clarification here. You
21 know, you use the Big Horn schools as an illustration,
22 and, you know, what is our benchmark? I mean, they've
23 lost money, but what is our benchmark? If you look back
24 over the last six years from '96 until this year, the four
25 schools, one has lost 17 and a half, one 14 percent, one
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1 15 percent and one has lost 6 percent of their ADM so the
2 13 percent loss is directly related to their ADM loss.
3 What is their benchmark for we're losing money?
4 This is what I don't quite understand. Now, granted, we
5 may not be giving them enough money to run their schools,
6 but the equalization process is right in line with these
7 figures. If they've lost 13 percent, that's essentially
8 what they've lost in their district in ADM.
9 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: And that is a part of
10 that picture. And I guess, Committee, you're also faced
11 with the challenge, do you want to make the small
12 school/small district adjustment with the recalculation of
13 some of these prototypes and so forth or some other method
14 before you move on this kind of a solution?
15 I think one point Dr. Godby made that we can
16 kind of get into the details and forget the -- I mean,
17 forget we're supposed -- the goal was to drain the pond is
18 that every -- we started out with a package and now it has
19 been pulled apart. I mean, the package worked together
20 when it started but now it has been pulled apart and
21 tinkered with and modified.
22 And as you do each piece, you double count
23 things, you drop things, you know. He pointed out the
24 Wyoming cost of living has some regional adjustment in it.
25 Then you turn around and apply it, use it for a regional
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1 cost, and you do things that are -- it is a package. When
2 you make a change in one part, it is not unaffected by a
3 change in another part, and the question is when you've
4 made both changes do they still work together.
5 And nobody has, I think, really been tracking
6 that, at least on a level where we've gone back and really
7 looked at it.
8 So, you know -- and maybe you take the
9 philosophy -- there's the philosophy you ease this down
10 and in the end due to the loss of ADM, as Representative
11 Shivler points out, there is still going to have to be an
12 adjustment, a downsizing in these areas. Maybe some of
13 that will be compensated by the small school/small
14 district, I don't know. But those are the things you're
15 faced with weighing as I see them.
16 I just didn't know at the late hour and the
17 complexity if we really realized, even if you move to that
18 long sheet and you looked at column I, the $60 million
19 solution, we've still got 1.9 of hold harmless that isn't
20 going to be solved by adding $60 million to the system.
21 So I think we need to be real careful before we
22 start pouring those quantities in and call them solutions
23 to be sure they're doing what we want.
24 Anyway --
25 SENATOR SESSIONS: Madam Chairman.
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1 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: Madam Chairman.
2 SENATOR SESSIONS: Go ahead.
3 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: I think it would
4 be premature to have Dr. Godby come back because you've
5 got to run these numbers to know what the heck they mean.
6 Recall that they were just run in the last 48 hours or
7 something like that and I think -- I know I personally
8 missed the implication of that very bottom line going
9 forward until this morning, in all honesty.
10 I think what we need to do is have some numbers
11 ahead of the meeting so that we can look at them and have
12 some understanding of them rather than have him come in
13 and talk about some theories and impacts. So I would hope
14 that we would have something worked up before we have him
15 back because I'm afraid he would come in and share with us
16 some theories like he did yesterday but not have any real
17 impact, just more statements.
18 I am afraid we put this hold harmless in with
19 the two-year period on the small schools because we saw
20 the impact of the ADM. That's somewhat of a separate
21 issue. When you start tying it to the regional cost
22 adjustment, that's when it goes crazy, if you will.
23 Recall, if you will, the cost of living index when you get
24 out of the parabola, that's what it in fact costs to fill
25 jobs in those areas. Most of them are full. That's our
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1 starting point and the reason the cost goes from that
2 rather than some algorithm from hell that does this kind
3 of thing.
4 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: So would you feel that
5 maybe we should at least communicate to him the message
6 that we perhaps gave him rather strongly yesterday to
7 proceed down this line that we have some reservations
8 about?
9 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: Absolutely.
10 SENATOR SESSIONS: Madam Chairman, just as
11 a clarification, we did not hold districts harmless for
12 the loss of ADM; isn't that correct?
13 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: That's correct.
14 SENATOR SESSIONS: They still got the
15 adjustment this fall with the ADM loss. They still
16 received that loss. They're not held harmless with the
17 ADM. They're held harmless with the cost of living
18 adjustment.
19 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: And small school
20 districts.
21 SENATOR SESSIONS: And the small school
22 adjustment, not held harmless with ADM.
23 I think that's a wonderful idea is to
24 communicate to him to keep working. And I guess what I
25 foresee, maybe when we get all of the different components
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1 together, we can lay them side by side and decide how we
2 interface all of that stuff that we've got coming before
3 we jump in and take one over the other before we have all
4 of the components there that we've been looking for.
5 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Scott.
6 SENATOR SCOTT: I think if you communicate
7 with him, though, you ought to communicate we do want this
8 option explored because I think some of us continue to
9 think it has a great deal of merit.
10 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I understand that. And I
11 understand that there's really an addition to some
12 districts also.
13 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Well, Madam
14 Chairman, one of the things that I got from the meeting
15 yesterday was he truly believes that what I call WCLI,
16 which is not right, but the Wyoming cost of living
17 adjustment is flawed, it has got some major problems, and
18 one of the things that I thought we instructed him to do
19 was go ahead and continue looking at trying to find a way
20 to make that better when working with the Department of
21 Employment.
22 And he was going to gather some of that
23 information and have it for us at the next meeting. It
24 would be better if we could have it before the next
25 meeting, but that was also part of what I took from his
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1 presentation.
2 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: That's absolutely
3 accurate.
4 You know, I just -- and I thought that was
5 probably worth his study if we get nothing else solved, to
6 get that kind of -- those kinds of pieces. You know, I
7 think that what we need to begin to be aware of is the
8 fact remains if those districts were as overfunded as the
9 lawsuit alleged, then the adjustment is going to be
10 painful and I'm not sure we're going to find a solution.
11 But I guess our goal would be not to do more
12 harm or not to do any harm to any district that is major
13 that could be avoided to still meet the pieces.
14 We will communicate with him in that fashion,
15 then, if that's agreeable to the committee to pursue the
16 solutions, including this one, but that we have realized
17 that there are more implications to it than we did. There
18 are committee members still interested in this solution
19 and there are committee members that would like him to
20 continue to explore the options that he thinks might be
21 out there and give us the information and as much as
22 possible ahead of our November meeting.
23 All right. Well, welcome. To those of you who
24 were not here yesterday, we had a good meeting. It was a
25 very long day. I think we quit about 8:00 last night, but
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1 we do not anticipate such a long day today.
2 Are there any other issues from yesterday that
3 anyone needed to bring up before we move to vocational
4 education?
5 All right, then, I welcome those of you who have
6 been working with vocational education and, Committee, I
7 think that we have, as you listen -- this piece, I
8 believe, is closer to completion than the pieces we had
9 before, and if the committee feels comfortable timewise,
10 it would be very good if we could begin some first
11 drafting requests on this piece, which yesterday you were
12 primarily receiving reports that were in an earlier stage.
13 So with that in mind, ask your questions and we
14 will proceed. If you would like to introduce the people
15 that are here to the committee, I think we've met before,
16 but not always has everyone been here.
17 MS. WIGERT: Good morning, Madam Chairman.
18 I am Teri Wigert, the state director for technical and
19 career education at the Department of Education.
20 And I'm pleased to reintroduce to the Joint
21 Education Committee this morning Dr. Gary Hoacklander to
22 my immediate left with MPR Associates and further to my
23 left, Dr. Steven Klein.
24 The two of them and their staff have been
25 instrumental in responding to the Court's decree to
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1 readjust or reinvestigate the cost of vocational education
2 to the state in Wyoming.
3 As Madam Chairman Senator Devin has stated, this
4 study is nearing completion and, in fact, MPR is postured
5 to have the report as per the legislation due to you on
6 November 1st. So this is our opportunity this morning to
7 readdress the issues we have brought to you previously and
8 to answer your questions of either myself or the staff
9 from MPR.
10 With that I will turn the presentation over to
11 Dr. Hoacklander and Dr. Klein.
12 DR. HOACKLANDER: Thank you, Teri. Good
13 morning, Madam Chairman, members of the committee. I wish
14 we could give you a respite from numbers and formulas and
15 those sorts of issues, but I'm afraid that we have to
16 continue on that path for a little while. We will try to
17 keep it as simple as we can. But you're clearly able to
18 deal with the complexity of these issues.
19 To just sort of briefly recap, I think we saw
20 our charge to deal with essentially the following issues
21 that the Court raised. The Court, I think, in general was
22 concerned about ensuring that all students in Wyoming have
23 access to quality career and technical education,
24 vocational education. And in order to help ensure that
25 that occurs there were two primary issues that needed to
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1 be addressed.
2 The first has to do with a very basic question,
3 does it cost more to provide vocational education on a
4 per-student basis than it does to provide other forms of
5 education, and if it does, designing a cost -- a funds
6 distribution model that would recognize the difference in
7 the cost of providing vocational education as well as the
8 differences in the relative concentration of students
9 participating in vocational education among districts.
10 So the sort of two issues that we're trying to
11 address in the work that Dr. Klein will be presenting in
12 just a moment is our analysis of the differential cost of
13 providing vocational education in Wyoming; and secondly,
14 what are the implications of designing a cost distribution
15 model that recognizes these differences in the relative
16 concentrations of vocational students among districts.
17 I should add, as you know, last time we met with
18 you we had two members of our advisory panel with us. We
19 met with them yesterday for the final time. They had a
20 chance to review a draft of the report that we will be
21 submitting on the 1st of November. This was our final
22 meeting with them.
23 I think it is fair to say that there is a wide
24 range of agreement and consensus, a strong consensus
25 agreement with the basic framework that we're presenting
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1 to you, the recommendations that we're making, but I do
2 want to stress that it is we, MPR, who are responsible for
3 the numbers that are here, for the recommendations that
4 are being made.
5 One never has unanimity among any group, and I
6 think among the advisory panel there are still some
7 concerns with some of the recommendations that we will be
8 making. But I think it is fair to say that they have been
9 enormously supportive and in principle are behind the work
10 that we're going to be presenting to you this morning.
11 I should also stress that we have had nothing
12 but the best cooperation and collaboration from districts
13 throughout Wyoming. We have received data from really now
14 I guess all districts in the state. We had the
15 opportunity to visit this time some 15 or so and a year
16 ago another 17. We have enjoyed very much the support,
17 the understanding from Teri and the Department of
18 Education in helping us deal with this really very
19 important and somewhat complicated issue.
20 And so what we would like to do this morning,
21 Steve Klein who has directed this study -- there are two
22 other members of MPR here, Elliott Medrich and Rosio
23 Bugarin, who have also been instrumental in doing this
24 work.
25 I would like to ask Steve to begin by reviewing
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1 with you the basic assumptions, basic procedure that we
2 have used to design this allocation model.
3 I'm then going to walk you through a simple
4 example of how the funds allocation formula that we've
5 designed operates using sort of three hypothetical
6 districts.
7 I will then turn it back to Steve who will
8 summarize for you the recommendations that we will be
9 making to you and to the department, and then we will be
10 happy to answer whatever questions you have. We can
11 certainly take questions as we go along. There's no
12 reason that can't happen.
13 You should have two handouts, one that looks
14 like this which is what we will begin with and then
15 there's another on legal-sized paper that I'll be using to
16 explain the model.
17 We're low tech. It is paper. I sometimes find
18 that low tech works better than high tech. I was visiting
19 a fourth grade class a number of months ago and the
20 teacher was encouraging her students to become pen pals
21 with fellow students in Bosnia. And there was a little
22 kid in the back of the room who raised his hand and said,
23 "What's a pen pal?" You know how it goes, the kid next to
24 him says -- gives him an elbow and says, "You dummy, it is
25 just like e-mail except you have to use a pencil and
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1 paper."
2 This is like an overhead, but it is paper and it
3 works pretty well. I'll turn it over to Steve and ask
4 questions as we go along.
5 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Steve, the difficult
6 challenge is some people were able to make it to Afton,
7 some were not. We appreciated your thorough review there
8 so you need to balance because I thought there was
9 excellent groundwork presented there in terms of how you
10 proceeded.
11 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, members of the
12 Joint Education Committee, thank you for this opportunity
13 to be here today. What I would like to do is take you
14 through the background of our study, and that includes the
15 processes that we used to collect the information and
16 model the data that we collected, and also take you
17 through the process and some of the assumptions underlying
18 the model.
19 In terms of the study itself, this is the second
20 year, actually, that we've been here in Wyoming. Last
21 year we were contracted to work to look at the cost of
22 providing vocational education. We quantified the cost of
23 the different, what you call them, object codes but the
24 salary and benefits, capital, supplies and so forth.
25 And one of the recommendations of our report was
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1 that people were spending a great amount of money and that
2 in the absence of any specific content or performance
3 standards trying to put a cost or in some way put out
4 resources just based on what people were spending might
5 not be the most cost-effective approach.
6 And what we recommended was concentrating
7 resources based on student participation and the intensity
8 of programs within the state. And that was a
9 recommendation that was taken by the legislature. And
10 based on that, there was a second study commissioned which
11 we are now reporting on today.
12 The study that we just have completed had three
13 components. The first involved case study site visits and
14 we visited a total of 16 this year. Last year we also
15 visited a total of 16, so 32 across the years. We've been
16 to a cross-section. We've only duplicated about two or
17 three districts so we've really met locally with a large
18 proportion of your school districts and teachers.
19 During those visits and in the most recent study
20 we concentrated at the business manager and superintendent
21 level. We reviewed data, fiscal data, that were reported
22 to us by the district. We also met with vocational
23 coordinators and collected information on the status of
24 programs and perceptions of how delivery was at the local
25 level.
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1 Second component that we have in this study was
2 an advisory panel. We have representatives, in some cases
3 superintendents, we have business managers, we have
4 vocational coordinators, we have some teachers. We've met
5 four times, most recently yesterday in Centennial, and in
6 that process have come to really appreciate the
7 professionalism and fair-mindedness of the people on the
8 committee.
9 We met -- I think we've managed to really get a
10 sense of what the concerns are based on these
11 representatives, and I think they were a credit to your
12 state. And there's the summary of those meeting minutes
13 that have been submitted. We will submit the most recent
14 one probably by the end of this week but the first three
15 have been submitted to the Legislative Service.
16 And finally, and perhaps importantly in terms of
17 the reporting that we're doing, is we collected data. We
18 requested information from every district in the state.
19 Of the 46 districts that provide secondary services, 45
20 provided us with information. The data that I'll share
21 with you today, the results are based on 44 of those. One
22 came in just as we were getting ready to fly out and we
23 weren't able to incorporate in there.
24 The data we will present are based on 2001-2002
25 school year, both ADM student participation in vocational
335
1 education and expenditures for equipment and supplies.
2 I should say that we recognize the importance of
3 securing local involvement in this study, and so we sent
4 out a form initially to the superintendent and cc'd the
5 business manager requesting the information. We compiled
6 that information and in a few moments I'll talk about how
7 we calculated what we call a FTE or full-time equivalent
8 vocational student and then we shared that information
9 back about two and a half weeks ago. We sent an
10 electronic copy to every district superintendent and cc'd
11 the business manager with the information we had collected
12 as well as how we tabulated that to come up with student
13 participation in vocational education.
14 And on the basis of that we've been receiving
15 feedback from people in the field and we will be
16 incorporating that as well.
17 So the final numbers that go into the report on
18 the 1st will differ slightly but really at the margins. I
19 think we're fairly close. I would say we're on the
20 diamond if not sort of in the baseline.
21 The study itself, as Dr. Hoacklander mentioned,
22 the conceptual framework underlying this -- and now I'm
23 referring to the handout -- really was focused around what
24 the Supreme Court dictated and that was the need to
25 have -- there wasn't some sort of explicit adjustment
336
1 within the formula and that that needed to be remedied and
2 that there needed to be recognition of the variation in
3 intensity of program, extent of programming among schools.
4 And so consequently we've structured our data
5 collections, our analysis, to develop a waiting for
6 vocational full-time-equivalent students to come up with a
7 means of allocating or at least identifying resources that
8 are going out for equipment and supplies and concentrating
9 those on areas with the greatest student participation.
10 We also have added recognition, there's these
11 equity concerns about people being compensated for what
12 they should be based on what their extent of program is,
13 but we also looked at the idea of quality, a program
14 quality concern, and that is you have -- if you institute
15 a weighted adjustment. And the way a weighted adjustment
16 typically works is in your current school formula students
17 are weighted at 1.0. Each ADM is 1.0, counts as one
18 student, and they get multiplied across the funding model
19 into the ADM allocation by the district to generate
20 resources.
21 If you weight a vocational student with a
22 greater weight, and the weight that we've come up with
23 based on -- and I'll speak in a moment to that class
24 size -- of 1.26, what you are doing is in effect
25 increasing the resources that will go out. So our
337
1 formula -- and recognizes that 1.26 at a minimum will
2 compensate for the smaller class sizes that our teachers
3 or vocational instructors have in their classrooms.
4 But if you weight everybody at 1.26, all
5 students equally -- and we have and we'll share those
6 results with you -- there's the potential for smaller
7 schools and vocational delivery occurs at the school
8 level. And the Supreme Court did talk about schools
9 providing services.
10 So we've structured it at the school level. The
11 smaller schools may have difficulty generating sufficient
12 student contacts at a 1.26 weight to offer the same
13 quality of program and extent of program as larger schools
14 and so we've added to the model for consideration of the
15 legislature the idea of a minimum program quality
16 standard.
17 And we've used two programs as that basis. And
18 what happens is schools with small enrolled ADM -- so that
19 we've mathematically modeled this and calculated class
20 sizes based on number of teachers -- schools with small
21 enrollments would qualify for continuous weighting,
22 increased weighting.
23 What that in effect does is a very small school
24 would generate an increased weight for the students who
25 participate and would generate additional resources which
338
1 would allow them to offset the cost of putting a teacher
2 in front of a smaller class. It would also enable them to
3 offer the same minimum of two programs and to satisfy
4 those programs and equip them.
5 Now, in terms of the assumptions underlying the
6 model, the first question one has to ask when one is
7 trying to put out money based on the extent of student
8 participation in vocational programs is who should be
9 counted. And what we've adopted as a recommendation and
10 the way we've structured the model is that funding should
11 be based on vocational course work taught by vocationally
12 endorsed instructors.
13 Logically, that makes sense. If a teacher has
14 an endorsement for a vocational subject and is teaching a
15 course that has recognized vocational content, then that
16 course should be counted.
17 We also felt, though, that the objective here is
18 to concentrate resources on high-cost programs and
19 students to participate in high-cost programs, and for
20 that reason, vocational course work should be part of a
21 sequence of either three courses or in a career cluster,
22 three courses in a career cluster.
23 Clearly not all course work is three courses in
24 a sequence and not all course work vocational in content
25 may be taught by a vocationally endorsed instructor. We
339
1 provided for the provision of a waiver where districts and
2 schools that were offering course work that was felt to be
3 vocational in content but was perhaps not taught by a
4 vocationally endorsed instructor or had only two courses
5 in a sequence could apply for a waiver, and we've outlined
6 recommendations of how that waiver might be structured.
7 It would go to the Wyoming Department of Education for
8 review.
9 We found of the roughly 450 instructors that
10 were reported about 21 were reported without vocational
11 endorsement, so we're talking about a very small
12 percentage, very small number of instructors, but there's
13 still an issue that someone will need to review those
14 waivers to determine whether or not this course does meet
15 the requirements.
16 We also had to decide to what grade levels does
17 vocational education extend, and to do so we wanted to
18 base this on data. We collected information on student
19 participation in vocational and academic course work and
20 based on that have determined we believe that supplemental
21 compensation should only be made for vocational education
22 instruction offered in grades 9 to 12.
23 And the rationale behind that is quite simple.
24 We've identified two areas that tend to drive up the cost
25 of vocational education. One is smaller class sizes and
340
1 one is the need for equipment and supplies.
2 When we looked at the class sizes for vocational
3 and academic course work at the secondary level, we found
4 that the classes were about 25 percent larger in academic
5 courses, so vocational classes are clearly smaller.
6 When we looked at the middle -- in particular
7 the junior high school level, what we found was that
8 academic courses averaged around 16.4 students per class
9 and vocational at approximately 16, so there's really not
10 a very big difference in terms of class size so there
11 doesn't appear to be any justification for compensation
12 based on class size.
13 With respect to equipment and supplies, we found
14 that roughly 6,100 at the secondary level is spent on
15 equipment and supplies per vocational instructor, FTE, and
16 that's much more than a prototypical model allocates which
17 allocates about 4,100 or so per personnel FTE. So clearly
18 at the secondary level we see a difference. Schools,
19 districts are spending more on equipment and supplies than
20 what the prototypical model suggests they should.
21 The junior high school level, we actually found
22 that it was less. We found that it was roughly 2,500
23 compared to about 3,100 is what the prototypical model
24 would suggest. There doesn't appear to be any
25 justification at the middle school level for offering
341
1 course work, supplemental funding for that course work.
2 So we sort of then put on the table what are the
3 courses that we're going to look at. We're going to look
4 at courses taught by vocationally endorsed instructors.
5 We will consider a waiver on those. We are going to look
6 at 9-12 and we're going to count students participating in
7 those courses because the Supreme Court was quite clear
8 that the extent of programs, we want to look at the
9 concentrations of students.
10 Well, as I mentioned earlier, funding is
11 allocated in Wyoming in the funding model based on ADM
12 students. We don't have the ADM vocational student. We
13 don't classify students that way. So one of our first
14 needs was to try to standardize the definition, and what
15 we did was we created what we called a
16 full-time-equivalent vocational student. And what that
17 means, it would be roughly a student who took all of their
18 course work in vocational classes so they would be
19 attending all of their courses on average 25 percent
20 smaller, they would be having more equipment and supply
21 needs. These students would all be a
22 full-time-equivalent.
23 There's no student that takes all of their
24 courses in vocational education, so what a
25 full-time-equivalent is is a composite. And to generate
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1 that information we sent to each district a list of all of
2 the vocationally endorsed instructors that we had from the
3 State, the WDE 602 form, I believe it is, and we asked
4 them to give us for each of their classes the number of
5 students in it and also give us a little information on
6 the course itself, the title, the level, the program area.
7 We took all of that information so we have
8 actual course enrollments from every single -- from 44 --
9 as of now 44 of the 46 and we calculated average class
10 sizes from that. And we also counted the number of
11 students who were participating and converted that into
12 full-time equivalent students.
13 And what we found is that there were
14 approximately 3,855 full-time equivalent students. That's
15 a full-time vocational ADM, if you will, in the state.
16 Those are the students -- full-time equivalent is what you
17 multiply by 1.26 to generate the resources. So now we've
18 identified what are the courses. We've counted the
19 students in there. We're almost ready to model, but
20 before we do that, I spoke about quality. We've been
21 talking about equity, about concentrations, about people
22 being funded for what the extent of their program is.
23 But I mentioned this two-program quality
24 standard. And what we did was we looked across the state
25 and we identified schools and schools within districts
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1 that were smaller than 133 ADM students.
2 Now, why? What we did was mathematically
3 model -- and it is included in the report. I'm going to
4 try to keep this at a high level -- but we mathematically
5 modeled if you assumed something about the average class
6 size for vocational and academic which we have data on, if
7 we assume the number of courses that a student typically
8 takes in the vocational curriculum -- and I should say
9 that we don't have -- the State doesn't have data on the
10 number of vocational courses a high school graduate
11 completes or the number of Carnegie units. There was a
12 wide range because it varies and there's not any single
13 number, so we used national estimates.
14 And the national estimates turn out to be pretty
15 close in terms of the course work taken to the estimates
16 that we came up with. They also are really just used to
17 establish the threshold for when one assigns a continuous
18 weighting.
19 So the effect of using national as opposed to
20 state is probably very minor and the cost associated with
21 trying to collect that data for your state level would be
22 quite high because you would have to do a transcript
23 analysis. But we know roughly the number of courses a
24 student takes, we know roughly how many courses during the
25 day a teacher teaches, and mathematically we were able to
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1 calculate the weight that one would assign to a district
2 or school based on the number of students that were
3 participating.
4 And there are cutoffs. If you assume a minimum
5 of two programs, then you need to have a minimum of 133
6 students to generate a weight of 1.26 which is what you
7 would expect on average, that class size difference.
8 Anyone above 133 students can put students into classrooms
9 for vocational and academic, achieve the balance, achieve
10 the minimum.
11 On average we found there were 13.2 students in
12 a vocational course and roughly 16.7 in an academic, so
13 you could put those -- you could create those class sizes.
14 Anything -- any school below 133, suddenly you
15 start dropping class size so you need to give them an
16 increased weight. So we looked across the schools and
17 found that there's a total of 25 schools -- this says
18 districts -- 25 schools that serve 7 percent of state ADM
19 that would qualify for this additional weighting, which is
20 assigned on a continuous basis. So the smaller you get,
21 the larger the weight.
22 So in that way we've sort of set up a situation
23 where we can count the students, we can weight them and if
24 they're a very small school, we can give them an
25 adjustment, a supplemental weight, that will ensure that
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1 they can still provide a minimum of two programs with a
2 sequence of courses and they don't have to compromise or
3 cut corners.
4 The last piece before we --
5 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, do we want
6 to ask questions during the presentation?
7 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: They invited that we do
8 that.
9 SENATOR SCOTT: A couple of questions.
10 When you are counting the number of full-time-equivalent
11 students, were you counting all the students in classes
12 with a vocationally endorsed instructor as being
13 vocational?
14 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Senator Scott,
15 yes, and any student in a course taught by a vocationally
16 endorsed instructor. We also accepted courses for
17 modeling purposes -- we didn't try to decide whether or
18 not a course that was waivered would in the future be
19 considered for a waiver. We accepted those courses.
20 So it is likely that we overestimated the number
21 of students because it is conceivable that the department
22 would not permit some of these courses to be counted.
23 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, I
24 understand that in some cases vocationally endorsed
25 instructors teach courses that are not vocational in
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1 content.
2 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, those would
3 not be counted. I should clarify. It had to be a course
4 taught by a vocationally endorsed instructor in an area
5 considered to be vocational, in fact, has to be in their
6 vocationally endorsed area so that you don't have that
7 situation.
8 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, why the
9 insistence on the sequence of three courses and how do you
10 handle the student that takes one or two of those but not
11 the full sequence?
12 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Senator Scott,
13 excellent question. The reason for the sequence is that
14 vocational education on average is more expensive to
15 provide. Why is that? Because at the introductory level
16 you can have -- you can put a large number of students in,
17 it doesn't have to be capital intensive, you can do sort
18 of more theoretical work. But as you tend to move up in
19 terms of more advanced levels of course work classes tend
20 to shrink and the cost of providing -- and that's for
21 safety reasons as well as the needs for equipment.
22 And so what happens is that on average we found
23 that vocational courses were 13.2 students, but it may be
24 at an introductory level they could be 20 or 21 and then
25 down to 7 or 8 at the advanced levels.
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1 So in terms of the sequence, you need to have a
2 sequence in place because then on average you would be
3 capturing the cost of providing services.
4 But with respect to your other question, if a
5 student only took an introductory course and that was it,
6 they still would be counted towards the resource
7 eligibility. So it is the need to have the program in
8 place, not necessarily that a student has to complete the
9 three courses in a sequence to count.
10 SENATOR SCOTT: Final question I've got is
11 in terms of what is being identified as a vocational
12 course. Are things like business courses, computer
13 courses -- are they typically vocational or not?
14 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Senator Scott,
15 we used to identify course work that was eligible based on
16 the endorsement area of the instructor, and in the 602 a
17 vocational instructor has a list of -- there's probably
18 around 25 or so codes. So we based on that.
19 We specifically -- we did try to standardize as
20 much as possible the request for data coming in from the
21 schools by giving people lists of teachers. Is it
22 possible that some schools reported on photography or art?
23 It is possible. I think we tried to look through for
24 that. But in general our recommendation is that the
25 courses such as art or photography that are not typically
348
1 considered traditionally vocational in content, should not
2 be counted and that there will be a need to standardize
3 that. And business would be --
4 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Business would be?
5 DR. KLEIN: -- would be counted.
6 SENATOR SCOTT: And computer courses would
7 be?
8 DR. KLEIN: Correct.
9 Finally, the last piece of the Supreme Court
10 recommendation -- actually, the legislation, in any case,
11 was the cost effectiveness, and we spoke a little about
12 this at the last meeting. Based on conversations with our
13 advisory panel, we tried to come up with a strategy for
14 providing the most cost-effective use of resources. And
15 what we found was that there's in some cases within a
16 district schools that are located within a few miles of
17 one another and in some cases some of those fall below the
18 threshold that I spoke about, 133 students. If you were
19 in the district, the same district as another school,
20 another secondary school, if you were within five miles of
21 that school and if you were below the threshold, you do
22 not -- we do not believe that it makes sense to give that
23 school a possibility of increased weighting and a minimum
24 of two programs because within five miles of another
25 school you could be bused. Bus the student. Put them on
349
1 a bus, drive them over, have them take the course work and
2 bring them back.
3 So what we did was we looked across all of the
4 districts, identified schools within five miles and below
5 the threshold and included those, combined those schools
6 together. If it was a small school and large school very
7 close, we combined the ADM and then they were over the
8 threshold so they were just weighted at 1.26, all of the
9 students. Those resources would be allocated back to the
10 district and then be reallocated among the schools in the
11 district.
12 There are only 11 schools that fit that criteria
13 and they enroll less than 2 percent of the state ADM.
14 We also recognize that there was an
15 interdistrict cost effectiveness and what we recommended
16 is that -- our recommendation was that -- and this was
17 based, again, on a lot of the feedback from the advisory
18 panel that the cost effectiveness strategy be applied at
19 the intradistrict level, so within a district, but we did
20 recommend that if the State wished to consider looking at
21 interdistrict, that it might need to also evaluate some of
22 those criteria because finding schools that are across
23 district lines within five miles might be difficult.
24 I should also say and you heard, I think, at the
25 last meeting that a number of districts are working,
350
1 Fremont in particular, to provide cost effectiveness
2 strategies and to collaborate to offer services. And so
3 it may be that you don't need to remedy that through the
4 formula. It seems like that is -- there's a recognition
5 to conserve resources that people need to collaborate.
6 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes.
7 SENATOR SCOTT: Question and maybe not for
8 this group, but it seems to me that the Supreme Court in
9 some similar circumstance forbade us to use this kind of a
10 mileage distinction. And can somebody refresh my memory?
11 MR. NELSON: You mean in the small school
12 adjustment when they talked against using a quarter-mile
13 rule, we called it, to determine a school? Is that what
14 you're --
15 SENATOR SCOTT: Yes, and I think there was
16 an earlier five-mile adjustment that also got thrown out
17 at an earlier level.
18 MR. NELSON: That was an old classroom
19 unit. Is that what you're talking about?
20 SENATOR SCOTT: Yeah, that was one of the
21 issues in the original case.
22 MR. NELSON: The municipal divisor had a
23 five-mile radius on including that as one school.
24 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: And that was the
25 definition of a school.
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1 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, I think we
2 may have to be a little cautious of that particular
3 recommendation given that finding.
4 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Senator Scott,
5 although we are not treating them as a separate -- we're
6 not necessarily treating them as a single unit. They are
7 discrete. They are able to offer their own programs. It
8 is just for purposes of cost effectiveness to provide a
9 school located, in some cases, within walking distance of
10 a larger school with additional continuous weighting to
11 give two programs would be perhaps overcompensating, or at
12 the very least possibly leading to duplication or
13 redundant services. But that is certainly something if
14 that's a desire we could model it without the cost
15 effectiveness as well.
16 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: And as I recall, the
17 discussion in Afton was -- among your advisors, some of
18 whom were there, was that they did not feel, particularly
19 with the purchase of expensive equipment in terms of these
20 extensive programs, which is what we're talking about, at
21 least they spoke to the fact they thought it was a
22 workable solution as I recall it.
23 DR. KLEIN: Yes.
24 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Rather than duplicating a
25 whole auto mechanic or a whole welding piece in more than
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1 one place in the district.
2 DR. KLEIN: Right. So why don't I then
3 turn this back to Dr. Hoacklander who will take you
4 through the process of how the model works and then we'll
5 talk again.
6 DR. HOACKLANDER: I'm going to be using
7 this, the handout, but I would also before we get into
8 that just like to draw your attention to the last page of
9 this handout.
10 There is a table that's called Table 2, ADM
11 Students. Everybody have that?
12 As we have been discussing, the model that we're
13 going to look at is designed to allocate resources for
14 vocational education primarily based on the number of
15 full-time-equivalent vocational students in each school.
16 It is actually a school-based model that gets aggregated
17 up to the district level. Districts are still the
18 recipients of the funding, but the funding is determined
19 at the school level.
20 So the basic -- one of the key variables in this
21 model is the number of vocational full-time-equivalent
22 students.
23 Secondly, the other key variable in the model is
24 the weight that gets applied, and for the most part, that
25 weight is 1.26. When we hit a threshold of 133 total
353
1 students, not vocational FTE, talking about 133 ADM in a
2 high school, that weight begins to increase and it
3 increases on a continuous basis. As schools get smaller,
4 the weight gets bigger. And that's necessary to provide
5 essentially two full-time instructors which then are able
6 to provide two vocational programs in each of these
7 schools.
8 Table 2 is interesting just as background for
9 working through the model. As Steve indicated, statewide
10 in Wyoming we calculated 3,855 total vocational
11 full-time-equivalent students. That's about 14 percent,
12 13.9 percent of the total ADM in grades 9 to 12.
13 All of this is grades 9 to 12. We're excluding
14 junior and middle high school, not because we think
15 vocational education is unimportant there, on the
16 contrary, but simply because we didn't find any difference
17 in the cost of providing it, so we're talking just about
18 9-12.
19 So on the average statewide about 14 percent of
20 the ADM is vocational. Another way of thinking about that
21 is approximately 14 percent of the course work that
22 students are taking during their high school career is
23 vocational. But as you can see as you go down the third
24 column, percent vocational, there is, indeed, quite a bit
25 of variation among districts, at the district level, not
354
1 the school level, in the percentage of total ADM or the
2 percentage of course work that students are completing in
3 vocational education.
4 So if we ask sort of the simple question is the
5 issue that the Court raised its concern about different
6 levels of participation among districts, is that in fact
7 an issue here in Wyoming, from the third column you can
8 see that it is, that, in fact, participation in vocational
9 education ranges from about a low of, I think, 6 percent
10 in Sheridan County Number 1 to a high of about, I think it
11 is, 26.5 percent in Fremont County Number 25. A lot of --
12 quite a large spread, and, as you can see, quite a bit of
13 variability among the districts.
14 So this is an issue. I mean, we're not -- this
15 has not been an exercise to solve a problem that doesn't
16 really exist. It does.
17 And what I would like to do is --
18 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: We have a question.
19 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Without going
20 through these numbers really hard right now, is the
21 percentage larger in the smaller districts, generally
22 speaking?
23 DR. HOACKLANDER: Chairman, just
24 eyeballing this, is the percentage of students higher in
25 the smaller districts, perhaps on the average, but there
355
1 are certainly lots of small districts where -- well, let's
2 take a look. We've got data. Use the data. We have it.
3 I see Park County. For example, Park County, 16
4 with 45 total ADM, 22 percent of that ADM is vocational.
5 On the other hand, Sheridan County with 43 ADM
6 is about right at the average, 43, 20.
7 I'm trying to see if there's a smaller district
8 with below average. There are some schools --
9 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Crook 1.
10 DR. HOACKLANDER: Yes, although that's a
11 fairly good-sized district, 414 total ADM. But only 31
12 vocational students which is why the percentage is so low.
13 However, at the school level, which is the way
14 the model functions, there are small schools that have
15 below average rates of participation in vocational
16 technical education.
17 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Then I would
18 wonder, is that due to lack of instructors or not having
19 instructors, or is that because they don't have the
20 equipment, or what is the reason for that? Any good ideas
21 on that one?
22 DR. HOACKLANDER: Representative Shivler,
23 I think it could be all or any of the above. In the case
24 study work that we did, certainly many schools, and
25 particularly small schools, reported difficulty in finding
356
1 instructors. That's a big issue and not just for small
2 schools. Finding qualified vocational teachers is a
3 challenge and that's true nationwide. It is not just a
4 Wyoming issue. But I would say that's probably the
5 biggest problem.
6 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes, Senator Sessions.
7 SENATOR SESSIONS: Go ahead.
8 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Scott, go ahead.
9 SENATOR SCOTT: Following up on that last
10 question, looks to me like taking a quick look at the data
11 that if you were to correlate the percent of vocational
12 education, the difference from the state mean, with the
13 difference from the state mean in per-pupil funding, that
14 you would find a very strong positive correlation.
15 I can see a few exceptions to that, but that
16 would suggest to me that the better funded districts are
17 much more likely to have these programs because they're
18 more expensive. I think there may be quite a correlation.
19 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Sessions.
20 SENATOR SESSIONS: Madam Chairman, I guess
21 what I'm hearing is I have some concerns with it based
22 upon what I know that we did as a legislature, I think it
23 was, eight years ago or nine years ago, whatever it was.
24 We took the -- we took -- we had a CRU, which is a
25 classroom unit, and we took the weighting out of the
357
1 classroom unit and spread it across all other classroom
2 units, in essence took vocational education out of our
3 schools.
4 So being in a junior high at seventh, eighth and
5 ninth over an 18-year period, I saw those classes drop,
6 just dwindle, when they could not afford to fund them.
7 And then when the emphasis, what I've seen since
8 with the emphasis when you're hit in the paper with
9 reading and writing and math and science scores, then the
10 emphasis, you know, we lost -- you could see the upstairs
11 in my school, I think they've lost two vocational rooms
12 upstairs and two downstairs to academics because of that
13 two-way thing, the lack of money and the emphasis on the
14 academics.
15 Well, so I guess I have a problem with the fact
16 that everything is based upon what is happening now eight
17 years later on -- instead of on best practices. I would
18 just like to see -- and this is what I've asked, you know,
19 for, is -- I would like to know with the educational
20 experts across the nation, what do they see? We're trying
21 to encourage kids to stay in school and our dropouts are
22 those kids that, you know, eight hours of academics
23 somehow doesn't apply to what they consider important in
24 life. And I've always felt like if we could do a
25 different approach that we might stop them from getting --
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1 from dropping out.
2 But I would like to see what is the
3 recommendation nationwide on addressing some of these
4 things in relationship to dropout rates and what are the
5 best practices nationwide, I mean, you know, not just
6 based upon a deteriorating program in the last eight
7 years.
8 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman, Senator
9 Sessions, let me respond to two of the issues I think you
10 raised.
11 With respect to technical vocational education
12 in middle schools, as I indicated, we couldn't find any
13 basis for a cost differential. However, in discussions
14 that we had with our technical panel, many of them were of
15 the view that funding vocational education in middle
16 schools had suffered in many districts because in order to
17 pay for the higher cost of vocational programs in high
18 school, they had to take resources away from vocational
19 education in middle school.
20 So do we have any solid, empirical evidence for
21 that? No, we don't. But obviously there was a lot of
22 expertise represented in that advisory panel, a lot of
23 history, and I think that's certainly a credible argument.
24 One can imagine under the kinds of cost pressures that
25 districts face making those kinds of decisions.
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1 And so to some extent, while we are not
2 recommending any additional weighting for vocational
3 education in junior high school, if, in fact, the funding
4 system recognizes the higher cost of providing vocational
5 education in high schools and does that explicitly, it
6 becomes less necessary. It relieves the pressure on the
7 high schools to, in effect, steal from the middle schools.
8 So that's the first issue that you raise.
9 With respect to the second, which is sort of
10 quality of program and also basing our work on what exists
11 rather than what should be, you're absolutely correct. I
12 mean, the data that we selected reflects what is currently
13 being practiced in Wyoming. I mean, right now this 25
14 percent difference in class size is what actually exists
15 in Wyoming. And, in fact, right now you're providing --
16 and we will get to this in a little bit -- you're
17 providing sufficient resources on the average to fund that
18 25 percent differential. That exists. It doesn't take
19 more money to do that. It is already done. There are
20 equity issues that we have to talk about, but -- and so we
21 have described what exists rather than what could be or
22 what should be.
23 I think the one exception to that -- really two
24 exceptions to that, the minimum program for small schools
25 saying that students in small schools should have access
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1 to a minimum of two quality vocational education programs,
2 and actually, Senator Scott, this comes back, I think, to
3 a question that you raised, if I recall correctly.
4 One of the reasons that we have defined a
5 program as a sequence or cluster of courses is to
6 emphasize the importance of designing a comprehensive
7 vocational curriculum that has some real coherence and
8 rigor and to help mitigate the possibility that students
9 simply participate in a number of low-level vocational
10 courses. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but just
11 not advanced.
12 And so I think that that's a stab, not a -- it
13 doesn't go as far as one would like. That is an attempt
14 to address some of the quality issues that you are
15 raising.
16 Could more be done? Absolutely. I mean, we
17 have not addressed issues such as the rigor, academically
18 and technically, of vocational offerings in the state. I
19 think that that is certainly something that could use
20 attention, not just in Wyoming. This is a nationwide
21 issue. So there's a lot more that could be done.
22 The other thing I would like to point out with
23 respect to Table 12 --
24 SENATOR SCOTT: Table 2?
25 DR. HOACKLANDER: Sorry, Table 2 -- that
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1 we were looking at, and also, Senator Sessions, this
2 speaks more directly to your question, the national
3 average for participation in vocational education is about
4 16.5 percent. Students nationally when we look at data
5 from national transcript studies, we find that high
6 schools on the average take a total of four Carnegie units
7 in vocational education. What we're seeing here in
8 Wyoming is about 3.4, I think, about 3.4 Carnegie units.
9 So on the average students in Wyoming are taking about,
10 what is that, 15 to 20 percent -- am I doing that math
11 right -- less vocational ed. Why is that?
12 Again, I can only speculate. I don't know if
13 that's down from what it was in the past. I suspect that
14 it is. And if, in fact, programs have contracted because
15 of this cost issue, then restoring or recognizing
16 explicitly in a funding distribution system the
17 differential cost of vocational education creates a
18 foundation on which to begin to rebuild the vocational
19 programs in Wyoming.
20 Again, that partially addressed your issue but
21 not completely.
22 SENATOR SESSIONS: Madam Chairman, I guess
23 just to follow up, I see here that we've got -- and I have
24 no problem with the smaller schools and I know what they
25 have to do to offer some of these things.
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1 But with 56 percent of your state ADM, they will
2 lose resources. So that's 56 percent of your students.
3 So I go back to my school at 10.6 percent of my kids
4 taking vocational classes, it says -- knowing the need to
5 try to address some of our dropout rates, and I'm sure
6 that Laramie 1 will lose money on this plan --
7 DR. HOACKLANDER: They will.
8 SENATOR SESSIONS: -- and I go back and
9 tell them, well, now I'm going to say to you -- you know,
10 in our legislation if we put it in there we're going to
11 say you will offer vocational classes but I'll give you
12 less money to do it. So instead of 36 kids in an English
13 class at East, you can have 40 in order to fund that.
14 And somehow that bothers me, you know. I don't
15 want -- you know, if we have to lose money, we will have
16 to lose it if that's the vote of the body, but I'm not
17 willing to then dictate to say that's how you're going to
18 allocate your resources, you know. I can't do that.
19 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman, Senator
20 Sessions, there is no question -- and we will get into the
21 specific funding models and options in just a second, but
22 there is no question that, other things equal, districts
23 and schools with below average concentrations of
24 vocational education will lose money under any funding
25 system that is designed to address that issue. I mean,
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1 that is the issue that the Court was concerned about.
2 However, and I think this needs to be stressed,
3 in many respects, and I think what the Court is responding
4 to, is that districts that have below average
5 concentrations of vocational education now under the
6 Wyoming funding model are receiving resources that, in
7 effect, assume that they have an average concentration are
8 being overcompensated. I mean, that's the equity issue
9 that the Court is trying to address and that's the issue
10 that the funding system we've designed is also trying to
11 address.
12 Let's accept that premise for the moment. It
13 may or may not be accurate, but let's accept it.
14 By putting this kind of a funding system back
15 into place and recognizing the differential cost -- we
16 will talk about some hold harmless approaches and that
17 sort of thing -- districts with below average
18 concentrations of students, Laramie is one, then has the
19 opportunity, should it so choose, should it decide that
20 that is an educationally sound decision for students in
21 Laramie, it is now in a position to begin to rebuild that.
22 It can recover that money by increasing its vocational
23 program, and the funding system is, in effect, providing
24 the weighting and the resources that will allow it to do
25 that.
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1 If it chooses not to do that, that is its
2 choice. There may be very sound educational reasons.
3 That may be what parents want. But should it choose not
4 to do that, then at least applying the principles that the
5 Court has enunciated, it shouldn't receive money for
6 services it is not providing.
7 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman.
8 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Scott.
9 SENATOR SCOTT: I have a problem with that
10 argument. Laramie County -- and they're a good example --
11 their vocational education is underfunded because the
12 Laramie County School District is the worst funded school
13 district in the whole state, has the lowest per-ADM
14 funding. So what you do, you put in a formula that makes
15 them even worse funded and tell them, but you can spend
16 more money on vocational education.
17 I suppose if you jack the class size way up in a
18 bunch of the other classes, you can do that, but aren't
19 you really putting them at a terrible disadvantage in the
20 short term getting there?
21 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman --
22 SENATOR SESSIONS: But, Madam Chairman --
23 thank you, Senator Scott, and I'll just say we have had
24 such a battle and our school board and our administration
25 is working right now with us to reduce our class sizes in
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1 our elementaries.
2 When I first started to teach at Laramie 1, it
3 was 30 kids in a kindergarten class and that was pretty
4 average clear on up. And we have used every resource
5 available and a commitment to the community to do that.
6 And so I just have to tell you in the fight between
7 resources, now we're faced with another battle of what we
8 think might be good for kids.
9 And I don't believe the State -- and I want to
10 go on record on this -- should fund everything immediately
11 to the point where maybe we think best practices are. But
12 we ought to have some kind of a long-range plan of where
13 we want to go with it based on over maybe 20 years, maybe
14 over another 10-year period or something.
15 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman, Senator
16 Scott, Senator Sessions, I mean, the fiscal pressures on
17 all of these districts are enormous. There's no denying
18 that. And any funding system that produces changes in
19 resources, as this surely will -- although we will talk
20 about some ways of mitigating that, and frankly, as the
21 larger funding model does, is going to exacerbate those
22 pressures for lots of districts.
23 I guess -- I mean, I certainly understand the
24 argument, Senator Scott, but I guess I would also say that
25 if, in fact, the kinds of overall funding inequities that
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1 have existed are being addressed and allow underfunded
2 districts to gain resources that --
3 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, that's the
4 problem, they're not. All of these things have been done
5 based on what they were expending under the old system
6 which was carried forward under the new system, and it is
7 a disgrace the way we have discriminated against some of
8 these larger districts. And this is the penalty that
9 we're paying. They get hit again and again and again
10 because instead of looking -- we've confused cost and
11 expenditure consistently in this process, and that's one
12 of the major things that's wrong with our whole formula.
13 DR. HOACKLANDER: I'm not going to take on
14 the whole funding system. I think if you don't mind we'll
15 just limit it to this one.
16 Should we turn to the model? If you would pull
17 this handout, what the next two pages do in a somewhat
18 more simplified approach is explain how we estimated four
19 different options that Steve will present to you in more
20 detail in just a little bit.
21 We have here three hypothetical districts.
22 These are not real districts in Wyoming. District 1 is a
23 relatively large district, has 1050 ADM, two schools; one
24 a large high school, another a very small school.
25 District 2 is a moderate size. It has 250 total
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1 ADM.
2 And District 3 is a small district, small high
3 school, with 100 ADM. That district is below the 133 ADM
4 threshold which is the threshold where these program
5 quality weights begin to operate.
6 So we have two districts, District 1 and 2. In
7 District 2 the small school of 50 will be affected in the
8 next model on the next page by the minimum program weight.
9 And the small school in District 3 the model
10 that we are using is essentially reallocating funds in the
11 Wyoming funding model that are set aside for teacher
12 salaries and benefits. That's the only piece of the
13 Wyoming funding model that is being affected by this
14 particular formula. We will talk about supplies and
15 equipment separately in a little bit.
16 And the rationale for that is that the
17 differential cost for vocational education is primarily a
18 class size issue. It is a function of teachers and
19 expenditures for teachers. If we address that issue, that
20 shouldn't have an impact. You don't need more principals,
21 for example. So the only cost element of the Wyoming
22 funding formula that should be impacted by this model are
23 the expenditures that are being put out by that model for
24 teacher salaries and benefits.
25 You're familiar with that model. There's an
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1 amount per ADM for teacher salaries and benefits that each
2 district earns, and in this particular example we have
3 assumed that the statewide average is 3,448. The actual
4 number doesn't matter.
5 So for purposes of this model the State is
6 spending a total of about 4.8 million for education, for
7 all of education on 1400 ADM statewide. There are 190
8 full-time vocational equivalent students in this model
9 statewide, about 13 and a half percent of the total.
10 Each district, then -- and you will notice that
11 as in the Wyoming funding model, the amount for teachers
12 and salaries varies by districts. I am not as familiar
13 with the model as you are, but my understanding is that in
14 part reflects differences in years of experience and
15 qualifications. So just to keep this somewhat realistic,
16 we have different amounts for teacher salaries in the
17 model.
18 And so essentially what we do is -- in this
19 first set of options, we apply the 1.26 weight which we
20 derived from our analysis of class size differences in
21 Wyoming. We apply that 1.26 weight to the vocational FTE
22 in each of the schools.
23 So, for example, District 1, school 1, 140
24 unweighted vocational FTE, we apply a weight of 1.26 and
25 that yields 177.1 weighted vocational FTE for school 1.
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1 And we do that for each of the other schools in the
2 district. That produces a total vocational weighted FTE
3 of 240.4, or about 50 more students.
4 In this first set of options we're going to
5 simulate a reallocation model that produces no net cost to
6 the State. We're going to assume that the legislature
7 were to say we're not able to put any additional money
8 into the system, but we want to satisfy the Court's
9 concerns how would one do that.
10 In order to do that we make an adjustment in the
11 amount per ADM. The teacher salary per ADM reflects the
12 additional FTE that we're pumping into the system. By
13 this weighting we reduce that, and then we calculate an
14 allocation for each school, aggregate in District 1 to the
15 district level and come up with a district allocation.
16 So, for example, what happens, the adjustment
17 factor in this case for the teacher salaries is about .97.
18 That's applied to the teacher salaries per ADM in column 1
19 to reduce that.
20 We then multiply $3,378 by the total ADM which
21 now includes this additional weighted FTE. What that does
22 in District 1, it produces an allocation which in school 1
23 in District 1 provides $3,356 more for that school; in
24 school number 2, $7,329. In District 2, their allocation
25 is reduced. School 3's allocation is reduced by $7,533
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1 and in school 4, a reduction of $3,152.
2 Notice -- we didn't provide you with the math.
3 Why do some schools get more and why do some schools get
4 less? It is strictly a function of the relative
5 concentration of vocational students.
6 In District 1 about 15.5 percent of their
7 students -- 15.5 percent of their ADM is vocational.
8 That's above the state average in this model of 13.5.
9 In District 2, school 3, only 10 percent of the
10 total ADM is vocational and so they will face a reduction.
11 In option 1 -- and in a moment Steve will be
12 reporting to you our estimate of what these various
13 options will cost statewide.
14 Option 1 by definition is designed to add no
15 additional cost to the State. That means in order to
16 satisfy the principle of the Court, we're going to
17 recognize these differences now in relative concentrations
18 of students that resources will be increased in districts
19 with above-average concentrations of students, and that
20 will be offset completely by reductions in allocations to
21 districts with below-average concentrations.
22 So in this sort of simplified model, the 10,686
23 that District 1 gains is offset by a reduction of $7,533
24 in District 2 and a reduction of $3,152 in District 3. So
25 a no-cost approach. We're not -- we're neutral with
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1 respect to these options. I'm not suggesting this is what
2 you should do. But if you were in the position of being
3 unable to put any additional resources into the system and
4 you wanted to meet the basic requirement that the Court's
5 decision poses for you, this is an approach that would do
6 that. So that's option 1.
7 Option 2 says, okay, let's take option 1 but at
8 least for some period of time -- we'll talk about what
9 that ought to be -- we're going to hold harmless districts
10 that lose money. So when Steve presents the results of
11 our actual simulation using the state data, we have
12 estimated the cost of holding harmless those districts
13 that would lose under option 1 when just the 1.26 weight
14 is applied to everybody.
15 Now, you're in a better position to assess than
16 I and we're not attorneys, but at least based on our
17 experience in these school finance issues a hold harmless
18 provision is probably not acceptable legally in
19 perpetuity, and so the question would be over what period
20 of time would that be phased out.
21 And again, we have some simulations that have
22 assumed that that hold harmless provision would be phased
23 out over five years. There's no magic about five. It
24 could be two, whatever. But there is an assumption that
25 it would have to be phased out.
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1 Let me emphasize, were you to choose option 2
2 with this hold harmless provision -- and, Senator
3 Sessions, this addresses I think one of the issues that
4 you raised -- that provides an opportunity for districts
5 with below-average concentrations of students in
6 vocational education time to begin to rebuild that program
7 and, in effect, over time, offset a potential reduction in
8 the hold harmless amount with real growth in their
9 vocational program should they decide that that's an
10 educationally sound thing to do.
11 So one can use this hold harmless strategy,
12 should you choose, to provide some time for districts to
13 make adjustments to their vocational offerings should they
14 think that that is an educationally wise route to take.
15 So option 1, essentially no new resources
16 available to address the issue raised by the Court.
17 Option 2 uses the same model as option 1 but
18 calculates the cost of holding harmless everybody who
19 loses resources.
20 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Madam Chairman.
21 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes.
22 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: And as I
23 understand, they would have to offer a minimum of two
24 courses, two different vocational courses? You couldn't
25 just say I'm going to, say, have ag, FFA, whatever it is,
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1 something like that. It would have to be two different
2 types of courses to be eligible?
3 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman,
4 Representative McOmie, I need to answer that in two ways.
5 The recommendation that we are making to you and to the
6 state department is that the department -- the legislature
7 recognized for funding purposes only vocational courses
8 that are part of a vocational program.
9 It does not mean that a student has to be taking
10 all three of those courses. All of the models that we're
11 sharing with you are driven by what students actually do,
12 what students actually take. But we are recommending that
13 eligible courses, in order to be counted, in order for
14 participation by students to be counted in a course, that
15 course should be part of a coherent vocational program.
16 And that program could be three courses in a
17 sequence. It could be a cluster of courses. It could be
18 accounting and agriculture 1 and that could be a coherent
19 program. But districts would be responsible for
20 reflecting on what's a coherent program of study and
21 submitting that to the department for review and approval.
22 If they did not have three courses in a program,
23 they could apply for a waiver. I mean, they would have to
24 have a reason. And maybe it is we're in the process of
25 training an instructor or we're in the process of
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1 introducing a new program and by definition in the first
2 year students can only take the introductory course and
3 we're going to implement the other two over time. There
4 is a waiver process.
5 But for purposes of this model I think the point
6 to emphasize is and in the simulations that we've done,
7 we've counted students in any vocational course, whether
8 in this program or not, and it is student participation
9 that drives this model, even though -- and we will get to
10 the two-program minimum options in a moment -- you only
11 get the money if the students show up. That's the way
12 these are designed to function.
13 Does that answer your question?
14 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Well, my concern
15 is, you know, I can see your first scenario, you have a
16 program, you put on a big push to get more people to
17 participate in this particular program. One of the
18 concerns is that -- my concern and Representative Simons'
19 concern has been a variety of programs offered around the
20 state and that's why we were kind of excited about the
21 fact that it had to be two programs. And I thought they
22 had to be two different types of programs, like auto
23 mechanics and ag.
24 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman, that's
25 correct.
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1 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: That's the answer
2 I was looking for.
3 DR. HOACKLANDER: That is correct.
4 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: We need to take a break
5 shortly. Would this be a good time?
6 DR. HOACKLANDER: This is a good time
7 because I'm going to move on to two different models.
8 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Let's take a 15-minute
9 break.
10 (Recess taken 10:20 a.m. until 10:40 a.m.)
11 SENATOR SCOTT: During the break I asked
12 one question, I think it is of general interest, where
13 they're talking about a sequence or cluster, and I'm
14 confused which they're talking about in those courses,
15 courses in the same area, the question was if the third
16 course is at the community college does that still count
17 in the sequence. And I will let them respond to that.
18 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman, Senator
19 Scott, the answer is yes. The program requirement, the
20 objective there is to encourage schools to have thought
21 through carefully and systematically a comprehensive
22 offering of courses that have some coherence, some real
23 coherence.
24 Could one of those courses be offered at a
25 community college? Absolutely. As long as that had been
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1 explicitly thought through, there was an articulation
2 agreement with the community college, why not?
3 SENATOR SCOTT: I think that's important
4 to include because I know some of the districts where
5 there are community colleges have done exactly that, and
6 it does make a lot of sense as appropriate.
7 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I know a considerable
8 amount of the discussion revolving around this, as I
9 understand it, it can be either a sequence or a cluster
10 that makes sense as a program.
11 DR. HOACKLANDER: Absolutely.
12 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: So there may be a piece
13 where an accounting piece or an ag economics piece
14 makes -- makes sense in the picture of the sequence, but
15 the goal being that if you're going to fund for higher
16 costs, that they legitimately be there because you have a
17 program of quality that requires a higher cost of delivery
18 and that the student actually have a benefit when they
19 finish that versus just something that was a group of
20 survey courses that you just kind of put people through in
21 larger numbers and didn't really produce a skill or body
22 of knowledge or something usable for the student other
23 than survey information.
24 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman.
25 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes, Senator Scott.
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1 SENATOR SCOTT: Some of that, and the
2 example you were using was a good one. Say an accounting
3 course might very well be a useful part of the
4 agricultural sequence. It would also fit in with any
5 number of other general business sequence as well, so you
6 could have one course part of two different clusters.
7 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Okay.
8 Any other questions before we go ahead?
9 DR. HOACKLANDER: Turning to the second
10 page --
11 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Madam Chairman,
12 one question.
13 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes, Representative
14 McOmie.
15 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: If your school
16 district doesn't have a high school in it, so you don't --
17 and you don't have any vo-tech like District 38 in Fremont
18 County, are they penalized by not -- under the formulas
19 that you've given us so far?
20 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I'm getting a no from
21 Dr. Smith.
22 MR. SMITH: They're just not part of it.
23 It doesn't make any difference.
24 DR. HOACKLANDER: If we could turn to the
25 second page -- and, Representative McOmie, I think I may
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1 have misspoke a little bit to one of your earlier
2 questions. You asked about the two-program requirement,
3 and on the first page when we simulated options 1 and 2
4 with the 1.26 weight, there is still the requirement that
5 the courses be part of a coherent program. In those two
6 options there's not a two-program minimum. That's what
7 these next two options we're going to look at are designed
8 to do. So I may have misled you a little bit there.
9 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Thank you.
10 DR. HOACKLANDER: We are now going to look
11 at what are the consequences of adopting a policy that we
12 will fund every school, with the exception of schools
13 within districts within five miles of each other -- that
14 was the issue we talked about earlier -- we will provide
15 every school with sufficient resources to provide a
16 minimum of two comprehensive vocational programs.
17 This affects schools with fewer than 133 total
18 ADM, not just vocational, total ADM, so any school with
19 fewer than 133 students, any high school with fewer than
20 133 students, if the objective is to provide a minimum of
21 two programs, will need a weight that exceeds 1.26, any
22 school below 133.
23 And I'm not going to go into the mathematics of
24 how we calculated that weight. It is in the report if
25 you're interested. But, essentially, it is a continuous
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1 weight. As schools get smaller and smaller that 1.26
2 weight increases. So that, for example, looking at school
3 number 2 which only has 50 students in it, the weight that
4 is required to provide sufficient resources for two
5 programs in that school is 3.34, almost twice the basic
6 1.26 weight.
7 On the other hand, District 4, their weight is
8 1.67, higher than the 1.26 but considerably below the
9 3.34. So this is a continuous weight that increases as
10 the size of the school declines.
11 So what we do in option 3 displayed here -- and
12 again, we'll give you the results of doing this on actual
13 state data in just a little bit -- the cost among these
14 three districts of providing this two-school minimum is
15 about $58,970. It would require -- and now we're talking
16 about new money. It would require an additional $58,970
17 above and beyond the $4.8 million that the State is
18 spending in this model to meet this two-program minimum
19 standard in the districts that are configured as they are
20 here.
21 Again, the actual dollar amount is meaningless.
22 We will give you the real dollar amounts in just a moment.
23 In option 3, then, we take this two-program
24 model and we essentially combine it with option 1 which
25 was the reallocation. Remember in option 1 districts with
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1 above-average concentrations of vocational education
2 receive more resources. Districts with below average
3 receive less. We now look at the combined effects of
4 those two, and we say should you decide that there will be
5 no hold harmless provision, but we do want to provide the
6 additional funding to meet these two-program requirements,
7 what's the combined effect of the cost of the two-program
8 standard with the money that will be -- with the
9 reductions that will occur in the districts with
10 below-average concentrations of vocational education.
11 So option 3 combines those two, and again, the
12 way this is set up, the 68,970 is offset by the $7,533
13 reduction in school 3. It is offset by that. However,
14 you have to add back in the $3,356 that goes to school 1
15 under option 1. In other words, it was a school that had
16 an above-average concentration, but it wasn't a small
17 school.
18 So option 3 is combining the impact of these two
19 approaches. Under option 3 you have -- you're
20 guaranteeing every school the resources if it has
21 sufficient student demand. Again, all of this is in the
22 end student driven. If it has sufficient student demand,
23 you're guaranteeing every school with fewer than 133
24 students the ability to offer two programs, and you are in
25 option 3 reducing the allocation to districts that are
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1 above 133 that have below-average concentrations and
2 you're providing additional resources to schools with more
3 than 133 students that have above average.
4 Finally, option 4 is the same as option 3 except
5 it includes the hold harmless so that in option 4 the
6 $7,533 that school 3 would lose in option 1, they're held
7 harmless, that money is added back into the system and
8 that increases the cost of option 3 by that amount to, in
9 this example, 72,326.
10 So that's sort of the -- that's the mechanics of
11 the way the various simulations operate which we apply to
12 actual state data.
13 And if there aren't any further questions about
14 the basic approach and mechanics and what these different
15 options are, I would like to turn back to Dr. Klein who
16 will go through what each of these options actually costs
17 based on actual data for Wyoming and the simulations that
18 we estimated.
19 SENATOR PECK: Madam Chairman.
20 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes, Senator Peck.
21 SENATOR PECK: In your opinion, this
22 approach as you've outlined it here, is that within the
23 boundaries of complexity that makes it workable or are we
24 going to be so convoluted and involved that we gum it up
25 beyond acceptable standards?
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1 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman -- is it
2 Senator Peck -- I'm sorry.
3 SENATOR PECK: Did it fall down?
4 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: You've been retired.
5 DR. HOACKLANDER: That's a hard question
6 to answer. We have tried to weigh the benefits of
7 simplicity and understanding with the complexities of
8 recognizing the very different kinds of situations that
9 exist from school to school and district to district.
10 I would like to think that this is an approach
11 that with some effort -- and it does take some effort --
12 is understandable, but it is not -- it is not a simple per
13 ADM -- dollar-per-ADM model. I mean, there are
14 adjustments. And some of the underlying mathematics
15 behind the computation of these weights, and particularly
16 the weights for the two-program minimum, require a fair
17 amount of effort to understand. I can't mislead you on
18 that.
19 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: The team that worked with
20 you, did they feel fairly comfortable that these types of
21 approaches -- and I recognize we're trying to look at four
22 at the same time which makes it more complex for us to
23 consider. But did they feel that this approach in general
24 addressed their concerns of cost issues?
25 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman, I think
383
1 I can say very confidently yes. I think our advisory
2 panel was quite comfortable with the basic framework that
3 we've adopted here. The basic principles that are
4 operating: Recognizing cost differential, they have no
5 problem accepting the finding that the primary source of
6 cost differences in vocational education is driven by
7 class size. That is far and away the most important
8 thing, and secondary, supplies and equipment. We will
9 talk about that. We haven't talked about that yet.
10 I don't think there's any concern among the
11 panel about that conclusion.
12 I think that they fully recognize, as you saw
13 from Table 2, that there is significant variation among
14 districts in the relative concentration of vocational
15 education students, and if you accept the basic premise of
16 the court that the funding system needs to recognize the
17 cost difference and different percentages of students, one
18 has to do that and that that's real. I think they're fine
19 with that.
20 I think that the panel was in agreement with the
21 desire to provide a minimum of two programs in small
22 schools. All of us would probably like to be able to
23 provide more. This is not just a vocational issue. On
24 the academic side we would like to provide a much richer
25 curriculum for students in small schools.
384
1 There are real limits, not just resource limits,
2 but practical limits on the number of students that you
3 need to provide a richer curriculum. And so I think that
4 they're comfortable with the decision to use two instead
5 of three or four.
6 And I think that they recognize and understand
7 that in order to do that you have to adjust the weight in
8 the fashion that we've done, and I think that they are in
9 agreement with this continuous approach. We didn't want
10 to create cliffs in the weighting system, and in order to
11 do that, the mathematics that are used to compute those
12 weights are a little bit more complicated. But I think
13 that they felt that the benefit of the continuous
14 weighting was worth the additional complexity, Senator
15 Peck, of the mathematics.
16 I think it is fair to say they're comfortable
17 with the decisions. Do they understand all of the nuances
18 with the way that we did all of this? No. I'm not sure I
19 do. I would like to think that all of us combined do. It
20 is complicated. It is.
21 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Other questions before we
22 go on?
23 Senator Scott.
24 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, is this
25 the appropriate time to suggest a fifth option? I do
385
1 think we have a fifth option and we need to look at it.
2 It seems to me where you've identified something here that
3 is a higher cost item, that we ought to consider we should
4 recognize that, go ahead and fund it at a higher cost.
5 Yes it would be nice to have a zero cost to the
6 State, but that may not be practical in this situation for
7 some of the reasons we've talked about.
8 What I would suggest is that having a fifth
9 option that adopts what they've done in the smaller
10 schools in that continuous weighting scheme, but also goes
11 ahead and says let's just fund the vocational at the 1.26
12 or really an additional 1.26 weight per ADM. I figure
13 that would cost crudely, just estimating by the number of
14 vocational students they found, about $10 million a year.
15 And then if you were to phase that in over, say, five
16 years, because it would take time to ramp up the programs,
17 you're talking about an additional $2 million a year,
18 roughly.
19 And I think we ought to take a hard look at that
20 approach as being one that's more consistent with the
21 court decision and as being one that recognizes that these
22 vocational programs just flat cost more.
23 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Now, Senator Scott, that
24 would give no recognition for what is in the formula now,
25 then. It does not back any of that out, is that right?
386
1 SENATOR SCOTT: Right, it would say what
2 is in the formula now in vocational is not sufficient
3 because we were not really able to cost out the vocational
4 programs in the formula.
5 So, sure, there is funding that goes for
6 vocational in the formula, but it is at the 1.0 weight, if
7 you will, and this is saying that, no, we've discovered
8 they are more costly and I think the analysis was well
9 done that says that they're more costly. But let's
10 recognize that and go ahead and fund it.
11 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman, Senator
12 Scott, the real issue here is whether that is already
13 reflected in the existing funding model or not. And at
14 least from our perspective it would appear at first blush
15 that it is. I mean, what we calculated, we looked at
16 actual costs, we looked at what districts are actually
17 doing out there.
18 So right now with the current level of funding
19 you are providing class size in academic -- I should
20 really say nonvocational classes -- is more accurate way
21 to put it -- class size in nonvocational classes is 16.7
22 and in vocational classes it is 13.2. That is a result
23 that's being produced with the resources that you're
24 currently putting out there. It doesn't take more money
25 to do that. That's what is being done.
387
1 Certainly if you want to grow vocational
2 education, if vocational education is -- for example, in
3 Laramie if you're going to try to restore, new money needs
4 to flow into the system at the 1.26 weight, not the 1.0.
5 But all of this really hinges on whether or not you accept
6 the premise, the assumption, that the existing model is
7 funding what is and that we have measured and estimated
8 that accurately. We may not have.
9 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman.
10 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes, Senator Scott.
11 SENATOR SCOTT: That's why I think we need
12 to look at it as one of the options that we need to
13 consider. We've heard a lot of anecdotal evidence that
14 the amount of vocational education in the state has
15 declined, and I think you can go back and look at the
16 statistics. It sure has. And the reason is what you
17 found: It costs more to do. The money isn't sufficient.
18 So to do some you're accepting a slightly higher
19 class size elsewhere, and that's certainly true in the
20 larger school districts. You will find good deal larger
21 class sizes.
22 And so the amount of vocational is reduced by
23 the fact that although it costs more it isn't funded more,
24 so we're sacrificing something on the academic side to
25 produce what we have.
388
1 And I think it makes sense to recognize the
2 higher cost, which I don't think the model did recognize,
3 because we didn't -- and no fault of the people doing it.
4 They didn't have the data. And now we do and I think we
5 need to consider it.
6 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Scott, I think
7 option 5 has some of those elements in but I think it
8 doesn't recognize any of the funding that is in that model
9 now that is providing some of the average size voc ed,
10 average size programs.
11 And, you know, to not recognize any of that
12 makes for a very costly program.
13 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, it does
14 recognize that those things are in the model now but at
15 the 1.0 instead of 1.26 weight because we count the
16 vocational students as part of the general count of
17 students and they get treated just like all of the other
18 high school students when, in fact, it is a more expensive
19 program.
20 So we're funding part of the cost of the program
21 but we're not funding the full thing.
22 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: But I believe there are
23 resources in that model in addition to the 1.0 that you
24 would see for an academic student for vocational ed is the
25 point.
389
1 Now, our whole study has been is it enough, but
2 there are not flat resources with nothing additional for
3 voc ed. The question was is it enough and is it enough in
4 a school where it is really concentrated.
5 So those are the things that, you know, we need
6 to consider. The anecdotal parts of it, I think, can be
7 true to some extent, but we also have to recognize that a
8 lot of things influence that. It is down nationally, the
9 demand is down. The demand for other types of courses are
10 up.
11 If we were to have more available, we actually
12 operated under a program at one point in time where it was
13 a great incentive to have multiple things named as
14 vocational programs, including English and mathematics, to
15 get them funded.
16 To have seen a decline from that is probably
17 realistic. Whether we decline too far, I don't know that
18 and I think it does -- there is certainly an important
19 element. But it is probably not one reason. It is
20 probably multiple reasons.
21 SENATOR SCOTT: And, Madam Chairman, you
22 make a good point. As you put it, we used to have
23 incentives for vocational programs. They do get creative
24 in accounting for what is a vocational program and that's,
25 I think, why we got rid of that distinction earlier.
390
1 But I don't think it is funded in the model
2 beyond the level at which everything else is funded. I
3 didn't see anything specific in there for vocational
4 education because, again, I don't think we had the data,
5 and I think that's what produced this study.
6 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Do you want to cover the
7 cost of the options?
8 DR. KLEIN: Sure. Madam Chairman, members
9 of the Joint Education Committee, I'm going to be
10 referring to the recommendation pages of the packet that
11 you have, and that's the one with the little boxes in
12 front.
13 Just before I delve into this I wanted to
14 respond also to something that Senator Peck had said.
15 While the mechanism is somewhat complex in terms
16 of how the formula operates, the actual data needed to run
17 this across over time are actually quite simple. You
18 would need to have a count of vocational FTE students
19 which is really -- many schools are running Power School
20 and I've spoken to the technical support at Power School
21 and there's a way you can kick out vocational students and
22 come up with a count of FTE with a minor modification.
23 And also, as I'll talk about for equipment and
24 supplies, there would be a need to track some of that
25 expenditure. In fact, it might make sense to track just
391
1 as you did in the past in 1998 with the WDE 335
2 expenditures for vocational education by function and
3 object code so that you have some assurance that money
4 that is being generated by the vocational education
5 adjustment is actually flowing in that direction.
6 What I would like to do is take you through the
7 recommendations -- there's five of them -- because, as
8 Dr. Hoacklander pointed out the many options available, in
9 recommendation 1 there are four, and the recommendation is
10 to compensate districts for the intensity of the
11 vocational program services and in particular with respect
12 to the class size issue, the smaller class sizes, which
13 accounts in our previous study for about 90 percent of the
14 cost of vocational education.
15 The first option is -- and that would require no
16 additional State money -- would be to reallocate funding
17 from the schools with below-average rates of student
18 participation to schools with above-average rates of
19 participation in vocational education. No cost to the
20 State. The total redistribution would be $410,539.
21 That's based on 44 of the 46 districts that
22 responded to us based on the information that they
23 provided to us in terms of FTE. We didn't go in and audit
24 and we didn't go in and -- as I said, if they claimed a
25 teacher was nonvocational but teaching a vocational
392
1 course -- 21 teachers that met that -- we included that in
2 here.
3 410,539, you could reallocate among schools and,
4 by consequence, by districts. 30 districts which serve
5 approximately 41 percent of state ADM would gain resources
6 and 14 districts serving 56 percent would lose resources.
7 And again, the 3 percent that's not included
8 there are the districts not responding. Rather than --
9 SENATOR SESSIONS: Just a fast question.
10 I may have missed it and I can't find it. What is -- this
11 is based upon state average of vocational students or on
12 the national average of 16?
13 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Senator
14 Sessions, this is based on -- in option 1 and 2 this is
15 actually based on just the average class sizes and
16 weighting everybody at 1.26, all students at 1.26. We
17 haven't introduced a minimum program standard yet. So
18 this would be just based on state data. And the national
19 data don't affect the class sizes. The national data just
20 helped us establish the threshold of 133 students.
21 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: So he's talking about the
22 Wyoming concentration.
23 SENATOR SESSIONS: But you're saying
24 average. Where is your average? Where is your number for
25 your average?
393
1 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Senator
2 Sessions, the average in terms of the average class size
3 is the 1.26.
4 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: You're talking Table 2,
5 isn't it?
6 DR. KLEIN: It is Table -- Table 2, the
7 13.9 is the state average.
8 SENATOR SESSIONS: Thank you. That's what
9 I wanted.
10 DR. KLEIN: Right, districts above that
11 13.9 percent would be gaining resources. Districts below
12 that would be losing.
13 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: Madam Chairman,
14 just a quick question. I think what we asked these folks
15 to do was to come up with this added cost to find it and
16 put it into place.
17 Now, you ran the additional sensitivities of
18 hold harmless and then adding the two classes as an
19 outgrowth of the task force that you put together and your
20 work? Or where did that come from? I don't remember that
21 from the committee.
22 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Representative
23 Lockhart, as far as the hold harmless component, what we
24 wanted to do was cost out if the State did not want to
25 immediately penalize districts and schools with
394
1 below-average rates of participation, what would it cost
2 to do so.
3 With respect to the two-program minimum quality
4 standard, we did that because there was a concern that
5 from a -- in some sense it is an equity issue as well, but
6 that smaller schools would be penalized and unable to
7 offer the same quality and scope of programs as larger
8 schools. And so the continuous waiting as a consequence
9 for the two-program minimum is intended to address that.
10 Whether or not that is a concern of the Court,
11 we inferred based on the -- some of the language that
12 there was a concern about the extent of programs being
13 compensated for that and one could say that -- and quality
14 programs a part of that, and that smaller schools, even
15 though they would have a higher concentration, perhaps, of
16 students participating in vocational education would not
17 be able to offer the same quality of program receiving
18 just a 1.26 weight. So we put that forward as an option.
19 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: Just a
20 follow-up. My word was sensitivity and you're calling
21 them options so that I understand, different
22 sensitivities.
23 Where I was going with this is what I think
24 we've been trying to meet the Supreme Court decision and
25 the funding model to be generally accepted with a caveat
395
1 that vocational ed as an example costs more.
2 I don't think they reached all the way to the
3 philosophy of that it is our job to expand or contract
4 different programs. I think we've kind of migrated into
5 that as looking at sensitivities. And I think that would
6 be another stretch of the Supreme Court's decision if we
7 think that's what they were doing. I think they were
8 trying to recognize the funding formula, costs of certain
9 areas, special ed, vocational ed, and how to identify
10 those costs and see that they're appropriately funded as
11 opposed to expanding special ed or voc ed. I didn't see
12 they reached there. I'm just trying to make sure we
13 haven't done that with these sensitivities.
14 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Representative
15 Lockhart, we have not. We have not done that. What we
16 have done in option 1 here and option 2 as well is we're
17 assuming that programs are being offered.
18 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: I understand.
19 DR. KLEIN: Irrespective it is students
20 participating in vocational education and we are not
21 putting more resources in to expand, we're simply trying
22 to compensate districts and schools for the extent of
23 their participation in programs.
24 With respect to the 1.26 weighting, in terms of
25 growing and expanding a program, that only comes into play
396
1 if you add students above the base of students that are
2 currently identified in this model, and even then it is
3 not necessarily expanding the program.
4 What it is doing is compensating for the
5 increased cost so that when a district or school chooses
6 to add a vocational course, they can make that decision
7 solely based on the educational merits of the course and
8 not that it has to be a loss leader or they have to take
9 resources from other places in order to offer that course.
10 It is not intended to expand. It is simply to recognize
11 the cost.
12 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman,
13 Representative Lockhart, I think you're absolutely correct
14 that there is nothing in the Court's decision that
15 requires the State to expand vocational education, and
16 option 1 satisfies that. I think it is fair to say
17 there's no requirement by the Court to hold harmless. In
18 fact, if hold harmless were introduced in perpetuity, the
19 Court might find that to be illegal.
20 So the hold harmless decision is a political
21 decision and all that we've done is try to give you the
22 price tag of that decision.
23 With respect to the two-program minimum, that's
24 a gray area. The Court did express concern about
25 students' access to quality vocational education. I think
397
1 in this instance the two-program standard does flow in
2 part from our own expertise as well as input that we got
3 from our own advisory panel that that represented a
4 reasonable and appropriate way to address that.
5 Whether that, in fact, is something that the
6 Court required I think is an open question, but it can be
7 interpreted that way.
8 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: Thank you, Madam
9 Chairman. Thank you. That was the way I was -- that's
10 where I had gotten myself and all of a sudden it looked
11 like all of this was directed by the legislature's
12 decision and that's not accurate.
13 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Sessions.
14 SENATOR SESSIONS: Just a thought on hold
15 harmless. You know, every time we do hold harmless it
16 says that we can't get this thing right, that we're -- you
17 know. And what is the problem with saying that those
18 districts that are below the statewide average in
19 vocational funding, that the model -- that the original
20 model funds those programs and that those districts that,
21 you know, when they are below the statewide average -- or
22 above the statewide average -- excuse me -- because the
23 money goes up with above, so the districts which are the
24 smaller districts above the statewide average, it says
25 that because of the size and the class size and the
398
1 complexity of small schools the weight -- the money does
2 not -- the money that is in the formula does not fund
3 those districts for vocational education.
4 Why do we have to say -- and if the premise is
5 that Laramie 1 is funding 10.9 percent of their students
6 in vocational education, that says, evidently, that the
7 funding, the current funding model, will fund 10.9
8 percent, so why do -- in essence, the other argument, so
9 if you reallocate funds, what you're saying to us now --
10 or your 56 percent of your students, when you take funding
11 away from them, what you're saying to them is that now
12 you're going to have to go -- now you're going -- if your
13 funding will take this many vocational students below the
14 average with your current funding, can you fund -- if you
15 take funding away can you still fund those same programs.
16 And I think that's an argument.
17 So why do we have to say hold harmless? Why
18 cannot we just recognize that on an average level, average
19 class size level, that 13.9 of districts that are above
20 that -- why cannot we just recognize that with that
21 weighted 2.6 you've chosen and have the evidence that
22 bears that out? Why can't you just say that those above
23 the average you give a 2.6 weight to because of the
24 complexities of the small schools and leave the rest of it
25 alone? Why do we have to manipulate within that?
399
1 And then you get away from that hold harmless
2 statement and then it would be up to my district, if they
3 wish to increase their vocational classes, then they could
4 go to the State with their plans and if they go above that
5 average, then they will get some of the weighted funding.
6 That's a district decision.
7 I mean, you know, why do we have to say if we're
8 funding 10.6 -- you're saying to me if you reduce that
9 funding then I can't -- or 10.9, how am I going to fund
10 10.9?
11 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman, Senator
12 Sessions, the current funding model is intended -- whether
13 it actually does, I would prefer not to get into that, but
14 it is intended to provide resources to schools essentially
15 based on the assumption that all schools have 13.9 percent
16 of their ADM participating in vocational education.
17 In other words, the -- and in fact, on the
18 average it does that. I mean, that's the real number. It
19 does that.
20 And in addition, we know from the work that
21 we've done that vocational education costs more. If every
22 district had 13.9 percent participation rate, there wasn't
23 any variation, we wouldn't need to be having this
24 discussion. If there was no difference in the cost of
25 vocational education versus nonvocational education, we
400
1 obviously wouldn't need to have this discussion.
2 The problem is that if you accept the basic
3 premise -- and I understand that not everybody does, but
4 if you accept the basic premise that on the average the
5 funding model provides sufficient resources to address the
6 additional cost of providing vocational education to 13.9
7 percent of the students, which it does -- I mean, that's
8 what exists. That's what is happening out there now --
9 then what the Court is saying, what the Court is objecting
10 to, if you have fewer than 13.9 percent and you're
11 providing non -- more nonvocational services at a lower
12 cost, you have too much money. I mean, that's the Court
13 logic. Whether you agree with it or not is another
14 question, but that's the basic argument.
15 The argument is if you are providing less of a
16 high-cost service and being compensated as though you were
17 providing more of it, that's unfair. I mean, that's
18 essentially what the Court is saying. And consequently,
19 the only no-cost solution to addressing that logic, if you
20 accept it, is an approach that takes money away from those
21 that have lower concentrations because they need less
22 money to provide the lower cost services and give it to
23 those that have more.
24 The hold harmless, then, is a political decision
25 to help districts cope with the transition of whatever the
401
1 dislocations are that are going to be caused by these
2 losses in revenue. But that is a political decision.
3 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Scott.
4 SENATOR SCOTT: I didn't get out of the
5 court decision that they thought that some districts were
6 overfunded. It looked to me like they were concerned that
7 vocational education was not adequately funded and
8 adequately dealt with.
9 DR. HOACKLANDER: Well, I'm trying to give
10 my cold to Contac, but I've had limited success.
11 Again, I'm not an attorney, but my understanding
12 is that the -- one of the primary concerns here is a
13 concern with interdistrict equity. The issue is the
14 equitable allocation of whatever resources are available,
15 that that be done on an equitable basis across districts
16 that recognizes the difference in cost and differences in
17 concentrations of vocational education.
18 Whether the total amount that's being allocated
19 or not is sufficient is a separate issue. They are
20 definitely related, but I think that in the first instance
21 the primary legal issue here is one of interdistrict
22 equity with whatever resources the State is in the
23 position to provide.
24 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: That pretty much covers
25 option 1 and 2 for explanation and cost, I think. And I
402
1 guess, you know, if we looked at option 2, what Senator
2 Sessions suggests would be a permanent retention of those
3 funds that are there now and what the difference in your
4 option 2 would be that it would be a five-year hold
5 harmless over that time which the district would not lose
6 money, could have opportunity to demonstrate growth of its
7 programs if there was demand or if it was a good
8 educational decision. They would have that five-year hold
9 harmless period of time to do that. Is that a correct
10 interpretation?
11 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, what we
12 suggested was a phased-in reduction over five years and we
13 had looked at approximately 20 percent per year. You
14 could have a year zero where it is a full hold harmless
15 and then over time transition to a complete reduction back
16 to what the formula would suggest based on the
17 concentrations of students.
18 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: But that reduction could
19 be mitigated if, in fact, they grew their programs or
20 there was demand there.
21 DR. KLEIN: That's absolutely correct. In
22 fact, there's two reasons to have it. One is to cushion
23 any potential effect of the new funding adjustment. But
24 it would also provide time for schools and districts to
25 make a decision based on the merits of vocational
403
1 education, and, if choosing to do so, to increase their
2 enrollments to qualify for the additional 2.6 additional
3 weight per student. And then, in effect, if everyone were
4 to increase to the average, they would offset their hold
5 harmless.
6 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Which might at a
7 practical level settle the argument of whether, you know,
8 there is demand there or not.
9 DR. KLEIN: That's right.
10 SENATOR SESSIONS: Just one more thing and
11 then I'm going to be quiet over this.
12 But when you look at this -- and this has been
13 going on a long time, and what we're doing is this started
14 because of the disparity in funding between the small and
15 the large districts. The huge disparity in funding. And
16 I think through this whole period we've come to a
17 consensus, and I hope we do that, that small schools do
18 need a higher level of funding because we're in a position
19 of punishing them right now.
20 But when you do -- when you work in a program
21 like this within that whole funding formula, once again
22 with the gain and loss, you're jerking that disparity
23 further apart again, and I guess in the whole court deal
24 of it, that is worrisome to me again.
25 And so having said that, I'll be quiet the rest
404
1 of the time.
2 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, let's move
3 into, then, option 3 which would be -- we now introduce
4 the two-program minimum quality program standard. And
5 again, as with option 1, we look at reallocating resources
6 across the state.
7 As you saw in the model, previously -- in the
8 example that we went through, schools that previously
9 would have lost funding that fall under the two-program
10 minimum threshold, because of the additional funding they
11 would get, would, in fact, gain resources.
12 As a consequence, the cost to the State with
13 reallocation -- so you would be reallocating from
14 districts with below-average vocational concentrations of
15 students as to above average and in addition putting in
16 money to support the two-program minimum would cost
17 roughly $803,000 and that would affect 25 districts
18 serving 7 percent of the state ADM that would be eligible
19 for supplemental funding.
20 Then if you went again with the hold harmless,
21 and as we talked about a phased-in hold harmless, perhaps
22 100 percent at zero and then five years giving districts
23 and schools time to grow the programs if they so chose,
24 the cost to the State of that would be about 1,200,000.
25 So the combination of 1.26 adjustment to
405
1 identify and allocate resources among districts based on
2 the concentration of participation, a two-program minimum
3 program quality standard, and a hold harmless provision
4 phased in over five years and in the onset year would cost
5 1.2 million, with the understanding that it is conceivable
6 that districts would choose to increase their student
7 participation in vocational participation and that would
8 be a real cost to the state over time. If they chose not
9 to, we would decline back over the end of the fifth year
10 to the 803,000.
11 Now, that recommendation is solely focused on
12 the cost associated with the smaller class sizes, which as
13 we found in our earlier study, was about 90 percent of the
14 expenditures we tracked when we asked districts to report.
15 Now, there's still the equipment and supplies
16 piece, and currently in the funding model equipment and
17 supplies is incorporated in a category that is in some
18 sense a catchall. It includes professional development.
19 It is items that are not otherwise allocated in the base.
20 It is column D in your funding model.
21 So equipment and supplies is in part of there.
22 And in fact, schools and districts are currently getting
23 resources to offer equipment and supplies.
24 What we did is in terms of allocating resources,
25 we considered whether or not to put out resources on a FTE
406
1 student basis or a FTE instructor basis. And we came to
2 the conclusion that because of economies of scale, if you
3 were to fund based on FTE students schools with large FTE
4 enrollments of vocational students, once you've outfitted
5 a course would benefit because they would still be
6 generating additional student contacts, they could run the
7 students through the same class and be able to generate
8 additional resources.
9 And alternatively, if you had very small FTE
10 students, if you put an adjustment on for the students,
11 you may not be able to generate enough resources to
12 compensate for the equipment and supply needs without
13 having to put a very large weight on there.
14 So what we did was we looked in terms of how
15 much was being spent currently with respect to equipment
16 and supplies on average statewide. And we found that
17 there was approximately $2,100,000 statewide that was
18 being -- that were allocated. It is about $6,144 per FTE
19 instructor.
20 What that means is if you wanted to look at
21 current allocations and within a given school or district
22 assess how much money is being -- if on average the school
23 or district were spending at the state average, how much
24 money currently allocated out there would we expect to be
25 flowing to vocational education, you multiply by the
407
1 number of FTE vocational instructor equivalents and you
2 would come up with an amount.
3 But that money is already out there so it is not
4 a question of putting more resources in. Where one has to
5 consider more resources is, well, first of all with the
6 two-program minimum quality standard, if you don't have at
7 least two instructors, you have some fractional amount of
8 instructors, you need to increase the amount of allocation
9 for equipment and supplies to provide at least two
10 instructors.
11 Now, to do that based on the calculation of
12 schools that would qualify for this adjustment that are
13 able to provide sufficient resources you would have to
14 have 28,262. That's assuming that districts would
15 qualify -- that districts actually generate enough student
16 contact hours to qualify for the minimum program standard.
17 The minimum standard, mathematically to work it
18 out at 13.2 students per instructor, basically you would
19 need to have about 26.5, roughly, FTE vocational student
20 equivalents in your school to offer two programs.
21 Mathematically that's how you get 13.2 kids in a class on
22 average.
23 So what we did was we structured the formula so
24 that if a district -- even if the supplemental weight
25 didn't have enough student participation to get to the
408
1 26.5, they were funded whatever number of students that
2 they would generate. They wouldn't then qualify, though,
3 for two -- equipment and supplies for two full instructors
4 because they're not offering the equivalent of two full
5 programs.
6 So if you were to actually staff everybody, give
7 everybody an adjustment who was below the two FTE
8 instructors, your cost would go up to 85,000. We're
9 talking very minimal amounts.
10 What we heard in the field from talking to
11 vocational coordinators, administrators, teachers wasn't
12 that they weren't happy with the quality of their
13 instruction, not surprisingly, what we heard was that they
14 were unhappy with the equipment. In particular, they had
15 old equipment they felt in some cases was dangerous and
16 they couldn't use, or it was outdated. They wished to
17 replace that and they were unable to use that money for a
18 variety of reasons. The district priorities may have been
19 to steer some of that equipment and supply resources for
20 vocational education, if they were spending on the average
21 what you would expect they would have to other purposes.
22 So people didn't have enough money to buy the equipment to
23 keep up to date with what they would consider a quality
24 program.
25 We calculated -- we were able to collect data
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1 based on state expenditures for supplies as well as
2 equipment, and we found that on average districts were
3 spending about 1300 per vocational FTE instructor for
4 equipment. So what we did was model the possibility --
5 and again, this is not in any case ordered by the Court.
6 But we've been hearing a number of the representatives and
7 senators talking about the diminishing quality of voc ed
8 and participation.
9 And in part some of the instructors felt it was
10 because they didn't have the equipment to offer. If the
11 State chose to add a 50-percent supplement, 650 per FTE
12 instructor, doesn't have to be spent by that particular
13 instructor, you could pool it across the instructors in
14 the district. For roughly 250,000 you could give for each
15 of the FTE instructors in the state -- for 250,000 you
16 could give each a 50 percent supplement with which they
17 could go out and buy new equipment to replace materials
18 that are outdated or they feel otherwise are not
19 appropriate for instruction.
20 Recommendation 3 is very important. It is the
21 idea of funding a vocational program startup cost through
22 a separate competitive grant program. And we have between
23 150 to 250,000 per year. Well, why a start-up? The way
24 funding is distributed is it is based on student
25 participation. Well, it is a chicken and egg problem. To
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1 get the student participation you have to have the
2 instructor teaching the class. To get the instructor you
3 have to have the money to hire the instructor. So the
4 startup is very important.
5 We found that there are approximately six
6 districts that are really quite far below the state
7 average of 13.9 percent. So if you wanted to fund roughly
8 six districts to start up -- and you wouldn't do it all at
9 once. You could phase it in over time because it is going
10 to take time to plan these programs -- you could put out
11 somewhere between -- probably more the higher end,
12 probably around 250,000 to start up and you could think
13 about phasing it back down over time.
14 That could be used to, first of all, develop
15 planning grants to identify programs that were going to be
16 added and the rationale -- or courses within programs that
17 were going to be added and the rationale for those.
18 You could also have money to hire districts and
19 schools could hire instructors for $150,000 assuming a
20 beginning teacher, you would probably hire about three
21 instructors per year and still have money for planning
22 grants as well as for purchasing equipment and supplies.
23 You would give each instructor you have 6,144
24 which would be the average for equipment and supplies,
25 with the idea that you could over time, once you begin to
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1 generate enrollments, you've got a teacher, used the
2 startup money to do that, the system becomes
3 self-sustaining so you're able to generate your FTE
4 vocational to get to 1.26 if you're above the base to
5 compensate for the increased costs.
6 Over time as people -- as the districts had an
7 opportunity to ramp up to address their needs, you could
8 probably go down to about -- we calculated 150,000 and
9 that would cover three instructors. Roughly 300,000 would
10 take you close to six.
11 Recommendation 4, you need to allocate resources
12 to implement this. There is an additional need at the
13 Wyoming Department of Education, in particular the
14 Department of Audit as well, that you have to collect
15 information on student participation in programs. You
16 need to review program offerings on a basis to make sure
17 that the programs being offered meet the criteria that we
18 talked about.
19 Somebody has got to look at those districts'
20 waiver requests that are going to come in each year for
21 instructors and to work with the districts and schools to
22 make sure these people who are waivered are making good
23 progress towards achieving a credential or some sort of
24 certification or endorsement.
25 We will need to collect the data both on
412
1 equipment and supplies and check on that, and there's an
2 audit function, as well as calculate the number of
3 students participating in vocational education. Startup
4 grant requests is going to be on an ongoing basis to
5 monitor those as well as to go out and see how those are
6 being -- resources are being used for the purposes that
7 they were intended, and just in general then an audit
8 function over time to ensure that the money is being spent
9 as it is intended.
10 We assumed that that was probably about a 1.0
11 staff member at the state level. We roughly assumed about
12 $100,000 for that.
13 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Scott.
14 SENATOR SCOTT: Audit to see that the
15 money is being spent how it is intended? I thought this
16 was part of the block grant where they could spend it
17 other than your competitive grant piece here. Do you mean
18 see how the money is being spent or do you mean to make
19 sure the student counts are right?
20 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Senator Scott,
21 primarily to make sure that the counts of students are
22 being reported correctly. However, that ties in, it is a
23 nice segue for recommendation 5 which is how does one --
24 one is putting out additional money, one is saying in some
25 sense it is generated by vocational education. It is not
413
1 necessarily earmarked.
2 You could have a categorical requirement. We
3 were unable to reach consensus within our technical review
4 group on whether or not it should be categorical and we
5 reviewed in the paper the options you would have for
6 allocating those resources.
7 What we recommended is that to support local
8 flexibility in using resources that you do not require a
9 categorical reporting or use of the money but that you do
10 monitor how resources are being spent over time so that
11 you have the ability to go and look in three to five years
12 down the road and see whether or not -- that you're
13 generating this extra weighting, putting out money for
14 equipment and supplies, is it being used for vocational
15 education or is it in fact getting steered away to other
16 purposes. If that were to occur, you might want to look
17 at either putting a categorical or earmarking all or some
18 of the portion of the funds going out.
19 So in some sense you would need someone to be
20 able to review that information over time and collect and
21 make sure that that information is accurate so that you
22 would have the option down the road to make sure that
23 these resources are being spent -- ideally on average
24 being spent for what they were intended.
25 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: And will you remember
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1 that debate? We did have some of that technical group
2 bring to us their preferences in Afton. They were split.
3 Some are concerned if we put this money in without any
4 strings attached it will be diverted and not spent on voc
5 ed, so they wanted it designated. And that is contrary to
6 the block grant contract where we've left that option to
7 the district.
8 Senator Scott.
9 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, and for
10 that reason I do have some reservations about
11 recommendation number 5. What decision are we going to
12 make based on the information that we get? Because this
13 information is not free. The one thing that participation
14 in the data facilitation group left me with is at least
15 some understanding of the costs that we are imposing on
16 the districts and the system as a whole with reporting
17 requirements and real nervousness about putting in new
18 reporting requirements unless we're really going to use
19 them.
20 If we're going to stick with the block grant,
21 which I certainly do agree with, I'm nervous we would be
22 imposing an extra cost in recommendation number 5 without
23 getting anything we will need to make a decision because I
24 think we can make a decision on the adequacy of the
25 vocational education programs without this kind of cross
415
1 data.
2 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Well, and I think this
3 concern, you know -- you know, I certainly hear what
4 you're saying. I think this concern is coming from
5 individuals who have a stake in vocational programs
6 locally and want to be sure that after all of the work
7 they've put in to get these resources that, in fact, they
8 actually see them in vocational programs.
9 And we hear that in a number of areas, no matter
10 what it is. Everyone is somewhat protective of their area
11 and a little distrusting that it won't be sent elsewhere.
12 Do you have anything further?
13 DR. KLEIN: Just one last piece. If you
14 refer on -- I think it is the second-to-last page, what
15 we've done is just put together a brief summary of the
16 funding options. It is kind of like ordering Chinese
17 food.
18 If you were going to try to go at this from the
19 minimum cost, that you wanted to put as little money as
20 possible into the system, then you would do a combination
21 of option 1 -- these are rounded numbers -- option 1 which
22 was reallocate among districts based on the concentration
23 of resources. You would still need to have somebody to
24 administer -- to implement this, oversee this at the state
25 level in terms of the criteria and guidelines governing
416
1 the program operation. So you could probably get away
2 with about 100,000.
3 If you were going to order the dinner for
4 four -- if you were really going to want to compensate for
5 the -- recognizing the need for equity in terms of
6 compensation, holding the minimum program quality of two
7 programs, holding people harmless, providing for an
8 equipment augmentation of 50 percent, a startup funding of
9 250,000, and an implementation, you could do that for
10 about 1.8 million.
11 So that's --
12 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: What does the
13 fortune cookie say?
14 DR. KLEIN: Not going to touch that.
15 DR. HOACKLANDER: Something about living
16 in interesting times, right?
17 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Representative McOmie.
18 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Thank you,
19 Senator.
20 You know, we've talked about wanting to have
21 vocational education and we've got numbers all over the
22 board here. The legislature is the policy-making as well
23 as the budgetary arm of the State. If we were to set a
24 minimum percent, their 13.9, 14 percent, that say this is
25 a requirement, that you're going to have to have that many
417
1 of your students in some type of vocational education
2 programs, do your hold harmless, it stays in over a
3 minimum number of years, if they go over that, then they
4 get the 2.6 -- does that make sense?
5 Because I don't see -- I see us out here waving
6 around with all of these numbers and take the option if
7 you don't do this, then you are probably going to lose
8 some funding if you don't reach that minimum standard.
9 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Before you answer that I
10 think essentially indirectly that's what option 2 does.
11 Now, as it says, you've got the opportunity to grow this,
12 number one, if you want to; number two, if the demand is
13 there; and number three, if it is your -- I guess those
14 would be the two issues rather than the arbitrary
15 requirement that you grow it.
16 DR. HOACKLANDER: That's correct.
17 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: But comment on that. Is
18 part of what he is seeking in number 2 only it is more
19 voluntary than he's talking about?
20 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman,
21 Representative McOmie, essentially that is correct with
22 the following modification: I would say that either
23 option 2 or option 4 does that. Now, option 2 -- if you
24 ask the question, putting aside for a moment whether you
25 would require students to take vocational education, what
418
1 it would cost to bring everybody in the state to the
2 current average, 13.9 percent, you still allow those who
3 are above average to continue above average, but to bring
4 everybody below average to that average, that essentially
5 costs $410,000. That's the same thing as hold harmless.
6 That's hold harmless, giving districts time to rebuild
7 their programs. And that's at the 1.26 weight without the
8 two-program requirement.
9 If you then introduce the two-program minimum,
10 again with the notion of bringing everybody to the
11 statewide average, the cost of that is 1.2 million. Is
12 that right?
13 DR. KLEIN: That's right.
14 DR. HOACKLANDER: That puts aside whether
15 you require it or not, but if that were the objective and
16 you wanted to provide resources that would allow districts
17 to do that, that's what it would cost.
18 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Does that make sense?
19 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Madam Chairman,
20 yeah, my note here under option 4 I wrote favor but I was
21 concerned with the numbers. You know, I think that we
22 should set a goal out here somewhere. I know this goes
23 against the local control thing, but vocational education
24 is very, very important.
25 What, we get 40 percent of our students go on to
419
1 college and how many of those drop out and we're not
2 offering anything for so many of these students. Maybe
3 that's why our dropout rate is as high as it is, who
4 knows. I'm not trying to fault the school districts. I'm
5 not trying to do anything. But we as a state, if we want
6 a certain amount of vocational education, then we probably
7 need to set some kind of a goal up here and say we want a
8 minimum amount of this much. After listening to all of
9 the dialogue, and that's why I brought that up.
10 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Well, and I guess also,
11 you know, you raise a point, but maybe philosophically it
12 is important to offer it and it is important to have the
13 option and the opportunity there which is what the court
14 case has said, maybe there's not enough funding for the
15 opportunity to be there, but philosophically that might be
16 different than putting a value on it higher than -- for
17 example, I have heard from parents who really oppose
18 vocational education. They don't believe the answers are
19 there, they believe the costs are higher in the arts, they
20 believe they're higher in some of the advanced academic
21 pieces and yet we've pulled out and isolated voc ed.
22 So there are groups not at all interested in voc
23 ed and who actually believe there are additional costs to
24 other programs that we're not recognizing and they would
25 like to have that funded.
420
1 So it is not a universal feeling, although I
2 appreciate it is tremendously important and I think it has
3 relation to dropout rate for some children. But I'm not
4 sure philosophically how far we want to go on requiring
5 it. But I do think that philosophically the argument made
6 that if you deny the opportunity you may have denied
7 educating -- the choice.
8 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Madam Chairman, I
9 realize there are people out there, we all got the e-mail
10 from the people that I don't think you should be teaching
11 Spanish in second grade or whatever it was, you know. I
12 don't know as we can ever -- I know -- I don't know -- I
13 know for a fact we're not going to satisfy everybody. I
14 was just saying I think vocational education is an
15 important component to education, period, and that's why I
16 feel, my personal feeling, we should have a goal not just
17 willy-nilly out there and say you can offer it or you
18 don't. If you don't, we're going to take money away from
19 you or someplace down there. I think we ought to set it
20 up here and say this is where it is at.
21 SENATOR SESSIONS: Madam Chairman.
22 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Sessions.
23 SENATOR SESSIONS: With what we've done
24 with the basket of goods and what we're looking at with
25 graduation requirements, I have a problem of saying that
421
1 you must offer, that we're going to say that you will
2 offer two programs. But I think on the other hand, if the
3 hold harmless is in place and we have the incentive and
4 with the -- if we have the equipment on the grant programs
5 and stuff, what -- I would like to hear what people think.
6 Does that give a district an incentive if the need is
7 there to offer those programs and not be limited by costs
8 only, or is that not enough of an incentive? I don't
9 know.
10 And I just have a short question, not being a
11 mathematician.
12 If my district gets to 13.9 then does it get the
13 1.2 weighting on all of the 13.9 students?
14 DR. HOACKLANDER: Yes.
15 SENATOR SESSIONS: To me, now, that's
16 pretty good incentive.
17 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I guess I need to take
18 some public testimony before we quit, if there's no
19 further questions right now of the panel.
20 I would like to open it to anyone else who would
21 like to offer a comment before the committee begins to
22 deliberate on some of that.
23 Yes, Dr. Bohling.
24 DR. BOHLING: Annette Bohling, deputy
25 superintendent for the Department of Education. I would
422
1 just like to mention that in the basket of goods as it
2 relates to the graduation requirements I believe we will
3 see as a direct effect of those graduation requirements an
4 increase in enrollment in all of our districts in
5 vocational education.
6 Starting with this year's ninth grade, they will
7 have to show that they have met those standards in
8 vocational and career standards at the state level in
9 order to get their diploma.
10 So in answer to your question, Representative
11 McOmie, the State has, in effect, set a goal for all
12 students and that is through the state standards in the
13 nine content areas.
14 All students have to be provided the opportunity
15 to achieve those standards. Whether or not they achieve
16 them is a different matter on the output side. But they
17 all must be given the opportunity to learn and be
18 proficient in those standards.
19 You are looking at data where those students
20 have not all had that opportunity because it starts with
21 this year's ninth graders. You are going to see a
22 tremendous increase in student enrollment in the career,
23 vocational part of the basket of goods that you have not
24 yet even seen.
25 So the costs will go up just by nature of the
423
1 fact that they're all going to have this opportunity and
2 so -- the incentive is there through the graduation
3 requirements, so the districts are going to have a way or
4 a mechanism to encourage students because we do believe
5 strongly in vocational education. We know it makes a
6 difference for students who have career exploration early,
7 who look at what careers are out there, and we have seen
8 what happens with our students who end up by the senior
9 year not knowing what they want to do in college and as
10 parents we all pay the price because they switch their
11 majors two and three times.
12 So we believe strongly that you already put in
13 place a wonderful mechanism to encourage kids to go into
14 this arena. You just haven't got to see the results yet
15 because it is this year's ninth grade that will have that
16 opportunity. So I feel like that should definitely be on
17 the table here for you to know those numbers are going to
18 go up and they're going to go up significantly.
19 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Thank you.
20 Senator Scott.
21 SENATOR SCOTT: Chairman, that leads me to
22 ask the question, the interplay with what Miss Bohling
23 just said and Senator Sessions' earlier question. The way
24 your proposed formulas are going to work, if there is a
25 general increase in students in vocational education and
424
1 Laramie County comes up to the current average, are they
2 going to still lose money on the allocation because they
3 will still be below average because the average is raised?
4 How is the mechanics of that going to work?
5 DR. KLEIN: Madam Chairman, Senator Scott,
6 the way the formula is designed to work is that we
7 calculated all of this based on what is today. As you add
8 students above the base that you have now, they would be
9 compensated at 1.26 and that would continue over time.
10 There are, of course, upper bounds of how many students
11 you can add both because of space as well as because of
12 the academic requirements.
13 It is not a case of the distribution if
14 everybody adds voc ed and the distribution is shifting
15 that they will never be able to get extra compensation.
16 In fact, that's simply used to establish the allocation --
17 the identification for our options now based on the
18 available data.
19 Once you begin to add students, then you would
20 qualify for a -- the extra .26 adjustment on top of that
21 so that you would.
22 An interesting question is we have not suggested
23 that you go back and revisit the average class size every
24 year. I think we've established that the average class
25 size is about 26 percent larger in academic and we're
425
1 suggesting that you use that. If everybody responds to
2 this by increasing class sizes, you would, in effect,
3 reduce the differential between academic and vocational if
4 everyone increased vocational class sizes and you could
5 change the weight then from 1.26 to a lower value.
6 But we have not suggested in the short term as a
7 recommendation that this be something that you go and
8 revisit every year. We're suggesting that you would
9 establish this and perhaps at some point in time in the
10 future you may wish to revisit that, but that's 1.26.
11 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Madam Chairman.
12 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes, Representative
13 McOmie.
14 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: And upon hearing
15 what I should have known but had forgotten, the standards,
16 the hold harmless provision in this thing should go down
17 rather rapidly. Schools are probably already planning to
18 increase this, so -- but there's an offset. The money in
19 the hold harmless will go towards the schools that start
20 going above the 13.9, if I understand all of this
21 correctly.
22 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Or get up to it.
23 DR. KLEIN: That's correct.
24 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Dr. Higdon.
25 DR. HIGDON: Madam Chairman and members of
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1 the committee, Mark Higdon. I'm superintendent of schools
2 in Campbell County School District.
3 One of the basic assumptions that we've been
4 dealing with for years is that vocational education costs
5 more, and in listening to your discussion I think there's
6 some key questions that I would just like to highlight for
7 your review.
8 And you can -- we can provide data, but the
9 first one is is the interpretation of the court decision
10 that you're hearing presently from MPR correct? It is my
11 opinion that it isn't, but you have legal counsel and you
12 can avail yourselves of that.
13 It is my opinion that the decision said that we
14 know that from testimony that vocational education costs
15 more and that we think it would be good to determine that
16 cost and then to fund it.
17 They did point out there were inequities between
18 districts in the amount of vocational education that was
19 offered, but I don't think they implied that money should
20 be taken from one district and given to another. And
21 that's only my interpretation, and with any court decision
22 anyone is entitled to interpret it the way they wish to do
23 so.
24 Second decision is or question is is funding for
25 vocational education currently in the model. It is a
427
1 block grant model. We've heard a lot of discussion about
2 you offer more English and less French or more French and
3 less Spanish or more vocational and less science, that's a
4 local district decision.
5 And given that, we have been trying for years to
6 maintain programs with some difficulty as we go through
7 this school finance issue. It seems inappropriate for me
8 to believe that vocational education is fully funded in
9 the current model.
10 I will give you one example dealing with the
11 senior high since that's the only recommendation to fund
12 vocational education. In '97 or '98 when the model was
13 initially implemented, the class size number that would
14 generate your teachers for your typical school of 600 was
15 17 and that generated about 49 teachers.
16 Currently, two years later, that class size was
17 reduced to 19 which is about a 12 percent reduction in the
18 number of staff that you have. Couple years later it was
19 reduced to 21 which is from initial implementation at 17.
20 I might readily agree with their conclusion that funding
21 for vocational teachers is included in the model. But
22 when we lose nine teachers in the prototype, then I
23 question whether you have the staff at the levels that you
24 need to provide quality vocational education with the
25 current class size number that generates your teachers at
428
1 21.
2 And not to speak to equipment. The equipment
3 issue I think is one that we can debate a lot. It was my
4 hope that due to their expertise and looking at what other
5 states spend for equipment we have a better model and come
6 back with a grant.
7 But the issue, I think, is real critical for
8 this committee to decide whether the 1.0 at the class size
9 number of 21 is generating the staff with this new weight
10 that's been determined now by their research that says
11 students in a vocational class should have a higher
12 weighting because of class size.
13 I don't remember in any testimony that I've
14 heard anywhere related to the model that we put vocational
15 ed in at this number two years ago or four years ago. I
16 would say at 17 it wouldn't be an issue, but I think at 21
17 it is an issue.
18 The third point is how will this model work
19 where we take from one and give to the other that have
20 more participation in vocational classes. My concern is
21 it won't work real well because if you're above the
22 average, which we are in our district, we're going to get
23 additional money, but as people below the average spend
24 more and come up, we won't be above the average. We're
25 essentially going to lose funding or our funding will stay
429
1 the same.
2 And at some point this thing is going to all
3 average itself out, and I don't think that was the intent
4 of the Court.
5 Senator Scott's suggestion is one I would hope
6 the committee would look at. We have different degrees of
7 participation in vocational programs. We know they cost
8 more. If their research is correct, if you just take the
9 full-time equivalency and add that percentage for the
10 teacher, at least you would be making a statement to fund
11 the additional costs of vocational education at the higher
12 rate than you do the regular programs.
13 Those are going to be difficult decisions for
14 you to make. I wish you good luck with it, but I will
15 echo what Dr. Bohling said, this is a critical area, a
16 very critical area in every district in this state. The
17 majority of our employment in the state of Wyoming rests
18 in kids who are going to be in vocational education. The
19 majority of business in our state is small business. And
20 we're fortunate to live in an area where many of our
21 students go through our vocational programs, maybe have an
22 additional year of training and go right to work to
23 support economic development. This is a critical area.
24 I don't think we're going to solve it by moving
25 money from one district to another. I think it is going
430
1 to take additional funds. Thank you.
2 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Just to clarify a matter
3 in my own mind that Dr. Higdon raises on the grant issue,
4 recommendation number 2 where you use the term "flat
5 grant" of $4,800 and some per vocational for supply and
6 $1,300 for equipment, my assumption is that is not a
7 competitive grant, that is paid out if those instructors
8 are in place.
9 So while we use the term "grant," it becomes a
10 part of the funding; is that correct?
11 DR. KLEIN: Yes, it is based on the
12 instructors. It is not competitive. You don't compete
13 against other people to get it.
14 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: So it would be there if
15 you have an instructor in place?
16 DR. KLEIN: Correct.
17 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Then the startup piece
18 would be slightly different, that is something that
19 wouldn't come every year, that's just something that comes
20 with -- so that is more of what we think of as the grant
21 piece.
22 DR. KLEIN: Let me correct it, actually.
23 Right now that money is in the supplies and equipment.
24 The supplies and equipment resources are in the grant as
25 it is now. So that figure that I -- that $6,144 is what
431
1 on average if a district or school were spending at the
2 state average that they would be spending for an
3 instructor.
4 You're not putting more money in. You're not
5 guaranteeing that money would be spent for them. It is
6 what we would expect if you were spending at the average.
7 If you were to add instructors, then there would be some
8 need to address that equipment and supplies adjustment.
9 But in terms of the compensation, the additional costs as
10 we've calculated it would be based on compensating for the
11 less than two instructors.
12 And, in addition, if one were to augment based
13 on your FTE instructors, 50 percent would be 650, the
14 money is already there. The intent is not to either
15 categorize it or to put more in.
16 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Are there any other
17 additional comments?
18 Then my suggestion, given the hour, would be
19 that we break for lunch, come back, take up these -- the
20 discussion of this and see if we can come to enough
21 agreement to begin drafting.
22 So I would say we return here at 1:15. That
23 gives us an hour. Did you find you needed the hour
24 yesterday? You would like the hour?
25 All right. Let's take -- we will reconvene at
432
1 1:15.
2 (Meeting proceedings recessed
3 12:15 p.m. and reconvened
4 1:20 p.m., October 24, 2002.)
5 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Committee, we have some
6 things we need to accomplish this afternoon. We will be
7 out of here by 5:00 because somebody else needs the room.
8 So keep that in mind as we go through this afternoon's
9 agenda.
10 If we have any further questions concerning
11 vocational ed adjustment and the issues, we have the MPR
12 folks still here and the Department of Education.
13 Then we need to direct LSO staff which way we
14 want to go as a committee so they can draft legislation
15 for the November meeting so that then we will have
16 legislation in front of us that we can look at and
17 appropriately work at the next meeting.
18 So, Committee, further questions, comments on
19 this issue for MPR or anyone else?
20 Further comments from you at this point?
21 DR. HOACKLANDER: I don't think so. I
22 mean, we're happy to be available as you deliberate. If
23 questions come up to answer, we will be here. We will
24 stay as long as you like.
25 Senator Devin.
433
1 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Well, Mr. Chairman, I
2 guess to get things started, in trying to think this over,
3 I would move that we or ask that staff draft a piece of
4 legislation that would include option 4; that would -- as
5 we've looked at it today and then I guess after we discuss
6 that I would like to also add a couple of the other
7 recommendations to that.
8 But at this point I would move that we consider
9 option 4 for drafting.
10 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Is there a second?
11 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Second.
12 COCHAIR STAFFORD: It has been moved and
13 seconded that we consider option 4 for drafting.
14 Discussion.
15 Senator Scott.
16 SENATOR SCOTT: I want to propose option
17 5. How do you want to do that, a separate motion,
18 amendment to this motion?
19 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Separate motion. We
20 vote on the motion on the floor.
21 SENATOR SCOTT: This is just then a
22 drafting request and there will be another for further
23 drafting?
24 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Correct.
25 Further discussion on the motion on the floor
434
1 consideration of the recommendation 4 option.
2 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Question.
3 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Question being called
4 for.
5 We have a motion and second to have LSO draft
6 recommendation 4 as possible legislation. All in favor
7 signify by saying aye.
8 Opposed, no.
9 The motion is carried.
10 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman.
11 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
12 SENATOR SCOTT: I propose that we ask LDS
13 to draft option 5 as an alternative, and that option would
14 be to fund all of the students full-time vocational
15 equivalent at the 1.26 level, to phase that part of the
16 funding in over a five-year period and to otherwise be
17 consistent with option 4, but realizing you won't need the
18 hold harmless.
19 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Is there a second to
20 that motion?
21 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: Second.
22 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Moved and seconded.
23 Further discussion on the proposed motion.
24 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Mr. Chairman.
25 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Representative McOmie.
435
1 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: I would like to
2 have a fiscal note on that. We have one on 4. I would
3 like to have one on 5.
4 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
5 SENATOR SCOTT: I would think we would
6 need a fiscal note to make sense out of which one we
7 wanted to adopt.
8 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further discussion.
9 Mr. Nelson, do you have a full understanding of
10 the proposed motion --
11 MR. NELSON: I think I do.
12 COCHAIR STAFFORD: -- and what you're
13 proposing to draft?
14 MR. NELSON: As I understand it, it would
15 be a separate approach that would go separate from option
16 4 as a separate matter to consider at the next meeting
17 which would be funded differently as Senator Scott
18 proposed.
19 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott, is
20 that --
21 SENATOR SCOTT: That's correct.
22 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further discussion on
23 that?
24 Senator Sessions.
25 SENATOR SESSIONS: Just a question,
436
1 Mr. Chairman.
2 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Certainly.
3 SENATOR SESSIONS: Will either one of
4 these proposals -- they go into the funding formula or are
5 they going to be outside of the funding formula, the
6 current funding formula?
7 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
8 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, as I
9 understand both proposals, both the one we noted on
10 already and this one, would make it part of the funding
11 formula.
12 COCHAIR STAFFORD: That would be the way I
13 understand it, yes.
14 Further discussion?
15 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Question.
16 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Question being called
17 for.
18 We have the motion and second for option 5.
19 All in favor signify by saying aye.
20 Opposed, no.
21 That motion is carried.
22 Further discussion on any proposed motions or
23 amendments?
24 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Mr. Chairman.
25 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
437
1 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I would like to move that
2 we consider all -- at least with option 4 I would like to
3 see recommendations 2, 3, 4 and 5 added to the draft.
4 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Is there a second to
5 that motion?
6 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Second.
7 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Moved and second that
8 we add recommendations 2, 3, 4 and 5 to option 4.
9 Further discussion?
10 Senator Scott.
11 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, two things,
12 can I ask if the motion could include that they be
13 included in both the two options, 4 and 5?
14 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: That's agreeable.
15 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Agreeable.
16 Yes.
17 SENATOR SCOTT: Could we divide out
18 recommendation 5, the data --
19 COCHAIR STAFFORD: We can divide that up.
20 We will be discussing recommendation 2, 3 and 4,
21 discussion on those adding both -- all three of those
22 recommendations to both drafts.
23 Discussion on that?
24 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Question.
25 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Question called for.
438
1 All signify by saying aye.
2 Opposed, no.
3 Motion carried.
4 Recommendations 2, 3 and 4 will be added.
5 Now recommendation 5, discussion on that, adding
6 that to both draft amendments.
7 Senator Scott.
8 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, speaking
9 mildly against that part of it --
10 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Mildly or wildly?
11 SENATOR SCOTT: Mildly. I am concerned
12 about the additional data burden that we're putting on the
13 system. That is having a cost. It is starting to impinge
14 or our ability to fund classroom activities. I don't know
15 what the cost of this reporting to be. I suspect it would
16 be fairly well hidden in the intricacies of the
17 administrative costs, but we are increasing the
18 administrative burden.
19 And unless we really think we're going to use it
20 for decision-making purposes, and I don't, I think we
21 would be better off without it.
22 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
23 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I guess I would ask the
24 department and perhaps our consultants, is this additional
25 data we don't report now and in what manner would it be
439
1 used to administer these pieces?
2 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Miss Wigert, you care
3 to respond?
4 MS. WIGERT: Mr. Chair and Senator Devin,
5 we have collected that data one time before on a form
6 called WDE 335 where we attempted to get at how expenses
7 had been spent, expenditures had been spent for vocational
8 education. It was an Excel spreadsheet, one page, and
9 that came about as a request from the legislature on what
10 were the expenditures in vocational education. That was
11 at the beginning of this discussion, I believe, in 1998.
12 I would not be able to venture to what degree of
13 difficulty or burden it was on the districts to do that.
14 I would think, though, speaking as an administrator for
15 both federal, and in this case state, funds for vocational
16 education, it would be information we would want to have.
17 We would be looking at it to evaluate whether programs
18 were being improved. As we do in the accreditation
19 cycles, we are looking at program improvement and this
20 would be a piece of information to evaluate whether or not
21 programs were being improved and whether that was being
22 reflected by monies that had been sent that direction.
23 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Gentlemen, do you have
24 any comment on that?
25 DR. HOACKLANDER: Madam Chairman,
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1 Mr. Chairman, I think the issue here is what kind of
2 information you feel you need to monitor the
3 implementation of this act. And I think one of the big
4 concerns, and you alluded to it this morning, once you put
5 in place the 1.26 weight, you're going to create
6 incentives. Some are good and some may not be so good.
7 And so you want to monitor how districts and
8 schools are responding. There are a couple ways you could
9 do this that might not entail or require additional
10 reporting on spending, which is hard to do. I mean, we
11 don't do program accounting in most school systems. It is
12 not easy to do. You need to monitor class size. If you
13 see vocational class size going up, then you know that one
14 of the things that's happening is that people aren't using
15 the 1.26 weight to fund additional classes or additional
16 programs, they're just pumping -- they're putting more
17 students into existing classes to get the benefit of the
18 extra weighting. That actually has the effect of reducing
19 the cost of vocational education, freeing resources for
20 other purposes.
21 So if you're concerned at all about whether the
22 additional money you're providing is, in fact, going
23 largely to vocational education, an alternative to
24 monitoring the spending is to monitor class size.
25 Second thing you need to monitor is what we're
441
1 calling vocational education and the potential to rename
2 courses. And it sounds like you've had some experience
3 with that before, rename existing courses vocational,
4 again to take advantage of the additional weight.
5 I guess, you know, my feeling about it is that
6 if you are concerned that the expenditure reporting
7 creates too large a burden, then it seems to me at an
8 absolute minimum you have to monitor probably on an annual
9 basis or, you know, reasonably frequently what is going on
10 with respect to class size and the way vocational
11 education courses are being defined at the high school
12 level.
13 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Mr. Chairman.
14 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
15 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Mr. Chairman, I guess
16 based on those answers I would like to leave it in
17 drafting at this point or put it in the draft at this
18 point. And I would certainly be open to the department
19 and/or our consultants bringing any suggestions on how we
20 might refine that to being absolutely useful data and
21 minimal in its additional selection, if there's data we
22 already collect we can get a piece of this from.
23 But I guess I would at least -- if it is in the
24 draft we will take another look at it. We can delete it,
25 leave it or modify it. So I would ask that we still
442
1 consider placing it in the draft.
2 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further discussion?
3 Representative Lockhart.
4 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: Mr. Chairman,
5 recall that we amended the finance bill to put additional
6 auditing responsibilities in the area of school formula
7 funding and maybe that's where this should shake out. I'm
8 not against looking at a draft on this, but I think
9 overall we may want to get some overall instruction for
10 that auditing function because this is just one of many of
11 the issues that we want to look at. And that might be a
12 better place for it. And maybe the LSO staff can give
13 that a little thought as they work towards our next
14 meeting.
15 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
16 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, I think
17 Senator Devin makes a good point, if we put this in the
18 draft, we can look at it, especially if it is in the draft
19 in such a way it is amendable one way or the other. I do
20 think we need to start being very careful to restrict our
21 reporting of what we're actually going to use.
22 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further discussion?
23 Talking about recommendation 5, adding it to the
24 two drafts.
25 Senator Sessions.
443
1 SENATOR SESSIONS: Just a short comment,
2 and the data -- the work that the Data Facilitation
3 Committee has done, that and the advisory committee that
4 the State has, I think between those two, they're
5 designing common definitions and that kind of a thing, and
6 so I would like to see it stay in so we can discuss it
7 further because I think that may be the solution to it.
8 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further discussion?
9 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Question.
10 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Question called for.
11 We're voting on adding recommendation 5 to two drafts.
12 All in favor signify by saying aye.
13 Opposed, no.
14 Motion is carried.
15 Further discussion on this subject?
16 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman.
17 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
18 SENATOR SCOTT: Throw one thing out for
19 the committee to consider and think about. As you know,
20 I'm chairman of the health committee and as you look at
21 the health vocational track, if you are going on in that
22 area, hard science courses in chemistry and particularly
23 anatomy and physiology are useful. Whether your goal is
24 to become a CNA or whether your goal is to go all the way
25 to medical school, almost any of the careers, those things
444
1 are useful. They cost more, if done right. They're
2 smaller class size. They're both vocational and academic.
3 How do we handle courses like that? And that's
4 something I think we're going to have to wrestle with over
5 time, especially once we put incentives in.
6 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further comments,
7 discussion?
8 Seeing none, thank you, gentlemen.
9 Thank you, Teri. Appreciate your input.
10 Okay, Committee, we will move on to the next
11 item on the agenda and that concerns Dr. Zax who will be
12 dealing with the certified staff compensation component.
13 If you recall, we contracted with Dr. Zax to
14 take care of this issue for us, so -- it has wheels. Has
15 it got a motor in it?
16 DR. ZAX: Not yet.
17 COCHAIR STAFFORD: It is all yours,
18 Dr. Zax.
19 DR. ZAX: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm
20 very happy to be here. Looking at the expertise here, I'm
21 actually flattered to be here, flattered that anyone
22 thinks I have anything to contribute. I'm also a little
23 afraid that I don't. I imagine either way that I'll hear
24 from you.
25 I am eager to receive your comments and I
445
1 welcome questions during the course of this presentation,
2 either with regard to substance or with regard to speeding
3 me up. Let me know what you need from me and I'll do
4 whatever I can to comply.
5 My assignment, as I understand it, is to review
6 the accumulated record regarding compensation of academic
7 faculty and academic staff in the Wyoming public school
8 system.
9 I want to begin with a couple of caveats.
10 First, I don't have anything, at least nothing useful, to
11 say about the legal obligations that the state
12 constitution and the state statutes impose upon the state
13 government. That's not where my expertise is.
14 Secondly, I haven't made any attempt to verify
15 any of the underlying data or any of the underlying
16 calculations. I'm simply giving you my expert opinion,
17 such as it is, regarding the documents that have already
18 been presented about what is going on in the public school
19 system here.
20 I would like to begin with a couple of cautions.
21 First, I've noticed in the record a couple of times this
22 word "best" going around and it is a very good word, a
23 word we should all enjoy using but use with care and
24 respect. And I mean it in the following sense. I'm
25 prepared to believe that almost everyone engaged in the
446
1 enterprise of Wyoming education is about the best that the
2 available money can buy.
3 I don't believe any of us, certainly myself, is
4 the best that any money can buy. So I guess what I'm
5 concerned about here is whether we're talking about the
6 best with limits or without. If we're talking about the
7 best without limits, we can end this session right now.
8 The answer is simple: If you want the best without
9 limits, you spend without limits.
10 It gets a little more complicated in the
11 following sense, in that the corollary is you raise all of
12 the salaries by ten, a hundred, whatever factor you want
13 and you get rid of everybody who is not acknowledged to be
14 the very best the world can offer. If that's the endeavor
15 we're engaged in, you don't need me.
16 I am going to continue on the theory that we're
17 engaged in something else and maybe I can be helpful.
18 That's the first caution.
19 The second caution has to do with student
20 outcomes, and I guess I was surprised in one sense and not
21 surprised in another sense in that the record has very
22 little to say about student outcomes. I'm not surprised
23 because I know how difficult that is to grapple with. I
24 am surprised because, again, it is very hard to chart your
25 way into the future without your eye on the ball.
447
1 The ball here in some sense has got to be what's
2 happening to the students. If you're not recording that
3 somehow, then knowing where you want to go is a difficult
4 thing. And here I feel like I need to engage in a little
5 bit of truth in advertising. As you probably know, I'm a
6 teacher myself. I'm actually a well-decorated teacher, at
7 least by the standards of university economics. You're
8 free to judge for yourself what that may actually mean.
9 As a consequence of that I have fairly strong views about
10 the quality of teaching.
11 So, first, I believe that teachers can do things
12 to be more effective.
13 Secondly, I believe that the effectiveness of
14 what teachers do can be responsibly measured.
15 Third, I don't believe we do responsibly measure
16 it and fear that we don't have the will to do so. That's
17 a problem.
18 Secondly, with regard to incentives, I actually
19 believe that money can be spent in such a way to encourage
20 teachers to do what is more effective. I don't,
21 unfortunately, believe that we're very successful at doing
22 that.
23 And third, I don't know for sure that we even
24 know how to begin doing that.
25 So my perspective on these matters needs to be
448
1 kept in mind, I suppose, as you evaluate the relevance or
2 otherwise of my comments.
3 The other thing I want to say by way of preamble
4 is to make some quick distinctions or to identify some
5 quick distinctions, if there are deficits that afflict all
6 schools in the system, be then a natural response to that
7 is to give them all more resources. If there are deficits
8 that disproportionately affect some schools, then the
9 appropriate response is not to give all schools more
10 resources. In many cases strategy like that won't improve
11 things, it might even exacerbate the inequalities. If
12 there are inequalities among school districts, the right
13 approach to that is to reallocate available resources.
14 So with those by way of preamble, what do I
15 think about what I've learned? Let's begin here. Is
16 there an aggregate shortage of teachers in the Wyoming
17 public schools? The short answer to that is no. The
18 longer answer to that is case not proven certainly.
19 Why do I say that? Well, let's have a quick
20 look at the numbers. These are pieced together from all
21 of the sources that were at my disposal. What we see from
22 them -- I'm sorry. Whatever my distinction as a teacher
23 may be, I still am not very adept at handling these
24 overheads.
25 So from the record, near as I can tell, we see
449
1 total enrollment in the Wyoming public schools declining
2 in a fairly consistent and noteworthy fashion over the
3 last seven or eight years. I'm sure you know these
4 numbers better than I. What do we see with the number of
5 teachers in the second column? It is going up? Students
6 going down, teachers going up: No shortage. That's the
7 simple answer.
8 Student/teacher ratio you can see in the third
9 column has dropped fairly dramatically. Not very
10 precisely but from '94 to 2000 the drop is on the order of
11 16 to 17 percent. That's a big number. Again, the short
12 answer is no shortage unless, unless you can say something
13 about how even with the current student/teacher ratio your
14 student outcomes are not satisfactory.
15 If you could say that, then perhaps you might
16 want to again reconsider whether or not you need more
17 teachers.
18 Now, what evidence is in the record regarding
19 this issue? It is meager.
20 First, it is clear that the student/teacher
21 ratio as measured here is low relative to what it is in
22 the surrounding states, and that is at least indicative
23 that you're not falling behind.
24 With respect to the real question, though, which
25 is what is happening with student outcomes, the record is
450
1 skimpy but here's what we've got. These are average test
2 scores for the state. And what is the quick message from
3 this table? Once again you can see over time average test
4 levels have essentially stagnated since 1990.
5 I understand from the documents that the 1990
6 score is calculated slightly a different way and may not
7 be comparable to the other scores. Fine, leave 1990 out.
8 Read the rest of the record and you see that average
9 scores aren't changing. Student/teacher ratio has dropped
10 by 15 percent.
11 If you think of the reduced reduction in the
12 student/teacher ratio as an investment that you're paying
13 for and you think of the average scores here as the
14 return, you got to say what? Well, you caught the stock
15 market slump about five years early. In other words, over
16 this period of time you've essentially got no return on
17 that investment. And many of us are now in that situation
18 with our financial investments as well, but at least we
19 had the exhilaration through '98 or 2000 to believe we
20 were actually accomplishing something. It is not here in
21 these numbers.
22 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: You're saying
23 student/teacher ratio. Are you only including classroom
24 teachers or are you including the other professionals in
25 the system? Because that's an ongoing discussion.
451
1 DR. ZAX: I can imagine that it is, and to
2 be very frank about this, I took these numbers directly
3 out of the source here which is the document by Wolkoff
4 and Podgursky presented to you by MAP, so I don't recall
5 the precise definition of what the numbers are, but those
6 are the numbers I'm using.
7 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: Mr. Chairman, from
8 what I recall, that number includes other professionals
9 within the system, so I think we need to keep in mind that
10 you might call it a professional/student ratio but it is
11 not really a teacher/student ratio, as I recall.
12 DR. ZAX: I will note that.
13 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott --
14 Senator Goodenough.
15 Okay.
16 DR. ZAX: Thank you. I will do what I can
17 to address that issue.
18 The other thing I should say is that what do I
19 think of the evidence in this table? This is really weak
20 evidence. First, the test scores -- are test scores all
21 there is? Certainly not. I can tell you myself that you
22 may know the state of Colorado has gone through a fairly
23 rigorous testing system in its public schools and my kids
24 go to private school.
25 Why? There are many reasons, but one of them as
452
1 a teacher I don't think those tests are -- I think the
2 tests are a simple first cut at evaluation, but I don't
3 think they're anything like an adequate evaluation and I
4 don't want my children to be subjected to that education.
5 I like what they're getting in a much richer and
6 multi-dimensional environment much better.
7 So would you ask me to stand against anybody
8 with these numbers? Absolutely not.
9 On the other hand, are they the only numbers I
10 have? Yes. That's my reading of the record. So that's,
11 unfortunately, as far as I can see the record taking us as
12 it currently stands.
13 Now, there are a couple subtleties in this.
14 One, for example, is -- I should say at the same time as I
15 understand it, these numbers actually aren't out of line
16 with what the -- I guess more sophisticated research on
17 this topic shows. The academics who study the
18 effectiveness of school systems have a difficult time
19 apparently finding that increased teachers per student
20 actually has measurable impacts on outcomes. That should
21 be disturbing to all of us, but at some deeper level. But
22 at a sort of superficial level it is consistent with what
23 we're seeing here.
24 There does appear to be some evidence that
25 increasing the teacher to student ratio, reducing the
453
1 student/teacher ratio can have a significant impact on
2 students who are at risk or who have deficits in their --
3 or English language proficiency.
4 So there might be an argument that even though
5 teacher counts are going up and student counts are going
6 down, you might still need more teachers to deal with
7 those specifically at-risk children.
8 What is my problem?
9 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: You need a woman to
10 help you.
11 DR. ZAX: It is clear I need help, but if
12 I could have a woman that would be great, but I'm not that
13 picky at this stage.
14 Are there students at risk in the Wyoming
15 system? Apparently. This table you can see comes from, I
16 think, Jim Smith's document. But here is a count of the
17 number of at-risk students as proxied by those getting
18 free or reduced lunch and the percentage of students who
19 have limited English proficiency.
20 They exist in Wyoming, there's no question about
21 that. There might be a case that they need more help than
22 they're currently getting. You should notice first that
23 the proportion of these students is smaller in Wyoming
24 than it is in at least the surrounding states, so even if
25 they have needs that aren't being met, those needs aren't
454
1 likely to be large in comparison to the system as a whole.
2 Secondly, if these particular students have
3 needs that aren't being met, then those needs should be
4 met directly and reducing the overall student/teacher
5 ratio is by no means a guaranteed way to ensure that these
6 particular students get more teacher attention. If
7 something is going to be done for them, it ought to be
8 done in such a way that it actually addresses them or
9 actually affects their experience rather than the
10 experiences of all students in general.
11 Let's look at -- as long as we're on this
12 subject, let's look at some of the pieces of staff hiring
13 and staff numbers. So first, what about vacancy rates?
14 There's some concern about that in the documents as I read
15 them.
16 Here's the evidence as I see it. So we have
17 vacancy rates and teachers by subject. The first column
18 is the vacant positions. The second column is the number
19 of teachers. By any economic standard -- and I should say
20 my specialty is labor economics so I kind of have some
21 basic intuition about this. By any standard the number of
22 vacancies is tiny. In the academic subjects, all of the
23 rows above the last two.
24 So excepting student support services and school
25 building administration, there are 34 vacancies and by my
455
1 count 7,195 teachers in that table. That means the
2 vacancy rate is less than half a percent. If you think in
3 any enterprise you know of that has 200 employees and only
4 one vacancy, that employer is blessed. By ordinary
5 employment standards these rates are tiny.
6 I don't have the table here but the same
7 document shows that regardless of what type of school you
8 look at -- rural, urban, small, southwest, northwest --
9 the vacancy rates are less than 1 percent in all school
10 types. These are tiny vacancy rates and it is hard to get
11 very excited about it.
12 It is true in the document by Wolkoff and
13 Podgursky there is a statement that approximately 3
14 percent of positions in 2001 were not filled by qualified
15 applicants. It is not clear to me in that document what
16 qualified applicants are. It is pretty clear that they're
17 not talking about positions that are actually empty,
18 they're talking about positions that are filled with
19 somebody. And I suspect that what they're getting at is
20 something to do with the temporary certification issue
21 which I'll come to in a moment.
22 As far as the vacancies are concerned, there
23 aren't very many, and moreover, this will be a constant
24 refrain, a light motif, so to speak. There's no evidence
25 that what vacancies there are is having any consequence
456
1 for student outcomes, good or bad.
2 Now, let's look at this a little more deeply.
3 Where do vacancies come from? Well, they come from the
4 interplay between what we are pleased to call accession
5 and attrition. Attrition is people leaving; accession is
6 people coming. What do we know about them? Well, there
7 is some interesting action on the attrition side.
8 Don't say anything. You especially.
9 There is some action in the attrition side.
10 Overall rates as they're measured have grown from, I
11 guess, in the 8 percent range, 7 percent range, up to 11
12 percent over the last six, seven years, something like
13 that.
14 And I guess it is -- it seems to be it is more
15 speculating as to what is going on there. Some is
16 interdistrict moves. Those have increased from about .8
17 percent to about 1.4 percent of the work force between
18 1994 and 1999. Is that a problem? Well, it might be, but
19 think back to the second slide, what kind of problem is
20 it? Interdistrict moves do not mean the whole system
21 needs something. Interdistrict moves, if they're a
22 problem, mean that some districts are suffering relative
23 to others and you might want to find a way to reallocate
24 so the losing districts lose less frequently to the
25 winning districts. Different kind of matter.
457
1 What concerns me more, though, are what are
2 called state quits, and this, my understanding is,
3 indicates the percentage of the work force that actually
4 leaves teaching in the state of Wyoming. That number has
5 increased from 6.3 percent to 9.4 percent of the work
6 force, again from 1994 to '99, with, as I recall, a fairly
7 substantial increase in the last year.
8 Those look like bigger numbers and the growth
9 looks pretty impressive and it would be worthwhile to
10 investigate that further. A natural hypothesis would be
11 that that occurred in a time in which the economy were
12 booming, teachers finding better jobs elsewhere.
13 And a very simple test of that hypothesis would
14 be to see what has happened to what are called state quits
15 in the last two years when the economy hasn't been good.
16 If those numbers are in the 7 to 8 percent range, what you
17 have is a cyclical problem for the moment and one that
18 would even itself out over the course of the business
19 cycle for the most part and not necessarily one that
20 requires any immediate attention.
21 That's worth thinking about.
22 With regard to the detail of where the state
23 quits are going, there's two places they can go. They can
24 leave teaching altogether and the other is they can go
25 someplace else to teach. And we have some correspondence
458
1 to that in moves out of state and retirements.
2 What do we know about moves out of the state?
3 That story is a little unclear to me. Wolkoff and
4 Podgursky, they have a table which shows there are no more
5 than 37 teachers in the whole system moving out of state
6 in any one year. Is that a big number? Again, less than
7 half a percentage point. It is not a big number. That
8 number looks like idiosyncratic moves and looks all the
9 more idiosyncratic in that they demonstrate when they move
10 elsewhere, they get paid less. They're not moving for the
11 money, and if you paid them more here you would get them,
12 something is moving them and there aren't that many of
13 them.
14 The document A Call to Action has the claim that
15 as many as 190 people left the Wyoming system for teaching
16 jobs in other states in 2001. This number is about five
17 or six times bigger than the Wolkoff and Podgursky numbers
18 and it gets your attention in a slightly different way. I
19 don't know how to verify that, and I don't know where they
20 got that number from, so I don't know what to make of it.
21 It would perhaps be useful to chase that number down a
22 little harder and see if it is believable, and if so, why
23 it is so different from the others and what it implies.
24 But at the same time, it should be said that
25 neither number takes into account the flow of teachers
459
1 from other states back into Wyoming. And according to
2 Wolkoff and Podgursky, that number is approximately of the
3 same order of magnitude; in other words, people who are
4 leaving are essentially being replaced by people coming
5 back. That issue is not addressed in A Call to Action and
6 so it is quite possible that movements out of state and
7 back into the state are a wash, they're not affecting the
8 overall level of teacher availability at all.
9 What about retirement? Well, that's an
10 interesting issue as well. It is pretty clear that the
11 teacher rate distribution is shifting to the right, as we
12 say in the business. What that means is that the average
13 age is getting older and the proportions of faculty at
14 older ages is increasing. It is moving to the right at a
15 fairly slow pace. I think the average increased by about
16 2 years over the course of the last 10 or 12.
17 What does that mean regarding the retirement?
18 Well, that -- that's a little bit harder to pin down.
19 There's nothing formal in the record that actually gives
20 retirement rates, that actually talks about the rate of
21 retirement on those who are retirement eligible. And,
22 therefore, it is actually hard to know what the aging --
23 rather, it is hard to know directly what the aging of the
24 teaching staff actually means for the retirements that
25 you're likely to be facing in the future.
460
1 I do have a couple of inferences to be drawn,
2 however, except I've skipped that page in my notes. Just
3 a moment. In order to avoid misleading you, let me find
4 where my notes are.
5 By my reading of the evidence, approximately one
6 and a half percent of the teachers in 1999 were greater
7 than 60 years of age. Only 109. And that is a much, much
8 smaller group than those aged 55 to 59. In other words,
9 that suggests that people who retire at age 60 retire at a
10 pretty high rate. Very few of them hold on beyond that.
11 Moreover -- and this is all coming from tables
12 in the appendix to the document presented by Reichardt --
13 moreover, of that group that were 60 years of age or older
14 in 1999, 40 of them quit, so what's the inference there?
15 The inference is that people do not stay past 60 for the
16 most part, and if they do, they hardly stay past 61 or 62.
17 In other words, when people get -- the best inference I
18 can draw is that once people are retirement eligible, they
19 go.
20 So, then the question is do you want to do
21 something about that? Well, I'll talk about that again a
22 little bit later in my presentation, but the first thing I
23 will say is that there is actually no evidence that I'm
24 aware of that retirement eligible teachers are more
25 effective with their students than are the younger
461
1 teachers who would replace them. And in the absence of
2 evidence to that effect, it is not immediately apparent to
3 me that you would want to rush to stave off any impending
4 retirements that you might be concerned about.
5 So that's the attrition side of the staffing
6 levels. That is, who is leaving. Let's talk about who is
7 coming, again, what we're pleased to call accession.
8 I guess the first question we want to address
9 here is has recruiting gotten more difficult? What do we
10 know about that? Well, the MAP documentation indicates
11 that 79.3 percent of vacancies in competing states were
12 filled by qualified applicants in the year they were
13 examining. 70.8 percent of Wyoming vacancies were filled
14 by qualified applicants.
15 Those numbers were close enough together you
16 really couldn't tell them apart from any scientific sense.
17 I have a little theory as to why they're different, that
18 is because in Wyoming the student/teacher ratios have
19 dropped so much and because the student numbers are
20 declining and teacher numbers increasing, maybe there
21 wasn't that much urgency to fill some of these vacancies
22 in Wyoming and that's why the rate at which they were
23 filled is somewhat lower, although not significantly so.
24 My suspicions about that are strengthened by the
25 following table from the MAP document, and there may be
462
1 some confusion associated with this because the original
2 MAP document interpreted this -- there was a misprint in
3 the interpretation of this table and that misprint I know
4 found its way into at least one of the other documents I
5 read, so I hope I'm interpreting it correctly. I know I
6 did verify this with Jim Smith and perhaps he'll correct
7 me again.
8 The statement as it should read in the MAP
9 document is the following: Wyoming administrators were
10 more likely to agree that starting and experienced pay was
11 competitive and they were less likely to agree it was more
12 difficult to hire teachers than five years ago in
13 comparison to the answers from administrators in competing
14 states.
15 So the problem is the original document said
16 less where it was supposed to say more and said more where
17 it was supposed to say less, so it was possible to get
18 things wrong.
19 But when you look at this, as I understand it,
20 the way answers were scored was higher numbers indicated
21 greater agreement. So what we have here is the average
22 score on the -- the average response to starting
23 compensation is competitive was higher for Wyoming
24 administrators than it was for everybody else, which means
25 the Wyoming administrators were more likely to agree
463
1 starting compensation was competitive.
2 Similarly, their answer -- the Wyoming answers
3 to experienced compensation is competitive were higher
4 than were the others, and that again means they were more
5 likely to agree.
6 And lastly, the Wyoming answers to -- Wyoming
7 responses to the statement it is more difficult to hire
8 than it was five years ago were less than the competing --
9 administrators in competing states, and that indicates the
10 Wyoming administrators were less likely to agree with
11 this.
12 So, once again, this somewhat strengthens my
13 suspicion that the urgency to hire has not been quite as
14 high in Wyoming as it has been in the adjoining states.
15 And I have to say this is going to perhaps be somewhat
16 surprising, but there's a fair amount of discussion in the
17 documentation about what's happened with University of
18 Wyoming teaching graduates and who is attending the
19 interview days and the recruiting fairs and so forth.
20 My reading of that evidence is I think somewhat
21 different from the way it has been presented so far, and
22 it is the following: For example, according to A Call to
23 Action --
24 (Discussion held.)
25 DR. ZAX: With regard to the interview
464
1 days, A Call to Action, as I said, indicates that 21 of
2 the Wyoming school districts attended the University of
3 Wyoming Interview Day in the spring and over -- 2001 and
4 over the term 1997 to 2001, the average number of
5 districts in attendance at the University of Wyoming
6 Interview Day was about 22.
7 I guess the way I think of that is by my count
8 there are 48 districts overall; in other words, typically
9 26 or 27 Wyoming districts do not even bother to show up
10 at the University of Wyoming Interview Day, their own home
11 state, home school. That to me suggests that, again, the
12 urgency on their part to hire is somewhat limited.
13 Presumably if they were desperate for additional bodies,
14 the first place they would look would be the University of
15 Wyoming. If they're not looking there, that suggests to
16 me that they're not all that -- that they're not all that
17 compelled.
18 It is true that out-of-state representation at
19 these interview days appears to have increased pretty
20 dramatically. There are districts from many states in
21 this half of the country showing up.
22 The question is what impact does that have? And
23 again, the record, while it is clear on the number of
24 districts from outside of the state that are appearing,
25 has almost nothing to say about the number of Wyoming
465
1 graduates actually being attracted to those places.
2 There is some evidence in the MAP document that
3 suggests that there are only a small number of UW
4 graduates who actually go to teach abroad, so to speak,
5 and there is absolutely no evidence anywhere that I can
6 see about the number of Wyoming graduates who turn down
7 offers in Wyoming in order to go to teaching jobs in other
8 states.
9 It seems to me if the claim is going to be made
10 that in a sense other states are now poaching on your
11 homegrown teaching staff, that claim needs to be
12 buttressed by something more than just the count of
13 Californians who appear here for that weekend. For all
14 you know they're taking a free weekend on their boss in
15 beautiful, you know, lovely Wyoming. Until there's
16 evidence that they're actually taking teacher candidates
17 that you would rather have stay here, I don't find the
18 count of districts appearing here from California to be
19 very interesting or, for that matter, the evidence
20 regarding what they're paying. So that's what I have to
21 say about hiring.
22 What about -- what about temporary
23 certifications? Here again, as with the quits, quit
24 rates, temporary certifications are clearly increasing in
25 frequency in the state of Wyoming. They are lower than
466
1 the national average, apparently, which implies that
2 Wyoming is still somewhat more successful at recruiting
3 fully credentialed teachers than districts in some other
4 states, many other states, but I think the real issue here
5 is that the available documentation doesn't say enough
6 about the composition of these temporary certifications.
7 So, for example, these temporary certifications
8 would be a matter of great concern if the teachers
9 involved were in that status semipermanently. That is, if
10 districts are using this as a way to hire inferior,
11 unqualified staff and keep them forever in this
12 temporary -- in this transitory or temporary
13 classification, that's got to be a bad thing.
14 If these temporary certifications are an attempt
15 to circumvent the state's certification requirements,
16 that's clearly a bad thing. The certification
17 requirements were presumably motivated by some valid
18 intent and you wouldn't want districts to be
19 systematically and increasingly subverting that intent.
20 However, these temporary certifications would
21 not be a matter of concern if they were regularly being
22 used in order to redirect teachers or potential teachers
23 into fields with excess demand; that is, fields in which
24 there was identifiable shortage of qualified teachers.
25 In this case, if what we're seeing in these
467
1 temporary certifications is teachers who are switching
2 from fields where they're plentiful to fields where
3 they're not, or we're seeing professionals from outside of
4 teaching coming into teaching in order to bring their
5 expertise to bear on these particular subjects -- if
6 that's what is going on, these temporary certifications
7 are actually a sign that the system is working. There's
8 an imbalance, a shortage in some well-defined areas and
9 the temporary certification is being employed to help
10 remedy that.
11 What's the truth? I don't know. There's
12 nothing in the documentation which talks about, for
13 example, how long individual teachers stay in the
14 temporary certification status. There's no -- not very
15 much about where they're coming from. To the extent there
16 is something about where they're coming to, it is hopeful.
17 It does appear that the temporary certifications are most
18 plentiful or most numerous in the fields, specific fields
19 where staff seems to be hardest to come by and that,
20 absent any other information, that's a hopeful sign. So
21 that's what I have to say about numbers of teachers.
22 Then the other half of the budgetary question is
23 regardless of what you may think -- regardless is the
24 wrong word there. Given the evidence, is there a need to
25 pay teachers more?
468
1 First, with respect to all teachers, there's no
2 evidence that I can see that there is a generalized
3 shortage of teaching staff. If there's no generalized
4 shortage, then there's no reason to pay -- to raise
5 salaries exceptionally in order to remedy a shortage.
6 Secondly, the focus or at least my interest
7 ultimately is on student performance. We have a fair
8 amount of evidence in the record that salaries in Wyoming
9 have fallen relative to other states over the last 10 or
10 20 years.
11 I see no reason to reject that evidence. The
12 question I want to ask, though, is what is the
13 consequence? Here again I'm puzzled by the evidence and
14 dismayed that it is so scanty, but it is the evidence as
15 it presents itself to us, and what do we learn from it?
16 Well, the first three columns here will be
17 familiar to you. They are, once again, this very sparse
18 collection of information regarding average test scores.
19 The fourth column is average salaries in Wyoming. The
20 fifth and sixth columns are various rankings of Wyoming
21 salaries relative to those in other states. And the fifth
22 and sixth columns show unambiguously that relative to
23 other states salaries in Wyoming have declined. Unless
24 this data is wrong, that conclusion seems impossible to
25 deny.
469
1 The question you might then ask, though, is what
2 is the consequence. And looking back at the first three
3 columns, once again you see that regardless of the rank --
4 when Wyoming was highly ranked test scores looked similar
5 to what they do today when Wyoming is lowly ranked. And
6 over the period of '94 to 2000 when average salaries did
7 grow by approximately 10 percent, what happened to test
8 scores? Essentially nothing.
9 So there's no evidence here, unfortunately, that
10 the relative ranking of teacher salaries in Wyoming has
11 any impact at all on student outcomes in Wyoming, nor, for
12 that matter, is there any evidence that the level of
13 salaries has any impact on student outcomes.
14 Once again, do I like this evidence? No. If a
15 student -- if a senior at the University of Colorado
16 presented this table to me as the centerpiece of his
17 senior thesis, he would fail. Do you want to make policy
18 based on stuff that isn't acceptable as a senior thesis?
19 I guess I would be nervous.
20 On the other hand, it is all I've got and near
21 as I can tell it is all you've got as well. If there's no
22 evidence that we should be paying all teachers more, is
23 there any reason to think that maybe we should be paying
24 some teachers more? Here I think there may be something
25 more of a case.
470
1 As of yet I have not seen evidence that new
2 teachers are avoiding employment in the Wyoming public
3 schools because the salaries are too low. I don't see any
4 difficulty, on the evidence that I have, that with respect
5 to hiring new teachers, so I don't see any reason to
6 deviate substantially from the existing trend in
7 compensation for new teachers.
8 Similarly, with continuing teachers I don't see
9 much evidence with the exception of I'm still not sure
10 what the state -- the increase in the state quit rate
11 actually means. But apart from that I don't see much
12 evidence that there's difficulty retaining continuing
13 teachers, and so, once again, I don't see that there is a
14 compulsion to deviate from the existing trends in their
15 compensation.
16 With respect to teachers nearing retirement,
17 well, I do see that there does seem to be a larger cohort
18 that is approaching that threshold than there has been in
19 the past. It does seem to me that teachers who reach the
20 retirement threshold in Wyoming do seem to retire at a
21 fairly rapid rate and that does suggest you can expect
22 fairly high rates of attrition through retirement in the
23 coming years.
24 The question is should you do anything about it?
25 And the first point I've already made, the -- scuttling
471
1 the evidence regarding teacher effectiveness does not
2 necessarily demonstrate that teachers at the end of their
3 career are noticeably more effective than teachers
4 relatively close to the beginning of their career. If
5 that's true and if teachers near retirement are getting
6 paid a lot more than new teachers, it is actually not in
7 your interests to go out of your way to retain teachers
8 who would otherwise retire.
9 Secondly, even if you do want to retain them,
10 they're going to be expensive. Why? Because they can
11 retire at age 60 or whenever they become eligible with a
12 full pension and go somewhere else to teach or take
13 another job.
14 In other words, they're going to get a working
15 salary plus the pension. If you want them to stay in
16 teaching, you've got to pay them enough to make that look
17 better. You may not have to match the whole package
18 because they're already teaching, already here, have
19 inertia, maybe they don't really want to move. You don't
20 have to match the whole package, but you will have to
21 obviously do something to make up the pension payments
22 they would otherwise lose.
23 That is going to be very, very costly, and the
24 question as to whether or not the returns to that
25 investment are worthwhile has to be addressed very, very
472
1 carefully before it makes sense to embark on that kind of
2 expenditure.
3 So is there anyplace where I might advocate
4 paying more? And the answer is yes, in fields where there
5 still appears to be excess demand. On the basis of the
6 record as it comes to me, it does seem to me as if it is
7 more difficult to staff middle school teachers, principals
8 are in somewhat shorter supply, mathematics and special
9 education, those are all fields in which vacancies seem to
10 be a little higher, temporary certifications seem to be
11 more frequent.
12 And in those cases a natural response would be
13 to offer incentives for people to enter into those fields.
14 That's the natural solution, and it is quite possible that
15 something similar to that is already taking place. You
16 all know, as I do, that you may have all sorts of rules
17 about who gets paid what, but when you have a job that
18 needs to be filled and you can't get anyone to do it, you
19 find a way to make that job more attractive. You offer
20 additional benefits no one knows about or you bring them
21 in at the third step on the scale when officially they
22 should be on the first step, an easier teaching load.
23 There's all sorts of ways to make the positions more
24 attractive even if nominally you're not allowed to pay
25 more.
473
1 My guess is if you look carefully at where
2 mathematics and special education teachers are being hired
3 in the districts in Wyoming, you would probably find that
4 those deals are being sweetened in ways that deals for
5 social studies and English teachers are not being
6 sweetened. It is a speculation, but one I'm fairly
7 confident in.
8 If there's an argument for deviating from the
9 current trends in compensation, it seems to me that
10 argument is most forceful with respect to teachers and
11 other staff in those few fields where there are clearer
12 signs of difficulty in recruiting.
13 So that's a quick summary of the conclusions I
14 draw.
15 I guess I want to finish with two observations,
16 one of which I've lost, so I'm sure I'm not going to get
17 it right, but let me try.
18 So my conclusions so far are that there is no
19 evidence that student outcomes are suffering under the
20 current trends. Therefore, there is no evidence that
21 student outcomes would improve under the suggested -- in
22 addition, there is no evidence that student outcomes would
23 improve under the suggested alternatives.
24 To my mind, this does not present a strong case
25 against deviating from the current trends; however, I
474
1 personally would dearly love to see much stronger evidence
2 regarding the consequences of any of the alternatives on
3 student outcomes and that would, I think, give us all a
4 much clearer path into the future.
5 With that in mind, what kind of things might we
6 like to know in order to go forward? I'm sure there's
7 nothing here that surprises you at this point. Outcome,
8 outcome, outcome. I believe that outcomes are measurable
9 and I believe they need to be measured in order to guide
10 us.
11 I listened with interest to the discussion at
12 the end of the previous session on vocational education,
13 about the reporting burden you might be imposing on
14 districts. Certainly measuring carefully, measuring
15 appropriately is costly. But if you want it, you should
16 pay for it. And if you're not willing to pay for it,
17 you're not going to get it. And if you don't get it,
18 you're going to have an awful hard time trying to decide
19 what is better than -- what is better among the options
20 that confront you. So I think -- I personally recommend
21 much greater attention to student outcomes.
22 As a secondary matter, with respect to turnover,
23 as I said, I think there are a couple puzzles unresolved
24 in the documents as I see them. One is why the state quit
25 rate has increased and whether with the recession it has
475
1 gone back down;
2 And the second is whether there is actually a
3 trend of University of Wyoming teaching graduates
4 declining Wyoming jobs to go elsewhere;
5 And a third is to pin down what the retirement
6 rates actually are among those eligible;
7 And a fourth is to actually examine the
8 composition and longevity of the uncertified teaching
9 staff to verify, hopefully, that those are teachers who
10 are moving into underserved areas rather than teachers who
11 are being parked in secondary -- in unqualified positions;
12 And lastly, I think it would be interesting to
13 think more critically about what -- how changes in
14 compensation might alter the behavior of the staff of the
15 Wyoming public schools.
16 First, whether it is possible to come up with
17 affordable incentive that would actually deter retirement
18 is an open question. I would love to see someone think
19 about that a little harder.
20 Second, what kinds of incentives would be
21 necessary to increase the supply of staff to fields that
22 are experiencing more difficulty in filling positions.
23 And lastly, in some utopia that I don't expect
24 to see in my lifetime, what actually can be done in order
25 to reward teachers for doing a better job and providing a
476
1 better education to your students and those everywhere.
2 Well, thank you for your indulgence and thank
3 you for your attention. And I guess I --
4 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Thank you, Dr. Zax.
5 Senator Scott.
6 SENATOR SCOTT: Several questions. First,
7 are you familiar with the WyCAS test and its results?
8 DR. ZAX: No, it did not appear in the
9 documents that I was given to examine. Sorry about that.
10 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, I think
11 that's a key point. Trying to base things on outcomes and
12 he didn't have access to the key outcome measure that
13 we're using, Mr. Chairman, that gives me great concern. I
14 don't know who hired the gentleman and set his parameters.
15 It wasn't this committee because I don't recall the
16 committee ever being consulted on this.
17 But you don't have access to the key
18 information, how can you make a full analysis?
19 Second, let me ask, as you look at outcome
20 measures, how rapidly is a difference in the ability to
21 hire teachers going to show up in student performance?
22 Students in the system for K-12, 13 years, the majority of
23 the teachers, the nature of things is they were hired
24 years ago and were kept here largely by inertia.
25 Is it not going to be quite difficult to
477
1 associate what you spend on paying teachers so you can
2 hire better ones with the outcomes because of the
3 timelines involved?
4 DR. ZAX: Thank you very much for those
5 questions. Two responses: The -- I guess I didn't
6 provide you with a list of documents that I reviewed. My
7 sense was that they were more or less complete list of the
8 documents that have been floating about in the policy
9 debate.
10 There were, I guess, two documents that came out
11 of MAP. There was a document by Debra Holloway on
12 principals. There was a document by Richard Reichardt and
13 then there was A Call to Action and also a memorandum
14 response to a request for further information from the
15 education association this summer. I have them with me if
16 you want to look at them.
17 I did not set the agenda as to which documents I
18 read. If that set is incomplete, I'm certainly open to
19 reading other things.
20 Secondly, the point you make about the
21 difficulty in identifying when you're -- if you change the
22 composition of who you hire, that change is only very
23 slowly the composition of the overall teaching staff, and
24 therefore, its impact on the students will require some
25 substantial efforts to identify.
478
1 On the other hand, until you identify it you
2 don't know it is there. So on the one hand I agree, it is
3 a demanding task to do so, but until you do it, you don't
4 know. You cannot in response make a claim that what you
5 are doing is having any positive effect.
6 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
7 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I would like to clear up
8 one thing before we go forward on any misconception and
9 that is that Dr. Zax was hired by this committee. His
10 contract was brought to the Sheridan meeting. You
11 reviewed that contract and you asked for comments to be
12 made and for it to be opened and you were told the
13 documents he was presented and you were asked if there was
14 any additional ones. It was open to comment.
15 We left that open for almost a month. We got a
16 few phone calls. Most of those phone calls indicated, oh,
17 well, if he has those documents, we're satisfied. There
18 was one written or two written -- one written comment
19 submitted.
20 And in regard to the request of the scope of his
21 work, it was the certified staff compensation component
22 and we tried to get very fairly every piece and every
23 comment to him.
24 In regard to the outcome issue, WyCAS is
25 singular to the state of Wyoming and it does not give much
479
1 opportunity to compare. It certainly can be given to him,
2 but I don't want anybody to think that it was withheld for
3 any reason nor was there any reason to think that that
4 outcome -- and I would need to go back -- but I don't
5 think we're going to see a significant outcome pattern
6 different in that one. But it certainly can be
7 considered.
8 But there was every attempt to get every piece
9 that anyone wanted to have reviewed to him.
10 SENATOR SCOTT: Madam Chairman, I
11 apologize. I had forgotten about the Sheridan meeting.
12 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Goodenough.
13 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: Mr. Chairman, you
14 mentioned early on in your presentation the assertion that
15 the size of the class does not affect outcomes, exclusive
16 of limited English speaking and I forget the other one.
17 It seems strange to me that we have a situation
18 where we've heard that and I think that probably came from
19 the MAP documents because I think that's the assertion
20 they make, but any classroom teacher, if you ask them if
21 they had two classes, one with 28 and one with 17, and
22 whether or not they could have more impact and teach more
23 to the group of 17 than the group of 28, most every
24 classroom teacher says yes, that's true.
25 But yet we have documentation that seems to say
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1 it is the same, 17, 28, 45. And so it really is confusing
2 to the policy debate, in my mind, that we have these
3 assertions that come from the documents you were given --
4 and I realize you were given the documents -- but yet we
5 have classroom teachers saying the exact opposite.
6 And that's also true with administrators,
7 business agents who tell us about hiring for positions.
8 Where they used to get 30 applicants, now they have 3, and
9 so perhaps, yes, they did fill the position, but you can
10 probably say that if you have a choice amongst 30 people
11 instead of 3, you probably are going to have a higher
12 level of applicants amongst that range.
13 So I guess I would just -- like your general
14 comment on how are we to delve policy decisions out of all
15 of this when we have the people in the field, the
16 professionals saying one thing, and yet there's
17 documentation that seems to say the exact opposite?
18 DR. ZAX: That's an excellent question and
19 it is an issue that troubles me as well. I am also a
20 classroom teacher. I have seen my class sizes over the
21 past 12 years in some of the courses I teach regularly
22 double and that costs me a chapter in the course of a
23 semester. So my own anecdotal experience is also that the
24 class size matters.
25 At the same time, proof by anecdote is not an
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1 acceptable -- is not an acceptable means of argumentation
2 under the scientific tradition that the western world
3 lives in, so we've got to be a little careful about that.
4 It is also true that while the MAP document
5 makes this claim, my independent familiarity with the
6 literature on the economics of education indicates that
7 MAP is by no means unique in making that claim. That does
8 seem to be a fairly general finding. It is quite
9 disturbing and I guess it leaves you with two -- I have
10 two responses to it.
11 One is that those of us, myself included, who
12 believe that student/teacher ratios do matter, we now bear
13 the burden of demonstrating that, and simply stating that
14 it matters or whining that it matters isn't sufficient. I
15 think we haven't borne our burden in a very effective way
16 and it is up to us to bring to bear systematic evidence in
17 something we apparently believe so firmly.
18 Secondly, I do suspect that some of the puzzle
19 has to do with some of the intricacies of assignment. So,
20 for example, if you have classes of different sizes in the
21 same school, just whether or not that happens, let's use
22 that as an example, and you have teachers of different
23 ability, which teacher do you give the big class, the
24 better one, right? So you have the better teachers
25 teaching the bigger classes, the weaker teachers teaching
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1 smaller classes.
2 What happens to outcomes? Average outcomes per
3 student might be the same and so it looks as if the
4 student/teacher ratio doesn't matter. The reason it
5 happens not to matter is because you're not accounting for
6 the quality of the teacher and the only reason the
7 students in the big classes are doing so well is because
8 you've given them a terrific teacher and he or she is
9 bringing the level up to where it is among the students
10 who are gifted with much more of their teacher's
11 attention.
12 I think part of the problem as to why we can't
13 identify this is we haven't had the opportunity to look
14 carefully enough at -- we haven't had the opportunity to
15 control carefully enough for how the quality of teacher
16 differs from class to class. That's just a speculation,
17 though, and until someone actually tries to pin this down
18 I remain troubled, as you do, we cannot find an effect
19 where we think it should be. If you believe it is there
20 and you look and look and look and you still don't find
21 it, at some point you have to entertain the possibility at
22 least that it isn't there. I don't think we're there yet,
23 but it is troubling to me how elusive this has been.
24 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Sessions.
25 SENATOR SESSIONS: Mr. Chairman, I guess
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1 in this whole process -- and I think it has been probably
2 nine years that I've been involved with -- I haven't been
3 as angry as I am right now. Even with Dr. Smith at one
4 point. I will not subject anybody to that anger.
5 One thing I will say, if anybody bothers to read
6 the Supreme Court decision, there is research on class
7 size and it is cited in the last part of the decision. I
8 have stacks of -- I've got it. I could counter
9 three-quarters of what you said about the educational
10 research.
11 On the other hand, I want to just ask one
12 question on this effect of the economy on teachers. Who
13 in their right mind would ever want a teacher in the
14 classroom who if the economy is good can go out and double
15 their salary and then they lose their job and as a backup
16 comes back into teaching and doesn't want to be there? No
17 one in their right mind who has a child in the classroom
18 would want that.
19 You want a teacher in that classroom that is
20 commited to your classroom, no matter what the vagaries of
21 the economy are. You want those people that are committed
22 to following those students, participating in the schools
23 and in the whole culture of the community. You don't want
24 that in-and-out thing based on the economy. That's just
25 plain ludicrous as far as the teacher goes, as somebody
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1 who has spent 31 years in education and probably could
2 have doubled my money somewhere else.
3 But I just -- I think -- I'm not going to say
4 any more because I just think that as someone who has
5 watched people staff schools and have worked with student
6 teachers and tried to preserve programs and deal with all
7 of the things that you do in a school system, it is just
8 ludicrous to then write it down as something like this.
9 And I've read every single one of those reports you
10 quoted.
11 DR. ZAX: Thank you. I agree with you
12 completely that -- rather, my instincts agree with you
13 completely that committed teachers in the classroom are
14 the best way to ensure good student outcomes.
15 I also agree with you that teachers whose
16 attachment to the teaching profession is not deep are
17 unlikely to be committed teachers while they're in the
18 classroom, less likely to be committed teachers while in
19 the classroom. But if commitment is the central issue and
20 I think it is -- my observation is that teachers who
21 remain with the profession are not necessarily all
22 committed to the classroom in the way you or I would like
23 them to be as well.
24 And I think the fundamental issue would be how
25 to ensure commitment among all of them. And if that
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1 involves keeping teachers in the classroom regardless of
2 what the other economic alternatives, I guess I'm open to
3 exploring that. But I also think there are lots of ways
4 for someone to be physically present and emotionally
5 absent, and there's that margin that also needs to be
6 addressed in terms of ensuring that the kids are getting
7 the quality teaching that we would like them to have.
8 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Senator Goodenough.
9 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: Madam Chairman,
10 obviously the nature of the kids going into the system has
11 a lot to do with the outcomes, and so if we have, I don't
12 know, 90,000 students in Wyoming and if every one of those
13 students when they hit the school system had been brought
14 up on Scrabble and cribbage and games where they learned
15 mathematics and reading and spelling, then that would be a
16 lot different than if those kids had spent five years
17 watching TV.
18 And is there any testing done at the very
19 beginning levels to see what sort of material is going
20 into the school system so you could try to figure out how
21 that is changing? Because it seems to me that the
22 beginning knowledge of the student component is changing,
23 and so if that's true, then that's going to change
24 outcomes, I would think.
25 DR. ZAX: I'm not a specialist in this
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1 field. I don't know of evidence such as that as you
2 describe. I think it would be fabulous to have. It is
3 exactly the right way to go. It is possible, for example,
4 that the relative constancy that I showed you in the
5 relative test scores -- it is possible that's a miracle.
6 It is possible that the students coming in now are so
7 inundated with television and all sorts of other
8 distractions that they come in 50, 25 percent less
9 prepared than students ten years ago and the fact that the
10 scores are still the same is miraculous. But the record
11 as presented to me and to you is simply silent on that
12 issue.
13 If I wanted to make the case that the quality of
14 teaching in Wyoming has improved dramatically and needs to
15 be compensated accordingly, the first place I would go to
16 try and quantify exactly the point you raised which is the
17 quality of what we have to work with is less so the value
18 added is greater, value added is the ultimate end of the
19 game here and the only way to get to that is to know what
20 you're starting with, and I don't see that in the record
21 that's available.
22 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
23 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, two other
24 things. With regard to quit rate, your hypothesis was
25 that for the next two years -- you don't have the data --
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1 it would reflect the decline in the economy.
2 I would like to request to the committee and get
3 you to comment on that there's an alternate hypothesis and
4 that is we raised the money for teacher salaries, in fact
5 a lot of that did go into teacher salaries, and we had a
6 significant increase in there, so you would expect to see
7 some decline because we had improved. I suspect that
8 there is a decline that both hypotheses are going to be in
9 play, also especially looking to the future, that the
10 other states are having a financial crisis and they aren't
11 going to be able to do the kind of salary increases for
12 teachers that they had when things were high, wide and
13 handsome, so that will play into it, too. I would like to
14 comment on that.
15 And the second item is with regard to teacher
16 quality. And something I've been troubled with all
17 through this discussion and been unable to get a
18 satisfactory answer to is we all know that there's big
19 variations in teacher quality, but I haven't found any
20 really satisfactory measure of how you measure teacher
21 quality because, obviously, just getting a warm body in
22 the classroom is not as important as getting one that's
23 better than the other people are getting.
24 I have thought about using Master's degrees and
25 some indications like that and I don't see the kind of
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1 evidence I would like to see that that's really effective,
2 so I would like your comments on how do you get at that
3 because it is a difficult problem.
4 DR. ZAX: Two very good points. Let me
5 respond as briefly and effectively as I can.
6 First, with regard to your alternative
7 hypothesis, if the quit rates go down, maybe it is because
8 you're paying more, not because the economy has gone down,
9 the economy has tanked. Very possible.
10 My position is the following: I think we should
11 investigate more what these quit rates mean. If I was
12 told I could only have two numbers, the two numbers I
13 would want would be the aggregate quit rates from last
14 year and this year. And my inferences would be based on
15 them alone.
16 If I had the freedom to look for more, I think
17 distinguishing between the two arguments you just put
18 forward is a valuable exercise that would require more
19 work. If the quit rates are declining because you are
20 paying more, that's good, presumably. You're getting
21 something you want, but demonstrating more than that would
22 require more than those two numbers.
23 Secondly, teacher quality, I absolutely agree
24 with you. Every time someone raises their hand at a
25 parent/faculty meeting in our school and says let's spend,
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1 10 million making this place look like a convention
2 center, I raise my hand and I say a good teacher in a
3 garage will work miracles and a bad teacher in a palace
4 will do a lot of damage. It has to begin with the teacher
5 quality. I absolutely agree.
6 There's no indication to me that the formal
7 certification is a good indicator of what teacher quality
8 is. It is no indication to me that experience is a good
9 indicator of what teacher quality is. It is a much
10 subtler thing and would require a much greater effort to
11 measure.
12 For me to say anything more about how I would go
13 about doing it would take a couple hours, and maybe this
14 is a conversation you and I could have another time. I
15 would love to be involved in that endeavor. I think it is
16 at the heart of the questions raised here. All I can tell
17 you right now is the obvious answers of credentials and so
18 forth are clearly not the right answers or are
19 sufficiently incomplete that they're not very useful.
20 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
21 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Dr. Zax, I have a
22 question for you that is beyond the scope of what you were
23 asked to take a look at for this specific piece, but since
24 you're a labor economist I would kind of like some input.
25 One of the things we know we have is an
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1 extremely -- in our teacher force is an extremely rich
2 benefits package. As a matter of fact, if you look at the
3 fiscal studies out of the Utah legislative fiscal office,
4 we are far and above anybody in our region, looking at
5 about 25 percent or more of our salary range is then
6 additional in benefits.
7 There seems to be no consideration for that rich
8 benefits package when we start to talk about salaries. It
9 is as though it is disregarded, and yet key to the heart
10 of this grant we're funding it. We're funding the
11 employer's share of the retirement, the employee's share
12 of the retirement in most cases. We are funding a full
13 health care package which extends clear to covering all of
14 the families in some school districts. It is better than
15 other business in Wyoming enjoys at all, and yet it
16 doesn't seem to be valued.
17 Is this typical? Is it a poor place to put our
18 money? And can you enlighten us from your knowledge in
19 labor economics the question I'm awkwardly asking?
20 DR. ZAX: I have very strong views on this
21 question and I'm glad to have the opportunity to expound
22 on them at length. You may be less so once you hear me
23 get going on this.
24 I can't really speak to the question of how the
25 policy debate here in the legislature and among your
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1 constituents has gone, but with regard to the larger
2 issue, first you are exactly right that salary is only one
3 piece of the puzzle. And as Senator Sessions and I agree,
4 almost anyone you know, particularly anyone you know who
5 is a good teacher, can multiply their salary once, twice,
6 maybe more in the private sector. So it is clearly not
7 salary that brings people to a particular -- to the
8 teaching profession alone. It is the whole package of the
9 style of work, the level of supervision, the nonwage
10 benefits, the scheduling. That whole package plays a
11 very -- puts the whole thing together.
12 It is why your teachers are teachers. That's
13 why I'm a professor. Everyone in my department could
14 triple their salary if they went to the private sector.
15 We don't want to do that because we like what we're doing
16 better. So you raise an important issue.
17 Second, with respect to nonwage compensation,
18 yes, it is invariably the case that no one receiving
19 nonwage compensation fully appreciates the value of it.
20 That's not specific to Wyoming teachers. No one fully
21 understands how valuable health benefits are.
22 There's good reason for that. One is they don't
23 really see how expensive they are so they don't know what
24 they're giving up to get it. Secondly, of course, they're
25 not making the choice themselves. When you choose for
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1 someone what they're going to get, unless you're very
2 fortunate and very insightful, you're not choosing exactly
3 what they would choose if they had the same money to spend
4 which is one reason they have good reason not to value it
5 quite as highly as you value the expenditure on it. So
6 that's an issue as well.
7 And lastly, and this is here I think a very
8 unfortunate misconception that workers throughout our
9 economy have, throughout the developed world have and it
10 has to do with sort of the peculiarity, you don't even
11 want to know where it comes from, but most people think of
12 benefits as entitlements like it is Social Security
13 disability, it is something that comes to you.
14 That's just wrong. It is part of your
15 compensation package. It is something you earn. So
16 first, you are entitled to it in that sense in that your
17 labor power is what is getting it for you, but it also
18 means that what you get in benefits just like salary ought
19 to depend on how good you are or what you do.
20 And that is a conception that unfortunately our
21 tax system makes almost impossible to convey to people and
22 for a variety of reasons employers are increasingly
23 unsuccessful in understanding it themselves.
24 So yes, what it ultimately amounts to it is not
25 at all uncommon for the value of the benefits to be
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1 discounted by everyone receiving them. And certainly you
2 would want to think about making sure that your employees
3 in any field understand the value of what they're getting,
4 understand what it would cost them to provide it for
5 themselves, and have a realistic view about what that
6 actually means in terms of the returns they're getting for
7 the effort they're putting out in your employment.
8 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Peck.
9 SENATOR PECK: Mr. Chairman, while you're
10 expounding upon related topics would you care to expound
11 upon the pros and cons of merit pay?
12 DR. ZAX: As you can see, there's almost
13 nothing you can't get me to talk about. I guess the
14 question is how much you actually want to hear.
15 I think -- again, truth in advertising. My
16 first six years as a faculty member were at the City
17 University of New York. Faculty there was unionized and
18 paid according to a fairly rigid system of steps. And one
19 of the very important reasons I left that system was
20 because I found that pay system to be unconducive to my
21 performance as a successful professor.
22 So, I moved to a system that has merit pay so
23 that was my personal preference. Having said that, I
24 think here are some of the important distinctions. Merit
25 basis terms do create the possibility of unfairness and
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1 arbitrariness, that is, in order to have merit pay you
2 have to have some way of evaluating merit.
3 If, as in most employment situations, you do a
4 shoddy job of that, then it is quite likely that the pay
5 decisions you make will appear to be unfair. That is, to
6 people who have -- to workers who might have a keener
7 sense as to who is good and who is not, it is quite
8 possible merit pay will generate situations where
9 individuals who are acknowledged to be better workers are
10 not rewarded appropriately. That's the danger of the
11 merit pay system.
12 On the other hand, the intent in the merit pay
13 system would be to reward better performance and encourage
14 better performance and that then has to be a better
15 direction to go.
16 When you think of the alternative, for example,
17 a system in which pay is determined strictly on seniority,
18 the system I knew at the University of New York, the
19 advantage of that system is it is predictable, you know
20 what is going to happen to you next year regardless of how
21 you perform. That is certainly reassuring to many
22 workers.
23 That is not the same thing as nonarbitrary. I
24 think it is a misconception to represent those kinds of
25 systems as being proof against arbitrary compensation
495
1 decisions. It is -- because in those systems poor workers
2 with a particular level of seniority get the same pay as
3 good workers with the same level of seniority. It is
4 reasonable to identify that situation as arbitrary as
5 well, it is just arbitrary in a different direction. And
6 the danger in that direction is that because there is no
7 return for better performance, there's no encouragement
8 for better performance.
9 So on balance I personally clearly prefer the
10 merit system. However, I acknowledge freely that a merit
11 system coupled with indifferent assessment of merit is a
12 prescription for disaster. A merit system coupled with
13 fair and responsible attempts to gauge merit has got to be
14 the right way to go.
15 I have to say again privately -- personally,
16 rather, I think we as teachers have in some sense dropped
17 this ball in the sense that it is clear that evaluating
18 what we do is difficult and one of our alternatives as a
19 profession would have been to get out in front of that
20 issue, to say to people like you, look, we understand it
21 is probably reasonable for you to want to evaluate us and
22 we understand that you're not in a position to know how to
23 do that very well, and let us take the lead, we're going
24 to tell you what we think is necessary to figure out
25 whether we're doing a good job or not and we will lay it
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1 in your lap. You find the money to do it the right way.
2 My own purpose, my own tastes, that's what we
3 should have done. I think as a profession what we have
4 done instead probably is simply say it is too hard, it
5 can't be done and we don't want you messing with it. The
6 problem with that, as we see in Colorado, ultimately the
7 politicians got fed up with that and they decided to do it
8 on their own. And of course what we've gotten is the
9 worst of all possible worlds, people knowing nothing about
10 education deciding whether or not we're doing a good job.
11 And that will eject me from the Colorado teaching system
12 long before anything else does, and it could be coming
13 soon.
14 Would you like to hear more intemperate remarks?
15 COCHAIR STAFFORD: We need to get this
16 wrapped up. If there are any quick questions, otherwise
17 we need to get this wrapped up.
18 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Would a merit
19 system tied to a cost of living index for everybody, that
20 way they could keep up, was that what you were trying to
21 describe just now?
22 DR. ZAX: The merit system, yes. I didn't
23 remark on the cost of living index situation, but
24 naturally my predilection is a cost of living index is an
25 easy way of having to make the cost of living adjustments
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1 you have to make for everyone as you go through the
2 process.
3 It is probably a nice simplification that makes
4 your administrative burden easier in the direction you
5 would probably go anyhow if you were careful. Naturally,
6 cost of living adjustments come and go with inflation. At
7 1 or 2 percent you don't hear people making a lot of noise
8 about it. If you remember the late '70s or early '80s,
9 people were writing cost of living adjustments into the
10 contracts in the first paragraphs.
11 If you care to hear me talk about other things
12 that I'm not qualified to speak about, about the inflation
13 outlook, I wouldn't worry about it. As long as Alan
14 Greenspan is at the helm, I do have a fair amount of
15 regard for him -- the only reason to worry about it, if
16 the debt problem gets sufficiently great in the United
17 States, federal and private debt, an easy way to make the
18 deficit problem is to inflate it away.
19 If it looks like people aren't buying cars or
20 houses because of too much debt, you might see people
21 thinking if we inflate a little bit people will be
22 actually richer and the debts wouldn't matter so much.
23 But until that happens, I won't worry about it.
24 COCHAIR STAFFORD: As we seem to be
25 straying, we will wrap this up. We thank you, Dr. Zax,
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1 and we will take a seven-and-a-half-minute break.
2 (Recess taken 2:53 p.m. until 3:05 p.m.)
3 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Committee, we now have
4 Miss Sommers and have the review of the at-risk adjustment
5 that we asked her to take care of. And make sure we ask
6 plenty of questions on this because she's got the answers.
7 MS. SOMMERS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
8 members of the committee. I told Dr. Zax he was going to
9 be a hard act to follow. I'm much slower in my thinking
10 ability, so any questions you would give me I would
11 appreciate. It makes me feel less on the spot.
12 So, the first thing I would like to do, though,
13 is to review, as he did, the charge that the legislature
14 asked the Department of Education to do for this study,
15 was to look at the proxy identified in the at-risk
16 adjustment that MAP has in the cost-based block grant
17 model and answer the question of whether or not the proxy
18 was inclusive, appropriate and accurate for identifying
19 the number of at-risk students for the purposes of
20 financial compensation; and secondly, whether or not the
21 adjustment was adequate.
22 And I would like to reiterate, as Dr. Zax did,
23 that I did not look back at interpretations of the court
24 order or the court direction in these. As usual with
25 issues like this, we go to the districts and ask them
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1 questions.
2 And we did two surveys for this exercise. The
3 first one was last May. We sent surveys to school
4 districts in the elementary, a secondary in each district
5 and asked them to tell us how many children they
6 identified at risk so we could do a number comparison. We
7 also asked them to give us a cost for interventions they
8 were doing, describe the interventions within day and
9 outside of day, how they measured their effectiveness and
10 what they would like to do if they could.
11 In addition to that I visited about 15
12 individual schools on site and basically asked to go over
13 the survey with them in person.
14 And I did target schools that MAP had not before
15 so we wouldn't be getting the same answers they had
16 already researched. Responses to this survey, needless to
17 say, are a large part of this analysis. And then we did
18 supplement that with some of the demographic and
19 statistical data that the department already gathers.
20 Before we talk about findings on the proxy, I
21 would like to say two things about gifted and LEP. And
22 you folks ended up getting a copy of my scratch so you see
23 gifted and LEP written down there. Gifted and talented
24 students were not looked at in this paper because gifted
25 and talented students are not funded by the proxy. They
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1 are separately identified by the prototype.
2 And I believe originally MAP funded them at 4.50
3 an ADM, and when the prototypes were discussed two or
4 three years ago, the legislature raised the amount to 9.00
5 an ADM and the amount is still sitting in the prototype.
6 So they're not part of the proxy.
7 The other thing I would like to talk about is
8 limited English speaking. That is part of the proxy. We
9 have no federal legislation under No Child Left Behind
10 that has two requirements that may affect what we need to
11 do with LEP in the future. For this purpose we said let's
12 wait a year until we really know what the federal law
13 wants us to do.
14 The first thing it asks is how much we're
15 currently spending on LEP students, and because they're
16 now part of the unduplicated count, we can't tell them how
17 much we're exactly spending on LEP students.
18 The second issue involves testing. Title III
19 now requires that all LEP students are tested and federal
20 funds are directed only to those students that fall below
21 a certain performance level.
22 That may, in the long run, give us more of an
23 accurate tool to use in identifying LEP students. So
24 after some of these questions are answered in one or two
25 years, we may want to look at how we're sending those
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1 monies down and I guess Annette can answer, Dr. Bohling,
2 for us whether or not the supplant supplement issue -- how
3 big an issue that is. But at this point when we are
4 talking about the proxy, it still includes LEP as well as
5 free and reduced lunch eligible children.
6 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Does that include all
7 LEP students?
8 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, in the proxy
9 now it is all LEP students regardless of how they test
10 out.
11 As you know, there are many, many ways to look
12 at numbers. And the first place I would like to start in
13 looking at numbers is at the statewide level. If you see
14 in here, I did include a Table 2-A and at the bottom of
15 that table is a total K-12 with 100 percent schools.
16 When we look at the proxy as a statewide level,
17 if you will see, there are unduplicated count identifying
18 6,287 students. Those same schools identified 6,665
19 students. So we're within 6 percent. And the main report
20 will also show you the correlations drawn between those
21 numbers statewide of what was identified by the count,
22 what was identified by schools, and the correlation is
23 fairly good.
24 When we start looking, however, between the
25 different grade spans, we get a little bit different
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1 story. If you look at the first line, it says Subtitle
2 Elementary. Actually the unduplicated count is a very
3 good proxy for that group of students, K-5.
4 When you move to the junior high level, the
5 proxy tends to underidentify the students that are being
6 served by the schools. However, this is why statewide it
7 looks good, because at the high school level the opposite
8 is true. The proxy overidentifies the number of students
9 high schools say they're serving. There is a great
10 disparity in what high schools say they're serving and,
11 indeed, all of the spans, but in general they serve fewer
12 students than the proxy identified, so this raises some
13 questions, of course.
14 And before we start talking about some of those
15 questions it raises, I do want to talk about using a proxy
16 in general. We kind of skipped that. Because the first
17 question I think we tried to answer in this report is what
18 are alternatives to using a proxy? And if you don't use a
19 proxy, then you go in and identify every student and it is
20 my vision that you would end up with a system very similar
21 to what we do with special ed: Would you identify every
22 student, set forth a plan for what they needed for
23 remediation, intervention, you would document their
24 progress and you would report, hopefully, at least to your
25 school administration, the success that you had.
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1 And from what I understand, that approach had
2 two main concerns with the legislature that if I'm wrong,
3 please let me know. One was that we would be labeling
4 children who could be very mild, need just a little bit of
5 intervention and that label would go with them for many
6 years. The second was that we might inadvertently reward
7 schools for identification.
8 Using a proxy in some ways has a few problems
9 because you don't identify every single little person who
10 needs the money, but the overall number is proven to be
11 very accurate. And in research paper after research paper
12 this tide of socioeconomic indicators is reiterated over
13 and over. Even though certainly we find places where that
14 is not -- where socioeconomics does not tend to have as
15 much effect on grades, I think we also will find that we
16 have poured additional resources into that school to help
17 negate the socioeconomic conditions, which is basically
18 what we're doing with this adjustment.
19 There's an incidental finding on the top of
20 (iii). Alternative schools, you saw in this table we had
21 schools separated out "alternative highs." I don't think
22 the proxy fits alternative highs as well as we might like.
23 By definition 100 percent of the students going to school
24 in an alternative school would be determined to be at risk
25 of failing and the proxy still only counts free and
504
1 reduced lunch or LEP. So I think if we have a little
2 weakness in the system in general, it may be because of
3 these alternative schools.
4 Then the question arises does the small school
5 adjustment that they're entitled to offset that count?
6 And I can only tell you that that is a hard question to
7 answer because the small school adjustment varies so much.
8 The high and the low, the small school
9 adjustment and the alternative schools, goes between $475
10 ADM at Triumph School in Laramie County to 55,749 per ADM
11 at Shoshoni. So it is hard to say that's not enough money
12 at Shoshoni or that it is enough at Triumph High.
13 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Sessions.
14 SENATOR SESSIONS: Mr. Chairman, just a
15 question. Do you have any idea why that is? I mean, I --
16 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, yes, I think
17 it is because the way the general small school adjustment
18 works is you give much more money where you have a lower
19 ADM. Shoshoni has only 3.5 ADM so it is working under the
20 small school adjustment.
21 As I mentioned earlier, the department, as you
22 guys know, when dealing with all of the data that the
23 legislature has asked the department to produce, every
24 time we have a different report, we ask them for more
25 information, and now they do have quite a bit of data
505
1 sitting in their archives. Some of this is going to be
2 used for their state reporting system soon and we thought,
3 well, let's look at that. Let's compare that with WyCAS
4 data.
5 We looked at student/teacher ratios, Master's
6 degree, we looked at years of teaching. We compared all
7 of those things with WyCAS scores. And we found two hot
8 hits. One, not surprisingly, is attendance. The other
9 one is mobility, new students in the building.
10 So we discussed the idea with the department
11 whether or not to use attendance and thought that since
12 the prototype of the whole funding system uses ADM, that
13 attendance was already largely accounted for and we do
14 think that it is something that schools have a little bit
15 of control over and could have more if we did different
16 things with the truancy law.
17 But we thought mobility was something we should
18 pursue a little further. And then it was brought to my
19 attention that No Child Left Behind, the new federal
20 legislation, understands that mobility affects student
21 performance to the extent that they say you don't have to
22 count the test of your kids for the first year that
23 they're in your building. And we found that here it also
24 has an effect.
25 So in kicking around all kinds of different
506
1 things we could do, I am recommending that the current
2 proxy be adjusted by a definition that the department will
3 come up with for mobility. Hopefully it will be in line
4 with federal legislation and we look at adjusting the
5 proxy in the secondary levels for mobility.
6 When we ran these correlations, mobility or
7 attendance neither one had much of an effect at the
8 elementary level, but they both had much more serious and
9 definitive effects at the secondary level. If we gather
10 this, the only place we will have to add it on is at the
11 junior and senior high levels.
12 Typically, free and reduced lunch and mobility
13 are highly correlated. You find that people who are
14 mobile are frequently on free and reduced lunch. We think
15 that this might tighten up those two areas. And the other
16 thing that it does that is coincidental that is really
17 nice is that it targets funds to alternative schools,
18 especially depending how we allow them to identify the
19 kids that are coming in there.
20 I did a table for primary, the big report that
21 shows the top ten schools over 20 percent mobility and
22 nearly all of them are alternative schools. So hopefully
23 with the proxy and this little touch here, we will be able
24 to fine tune it to a point that we will feel like it will
25 target the kids it needs to target.
507
1 Questions?
2 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Sessions.
3 SENATOR SESSIONS: I just have to say
4 something nice. It is time to say something nice.
5 Thank you for putting validity to what we know
6 is happening in our secondary schools. It is so nice that
7 finally we have something there that says, yes, these
8 things are important and let's address them. Just thank
9 you for that.
10 MS. SOMMERS: Thank you very much.
11 SENATOR SESSIONS: We need money to hire
12 truant officers, by the way.
13 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
14 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I guess the question,
15 then, to confirm what I think I heard, and we have been
16 told that the proxy of free and reduced price lunch will
17 not work for high schools because these children are
18 reluctant to come forward and so forth and we're
19 underreporting and underserving.
20 In fact, I think what I heard you say was that's
21 not true, we actually are not serving as many as the proxy
22 would indicate we should.
23 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, Senator Devin,
24 I'm afraid that's true. And we're going to talk about
25 that a little bit more. I think there's big concern about
508
1 what is happening in high school or not happening in high
2 school.
3 If you don't mind, I will go on in here because
4 we do talk about that. These are some of the other
5 findings and comments on the data that we looked at.
6 First off was, not surprisingly to Senator
7 Devin, about 30 percent of the children who identified at
8 risk were also identified as special education. And this
9 varied from about 20 to 35 percent from the high schools
10 to the elementary schools.
11 As I was visiting schools, some could very, very
12 clearly delineate the services between, say, for instance,
13 a child who needed physical therapy under their IEP and
14 the same child who needed additional tutoring for math
15 after school.
16 And some schools were not as clear on the
17 distinctions. Some school had in their definition
18 disability as part of a definition of a child at risk, and
19 certainly a child in special education is at risk of
20 failure but it is recommended that the department along
21 with maybe some of the findings that came out of the
22 special ed study further identify the distinctions between
23 at-risk interventions and special ed interventions and how
24 those are billed and how they're followed through and what
25 their goals are and then continue to train schools on how
509
1 to separate these issues.
2 The secondary finding was the underserving of
3 the at-risk students at high schools. Even when we
4 account for students who drop out of high school, the drop
5 in the number of students served from junior high to high
6 school was 60 percent. And I don't know what is wrong
7 there. We have some high schools who are doing incredible
8 jobs and serving up to three times more kids than we
9 identified in the unduplicated count, and we have some
10 that are only serving about 12 percent of the number in
11 the unduplicated count, which already drops way low for
12 high school students.
13 It is recommended that the compensatory programs
14 offered through the districts be reviewed for their
15 efficiency and their effectiveness by the department. And
16 I know we keep on asking for more department oversight
17 here, but what we found is nationally compensatory
18 education can be your next biggest nightmare with federal
19 mandates that we have showing yearly progress and
20 compensatory programs, I think, have taken a backseat for
21 quite a while to our mainstream education programs and I'm
22 afraid that they are going to be very important in the
23 future with the new standards that we have.
24 So we don't know the answer to what exactly is
25 happening in the high schools with serving kids at risk,
510
1 but this does bring us to the next issue that I will say
2 right off the bat it is recommended that policy makers
3 focus much more attention on dropout rates and recognize
4 that this is an indicator of the health of our educational
5 system.
6 We talk about dropout rates at 5 percent or 6
7 percent a year. The fact is that's times four. If you
8 look at our completion rates, which is more of an
9 indication of what a ninth grade class does, we're losing
10 about one out of four of our kids, 23 percent statewide.
11 This is in the statistical report that the department has.
12 It has been there for years. You can look up your
13 district. But I think it is time that we start talking
14 more about 23 percent instead of 5 percent.
15 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman.
16 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
17 SENATOR SCOTT: On this particular
18 question we did a very careful study up in Casper on the
19 dropout rate to find out what accounts for the difference
20 between those that weren't completing because they moved
21 out of state or moved to some other location and those
22 that had really dropped out.
23 And I don't recall, we think maybe the rate was
24 a little higher than 20 percent, 23 percent. Do you know
25 the --
511
1 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, Senator Scott,
2 it is higher in Casper. I think in Casper it tends to be
3 30 to 35 percent. But as far as tracking where the kids
4 go and if they get GEDs or if they go into vocational
5 programs in junior high, that's where statewide we don't
6 have information.
7 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, I wish I
8 could recall the specific figures because it was a very
9 carefully done study, but it is consistent with this
10 number and may have shown something somewhat higher.
11 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Goodenough.
12 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: May I ask, in the
13 Casper study did people go and ask kids that had dropped
14 out why they dropped out? I notice we do a lot of this
15 stuff and we never bother to go ask the people involved
16 with the decision-making process, like teachers who
17 retire, why did you retire, why did you leave the state.
18 Did they go and ask the kids why they left?
19 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, Senator, I'm
20 not sure about that on that particular report. I know we
21 are doing that in Laramie County 1, but perhaps Senator
22 Scott could answer.
23 SENATOR SCOTT: I can't off the top of my
24 head. I would recommend to Senator Goodenough that you
25 talk to Dal Curry from Natrona County School District who
512
1 I believe was the one who did the study.
2 MS. SOMMERS: The last finding we have on
3 statistics as a result of the proxy is not surprisingly we
4 don't have a commonly shared vision of what the at-risk
5 student is. I mention this example about at the high
6 school level where we have Park County 6 is identifying
7 about three times higher than the unduplicated count.
8 They have a high school principal who is very aggressively
9 working with children at risk of failure, because he comes
10 from that background, to other districts who have only
11 identified 12 percent of the unduplicated count.
12 Another thing I found out -- I guess this is
13 kind of under adequacy, how districts or when they
14 intervene is very, very different. Some districts tell us
15 that they define the at-risk kids as a child who is 20
16 percent or below on their assessments in the district and
17 others will tell me that they consider an at-risk child at
18 75 percent or below.
19 So we obviously have a great deal of
20 differentiation in when districts are coming in and
21 helping their children. So it is recommended that policy
22 makers, a bunch of us, define adequate and inadequate
23 student performance and that the department identify and
24 supervise the use of effective intervention and
25 remediation strategies.
513
1 The definition of inadequate or adequate student
2 performance is a very hard thing to define, but I think
3 you've heard that before in some of the presentations that
4 you've had, is that when are we going to say it is not
5 good enough or it is good enough.
6 That's one of the issues or one of the reasons
7 when we start looking at adequate, what is adequate
8 funding. We can't answer that question until we know what
9 adequate performance is.
10 Again, I would like to say that I do think
11 compensatory education is becoming more critical, but we
12 do need to define when and how intervention should begin
13 with students so that we keep them and we don't have one
14 in four leaving.
15 Now, the larger report spends quite a bit of
16 time telling you how the current model works because it is
17 confusing to know how the model works, as you know, so in
18 the bigger report we isolate two schools and show you how
19 the at-risk adjustment counts the students in multiple
20 bands and how every band is compensated.
21 But basically I think what is important to
22 realize is that we have a prototype and on top of the
23 prototype we have an adjustment. The prototype, from what
24 I understand from Dr. Smith, is that it funds you for the
25 average concentration of at-risk students, which in our
514
1 state right now is 30 percent. It will fund an average
2 concentration of services to a child within the day, which
3 is about six hours a day.
4 It will give you maybe lower class sizes in some
5 cases. It will give you professional development. It
6 will give you classroom aides. It will allow you to do
7 clipping programs, special pull-out programs for these
8 kids. What it will not give you is anything outside for
9 tutoring, before or after school programs, weekends,
10 nights or summer school.
11 But the adjustment that is given is supposed to
12 compensate for those additional things we need to do with
13 children given additional time to meet standards.
14 Trying to find costs on these was kind of a
15 nightmare and one of the things we do to schools is we go
16 in and say tell us how much it costs to do this. And no
17 one got them prepared for it ahead of time. They don't
18 have the ability to pull out things without some warning.
19 So the report in here will tell you that costs
20 range anywhere from $86 a student to $5,000 a student for
21 at-risk interventions both within the day and outside the
22 day. If we want to find out how much what they're doing
23 is costing, we need to give them some time.
24 In addition to that, we need to also cost out
25 what we know works. As you have also heard a lot of
515
1 discussion today, particularly with voc ed, is what we're
2 doing adequate? Well, until we know what adequate student
3 performance is we don't know that even defining the costs
4 of currently what we're doing is enough to define what we
5 need to be doing.
6 Additionally, we might very well be able to take
7 that money and redirect it into adequate programs and have
8 adequate funds there.
9 But we did find a district -- we asked districts
10 to tell us, what are you doing with your intervention
11 strategies and what is it costing, and we actually found a
12 district that had put a lot of pencil to paper. And this,
13 of course, is anecdotal evidence which Dr. Zax said we
14 shouldn't ever use, but I thought I better use something
15 to give you an idea what is happening.
16 Laramie County School District 1 was able to
17 give us a pretty detailed list of all of the interventions
18 that they do, clipping within day to night school to
19 summer school. Their at-risk interventions last year cost
20 $1.5 million and the at-risk adjustment is going to give
21 them $1.1 million, so it is close.
22 The prototype gives us some, but we don't know
23 how much the prototype gives us exactly. Because of that
24 and because we know the prototype only funds programs
25 within day, I would ask that you consider looking at
516
1 funding some portion of a school's summer school program.
2 In Laramie County their summer school program
3 was running about $300,000. If we could fund that
4 program, it would bring us within 200,000 of we know we've
5 got your costs covered. They are expanding their programs
6 this year so the costs are going up. And I think that's a
7 never-ending cycle that we will ever meet.
8 One of the main reasons why I would like you to
9 consider funding this program is, number one, it could be
10 done as an initiative separate from the funding model
11 under a grant so that districts would have to apply and
12 ask for reimbursement after they show they have successful
13 programs and provide the department the opportunity to
14 help them define what those successful programs are.
15 We have summer school operating at anywhere from
16 20 instructional hours per subject to 75. To think that a
17 school would even go through the process of providing a
18 summer school for 20 hours, we need teachers who are
19 specialized in remediation and intervention who like what
20 they do and like dealing with students who are hard to
21 reach because these are the kids that this sometimes is
22 their last net and we're doing summer school now. Many
23 districts are paying for it out of the general fund and a
24 mix of Title I funds because it is something I would like
25 to throw out there because it gives us an opportunity
517
1 to -- I use the word onerous in the large report, but the
2 question of the prototype of funding is an onerous issue,
3 it is always there and never goes away. If you could fund
4 summer school under a grant program, it would cost
5 anywhere from 1 to 3 million depending how many districts
6 actually participated.
7 Currently they are giving summer school to about
8 10 percent of the kids. We graduate out of summer school
9 about 90 percent of those kids. Nationally it is about 60
10 percent who actually succeed in summer school. If we're
11 going to have it, it needs to be high quality and there
12 needs to be a way that we're sure the education we're
13 giving to at-risk students is successful.
14 That's it, Mr. Chairman.
15 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Dr. Bohling, do you
16 have anything to add at this point?
17 DR. BOHLING: I would, Mr. Chairman. I
18 would just like to say that this report where it talks
19 about so many variations in the definition of at-risk
20 students -- I would just like to explain to the committee
21 that in accreditation we have always allowed the districts
22 to define at-risk students by school. So this finding is
23 not a reflection that the schools have -- are trying to be
24 arbitrary here, it is just that that's how we've always
25 done it.
518
1 Also -- and there has been a wide variation on
2 how they identify those at-risk students that are not
3 performing. And last year all of the schools were
4 required to put in interventions for the at-risk students
5 and that's where we saw wide variations in the definition
6 of at risk. But they have been trying to address these
7 students more or less on their own through the funding
8 model that they've been given, but I know that we had a
9 lot of success when we were able to give the schools the
10 TANF monies two years ago for summer schools. And we did
11 a huge report on that and the students were extremely
12 successful on the standards.
13 And I think that this is an issue that we have
14 to address because the dropout rates are very high, the
15 completion rates are very low, and this is an area that we
16 will be held accountable for under No Child Left Behind
17 through the requirements of limited English proficient,
18 special education, all of these areas.
19 So this is a huge -- we have a lot at stake here
20 in the state of Wyoming and in our work force. We've
21 heard so many -- so much testimony about our students in
22 special ed and on career, vocational. We know that we
23 have programs that we can have some success with, but we
24 do think there needs to be some type of money tied to it,
25 and I just wanted to explain why we've had such wide
519
1 variation in the definition.
2 So it probably would be a good thing to have
3 some common way to define it and fund it and let the
4 schools do what they are very successful at when they're
5 able to do it.
6 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Committee, questions?
7 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Mr. Chairman.
8 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Representative Shivler.
9 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Miss Sommers, you
10 mentioned that I think Laramie has a successful program
11 and it costs 1.5 million and they were reimbursed 171
12 million; is that correct.
13 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman,
14 Representative, I don't know how successful their program
15 is. I think they, like many other districts, are just
16 beginning. Their program costs $1.5 million. The success
17 of it, I think, will be measured over time but it is still
18 growing. I know they've added another 250 to 300,000 to
19 that endeavor this year, but you are right, 1.5 and 1.1
20 million.
21 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Mr. Chairman, to
22 follow up on, that the prototypical model allows 30,000
23 for that.
24 MS. SOMMERS: Representative,
25 Mr. Chairman, the model, the prototype, according to MAP,
520
1 reimburses districts up to the statewide average of free
2 and reduced lunch and LEP kids which is 30 percent.
3 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Continue.
4 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: So what I'm
5 trying to understand here is it is obvious this was
6 outside of the realm of the 30 percent, in other words,
7 the extra 400,000? In other words, the 1.1 was the 30
8 percent? Let me continue or you can answer -- my question
9 is it is obvious in some instances we may need more money,
10 I mean, if these programs are going to be successful, but
11 not in all instances, not in every district. And
12 yesterday we were talking about the SEEDS money where they
13 had a contingency fund for these situations where it ran
14 into more money.
15 Would that be a possible way to handle that?
16 Because some districts have bigger problems than others, I
17 assume, if this is outside of the realm of 30 percent
18 because we hope that figure is accurate.
19 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman,
20 Representative, the 1.1 million that will be sent to
21 Laramie County 1 is the adjustment itself. The question
22 is whether or not the model pays for the 400,000, the
23 prototype itself pays that. And you are right that
24 certainly some districts have higher needs.
25 One thing that's nice about the way the
521
1 concentration bands work in the model is that it does
2 that. It allows more of a $2,000 weighted adjustment to
3 be given to those districts that have higher
4 concentrations. So if you're over 45 percent, say, a
5 particular school will not get as much per student as a
6 school who is at 75 or 80 percent free and reduced lunch
7 or LEP. So it does compensate for that already.
8 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Okay.
9 Representative Samuelson.
10 REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELSON: Mr. Chairman,
11 there's a couple -- I have a couple comments and then a
12 question. When we've been talking about our at risk and
13 we've settled on limited English speaking and free and
14 reduced lunch, I guess I've always had a problem with
15 those because they're so arbitrary.
16 We somehow need to track these, as Senator
17 Goodenough was asking, maybe an exit interview on kids
18 that aren't there, because one thing a lot of these --
19 we've talked about several times on this committee that a
20 lot of different states, they look at one -- when they
21 build new prison rooms, they look at third grade reading
22 scores. There's just an absolute direct correlation which
23 is quite scary. If you look at that prison population,
24 again, there's an overwhelming amount of them that are
25 dropouts.
522
1 It looks like we maybe ought to be looking more
2 at the third grade reading score as part of at risk as
3 something we can actually measure, we can see. I've never
4 been convinced there's a correlation between dropouts and
5 limited English speaking or free and reduced lunch. I
6 think it is something we can measure but -- maybe they're
7 at risk, maybe they are not. I guess I can argue the case
8 both ways, but that's something I think this committee
9 needs to do.
10 And one of the things we've driven a lot of
11 teachers out of teaching is because we asked so many
12 questions and reports. That's something that the whole
13 other thing is we're asking for so many reports.
14 But I think this is something critical that this
15 committee needs to find out, are these dropouts -- 23
16 percent of our students, what were their third grade
17 reading scores, or were they on free and reduced lunch? I
18 don't know where we go with that. We can't legislate
19 that, but maybe that's a report that the department should
20 be looking at. And I would strongly encourage us -- I
21 guarantee if these kids are flunking out of reading in
22 third grade, I think that's when Senator Sessions pointed
23 out she saw them in middle school -- if you think about
24 it, that's probably logically where these kids are really
25 going to start failing and having trouble if they can't
523
1 read, to the harder expectations to eighth and ninth
2 grade, when they get to high school it is overwhelming for
3 them and they're gone.
4 Maybe that ought to be the direction to go and
5 try to figure that out and maybe would like this committee
6 to pursue that a little farther.
7 DR. BOHLING: Can I respond?
8 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Would you like to
9 respond?
10 DR. BOHLING: I would like to respond,
11 Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
12 Our schools and our districts don't necessarily
13 use low SES, socioeconomic and limited English proficient
14 to target at-risk students. I just want to make that
15 clear. They do target students who are not proficient in
16 the standards and they identify those students in various
17 ways.
18 Some do use scores or definitions such as
19 students who are not proficient in math or in reading or
20 in writing. And it varies on their plans. For this
21 purpose, however, what this report is doing is trying to
22 give you the correlation between having to count those
23 students individually, which would be a huge reporting
24 issue, and finding a proxy that has a close enough
25 correlation that you can provide a funding mechanism that
524
1 will get you very close to where you need to be.
2 So the issue really is do you want schools to
3 report the number of at-risk students by individual or
4 find a proxy that will get you close enough that you can
5 build it into the funding model based on socioeconomic
6 status and limited English proficient.
7 But we don't mean to say that our schools are
8 using those as their way to identify because they are
9 addressing students who are not proficient.
10 REPRESENTATIVE SAMUELSON: Thanks.
11 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Representative
12 Lockhart.
13 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: Mr. Chairman, as
14 I recall, and I recall this clearly, this is exactly what
15 we asked the research effort to do, was to look at if
16 that's a decent correlation, not to tag the specific
17 students at risk but to see whether that's a correlation
18 in funding.
19 If I read this right and as I heard it, I think
20 it does, except for summer school education which was not
21 part of the charge. So I think we proved up what we
22 wanted to prove, and that is that we have an adequate
23 correlation between our surrogate, free and reduced lunch
24 and LEP, and the funding requirements for at-risk
25 students.
525
1 So with the exception of maybe that summer
2 school, I think we've done a pretty good job. So I think
3 it reached its mark.
4 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Senator Scott.
5 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman.
6 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Did you have a comment?
7 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, I would like
8 to say, and mobility. Those are the only two things we
9 suggest be tweaked at this time. It seems to be working.
10 And I would like to say that this idea of targeting the
11 individual is very important and we explain a little bit
12 of that in the report.
13 The advantage of having the block grant or the
14 adjustment go to the districts and not be identified by
15 child is that they can adjust it away from John Doe who
16 may have generated it because he was on free and reduced
17 lunch but has great grades but to Jane Smith who is not on
18 free and reduced lunch and has a lot of interventions.
19 So they have the flexibility of doing that with
20 the model as it currently worked with the adjustment.
21 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
22 SENATOR SCOTT: First of all, I want to
23 say I entirely agree with Representative Lockhart's
24 comments with the mobility added.
25 Two items. On page 4, recommended the
526
1 department identify and supervise use of effective
2 intervention and remediation strategies: This is in
3 regard to dropouts, Mr. Chairman.
4 Frankly, I think that ought to read it is
5 recommended that the boards of trustees of the several
6 school districts identify and supervise the effective use.
7 I think really that's a local responsibility so that you
8 have the local buy-in that is essential to make the
9 program work. I think it will work a lot better that way
10 than a centrally imposed thing.
11 The second, Mr. Chairman, is a question with
12 regard to summer schools. I seem to recall there were
13 some evidence that the summer schools were not
14 particularly effective in remediating problems. I
15 remember some discussion of that locally up in Casper.
16 What evidence do we have as to whether or not summer
17 school really is an effective intervention?
18 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, Senator, I'm
19 glad you brought that up because indeed Casper has stopped
20 its summer school programs in the elementary because they
21 were not considered to be effective. The latest research
22 I could find is they are effective when:
23 When they're long enough to matter and you don't
24 have a big gap between school and summer school or the end
25 of summer school and school.
527
1 They're effective when your hours of
2 instructional time is adequate enough to get them back on
3 track.
4 And they are effective when teachers are trained
5 in intervention and remedial strategies and when they
6 self-evaluate what they do to improve.
7 There are some things that are key components to
8 the success of those programs. When those things are in
9 place, they can be very effective, and if they're not in
10 place they will not be.
11 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
12 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Yes, I had a question in
13 relation to some of your recommendations, particularly the
14 summer school. We looked at special education yesterday
15 and were again reminded of the fact that there's
16 increasing federal funding coming. And I know that with
17 the No Child Left Behind there's significant increasing
18 federal funding coming.
19 And the caution is that if you're going to start
20 new programs and there is federal funding available, if
21 you start them with state dollars, you cannot then go back
22 and use federal funding because you are then not
23 maintaining your effort and you are supplanting.
24 So I guess I am interested in the opinion of the
25 two of you whether there would be an opportunity with the
528
1 No Child Left Behind funds to perhaps supplement a portion
2 of this recommendation, particularly in regard to summer
3 school or after school hours.
4 And then also I don't know whether you would be
5 knowledgeable, but it is my understanding -- and maybe
6 Senator Scott can help -- but that there are TANF funds in
7 huge amounts still in the coffer at the national level,
8 whether or not they can be used for out-of-school-hours
9 programs for any of -- or I guess I would include the
10 tutoring piece.
11 Before we jump in and do something that I think
12 is probably a good idea and then can't back up, I'm
13 just -- I'm learning through painful experience to look at
14 that whole picture and see where that money should come
15 from to stretch our state dollars.
16 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, I would like
17 to respond to that, Senator, and I'm sure Dr. Bohling
18 will, too.
19 No Child Left Behind, as you know, is changing
20 the way we do business. And I think there is going to be
21 some time element in there before we know exactly what it
22 will offer and what the strings are going to be.
23 I did check with the department's Title I
24 specialist about the supplant supplement issue having to
25 do with Title I, and what she explained to me -- and
529
1 perhaps Annette who deals with this all of the time can
2 clarify -- on the supplement supplant side, when you have
3 an issue like this that is not rolled into the federal
4 funding mechanism through the block grant, it actually
5 makes it more flexible to not count that as -- the
6 supplement supplant issue is easier to answer when itself
7 is an initiative, especially when it is a grant program.
8 That's one of the reasons we suggested not putting it in
9 the model itself, because we could have. But I bet
10 Dr. Bohling has some other things to say, too.
11 DR. BOHLING: Mr. Chairman, Madam
12 Chairman, we struggle all of the time, as do the schools,
13 with the supplement supplant issue. One thing that we
14 feel pretty strongly about is if the state has the money
15 in the block grant, it is considered a state
16 responsibility and then we do run pretty much head-on into
17 the supplant area.
18 When it is an initiative, we do have more
19 flexibility. The issue becomes, however, that the federal
20 dollars really have very specific rules about how you can
21 use those and with which children, so when you don't fall
22 into, in many cases, the low socioeconomic category, or in
23 identified special education or identified limited English
24 proficient, then you -- we have trouble finding money for
25 the other kids. That is really the problem.
530
1 Because the No Child Left Behind dollars, they
2 target specific groups of children, so then we run into
3 what Representative Samuelson was referring to, how do you
4 then help the other children that may not fall into those
5 categories.
6 And I think our schools have done a pretty good
7 job of trying to fill their needs through grants that they
8 apply for or just shifting money around, but it is always
9 an issue. They and we deal with it constantly, how do we
10 help those kids that are simply at risk for various
11 reasons, not because of a certain category that they fall
12 in.
13 And so federal dollars don't really help us in
14 that arena. So that would be the issue.
15 But I do think, as pointed out by Miss Sommers,
16 that if it were not in the block grant, if we were going
17 to try to help them with summer school or after school, it
18 may be done on an application basis, we should have more
19 flexibility being able to use federal dollars as they
20 come.
21 I would like to point out on the TANF funds,
22 know the legislature had put into the statute last year
23 that those funds were to come to education. The K-12
24 schools did not receive any of that money and all of the
25 money was funneled to the other education area. And so
531
1 DFS did not let us use any of the TANF monies last year.
2 And I would just like to point out that our schools did
3 not use that source of funding.
4 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
5 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, on that
6 particular point we as a legislature need to get control
7 over the use of the TANF funds. Frankly, the legislation
8 we passed two years ago was designed to run through the
9 budget process. That was not done and the appropriations
10 committee did not pick up on it and we have a problem
11 there. We as the legislature need to solve that.
12 And there are competing uses of the TANF funds.
13 This obviously is one of them. The Public Health nurse
14 visitation program was another. There's several others.
15 And it is a decision the legislature ought to make, and we
16 did not do that last time and we need to correct this.
17 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
18 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Mr. Chairman, in the
19 interests of time and moving our work along, I would like
20 to make a motion that we ask our staff to draft the
21 recommendations contained in the at-risk report and that
22 the summer school portion be drafted in the form that it
23 would be outside the block grant in more of a grant
24 program leaving us some flexibility so that we have the
25 opportunity to take a look at this draft next time.
532
1 COCHAIR STAFFORD. Is there a second?
2 SENATOR SESSIONS: I'll second.
3 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Moved and seconded that
4 we take the recommendation of the at-risk adjustment and
5 have LSO draft it into -- one or two bills?
6 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Well, Mr. Chairman, I
7 would leave that to the discretion of our staff. I would
8 accept either one or two bills. If they find that it is
9 confusing to draft it in one or might, in fact, be able to
10 be interpreted adversely to our wishes or intent, then I
11 would think two drafts would be perfectly acceptable.
12 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Okay. Further
13 discussion on the proposed motion? Senator Scott.
14 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, the
15 recommendations on the bottom of page 3, department
16 further identified compensatory programs be reviewed, and
17 the one on page 4, defining adequate and inadequate
18 student performance and the department identifying --
19 we're talking about administrative matters.
20 Do you intend to include those in the
21 legislative draft?
22 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
23 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Mr. Chairman, I would
24 envision -- and I guess I would look to staff and the
25 department, but I would envision we need some verbiage in
533
1 there to give some authority to assist. And I harken back
2 to the reading program where we found that at the state
3 level we have some opportunities to ask that it be
4 research based and give some recommendations and some
5 guidance and assistance so that we do put money into
6 effective programs but that we leave some of the
7 individual choices at the local level, but that at every
8 local level we do not have the magnitude in our
9 administration, I think, to always look at what are
10 effective programs versus which are ones represented by
11 good salesmen.
12 So I would like to see a working relationship
13 there between the counsel of the department and the
14 decision of the local.
15 COCHAIR STAFFORD: I would also suggest as
16 we look at the recommendations, if we have them drafted
17 into a legislative bill form we would have a better idea
18 of how to deal with them further down the line rather than
19 as they are today.
20 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, I would like
21 to say that looking at effective and efficient
22 compensatory programs may be a sideline of the grant
23 process, that through looking at that -- is that
24 correct -- so that's an idea to kind of keep in mind as
25 you're pondering legislation for next month. But this may
534
1 be able, if the department can let you know how to be part
2 of the grant process instead of a separate process.
3 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further discussion on
4 the proposed motion?
5 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Question.
6 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Question being called
7 for.
8 The motion is to have LSO draft the appropriate
9 amount of bills to cover the at-risk adjustment
10 recommendations.
11 All in favor signify by saying aye.
12 Opposed, no.
13 Motion carried.
14 Further information, discussion on this subject?
15 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: I would like to
16 thank them for the hard work, Mr. Chairman.
17 SENATOR SESSIONS: I would like to say
18 once again thank you.
19 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Thank you very much.
20 MS. SOMMERS: Mr. Chairman, members of the
21 committee, thank you.
22 REPRESENTATIVE ROBINSON: For the
23 committee's information and also the people here, I can't
24 remember if I brought this up at Afton or not, but I was
25 in a core improvement training recently and one of the
535
1 speakers was talking about the effects on society of
2 dropouts. And he said that it costs a million dollars to
3 society every time a kid drops out of school.
4 And so if it is 6 percent of our kids that drop
5 out, that would be $5 billion cost to society. If it is
6 23 percent of our kids that drop out, it is over $20
7 billion cost to society. So it is a very important piece
8 that we need to look at.
9 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Thank you very much.
10 Next on the agenda is the report on data
11 facilitation. Colonel Gross.
12 MR. GROSS: Mr. Chairman, members of the
13 committee, I'm Dick Gross from The Consensus Council in
14 Bismarck, North Dakota.
15 I want you to know it has been a very traumatic
16 week and day for me. We had our first snowfall in
17 Bismarck on Monday. Five to six inches, I don't know how
18 it is in Wyoming, but in North Dakota when we have the
19 first snowfall we all have to relearn how to drive in
20 snow. So on Monday I'm running around having this thing
21 printed off and going to the printer's office and other
22 places, and in Bismarck they reported that night we had
23 100 accidents plus, Monday. Bismarck is about the size of
24 Casper or Cheyenne. So that's one thing.
25 Today I've been sitting here all day and haven't
536
1 facilitated, so that was the second trauma.
2 And then I have a coat and tie on and the people
3 who have been working with me the last few months know
4 that this is an unnatural act for me.
5 So having said all of that, let me say you have
6 in front of you what is the final report, and I will go
7 through that very quickly. But here is sort of a summary
8 and then I'm going to ask Mike Hamilton from the
9 Department of Education to supplement with specific
10 information you're going to want to have.
11 As I reported to you in the June meeting in
12 Sheridan, all of these meetings use the same ground rules:
13 It is your show, meaning if the participants wanted to
14 change the agenda or what we were doing, they were free to
15 do that.
16 Everyone is equal; some people started in May,
17 some as a result of your recommendations in June started
18 later in the process, some people came from the
19 legislature, some have been involved in the litigation.
20 It made no difference in terms of everyone is equal.
21 No relevant topic is sacred or excluded. We
22 asked people to bring up issues they were concerned about.
23 No discussion is ended until we completed the
24 process, which at this point was just two weeks ago
25 tomorrow.
537
1 Respect each other's opinions and the time. We
2 were there for a limited period of time. We asked that no
3 one dominate, that each person respect each other's
4 opinions.
5 That silence on decisions is agreement; that
6 when it was clear the group was arriving at a decision, if
7 the people had nothing to say, the group assumed that they
8 were in agreement with the decisions.
9 And this was a check on me, as the facilitator,
10 make sure I write what you meant. We asked people to make
11 sure that as I was summarizing things that I was doing so
12 accurately.
13 And then have fun was also part of the ground
14 rules.
15 These are ground rules I've been using for about
16 16 years, and the group was very comfortable with them and
17 we used them for the five meetings that the group had.
18 Now, as I understood and as the group who
19 participated -- and I might point out that there are about
20 ten of the participants including the three legislators
21 here today, so they can certainly correct, add or
22 supplement anything that I have to tell you.
23 The May meeting objectives -- we had two
24 meetings in May. Those objectives first addressed the MAP
25 model, and I'll reference those in the report. They were
538
1 also to build trust in all education, including all
2 education data including financial, staff, facility,
3 et cetera; to develop a high-quality, flexible database
4 that will be able to respond quickly and accurately; to
5 develop a standards-based tracking system; to create and
6 update the resource manuals that the various districts
7 need to use; to address compliance concerns appropriately;
8 to ensure that requests for data match the question,
9 basically, match what is really needed.
10 So the May meetings when the group met twice --
11 and that's all at that point that it had anticipated
12 meeting -- were those objectives.
13 The perceived role of the data facilitation
14 forum since the May meeting, as I gathered it and I think
15 as the participants gathered it, were to review, reiterate
16 and amend what they had developed in May, the vision,
17 goals, objectives and strategies; to work at
18 implementation because there seemed to be such unanimity
19 of opinion here in the June meeting we wanted the help of
20 the forum participants to work on participation and they
21 worked closely with folks from WDE at this period of time;
22 to continue to enhance relationships begun in May, and you
23 will hear more about the potential for continuing that on
24 a longer term basis as I go to the report; a special
25 emphasis grew -- started in May but grew on the whole area
539
1 of student assessments and outcomes.
2 I've heard portions of today's meeting and
3 yesterday's, and I know you've been talking a lot about
4 student assessments, outcomes, standards and body of
5 evidence; a special emphasis needed on system to help
6 between the systems and the state, you will hear more
7 about that in a bit; and to assist the JEC and LSO to
8 draft whatever legislation might be needed as a part of
9 the process.
10 The schedule: Again, the people who did this
11 signed on for two meetings in May. They agreed to do
12 that. Beyond that they also met again as a result of this
13 meeting in June, July 25th and 26th, again August 28th,
14 and the last meeting was, as I said, just two weeks ago,
15 October 10th and 11th.
16 They then reviewed the results of the October
17 10th and 11th meeting between these dates, October 15th
18 and 18th, and as a result of that, I drafted this final
19 report last Friday, asked for input by Monday morning.
20 Monday afternoon we had it printed and so what you have
21 here is what was done Monday afternoon.
22 I wanted to reiterate and you're going to see
23 I've reiterated this twice in this report as well. The
24 group at its first two meetings in May developed this
25 vision statement: Wyoming has a nationally recognized
540
1 education data system that is uniform, trusted, effective,
2 efficient and user friendly. It reflects and advances
3 Wyoming values, assists a wide variety of policy leaders
4 to make fully informed decisions and helps provide a
5 remarkable, high quality, and equitable education for all
6 Wyoming students.
7 I emphasize that, as I said, in the June report
8 and twice in this one because I believe that all of the
9 data forum facilitation participants did in their five
10 meetings was to try to help to implement that kind of a
11 vision.
12 My last comments in general and then I will take
13 you very briefly through what is in the book, the active
14 involvement of the legislators, the three who are part of
15 this group in this process was essential in terms of
16 lending credibility to the process, in terms of
17 affirmation when it was necessary to affirm and in terms
18 of reality check, does this have any basis in fact or
19 reality, the political sensitivity, and to help bring the
20 message to the other members of the JEC.
21 Most participants had begun by anticipating
22 three days, three and a half days, and ended up committing
23 up to two weeks of their time in this process. The
24 assistance of WDE, in particular some of the people who
25 are here today, was critical.
541
1 I am not a -- don't pretend to be an expert in
2 this area, and WDE and the other participants who are
3 present today have the expertise in it.
4 And finally, and I will reiterate this at the
5 end, that this was a pleasure for me to do.
6 Let me take you very quickly through what is in
7 the report.
8 During the June meeting I started, if you look
9 at page 1, participants' observations. In the June report
10 I started out with facilitators' observations. I was
11 asked to do that. In this one at the end of the meeting I
12 asked the participants there to summarize for me and for
13 themselves and for each other and for you what they
14 thought of the process, and so the first two pages are
15 their observations at end of the last meeting.
16 And I would ask you to take a few seconds to
17 read through those at this point. As you will see, they
18 were uniformly positive observations and comments of the
19 participants and good suggestions, I think, for potential
20 future action.
21 Next item on page 3, I review what I reported to
22 you in the June meeting just a two-page executive summary
23 that includes again at the bottom of page 3 a copy of the
24 vision statement, the goals statement that they agreed to
25 early on on the top of page 4 and the specific things they
542
1 were asking of the JEC at the bottom of page 4.
2 And then on one page, page 5, I summarize this
3 report.
4 On page 6 is an update or summary of what the
5 participants asked for relative to the MAP model in
6 particular. That is, in particular, a good summarization
7 of what the MAP model does and how it is used and one that
8 could be utilized by the general public. That was
9 prepared by WDE, especially Larry Biggio had a significant
10 role in that. It was then critiqued by the group at two
11 of its meetings and updated and sent out.
12 And so from the group's perspective, that
13 presentation is ready to go to the public and, in fact, at
14 the last meeting, several of the participants said that
15 they had already used the report with their school board
16 members, with legislators, with others from their
17 districts.
18 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott,
19 question.
20 SENATOR SCOTT: No question, comment.
21 Mr. Chairman, that particular presentation of how the MAP
22 model works I think would be very useful for new
23 legislators and I would urge Chairman to speak with our
24 leadership and ask that that be included in the school for
25 new legislators because we are going to have a big
543
1 turnover and people aren't going to have the background on
2 it. And I think it fits just right for that kind of
3 audience and very well done.
4 COCHAIR STAFFORD: So noted.
5 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Mr. Chairman, how
6 about all old legislators?
7 MR. GROSS: I would reiterate again it is
8 very well done and as part of the appendix, all of the
9 text is included.
10 If you then go to page 9 -- 8, a short summary
11 of what the group arrived at in terms of the standards and
12 assessment process, the estimates of the cost, and Mike
13 will be going into that more specifically.
14 On page 10, the Schools Interoperability
15 Framework -- it is hard for me to say the word -- but SIF
16 system, but Mike will be giving you a quick update on
17 that. And rather than my spending time on it, I'm showing
18 you where they are, and then the advisory group process
19 which is intended to be really in many ways sort of a
20 continuation of this process already begun in a smaller
21 way in terms of advising WDE in the various areas, and in
22 particular, student demographic data, certified and
23 classified personnel, technology and financial data. So
24 those are the four continuing advisory groups that the DFF
25 participants suggested.
544
1 At the bottom of page 10 again is a reiteration
2 of the vision statement, and on page 12 just a very brief
3 summary.
4 Then you have in the appendixes, the longer
5 version of the MAP model in Appendix A. That is the
6 explanation. And then beginning on page 25, 24, Appendix
7 B, the longer version of the Standards and Body of
8 Evidence.
9 On page 26, Appendix C, the SIF study and
10 expected costs, more specifically.
11 And then Appendix D, the advisory group, longer
12 version than what is in the summary.
13 The last three appendixes are summaries of the
14 three meetings since June, so you have a full summary of
15 the July, August and October meeting in Appendixes E, F
16 and G.
17 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: Mr. Chairman.
18 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Goodenough.
19 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: I had a question
20 about the MAP model description. Did you work off other
21 descriptions or other written material about how the MAP
22 model worked or was this the first one that's been
23 developed?
24 MR. GROSS: Mr. Chair, Senator, I think
25 Larry or Mike -- Mike, could you give an indication of
545
1 that?
2 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Mr. Hamilton.
3 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, Senator, what we
4 had to this point was fairly complex and went into -- it
5 was more done -- the documentation that was done was more
6 at a level of somebody who was a professional in the
7 district would know the ins and outs of what was in there.
8 We didn't really have a 30,000-foot view,
9 somebody perhaps a little more distanced from the process
10 and didn't want to know the details and they wanted to
11 know the general attributes, we did not have that. So
12 that was brand-new.
13 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Go ahead.
14 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: Mr. Chairman, I feel
15 compelled to comment we have been working with a MAP model
16 in one version or another since 1997 and this is the first
17 time it has ever been written down from a 30,000-foot view
18 which I think is a pretty sad comment how we go about
19 doing things, that we have a document that would explain
20 the entire funding system for the entire state and just
21 now how many years later have it here.
22 MR. GROSS: Mr. Senator, I understand that
23 you're not looking for comment on that. I should add and
24 would add to Mike's comment, I think, that there is a far
25 more complex explanation also I believe on the WDE website
546
1 and the initial presentation was actually quite a bit more
2 complex than this, and it was the input of the
3 participants that really got it to this level.
4 So the input of the DFF participants are the
5 ones who got it into a way that they felt the public in
6 general would be able to understand.
7 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Sessions.
8 SENATOR SESSIONS: Mr. Chairman, I would
9 say up to this point and in looking at this thing over the
10 last how many years we've done it, I don't think anyone
11 realized until we started to sit down with people from all
12 over the state how valuable something like this is. And
13 it started to come up and you work through it and yes, in
14 hindsight we should have done it the first year.
15 And the same way with the trust in the data.
16 Maybe if we would have sat down on this proposal on making
17 data standard so districts know exactly what the education
18 department needs and how to count it. If we would have
19 done that the last two years, we probably wouldn't be
20 taking three days on this committee. But that's
21 hindsight. I don't think that's the fault of anybody
22 other than it is a learning process and it seemed to bring
23 out the very best suggestions of people instead of
24 gritching. Let's put it that way.
25 MR. GROSS: Mr. Chair, Committee Members,
547
1 thank you, Senator Sessions. There's a lot more I can
2 say, but I think you would rather hear more about the
3 specifics and I know the time frame you're under. If you
4 have other questions for me now or later, I'll be
5 available; otherwise, I'll let Michael take over.
6 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Mr. Hamilton.
7 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, thank you.
8 Senator Sessions, I don't know, I think you bring up good
9 points. I don't know that we could have produced a
10 document like Larry produced -- and really the credit goes
11 to Larry -- without the support of that group. Because I
12 think when you get into it deep enough, it is hard to see
13 it from that 30,000-foot view. So it was very helpful
14 from that group.
15 Having said that, I think there were a number of
16 things that were very beneficial for us as a department to
17 hear from that group. And one of the things we saw, and I
18 was, really frankly, very surprised to see, I knew that
19 there was some disparity between what we saw and what we
20 asked for and what districts sometimes were able to put
21 together in the way of data, but I saw downright distrust
22 at times when we would try to present information to
23 request perhaps, legislative requests in some cases, we
24 would say we don't have that exact information but proxy
25 information, information that will give a good idea
548
1 without us having to go back and collect from the
2 districts and give you possibly an answer that you're
3 looking for.
4 And I think oftentimes or in some cases that was
5 perceived to be the department trying to twist or provide
6 information in a way that would sway legislators in the
7 direction that districts perhaps wouldn't want to go.
8 Having said that, the first initiative or the
9 first drafted bill that we will put in front of you today
10 is a request for funding to support going forward with
11 advisory groups. In that scenario that I laid out for you
12 there where we thought we were doing the right thing by
13 saying, you know, we don't have exact information. I will
14 give you an example.
15 Let's say in January LSO asked us for an
16 enrollment count. We don't collect that information in
17 January. We actually as a state department collect that
18 in October. We would suggest, then, that we will give you
19 the October count, realizing that it is not a current
20 count but it is the count that we have. And if I'm a
21 district that had numbers go up, an influx of students,
22 that could be perceived that we were trying to do
23 something to perhaps not give a district the benefit of
24 the doubt.
25 So these advisory groups in part would operate
549
1 in a way that if we decided to do something like that, it
2 wouldn't be a decision done on our own. We would actually
3 talk to this advisory group. Let's say it is enrollment
4 information. We would have an advisory group we could go
5 to and say this is the situation we're faced with, a
6 request has been asked and we would like to provide proxy
7 information.
8 The districts would get an opportunity to help
9 us shape the message that went with the data, the caveats
10 that go with the data to say this is not something that
11 may happen in using October information, it may be an
12 underestimate, may be an overestimate in some cases, and
13 give them an opportunity to share in that process.
14 Another thing I would say from this data
15 facilitation forum is that I myself, Steve King who is the
16 supervisor of data collection at the department, Larry
17 Biggio, we all see the need to spend a lot more time
18 talking to districts, taking time to develop better
19 documentation, and not just developing the documentation
20 on our side in a silo, but to be working with districts to
21 help us develop that documentation and in some cases
22 involving the public as well when appropriate.
23 And, frankly, there's some things that are
24 just -- I don't know that the public would be all that
25 interested in. And I don't want to sound like we're
550
1 trying to hide anything, but some things I don't think the
2 public would want to share in.
3 So the first request that we have and district
4 alluded to that was the request for advisory groups, and I
5 would just refer to page 4, the fourth request, which
6 states that the JEC encouraged data forum participants to
7 continue to work with state agencies and other
8 organizations needed to implement the agreements.
9 I think to implement what we started out to do
10 here and which is to communicate more and to make sure
11 that there's decision-making and support from districts
12 and awareness that districts have of what goes on in
13 Cheyenne at the Hathaway Building, that we have these
14 advisory groups put into place. And I think that does
15 support that fourth request.
16 I really don't have anything to add to that
17 advisory group section. I would answer any questions at
18 this time, Mr. Chair.
19 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Committee, questions on
20 that?
21 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Mr. Chair.
22 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
23 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: I guess I would ask how
24 the advisory groups -- what advisory groups you envision
25 but how they vary from the data advisory group that has
551
1 been in place and the advisory groups convened as
2 stakeholders in each of these individual areas that we
3 seem to work a great deal with.
4 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, Senator, if you
5 refer to, I think it is, Appendix A -- maybe Appendix D.
6 MR. GROSS: Looking for the advisory
7 group?
8 MR. HAMILTON: Yes, sir.
9 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Page 28.
10 MR. GROSS: Page 28.
11 MR. HAMILTON: You can see the financial
12 data is mentioned in that section, so we're really looking
13 at four groups, financial data, a group for the technology
14 data that's collected, certified and classified personnel
15 data -- for obvious reasons there's a lot that would need
16 to be -- that would be a very important group to have, and
17 then also the student demographic data which would include
18 vocational education, staff from districts as well as
19 special education staff.
20 And so really we like the way the financial data
21 group works. There's a sharing there. There's a better
22 awareness amongst the business managers what data is
23 collected, how it is collected. And honestly, from a pure
24 collection standpoint, I think they get better data
25 because of that process.
552
1 And part of the reason that that occurs the way
2 it does is there's a lot less frustration on the
3 district's part because they had a representative group
4 that was able to help determine how to define, how to
5 shape the collection tools. And that's really the
6 intention of forming these three other groups is to have
7 those folks at the table as well so we can work with them
8 and make sure what we send out in the way of data
9 collection is sensible and we're not asking for something
10 they just don't have, or if we're asking for something
11 new, there's a representative group at the table that can
12 help shape how that data will be collected.
13 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Just a follow-up, I see
14 the student demographic data and the technology data as
15 separate issues, but I'm not visualizing why certified and
16 classified personnel data would not or could appropriately
17 fall under the financial data advisory group. I would
18 assume most of the data collected would be financial in
19 nature as to the length of employment, education,
20 seniority, et cetera.
21 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, Senator, I think
22 that's a good point. I think the intention here is kind
23 of the target audience of who we would collect the
24 information from. In the case of financial data, that
25 group is largely made up of business managers.
553
1 I think with the certified and classified
2 personnel, that sometimes can be somebody different so it
3 is really the audience that's getting the right people to
4 the table.
5 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Sessions.
6 SENATOR SESSIONS: Mr. Chairman, I just
7 would like to say one thing about the groups. The thing
8 that I think comes out of this -- two things. One, we
9 have a standard definition for any of the data that's
10 collected. When we get that, if we know that that
11 definition is out there to the districts and they know
12 what it means and it comes back in, then we hope to be
13 able to build the trust so that we don't -- it seems that
14 we don't go in this continuous circle of distrust and
15 questioning what information we're getting from the
16 districts, and that the State supports that.
17 And I think that that's an extremely valuable
18 tool at this point because we've got to have, as
19 everything starts to come down, especially with the No
20 Child Left Behind -- we have to trust. Our districts have
21 to be able to trust that what they're sending in means a
22 certain thing.
23 And then on the other hand, I think that the
24 other issue with it is that when you have people
25 participate in this, there's -- it is just human nature.
554
1 There's a lot more effort put in to make their own process
2 work and that works in any group of people. So I think,
3 you know -- so I think that that's why this group of
4 people came up with this suggestion to continue these
5 kinds of discussions.
6 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further discussion on
7 this issue?
8 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Mr. Chairman.
9 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
10 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Just one other
11 observation that I didn't note until now and that is where
12 you indicate you would like to ask district for
13 volunteers, well, I'm not looking for conscription or
14 draft, but I might tell you that as we put this group
15 together that worked, we worked real hard for geographic
16 distribution, for large and small distribution, for
17 varying areas of expertise.
18 So while it doesn't say you must accept the
19 volunteers, I think there's reason to reach beyond simple
20 volunteerism to get a distribution that serves your
21 purpose from the experience we had with this group.
22 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further discussion on
23 this issue?
24 Mr. Hamilton, continue.
25 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, I would like to
555
1 just hand out what I would call an executive summary but I
2 guess I'll call it a Joint Education Committee summary.
3 This is really an attempt to try to sum up what the
4 software is all about. And you have something like this
5 in your report that Dick has compiled.
6 The reason that I did this a little bit
7 differently is that report, that page that the department
8 brought to the table in the report itself really didn't
9 summarize well what was happening. It was really to say
10 you know about what is happening in the last meetings now,
11 this is where we're at, so I wanted to have something in
12 front of you that might give a full spectrum and range of
13 what has happened here.
14 The purpose of the software initiative, we're
15 calling it the Standards and Body of Evidence Tracking
16 system, SBET, is that our state is taking a different
17 approach to graduation requirements and deciding whether
18 students should progress to the next grade than some
19 states have, which is in some cases high stakes testing.
20 And to be able to do that there has to be a body
21 of evidence, a good argument for supporting decisions that
22 are made. I'm sure Scott Marion -- I think Scott has
23 talked to the group about the body of evidence in length,
24 and so I'll leave it at that.
25 Three of the criteria from the body of evidence
556
1 are alignment and fairness, another is cut scores and
2 another comparability. The cut scores, to have the cut
3 scores not be arbitrary. There has to be a mechanism for
4 compiling a result, for making a decision, and an
5 electronic system will certainly help in doing that. You
6 take out the guesswork. You decide on a way to approach
7 bringing the information together and everybody does that
8 because the system does it for you.
9 To have the alignment and fairness, again, to be
10 able to track this fairly you want everybody to have the
11 same thing in front of them within a district, and then
12 finally the comparability in the schools, I think that's
13 self-explanatory with having the system.
14 So one of the statements I make in this is that
15 the adequate software is critical and some districts, a
16 few districts, I could count them on one hand, think that
17 they may have the answer to this but the rest of the
18 districts do not feel like they have an adequate way to
19 track this information.
20 So the software, I think, is critical and a
21 common approach amongst these districts is desirable.
22 Desirable in the sense that if you have each district or a
23 majority of districts using a common approach, the human
24 resource, the knowledge of the software can be passed back
25 and forth, that is still portable from district to
557
1 district. If I'm in one district, I can ask my neighbor
2 how to handle this particular piece.
3 The requirements for the software were developed
4 by a group of 25 district representatives of which there
5 were three WDE staff, myself, Steve King, again the data
6 collection supervisor at the department, and Larry Biggio
7 who is the director of finance and personnel.
8 This group developed a list of features that
9 would be needed to be able to adequately track the body of
10 evidence, and an RFI was released on October 2nd.
11 The timelines, what we're looking at for this
12 process is on November 8th we're looking at responses back
13 on the RFI from vendors. And that group will then -- the
14 advisory group will then sit down and take a look at those
15 responses that come back. Feasibility and estimated costs
16 will be put together.
17 And then in January our hope is that we have
18 something that is not an exorbitant cost and that we can
19 bring that in front of the Joint Education Committee and
20 perhaps get support for moving that to legislature,
21 perhaps putting that as a bill on the floor.
22 And if that were to be the case -- don't want to
23 appear to make it sound like we think this is a done deal,
24 but if this were to pass and there was money allocated for
25 the purpose, we would release an RFP in April and then
558
1 implement the software from July through March of 2004
2 with a system up and running in the school year 2004-2005.
3 Any questions to this point?
4 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Committee, Senator
5 Goodenough.
6 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: There is some kind of
7 a state umbrella committee for computer purchasing, is
8 there not, or is that just for state government
9 particularly and doesn't include the Department of
10 Education or any of the school districts or -- some kind
11 of coordinated thing?
12 I guess what I'm getting at is I've heard
13 numerous stories about systems bought that didn't turn out
14 to be what they thought they were going to be, they have
15 problems, this and that.
16 Who is coordinating all of the computer
17 purchases?
18 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Mr. Hamilton.
19 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, Senator, I
20 believe that group oversees the state purchases and the
21 computers used within the state system, so I don't know
22 that they would actually be able to -- I don't know if
23 their purview would be for the districts. I think it is a
24 good point, though, in that group possibly having some
25 expertise and expertise gotten the hard way. It would be
559
1 perhaps a good idea to get them involved in some way as an
2 advisory or counsel group in this process.
3 SENATOR GOODENOUGH: Mr. Chairman, I've
4 heard numerous reports from people working with systems
5 that other states have used and decided didn't work right
6 and then we come along, we'll take it, I suppose it was on
7 sale or something.
8 And so it just seems really ridiculous to me for
9 the State of Wyoming to be spending money on systems that
10 have proven to have problems in the past and I just can't
11 quite figure out who is supposed to be evaluating these
12 different systems. I suppose it is part of the RFP, but I
13 don't know.
14 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, Senator, that's
15 correct, it actually would be with the evaluation team
16 that we've set up -- not only be WDE staff that would be
17 looking at the software, but also it would be district
18 staff and actually more district staff than WDE staff that
19 would be looking at the software, not only looking at the
20 documentation that comes in and considering the viability
21 but asking the districts to come in and actually
22 demonstrate the process.
23 Understanding that's not a guarantee that that
24 will work, but certainly that point was brought up in the
25 group, that we would just not take the word of a vendor,
560
1 that we would actually have to see the product
2 demonstrated.
3 And certainly the department wouldn't want to do
4 this on our own. It is really a venture for the
5 districts. Certainly benefits us in that we would be
6 helping to get common data out there, but the joint
7 effort, I think, is an attempt to make sure that we don't
8 have that kind of mistake. And I guess I can't guarantee
9 that that wouldn't happen, but we're cognizant of the
10 potential for that.
11 MR. GROSS: Mr. Chair, if I may just add
12 to that, a significant emphasis of the DFF participants
13 was on interoperability within the districts as well; that
14 is, trying to have the same kind of system within a
15 district as exists between the districts and the state.
16 So this system, it is hoped, would assist the districts
17 within the distribution as well as statewide.
18 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
19 SENATOR SCOTT: Chairman, comment because
20 I did participate in this facilitations forum, this is
21 really the consequence of the graduation standards that
22 this committee and this legislature has evolved over
23 several years.
24 The body of evidence is collection, though, so
25 you need a system to track it. I think the real intent
561
1 was rather than have the 48 districts develop their own,
2 it would be much more efficient for us, because we all
3 face a common problem, to have it done once at the state
4 level.
5 A couple of comments on the problems here. It
6 is going to be expensive. The crude initial estimate was
7 $6 million and then an annual operating cost. I think
8 they believed they're going to be able to refine that down
9 as they learn more. But it is going to be expensive.
10 And if we can't afford it, we are either going
11 to have to stretch the development out over several years
12 so we can, or we're going to have to radically simplify
13 our graduation standards system. And I certainly, having
14 sat through the development of it to start with, would be
15 reluctant to undertake that enterprise.
16 Even right now there's a timing problem in that
17 the development of this system will not get us to having a
18 full-blown system by the time the standards are due to
19 come in place. There's a gap. I forget if it is one year
20 or two years.
21 My suggestion for that gap is that we not back
22 off on the time requirements on the graduation standards,
23 but that we say for the first two years until you have the
24 system, which is designed to assure that you can prove
25 that each student has met the requirements, that we say to
562
1 the districts in that interim, assume the student has met
2 the requirements and can graduate, presuming he's met the
3 other district requirements, unless the district can prove
4 otherwise, which would enable the district to on a
5 basically paper and pencil method examine some egregious
6 cases where students had failed to make the standards and
7 deny individual students in those cases.
8 And that makes some sense to me in terms of
9 implementation because it enables you to make an example
10 out of somebody who just totally has blown the system off
11 and ignored the requirements and not met them which gives
12 the message to the other students that this is something
13 that has to be taken seriously and then gives us phasing
14 in of the practical effect of those such that there's time
15 for the vast majority of the students, especially the ones
16 who are close, to realize that yes, they've got to pay
17 attention to this body of evidence and complete the things
18 they need to.
19 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Mr. Chairman.
20 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Representative McOmie.
21 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Mr. Chairman, on a
22 much -- on not such a grand scale, we did the same thing,
23 the legislature did, with redistricting, furnished the GIS
24 information, some of the software to the clerks and the
25 various things and it worked out really, really good. And
563
1 I think that's one of the reasons that redistricting went
2 as well as it did.
3 I think this communication within -- yeah, Doug
4 said it worked great. He's gone. Don't work for Bubba.
5 But I think with the electronic age we're having and I
6 think this information is critical that we can do the
7 interchange, I share the concern of the cost with Senator
8 Scott, and it may take longer to do it than what we think,
9 but I would really like to compliment you on what you're
10 doing.
11 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Devin.
12 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: How much of this piece
13 would be required for us to track for the continuing
14 progress in the No Child Left Behind pieces and does this
15 cover any of that portion? And if it does, how much of it
16 might be able to be financed with a portion of the funds
17 coming from that? Are there tracking funds, are there
18 development funds for those kinds of tracking systems in
19 that piece of legislation?
20 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, Senator, I
21 certainly wouldn't want to speak on behalf of what kind of
22 funding might be available within that No Child Left
23 Behind money, but it certainly could be something that
24 could be considered.
25 My understanding is that this is more geared
564
1 towards -- the software system is geared more towards body
2 of evidence. And body of evidence is a student level
3 decision, whereas what we see in the No Child Left Behind
4 is we're making decisions, we're making inferences about
5 schools based on statewide assessments.
6 Correct, the adequate yearly progress is based
7 on WyCAS which may or may not be a part of the body of
8 evidence. If it is a part of the body of evidence, it is
9 a component of it and I don't think any district is
10 looking just at the WyCAS as the graduation requirement.
11 I hope not. We've certainly not -- we've promoted against
12 that, quite the opposite.
13 I would say, in answer to your question, this is
14 more geared towards answering the issue with tracking body
15 of evidence and I think that is separate from the adequate
16 yearly progress.
17 CHAIRMAN DEVIN: Well, I guess that leads
18 me to, okay, am I going to start to hear again now, well,
19 you want one set of data over here and then we have
20 another set of data over here, you know? Because I have
21 listened to this for a long time and I'm not going to
22 knowingly walk into that again if it can be avoided.
23 And I guess if we're collecting student
24 performance data, I'm far from technologically
25 intelligent, but I would hope we might be able to avoid
565
1 asking for the same or similar data to be input twice on
2 two different systems. And maybe I'm asking for the
3 impossible.
4 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, Senator, I'm
5 happy to report that we won't collect this data at the
6 department. We don't want student level information. We
7 use the WyCAS to make decisions about schools and whether
8 or not they're meeting adequate yearly progress, whether
9 or not they're actually able to perform, this is
10 information, student level data, that we have no desire to
11 collect, not assessment data.
12 I will say later we would like to collect -- and
13 I'll reference it now -- we would like to collect student
14 level information with demographic flags in it that would
15 allow us to get one shot, one collection and reduce the
16 burden to districts and they wouldn't have to aggregate,
17 sum up the data seven or eight different ways and send in
18 seven or eight different reports. It would allow us to
19 get one shot of data and reduce the burden to them.
20 Remembe that the data facilitation form was to
21 me the premise of the group, was the data burden and the
22 lack of quality or lack of a common language between the
23 data. And certainly, I think that would be a great answer
24 to that -- one of the answers to that. And so I can say
25 that I don't think you're walking into that similar
566
1 situation.
2 As the director of data and technology, I don't
3 foresee collecting that student level data. I don't have
4 staff to collect that data and handle it, quite honestly.
5 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Representative
6 Lockhart.
7 REPRESENTATIVE LOCKHART: Mr. Chairman, a
8 question. I don't remember seeing the RFI go out, so
9 maybe I got a copy and I just didn't see it, but if you're
10 going to get a response here in less than a month
11 apparently it is on the street right now.
12 So I think I would like to see that because that
13 would help my thinking. And I don't know whether the
14 other members of the committee saw that or not. It might
15 be just the data facilitation group, but that's a very
16 important issue on what all you're asking the people to
17 respond to is what is in that RFI.
18 But second, I think that Keith brought up --
19 Senator Goodenough brought up a good issue. As I recall,
20 the State now has an information officer dealing with
21 computer systems, and on your evaluations, if you're going
22 to do a quick evaluation, get this stuff on the 8th and
23 put together by the 18th of December, I would sure like to
24 have this person overlook that as kind of an
25 administration or executive level contributor because
567
1 incompatibility of a computer system is a huge, huge issue
2 and if we can avoid that, that might be helpful.
3 I guess it is two things, that you consider that
4 last item of putting the information officer in your
5 review group, and I guess I would like to see what that
6 RFI looked like.
7 COCHAIR STAFFORD: For the committee to
8 see that.
9 Representative McOmie.
10 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Mr. Chairman, with
11 reference to Representative Lockhart's comments, if this
12 gentleman is new, then I would be for that. But some of
13 the problems that Senator Goodenough has talked about is a
14 result of the State trying to manage all of the other
15 departments' stuff. So I would be cautious about this
16 unless -- I don't know about the new people.
17 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Sessions.
18 SENATOR SESSIONS: Mr. Chairman, I would
19 just like to say -- to try to answer Senator Devin's fears
20 is through that -- through the process of this we
21 discussed how much easier this would be if we have a
22 central -- if we have a system where we input data into it
23 and -- well, how much to simplify it is going to help
24 districts and this is our understanding and maybe liking
25 at the RFI, the request for information, will help you
568
1 understand this.
2 But within the collection of information it was
3 part of the discussion was that the State will collect
4 information once on the demographics and so forth from the
5 districts and then all of the different compilations that
6 they're asked to do will be done from their collection of
7 data, they will process it and be able to put it out.
8 So that innumerable reports -- and we even
9 talked about the fact that as this goes down, the DFS
10 reports, Department of Family Services, and some of those
11 reports that are coming into districts to track different
12 things possibly could be, you know -- that this will solve
13 some of that problem.
14 But that's what I -- you know, I think that's
15 going to -- we let -- the success of it is going to depend
16 upon letting the districts and their professional people
17 within those districts that are working those computer
18 systems -- let them on a meet and confer work out all of
19 the bugs and concerns of it so they can come out with, I
20 guess, the plan that benefits them.
21 From what we listened to, they're perfectly
22 willing to do it. And maybe some of the districts would
23 like to speak to this that were represented.
24 COCHAIR STAFFORD: I would like to remind
25 the committee that our time frame in this room is coming
569
1 quickly to a close. Further comments are good, but let's
2 see where we're going.
3 Representative Miller.
4 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you,
5 Mr. Chairman.
6 Mike, don't the majority of the districts do --
7 collect all of this data in some sort of electronic form
8 now except they're all using their own programs in that
9 district? Give us an idea of how many different programs
10 are used statewide right now for collecting information in
11 K-12.
12 MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chair, Representative,
13 the information -- there are electronic systems out there,
14 but they are for student management. And what we find is
15 that the student management systems out there, again, some
16 districts, a few feel like they have an answer but for the
17 most part don't feel like they're adequate for that. And,
18 quite honestly, this body of evidence approach is not a
19 common approach and it is fairly complex and the districts
20 don't feel like the systems that they have are adequate to
21 meet the body of evidence requirements, the tracking for
22 that.
23 And, certainly, one of the things that we've
24 looked for in the RFI is we've looked for compatibility
25 with those established systems. A big fear for those
570
1 districts is that they spent a lot of money on a system,
2 trained staff -- not an easy thing to do -- trained the
3 staff and the why of coming in with a brand-new system was
4 not a good one.
5 So what we were looking for was something that
6 would be compatible with those existing student management
7 systems. And I would point out that there's a difference
8 between what I would call student management and
9 performance tracking.
10 COCHAIR STAFFORD: SIF system.
11 MR. HAMILTON: This is a -- the software
12 is immediate need with the 2005-2006 graduation
13 requirements. We legally need to have this in place now.
14 That's obviously not going to happen, but Senator Scott
15 talked about some of the possible solutions to that in the
16 interim until we have a system up and running.
17 A larger idea and concept that the department
18 put forward was this idea of a school intraoperability
19 framework. And the reason we threw this out is because of
20 the data burden for districts and saw this as a possible
21 solution.
22 You can see that one of the things we run into
23 is lack of a common labeling system. We don't collect
24 everything the districts store. We select a subset of
25 what districts store. And that subset, really there needs
571
1 to be a common language. And if we have a common
2 language, it makes the collection much, much easier.
3 So if you go down in that executive summary, the
4 benefits of the school intraoperability framework, there's
5 one point of entry for districts. So for districts, they
6 enter information once into a system, a student management
7 system, for example, and then that information is
8 automatically passed to their lunch system, library
9 system, whatever programs they might have. That
10 information is automatically passed because those software
11 applications can talk to each other with the SIF concept.
12 So it saves time and the data is more accurate
13 so you're not entering the information -- if I enter Joe's
14 information in student management and I enter it at lunch,
15 there's a chance I enter the name incorrect or mistype the
16 Social Security and the quality of the data becomes
17 suspect.
18 The other benefit for both the department and
19 for the districts is then if that data is stored with a
20 common labeling, it is very easy for us to get the
21 information from the districts. They don't store it one
22 way or have to finagle, work with, twist, turn and get it
23 into what we need.
24 One, that's a lot of work. Two, that twisting,
25 finagling and turning again makes the quality of the data
572
1 suspect.
2 The SIF concept is a concept -- and we're
3 looking at some expense if we were to do something like
4 this. If we were to determine it was feasible, there
5 would be expense for actual hardware that would allow this
6 sharing of information to take place.
7 What you have before you now is a presentation
8 or information about a feasibility study to see if it
9 would even work in the state, and what we're looking at is
10 hiring a contract person -- of which we know there's
11 actually somebody at the national level that has been
12 working on this, implementing this in other districts and
13 other states.
14 We have some good folks in mind that I think
15 would do a good job here, and come and take a look at what
16 we have as far as hardware in the districts, look at the
17 feasibility of actually making this happen. In addition
18 to that, also do a pilot study with three districts to see
19 that it actually works before we try to do a full-blown
20 multi-million-dollar offering. Do a pilot and see if it
21 works with three districts. And if it is decided that the
22 money is available, the SIF concept is feasible, the money
23 is available, we've learned from the mistakes in the pilot
24 and do a good job of getting the information out.
25 I do want to add on the software changing track
573
1 here real quick, on the software, one of the things I've
2 seen being a downfall for new software is lack of
3 training. We've set aside money for training and, in
4 fact, have set aside $100,000. $100,000 buys a lot of
5 training. We would use the train-the-trainer type
6 approach so we would have folks that are local that would
7 be able to go over to -- if I'm in Greybull, I can go to
8 Lovell to do the training there. So it is not just coming
9 from the state department.
10 You can see the estimated cost if you look on
11 the back side of this. We're looking at a total cost
12 of -- we came up with $180,000 as an estimate for a
13 feasibility study here.
14 Also have a timeline for when things would be
15 completed. I'm not going to walk you through that. I
16 will let you go through that, unless you would like me to
17 go through the steps. But I know we're short on time and
18 want to leave time for questions if possible.
19 MR. GROSS: Mr. Chair, so I don't add to
20 the confusion here, it was the SIF system that was true
21 about my earlier comments about interoperability. It is
22 difficult enough for me, not very knowledgeable in this
23 education area. I don't want to confuse you any further
24 than I already have. So I wanted to clarify that.
25 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Questions on the SIF
574
1 system?
2 Senator Scott.
3 SENATOR SCOTT: To make sure I understand,
4 SIF, the protocols are based on the national ones and the
5 vendors that supply the software that the various school
6 districts use are promising to be compliant with this
7 national protocol under development, so what we're talking
8 about here is making sure it will work in Wyoming and some
9 have hardware that's necessary to implement it.
10 So potentially, Mr. Chairman, you have a great
11 payoff here in terms of reducing the reporting burden on
12 the districts and enabling districts to talk to each
13 other, possibly even across state lines as they get
14 students in from other districts, but certainly within the
15 state. And so there's a great payoff if it will work.
16 MR. HAMILTON: Right. Thank you.
17 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Representative Shivler.
18 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: Mr. Chairman, I
19 was going to parrot exactly what Charlie said. I was
20 going to mention that.
21 SENATOR SESSIONS: Mr. Chairman, just
22 something for us to think about before we look at the
23 draft legislation, there's three components here. One of
24 them is the development of the advisory groups. The
25 second one is the Standards and Body of Evidence Tracking.
575
1 And the third one is this SIF system which allows the
2 information to be traded back and forth with the state.
3 So there are three separate parts, three
4 separate functions here.
5 MR. GROSS: And I should add, Mr. Chair,
6 members of the committee, because I know at least one of
7 our participants will say it if I don't, part of this --
8 what will be essential to make this especially the
9 software system work is a uniform student identification
10 system. And what we heard in the DFF process is that the
11 Social Security numbers probably will not be adequate
12 because some parents simply will not allow the use of
13 them. But that is something that you should be aware of
14 and it will help make all of this work a lot more
15 smoothly. And it was a significant issue that was
16 discussed at the last meeting.
17 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Senator Scott.
18 SENATOR SCOTT: Mr. Chairman, in view of
19 the hour, I know legislation has been drafted that would
20 reflect these recommendations. I'm going to suggest that
21 maybe what we ought to do is take that up at the next
22 meeting unless the Chairman want to take it up tomorrow
23 morning.
24 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Further comments?
25 REPRESENTATIVE MCOMIE: Next meeting.
576
1 Senator Scott, Senator Devin and I also
2 discussed that and thought that would be sufficient at
3 this point.
4 Anyone have any further comments on that issue,
5 the three separate issues?
6 Hearing none, thank you, Colonel Gross. Thank
7 you, Mike. Appreciate it very much.
8 (Discussion held.)
9 COCHAIR STAFFORD: By the way, nice tie.
10 MR. GROSS: I wore this for Representative
11 Shivler. This is a Frank Lloyd Wright design and that's
12 his hero.
13 Right?
14 REPRESENTATIVE SHIVLER: I appreciate
15 that.
16 COCHAIR STAFFORD: Committee, we will
17 adjourn now but we will meet at 8:00 in the morning. I
18 think some of the agendas say 8:30, but we will be meeting
19 at 8:00 in the morning.
20 (Meeting proceedings recessed
21 5:05 p.m., October 24, 2002.)
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7 I, JANET DEW-HARRIS, a Registered Professional
8 Reporter, and Federal Certified Realtime Reporter, do
9 hereby certify that I reported by machine shorthand the
10 foregoing proceedings contained herein, constituting a
11 full, true and correct transcript.
12
13 Dated this ___ day of _________, 200__.
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19 _____________________________
20 JANET DEW-HARRIS
Registered Professional Reporter
21 Federal Certified Realtime Reporter
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