We have reached the first important benchmark in the legislative session. In order for bills to remain under consideration, they must have cleared through a full committee in the chamber of origin. That's why last week we saw a flurry of activity as subcommittees met to consider whether or not to advance legislation on to the full committee. Those committees met multiple times, often with lengthy agendas in order to get their bills through this funnel. Though a bill may have survived the funnel, it is a long way from becoming law. The next step is debate and passage on the floor of the chamber before being transmitted to the other chamber where the process starts all over. An additional funnel will occur a four weeks from now which requires legislation to be through committee in the opposing chamber. This is designed to set up final debate and passage of a piece of legislation before it heads to the governor for approval or veto. Now that we are through the first hurdle, I think we can begin to take stock of where we are and what the real priorities of this session might be.
First, it is readily apparent that the AEA overhaul bill is not going away. From the governor's proposal, we saw an amendment offered that was advanced in the Senate but subsequently stalled in the House. Both chambers are struggling with these proposals because they are incredibly unpopular. Even so, there is a lot of pressure to get something done. My supposition is that is why we saw two competing proposals from each chamber this week clear their respective committees. Neither one is good, but it does appear that our legislators are continuing to have discussions and agree that further work is needed before these bills are ready to advance. The House Bill is slightly better, but I might suggest stripping everything out of it except the portion that discusses convening a task force to study all parts of the AEA.
One of the greatest flaws in both versions of the bill[s] continues to be a concentration of authority to the Iowa Department of Education (DE). Have you ever heard the quote, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'? It's from a speech Ronald Regan gave in 1986 where he argued that government tends to be inefficient and that instead of helping, it actually makes things worse. I would opine that what we have here is a textbook example of that very idea. To be honest, I don't have a lot of confidence in the DE and would submit I'm not alone in those sentiments. It's fair to say there is a real trust issue at play here.
Unfortunately, proposals to consolidate power with the DE is not isolated to just these proposals. For example, legislation is being discussed that would mandate specific reading methodology in instruction, AKA the science of reading. The proposal offers scant details into what exactly this means. Are we talking about phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension? If so those components are already part of the instructional practice deployed by our faculty. Is it instead about a specific program? If so, which one and why?
About that. This fall the DE announced a partnership with Lexia Learning to provide professional development at no cost to K-5 teachers and administrators. Now, the training is good. In fact we have a small cadre of teachers engaged in this training right now-through the AEA. (More on that in a minute.) The trouble with the DE offering is that schools need to fit into their 'one size fits all' model. To do so would mean rewriting the academic calendar and adding full days of professional learning to our schedule. Additionally, we would need to figure out what to do with more than half the faculty who wouldn't be otherwise be engaged with this learning. Or, as an alternative: schedule those professional learning days as an extension to the teacher contract. When queried about whether or not the DE was, as part of their plan to cover the cost of this training; pay for the added days to the contract I was met with radio silence. For about two weeks. Finally the answer came: that is a local decision. In other words, no they weren't going to pay for those days.
On the other hand the AEA is ready, willing, and able to manage that training and provide the flexibility needed in order to embed the training into our calendar. Granted, there is a fee for service that essentially would make is a wash, but the end result would provide for a richer training regimen with a higher likelihood of becoming part of practice. In fact, embedded profession learning has been proven to be much more effective in becoming part of professional practice! In fact, that is the whole premise of the Iowa Professional Development Model (IPDM). The way the DE is rolling out this training would make it difficult, if not impossible to implement the IPDM with fidelity. Dare I say this is the antithesis of the spirit of continuous instructional improvement in a school? One must wonder why, in the AEA reform bill, a requirement exists where the DE must approve all district requests for professional learning through the AEA.
Last week, superintendents received a monthly update from the Department where they announced the state is preparing to contract 'high quality curriculum and instructional materials'. Specifically in the core content areas of English/Language arts and math. Why? While it is not framed as a requirement, I do wonder why they feel this is even necessary. I wonder if we should expect, at some point a mandate to use specific state mandated curriculum. If that is the case, the DE is outside their scope of responsibility and far outside their lane. Curriculum adoption is squarely within the of responsibility of local school districts: specifically the Board of Directors of each LEA.
Perhaps my views are out of bounds. I will readily admit that the vast majority of those who work at the Department are highly qualified individuals. Many of them are former employees at school districts, who served as teachers, administrators, or other central office personnel. For the most part they are very capable, highly trained individuals. But not more so than those serving in school districts and AEAs all across the state. Should we anticipate additional mandates regarding the use of these materials, school information systems, specificity of what is taught and when at some point? Based on all the aforementioned proposals I hope you can understand the question. Clearly, many legislative proposals currently under debate are developed, by design to consolidate and centralize power. Again, I must wonder, why?
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