Full-day kindergarten students at Laredo Elementary in Aurora react during a recent lesson on counting that involves colorful blocks.

AURORA – Five-year-old Skyla Davis proudly carries her homework folder in her pink backpack. Her big brown eyes sparkle like her brand-new white school shoes.

She and her kindergarten classmates at Laredo Elementary School in Aurora are natural learners, excited as they count to 81 with their teacher and dig their hands through Play-doh and math manipulatives.

“That’s the most exciting thing about kindergarten,’’ said Skyla’s principal, Quinn O’Keefe, as he watched the buzz build on a recent Monday afternoon. “You can see them learn in a moment.”

Kindergarten offers educators an extraordinary opportunity to hook children on learning and launch them on a path that could change their lives.

That’s why Aurora Public Schools leaders say they’re investing $2.6 million each year from the district’s 2008 tax increase to fund free full-day kindergarten for all children.

The full-day program started this fall and doubles the school day for hundreds of children. In the past, lotteries determined which children would win coveted spots in full-day kindergarten classes among the district’s 34 elementary and K-8 schools.

Full-day kindergarten is not mandatory or funded in Colorado and many school districts offer only half-day programs. Some offer full-day programs but charge tuition while others cobble together other funds to support a full-day option.

Prior to tapping the tax funds, Aurora used some federal Title I grant money to ramp up its full-day kindergarten program. Last year, 2,285 children were in full-day programs while 689 participated in half-day classes. This year, more than 3,300 children have registered so far for full-day.

At Laredo, all kindergarten students used to attend half-day programs before 2005. Five years ago, Laredo started using Title I funds to support  full-day kindergarten. In the 2005-06 school year, the school funded one full-day program and four half-day classes. Then the school started having two half-day classes and two full-day kindergartens.

Children who attended half-day classes used to be at school for just under three hours. Now, the school day is extended to 6 ½ hours for all students.

‘Parents want it, state doesn’t pay’

O’Keefe, the school’s principal, used to hear constantly from parents who wanted more school time for their young children.

Debbie Montano, a teacher at Laredo Elementary in Aurora, uses connecting blocks to teach math to her full-day kindergarten class.

“Most parents were knocking on our door saying, ‘I want full day,’ ’’ O’Keefe said. “They didn’t understand that the state doesn’t pay.”

O’Keefe said full-day programs are critical to the low-income families he serves.

“Parents want full-day for the academic advantages, but it will also save them $400 a month in day care,” he said. “Many of our parents are working two and three jobs.”

At Laredo, 85 percent of children qualify for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program, an indicator of poverty. Districtwide, the figure is 71 percent.

Trailer parks and low-income housing cluster along Colfax a block north of the school. Fifty-five percent of Laredo’s students are English Language Learners.

For these children, school is not just a place to polish skills. Students who do well could earn a ticket out of poverty. A sign over the school’s front door reads: “Gateway to College.”  And teachers here like to remind students that for them, college begins in kindergarten.

Yet it can be hard to project to college when many children come to school woefully unprepared for rigorous academics.

“We have kids come to us who don’t know what the letter “A” is or what the color blue is,’’ O’Keefe said. “The challenge for our teachers is to take kids who come in behind, elevate them to proficient and keep them there.’’

So far, full-day kindergarten appears to be helping.

Full-day kindergartners outperform half-day

Aurora educators last year compared children who were in full-day kindergarten with those in half-day programs. On a commonly used reading assessment for younger students, children were considered to be on-target if they hit a benchmark of level 3 by the end of kindergarten.

Throughout the district, 64 percent of the children in full-day kindergarten hit the target, while 51 percent of the half-day children were reading at level 3.

At Laredo, the results were even more striking. Since the full-day program started in 2005, an average of 71 percent of students were either proficient or advanced in end-of-the-year benchmark tests. Just 51 percent of children who attended half-day programs showed proficiency.

“Right away, the full-day kindergarten outperformed the half-day,’’ O’Keefe said.

William Stuart, Aurora’s chief academic officer, is keenly aware of achievement gaps between low-income students and English language learners and their peers from higher-income families, who typically come to school fluent in English and ready to learn.

“Achievement gaps start at the earliest ages,’’ Stuart said. “Time is the variable that really impacts student learning. Having kindergarten children in school full days helps eliminate gaps before they start.”

Stuart said the district does not yet have longitudinal data to show whether children who attended full-day kindergarten retain the boost and continue to outperform their peers in later years. But he and other district officials are convinced the investment will pay off.

“Over time, it’s going to pay dividends in narrowing elementary achievement gaps and having far more kids at grade level,’’ Stuart said.

Big dreams begin with kindergarten

At Laredo, O’Keefe said longitudinal trends are positive. Children who attended the school in full-day kindergarten programs out-performed their classmates who came later by an average of five percentage points on state reading exams.

A kindergarten student at Laredo Elementary in Aurora puzzles out a math problem with her Lego-like blocks.

“Five additional percentage points on a CSAP year to year is significant for us,” the principal said.

For 5-year-old Skyla Davis and her family, Laredo is a refuge from life’s chaos. Skyla’s dad, Larry Davis, concedes he’s been checked out for much of Skyla and her little sister’s life.

“I was addicted to crack,’’ Larry Davis said. “Rather than have it affect them,  I sent them to live with my wife’s mom so I could grow up myself.’’

Davis was homeless at times, but said he’s been clean for a few months now and relishes picking up Skyla from school. The family is living with his parents while Davis tries to find work and get his life together.

Both father and daughter love kindergarten.

“Personally, I think full-day is great. There’s more discipline, a better education,” he said. “You get them interacting with other children from an early age. And she learns to respect her elders.”

Davis brushes Skyla’s head as he talks, passing along his hopes to her.

“I settled for a GED and joined the Army,” he said. “I would like her to go to college. I’d like her to fill the shoes and dreams I never did.’’

Sources for statistics, funding: Vody Herrmann, assistant commissioner, Colorado Department of Education; CDE enrollment data; Colorado Revised Statutes; 2008 district survey.

Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg is touting savings of $30 million in 2009-10, part of which will allow the district to cut class sizes across the city. Boasberg will meet the press at 10:15 this morning to talk about how the district managed to close its fiscal year with money to spare. He cites $16.5 million in savings from that still-controversial 2008 pension refinancing, along with cost-control steps such as a pay freeze for everyone but teachers.

DPS will set aside $2 million to $2.5 million of the money to hire 30 to 40 additional teachers to reduce class sizes in targeted schools in the next few weeks. The rest of the savings will be used to offset projected budget cuts of $50 million in 2011-12, when state funding to schools is expected to again be reduced and federal stimulus dollars will end. That follows about $35 million in cuts this year.

Boasberg also is highlighting “very high marks” from financial ratings agencies:

“The reaffirmation of our high credit ratings by Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s on all our debt issuances, including our pension debt, demonstrates the financial strength and stability of the district,” he said, “and should put to rest the mudslinging and misinformation we have seen in this campaign season about the district’s financial position.”

Meanwhile, the DPS board of education held another retreat to improve collaboration but the setting last week was less Broadmoor, more Balarat. Too bad they forgot to publicly post the meeting agenda or record the daylong event. President Nate Easley took the blame, saying it was his mistake – “I’m a knucklehead, I’m new, I’m learning.”

Board members got plenty of flak in December when they hired a therapist whose practice focuses largely on marriage counseling to facilitate their retreat at the luxury Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs – where the state school boards’ association also was meeting. This time, the board went to the district’s own Balarat Outdoor Education Center and they got a couple of facilitators to work pro bono. In response to a public records request, DPS said the only retreat costs were the $2,056.56 in reimbursements for the facilitators’ travel and hotel expenses. Spokesman Mike Vaughn said that’s being paid from private donations, not public tax dollars.

Easley said there was “absolutely” no attempt to keep the meeting out of the public eye, despite the furor about the Broadmoor episode. Board member Jeannie Kaplan, who’s not afraid to disagree with Easley, doesn’t in this case. “I actually don’t think it was an attempt to avoid publicity,” she said, although the verdict is still out on whether the discussion on board governance was fruitful. “I think we have to wait and see,” Kaplan said. The meeting did draw one member of the public – a reporter for Westword, who’s working on a profile of outspoken board member Andrea Merida.

Teacher and blogger Sabrina Stevens Shupe has produced an eight-minute video explaining, from her point of view, why school turnaround strategies often fail. The video is posted on our homepage, in the lower right-hand section.

What’s on tap:

The Jefferson County school board meets at 6 p.m. in the board room of district headquarters, 1829 Denver West Drive, building 27 (agenda).

Good reads from elsewhere:

• Jersey dust-up: Fired education chief says governor defamed him.
• La-la land: Business leaders urge evaluation changes, support value-added.
• Charter inclusivity: Groups urge charters to better serve English-learners.

Shupe, who taught in Denver Public Schools, allows Education News Colorado to cross-post some of her written blog posts and this video is embedded with her permission.

The State Board of Education has been wrestling off and on with that question since last spring, and members were reminded Wednesday morning just how complicated the issue is.

Chair Bob Schaffer, R-4th District, has been pushing the idea, partly because of incidents that the Poudre School District didn’t report but which later became public.

Schaffer has proposed a regulation that would require parents be notified if a school employee is arrested or charged for any felony, misdemeanor offenses involving children, sexual behavior or indecent exposure or for drunken driving. Notice would have to be made regardless of whether the alleged offense was committed while the person was working.

The board took testimony on the proposed rule last April, but a vote has been held off for more discussion and research. Schaffer convened Wednesday’s hearing as an informational meeting.

“This is just a study session,” Schaffer said, stressing that he welcomes further input.

The board heard lengthy testimony from Department of Education officials, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, a prosecutor, education groups and others. Here are the highlights of what members heard:

• State laws conflict. Arrest records are public and have to be released by police, but other parts of state law require CDE to forward CBI arrest information to school districts but forbid the department from releasing it to the public.

Any changes in confidentiality requirements “would have to be addressed by the General Assembly,” said Tony Dyl, an assistant attorney general who advises the board.

• Current data is incomplete. Every person who applies for a teaching or other professional education license is fingerprinted. Based on that, the CBI reports weekly to CDE any arrests that match the educator database. But, the system doesn’t necessarily pick up arrests on municipal, out-of-state or federal charges.

“You have a system set up based on Colorado … so it would not give you any of this other data,” noted Steven Jensen, chief deputy district attorney in Jefferson and Gilpin counties.

• Data is split up. While CDE has the database of licensed educators such as teachers and principals, district are responsible for background checks and monitoring of classified staff from janitors to bus drivers.

“I just think the information gaps are problematic,” said Bruce Caughey, deputy executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives. He noted that the system as it exists “would never have been designed” from scratch.

• The current system can require a lot of work. Additional reporting requirements could impose further burdens on CDE and districts, some witnesses said Wednesday.

Jami Goetz, CDE director of licensure, said the department has more than 350,000 names in its database, ranging from people who started the application process but never finished it to retirees. About 50,000 are active professionals. The department gets anywhere from 10 to 200 notices of arrest or charge each week from CBI, which must be reviewed and also sent to districts.

About 200 licensees a year require investigation, she said, and about 40 educators are referred to the board every year for revocation or changes in their licenses. (Not all of those cases involve criminal activity.) Goetz said statewide statistics aren’t kept on the number of educators who voluntarily give up their licenses.

Board member Angelika Schroeder, D-2nd District, asked if CDE has any way to segment the 350,000 names to for easy review. Goetz said the current database doesn’t allow that, nor can it be linked to the new unique teacher identifiers.

Philosophical issues aired

Bob Schaffer, R-4th District, chair of the State Board of Education

Schaffer said, “The one group left out of the [information] loop is the taxpayers [and] the people whose kids are actually in the classroom.”

Marti Houser, general counsel of the Colorado Education Association, said, “Our concerns relate to the constitutional and statutory rights of our members, not that we don’t care about the children. … If we are moving to a process … of reporting every arrest, that would be very unfortunate [and] a huge burden for the Department of Education.

“There aren’t very many educators being arrested … very, very few are convicted or plead guilty” to crimes, she added.

But Greg Romberg, lobbyist for the Colorado Press Association, argued, “Records should be open unless there’s a compelling reason for them not to be.”

The issue and the proposed rule were sparked by incidents in the Poudre School District.

A former paraprofessional at a Poudre middle school was arrested last November in a sexual crime involving a student. The district didn’t inform parents of the arrest until after administrators learned the case was about to be reported in the local media. And, the district never gave notice of the September arrest of a Poudre High School teacher for providing liquor to two students.

Denver North High School

Some $37 million in federal school improvement grants is expected to be spent on the effort over the next three years.

The schools, 14 of which are in just two districts, Denver and Pueblo City, will receive three-year federal funding for efforts to improve student achievement through various methods, including turnaround, restart, school closure and transformation.

Here’s what those models involve:

• Turnaround – Replacement of principal, rehiring or no more than 50 percent of current staff and flexibility in staffing, calendar and budget.
• Restart – Turning the school over to a charter organization or an education management organization.
• Closure – Shutting a school and moving students to higher achieving schools in a district.
• Transformation – Replacement of principal and taking steps to improve educator effectiveness, reform instruction, increase learning time and community support and provide operational flexibility.

Transformation is generally seen as the least disruptive to existing staff, but some education experts have concerns about its effectiveness. Of the 19 schools, nine chose transformation, six turnaround and one a combination of restart and turnaround. Three schools will be closed.

A number of the schools on the list already have gone through various district improvement efforts but have remained in the ranks of the state’s lowest-performing schools.

The schools, the amounts budgeted and the methods to be used are as follows:

Tier I list (schools that receive Title I funds for low-income students)

• Hanson Elementary School (Adams County School District 14) – $2,010,180, transformation
• Haskin Elementary School (Center Consolidated School District 26JT) – $1,666,515, transformation
• Gilpin K-8 School (Denver Public Schools) – $1,260,033, turnaround
• Greenlee K-8 School (DPS) – $2,256,517, turnaround
• Montbello High School (DPS) – $3,388,350, transformation
• Philips Elementary School (DPS) – $36,413, closure
• Clifton Elementary School (Mesa County Valley School District 51) – $2,598,111, transformation
• Freed Middle School (Pueblo City Schools) – $2,063,811, turnaround
• Youth and Family Academy Charter School (Pueblo) – $1,578,681, transformation
• Fort Logan Elementary School (Sheridan School District) – $2,388,570, turnaround

Tier 2 list (schools eligible for Title I funds but which don’t currently receive them)

• Lake Middle School (DPS) – $2,083,232, restart and turnaround
• Noel Middle School (DPS) – $2,776,580, transformation
• North High School (DPS) – $3,106,922, transformation
• Rishel Middle School (DPS) – $15,387, closure
• Skyland Community High School (DPS) – $35,790, closure
• Pitts Middle School (Pueblo) – $2,159,601, turnaround
• Risley Middle School (Pueblo) – $2,103,975, turnaround
• Roncalli Middle School (Pueblo) – $2,212,131, transformation
• Central High School (Pueblo) – $2,799,228, transformation

Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper spoke about education on Aug. 30, 2010, at Arapahoe Community College.

“We’re not going to throw money at the problem,” the Denver mayor said during a news conference at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton with running mate Joe Garcia, president of Colorado State University-Pueblo. “There is no appetite” among the public for new taxes, Hickenlooper said.

Still, the pair presented a seven-page education policy brief that ranges from testing to teacher improvement to better coordination of the higher education system.

In several places the brief promises to continue and complete education initiatives started by Gov. Bill Ritter and the legislature in the last three years. As befits a campaign document, the brief covers a lot of ground but doesn’t offer detailed specifics.

The language of the brief seems to set up Hickenlooper as the governor who actually will implement what others have started.

Scroll to bottom to see videos of Hickenlooper and Garcia at Monday’s press event.

“While we will set ambitious education goals like each of Colorado’s previous governors, our administration will focus on the implementation of practical strategies to improve student achievement, high school graduation rates, and success in higher education.

“The next governor will also need to work to ensure that implementation of new legislation is done in collaboration with local school districts, teachers and principals to support a fair, credible evaluation system based on reliable data and accompanied by meaningful mentoring and professional development.

“Given budget constraints, improving education in Colorado is not an easy task and there are no easy solutions.”

Despite that support for education reform work that has been done to date, Hickenlooper expressed a note of frustration when he noted there’s “so little to show for it.”

Criticizing the CSAP tests, whose demise was called for in 2008 legislation but which probably won’t be replaced until 2014, Hickenlooper said, “We will do everything we can to give it [the changeover] greater urgency.”

He also called for greater use of online education and expansion of school broadband services; more public-private partnerships in education, and better coordination and integration of higher education in particular and the whole system in general.

“We have to continue blurring those lines.”

Democratic lieutenant governor hopeful Joe Garcia (left) and gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper presented their education proposals Aug. 30, 2010.

Asked if Garcia would play the same role in education as Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien has played for Ritter, Hickenlooper said, “It’s premature to think about specific roles,” but quickly added, “I’d be a fool not to give him tremendous responsibility and authority.”

Garcia also has been president of Pikes Peak Community College and active in some Ritter-era education reforms, including serving as co-chair of the governor’s P-20 Education Coordinating Council.

“Education is going to be at the core of everything we do,” Hickenlooper said, noting that education consumes more than half the state’s general fund budget.

“I want to be a leader in making sure we provide the best education system for students. The fiscal situation of the state makes it harder to do so, but it is important for our kids and our economy to make sure that Colorado is leading the way in education,” Hickenlooper said.

Details of Hickenlooper-Garcia education policy brief

The document lists four key priorities:

• Build on the work that is currently underway involving the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) to develop a more strategic assessment tool to inform and impact student outcomes and respond accordingly.
• Improve transparency in our school districts and hold leaders responsible while giving them the authority and tools to effectuate change.
• Develop and support better teachers and better principals using more integrated technologies across the state.
• Create and expand career-oriented partnerships with community-based organizations and businesses.

The document also stresses use of technology in educational improvement, including:

• Expand broadband access statewide to allow greater access to the web and share best practices about innovative and effective ways to integrate mobile learning with classroom-based instruction.
• Provide more resources to teachers through high-tech, on-line venues and 21st Century learning tools.
• Build a high quality and accessible on-line course content library at a secondary level using the best teachers and classrooms in the state. Content is shared at little to no added cost to districts and schools.
• Provide high quality dual-enrollment and remedial online courses for high school students and adults reentering college. Courses should have assessments that measure college readiness and quality.

On the issue of developing more effective teachers and principals, the document urges improved parent involvement, support of both college and alternative teacher preparation programs, rewarding leadership programs that show results, encouraging businesses to provide financial incentives for educators and promises to “work closely with our teachers, principals, state legislature and local school districts to build on the work that has begun on ‘teacher effectiveness’ and ensure that implementation of new legislation [Senate Bill 10-191] is successful.”

The brief also proposes ensuring “a fair level of support for all public schools, including charters” and to “support the work of new and existing education entrepreneurs to respond to district and school-level needs and/or to start new innovative programs and initiatives.” It also urges expansion of “online content and instruction in order to give all students, regardless of address, access to high quality public school/program options.”

The briefing paper offers general, sometime-in-the-future support for better education funding.

“We should assess Colorado’s education funding and the direct ties it has to economic development. We should also develop long-term strategies to build a 21st Century school system that keep pace with comparable states while also competing for new federal grant funds. … One of the biggest challenges we face is that other states are spending more on education than we are.”

The document’s section on higher education also acknowledges the financial issues also facing state colleges and universities.

“Colorado is at a crossroads in higher education. If we don’t find a way to appropriately reform, fund and support higher education in Colorado, we will fall behind other states and cripple our ability to attract high-paying jobs in the future. It’s that simple and that stark. Nobody in Colorado wants to see our schools close down at the expense of our students and communities. … Colorado ranks 48th in the nation in local support of higher education – this has to change.”

When and if more funding becomes available, the document hints that new dollars won’t go just to institutions. “We will balance these new resources between the institutions that provide education and the students who need financial aid to attend college.”

Efficiency, flexibility stressed for higher ed

There’s also a heavy stress on innovation and further efficiencies and creation of “more flexibility across our higher education systems,” including better credit transfer systems and incentives for quicker college completion.

“We will ask our two-year and four-year colleges and universities to share resources in providing relevant degrees. We should look at ways to rationalize curriculums by program and location, and we will take advantage of technology to provide courses across institutions. … Through public-private partnerships we can provide financial incentives for institutions to collaborate on curriculum and degrees.”

Those sorts of ideas are much discussed in higher ed circles these days, but individual institutions, particularly the state’s larger ones, remain cautious about the details of such sharing.

The education brief also notes, “We need to strengthen the role of the higher education coordinating board (the Colorado Commission on Higher Education) and its policies to focus on improving access and student success in our public institutions.”

The idea of strengthening CCHE, a big topic in the current higher ed strategic planning process, also is not universally supported by institution leaders.

Seen in the crowd

In addition to campaign workers, reporters and curious students, Hickenlooper’s audience included a group of Colorado Education Association officials, including executive director Tony Salazar, and representatives of the business-based reform group Colorado Succeeds, including President Tim Taylor and board chair Zack Neumeyer. Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver and author of the new educator effectiveness law, and Van Schoales of Education Reform Now also were in the audience.

The CEA-affiliated Public Education Committee gave Hickenlooper’s campaign $5,300 in the reporting period ending July 6.

Hickenlooper’s opponents haven’t yet offered major statements on education.

Republican Don Maes has five paragraphs about the subject on his website, saying, “Reform is an ongoing process and the school leadership must recognize the need for constant improvement. … More competition between schools and transparency in educational funding and results will produce more productive teachers, better students and administrations.”

Maes testified against adoption of the Common Core Standards at a recent State Board of Education meeting.

Renegade Republican Tom Tancredo, now flying the flag of the fringe American Constitution Party, doesn’t mention education on his website. Tancredo was a middle school civics teacher when elected to the legislature in 1976, and he later became regional representative of the U.S. Department of Education under the Reagan and first Bush administrations. Tancredo significantly downsized that office and then went on to be president of the Independence Institute and a congressman.

Students eat lunch at a Denver elementary school on Aug. 23. Virtually every Denver school cafeteria was inspected at least once in 2009-10 but federal rules say it should have been twice.

Federal regulations require school lunchrooms be inspected at least twice a year by local health authorities but more than half of all Colorado schools fail to meet that mandate. Many aren’t inspected even once a year.

It’s a record that put Colorado in the bottom five of all states in 2008-09, the most recent year available, when an average 29.5 percent of schools nationwide fell short of the required number of inspections.

The reason so many schools lag: While the 2004 School Lunch Reauthorization Act requires schools to obtain twice-yearly inspections, Congress didn’t set aside any additional money to pay for those increased inspections.

Cash-strapped county health departments — who aren’t answerable to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the school lunch program — often choose to put their inspection resources elsewhere, and schools are caught in the middle. Since there’s no penalty for non-compliance, few school districts press the issue.

In Colorado, at least, no major illnesses have ensued. The last widespread illness traceable to food served in a school lunchroom was in 2000, when some 50 students at an elementary school in Adams County fell ill with shigella after eating tainted gelatin.

But with more and more schools abandoning frozen processed foods and returning to scratch cooking from fresh raw ingredients, officials acknowledge the possibility for food contamination will grow.

“We use a risk-based approach in our inspections, and many of our schools are in a lower risk category now based on the fact the menu consists of pre-packaged prepared food,” said Lane Drager, consumer protection program coordinator for Boulder County Public Health. “That’s very low-risk from a food safety standpoint.

“Schools will change their risk profile with a different menu,” Drager said. “But we don’t have any different resources with which to do more inspections. It will be a huge challenge for us.”

Fresher food means higher risk

The challenge will be especially acute in Boulder County, where the Boulder Valley school district has been in the forefront of the return to scratch cooking. Yet of the 126 Colorado schools that got no county health inspections during the 2008-09 school year – the last year for which records have been compiled – 62 were in Boulder County.

Only six Boulder County schools – four in Boulder Valley and two in the St. Vrain school district – were inspected twice that year, and two in Boulder Valley were inspected three or more times. Nineteen were inspected once.

Raw foods had yet to be introduced into Boulder Valley in 2008-09. Their use is really beginning this year. Drager sighed when asked about the additional inspection time the district’s new menu will require.

“They were serving a low-risk menu, but since it’s for schoolchildren, it’s a high-risk population. Needing additional resources is something that has really concerned me, something we need to be able to address. But we didn’t have any extra resources,” Drager said. “Now we’ll have a high-risk menu with a high risk population, and so we’re really going to need more inspections.

“I don’t know that we have an answer on how to solve this,” he added. “The FDA recommends assigning roughly 300 or so inspections per staff person. If we were doing that, we would have to double the staff just to meet the workload. And that doesn’t account for outbreaks or other unplanned activities.”

One such “unplanned activity” in Boulder occurred in June, when the county health department ordered the Billy Goat Dairy in Longmont to stop distribution of its raw milk after 16 people became ill. Tests showed the presence of campylobacter and E. Coli in the milk.

‘State law trumps federal rules’

El Paso County accounted for more than half of the remaining uninspected schools in 2008-09. Of the 182 schools spread among the 15 El Paso County school districts,  37 got no inspections, 104 got one inspection, 40 got two and 11 got three or more.

Statewide, 629 schools were inspected one time in the 08-09 school year, 571 were inspected twice and 101 received three or more inspections. Third inspections typically are follow-up inspections to ensure that critical violations have been addressed.

Records of inspection frequency for the 2009-10 school year for each the state’s 178 school districts will be compiled in October, state officials said. But inspection reports for individual schools – both the most recent inspection as well as those dating back several years – are available online at many county or regional health department websites.

Patti Klocker, assistant director of the Division of Environmental Health and Sustainability at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said that where school lunchroom inspections are involved, state law trumps federal regulation.

In Colorado, state law says retail food establishments – that’s what school lunchrooms are considered to be – must either be inspected twice a year or county officials may use a risk-based model to determine inspection frequency. The factors that go into determining risk are 1) menu, 2) operations, 3) weekly meal volume and 4) past inspection results.

“A lot of schools are inspected twice a year, some more often,” Klocker said. “But it’s a quandary we’re in. I can’t, as a state agency, require a county agency to do more than is required by state law. We’ve told USDA that. But they never once talked to us, never once gave us resources for it.”

Jeffco, Denver, Mesa closer to twice-a-year mandate

Some districts have few problems attaining the required number of inspections for their schools:

• All the schools in Jefferson County – the state’s largest school district – were inspected at least once in the 2008-09 school year, and only three failed to have at least two inspections.
• In Denver, 74 schools had two inspections, 22 had three or more and 32 had only one inspection. No school failed to be inspected at least once.
• Every school in Mesa County’s three school districts was inspected at least twice, and 11 were inspected three times or more.

“This was already something that was happening when I walked in,” said Linda Stoll, director of food and nutrition services for Jefferson County Schools. “The director who was here before me worked very proactively with the health department to let them know we needed this.

“We check halfway through the year,” Stoll said, “and if we have a school that hasn’t had its first inspection of the year, we call the health department to remind them.”

Leo Lesh, director of food services for DPS, said he is equally pro-active about calling the health department if a school hasn’t received an inspection in awhile.

“We don’t get a second inspection for 100 percent of our schools but we get a lot, and we let them know which ones they’re missing,” Lesh said.

Reports for the 2009-10 school year are available online in some counties. So Education News Colorado reviewed all 2009-10 school reports filed for Denver Public Schools on the city’s website to get a sense of what inspectors are finding. (See the spreadsheet listing DPS schools with critical violations and inspector’s comments.)

Altogether, 67 of the 125 cafeterias inspected received between one and five “Type 1″ or critical violations, with most receiving one. DPS has about 160 “schools” or programs but several cafeterias serve more than one “school,” such as Rishel Middle School, which serves three programs at one campus.

Denver’s Department of Environmental Health website defines Type 1 violations as “violations which may not necessarily cause, but are likely to cause food-borne illness.” This includes issues as varied as chemical sanitizer of insufficient concentration to dented canned goods to improper sink drainage. A common example is the improper heating or cooling of food as it’s prepared, served and stored.

The reports indicate most schools moved quickly to correct issues, either in the inspector’s presence or before a follow-up visit. Eight schools were cited for evidence of rodents or insects, the violation likely carrying the highest “ick” factor. That included East and South high schools, along with elementaries such as Smith and Steele.

One school – Montbello High School – was cited repeatedly for rodents. The school was visited four times by inspectors, with the last report showing continuing problems.

Annual looks norm in Adams, Arapahoe, Douglas

In the districts served by Tri-County Health Department – schools in Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties – once-a-year inspections are the norm. While only one school in the three-county region failed to have a single inspection in the 2008-09 school year, only a handful had more than one.

“I know they would like to see two-a-year minimum but at this point, based on their inspection history and their risk, it doesn’t justify that,” said Tom Butts, director of environmental health for Tri-County Health. “So we don’t do that.”

“Most of the violations we see in the schools are minor,” he said. “They have a good focus on rodent and insect control, chemical handling, hand washing, those kinds of things. They’re focusing well, by and large, on the right stuff.”

Indeed, most schools do tend to fare well in county health inspections. Critical violations – those that could result in a food-borne illness – typically center on food temperatures or having garbage too near food preparation areas.

Districts that are moving to scratch-based cooking say they’re stepping up their own food safety policies, regardless of how often county health inspectors show up.

In Boulder Valley, five district managers are expected to visit every school lunchroom at least once a week. Satellite managers are given thermometers and expected to use them to ensure hot foods stay hot and cold foods stay cold, and that no food lingers in the dangerous 40- to 140-degree zone for very long.

In addition, the district has gone from cooking in every school to cooking at five regional sites. Those sites are staffed by professional chefs well-trained in food safety precautions, said Ann Cooper, director of food and nutrition for the district.

“Health inspections play an important role,” she said. “They’re an important tool to help us see things we might not otherwise see. But it’s our job as food service professionals to assure the safety of our kids.”

Increased oversight not top priority for some

Cooper insisted that, given limited resources, increased oversight ought not be a top priority.

“If Americans really care about school food, what we should be demanding is not more oversight but more money for food,” she said. “It’s not the oversight that will get good food on the kids’ plates. We need more money to buy food, for facilities, for training. I’m not saying the health department doesn’t need more money, but that’s not what will ensure that the kids are well-nourished.”

A Colorado food service worker checks the temperature of meat, among the safety steps kitchen personnel are trained to take, during a culinary boot camp this summer.

That’s a sentiment echoed by Colorado Springs School District 11’s director of food and nutrition, Rick Hughes. He said he simply doesn’t rely on the El Paso County Health Department to alert him to problems.

Two years ago, the district adopted the ServSafe Food Safety certification program, a rigorous program developed by the National Restaurant Association, and has made the training mandatory for many food service personnel.

“People can lose their jobs if they don’t attain that certification, which shows they have a good understanding of food safety,” Hughes said.

He said that since adopting the ServSafe program, more District 11 lunchrooms have received perfect inspections than ever before.

Hughes also disputes the commonly-held notion that scratch cooking is inherently riskier than relying on processed frozen foods. He said he receives almost daily notifications about food recalls involving processing plants.

“We’ve put this blind faith in our food industry but they’re not our friend,” he said. “They’re out to make a buck – and there’s not a lot of money in unprocessed foods. So you don’t see a lot of marketing of fresh, locally grown green beans and corn.”

Training an issue for food workers

In Jeffco, even with twice-yearly county health department inspections, school district site supervisors do two additional in-house inspections per school, for a total of four a year. Even so, Stoll is nervous.

“Like everyone else, we’re headed in the direction of scratch. But we’re not ready to begin cooking meat from scratch,” she said. “We’re looking for something I call ‘naked protein.’ We’re looking for cooked, shredded chicken, with nothing added to it. The same with beef and pork. We’re starting with that pre-cooked protein and going from there.

“But we just don’t have the training for our staff yet,” she said. “We don’t have a generation of people applying for jobs who grew up cooking, so training is the major obstacle we’re trying to overcome.”

In Denver, each school kitchen keeps a “charley plate,” Lesh said. That’s a plate containing a sample of everything cooked that day. Each plate is kept in the freezer and preserved for five days.

“That’s in case there is an illness outbreak,” Lesh said. “We can say ‘This is what we served today,’ and someone else can analyze it.

“We’ve been blamed for things that we didn’t cook,” he said. “If someone brings in food from home, and someone gets sick, the first thing people think is that it’s the food in the cafeteria. We’re blamed for anything that happens at school when it comes to food, and the damage is done even if we can prove we didn’t do it.”

Rebecca Jones can be reached at rjones@ednewscolorado.org

What do inspectors find?

EdNews examined reports from the last school year to get a sense of what health inspectors are finding in Denver school cafeterias. This spreadsheet shows only schools receiving critical violations and notes any follow-up visits reported on the Denver Department of Environmental Health website.

If your school is not listed here, it either did not receive a critical violation, it was not inspected in 2009-10 or we couldn’t find it despite repeated attempts. City records contain numerous misspellings. Also, keep in mind that one school may serve several programs, such as Rishel Middle serving Rishel, KIPP Denver Collegiate High and the Math and Science Leadership Academy.

Use the sliders at the bottom and right to view the spreadsheet here or go here to see it in full.

Evaluators also docked points for what they describe as the state’s vague plans to ensure effective teachers and principals are in the neediest schools.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday announced winners of the federal grant competition, awarding nearly $3.4 billion to nine states and the District of Columbia. Colorado placed 17th out of 19 applicants for Round 2 of the Race to the Top; the state also was a finalist, but not a winner, in Round 1 of the contest earlier this year.

Education News Colorado analyzed detailed scores and reviewers’ comments, released Wednesday, for Colorado and the winning states.

“The applicant’s record of improving student achievement is weak and there is little information describing lessons learned from previous reforms,” wrote the toughest of five reviewers of Colorado’s application. “Implementation of successful reforms appears to be weak.”

Click on graphic to enlarge.

That reviewer repeatedly noted the lack of support from the state’s largest teachers’ union, the Colorado Education Association, which drew comment from all five evaluators.

“Without the support of the CEA, the applicant will predictably face difficulties in the implementation of its multifaceted reform effort, which must depend heavily on the goodwill and commitment of the majority of the state’s teachers,” one reviewer wrote.

Only 5 percent of local unions signed on to participate in the reform plan after the CEA withdrew its support over Senate Bill 191, now a state law linking student academic growth to teacher evaluations.

“There is a notable absence of formal support from the Colorado Education Association,” wrote another reviewer. “This is a serious issue and threatens to compromise a full and successful implementation of the applicant’s RTTT agenda.”

Little impact seen from Senate Bill 191

Several reviewers referred to Senate Bill 191 in flattering terms – one called it a “bold strategy” – but it does not appear to have dramatically increased the points awarded Colorado’s application.

Of the seven areas in which states can win points, Colorado’s second-poorest showing came in “State Success Factors,” which considers the likelihood a plan will have successful and widespread impact.

Click on graphic to enlarge.

Colorado received only 78 percent of 125 possible points, with markdowns for years of flat achievement indicators and for little union buy-in.

But the state’s poorest showing – or 76 percent of 138 possible points – came in the area of “Great Teachers and Leaders,” which looks at educator preparation, development and distribution.

The biggest ding was in the category of “ensuring equitable distribution” of effective teachers and principals in high-poverty or high-minority schools.

“The application acknowledges a lack of success in the area of access and there is no data to demonstrate or review their progress,” wrote the reviewer who gave the state its highest overall score. “The state method to determine distribution is unclear … the plan to move forward in this area is not considered ambitious.”

Another reviewer wrote that the state “does not currently have a methodology to determine the distribution of effective teachers and principals in high poverty/high minority schools.”

A third reviewer remarked that a state council must first define effectiveness, as required by Senate Bill 191, before any plan to distribute teachers and principals can begin:

“The September 2011 adoption date for the definitions places the true starting gate for this initiative on a somewhat distant horizon, which suggests an absence of a sense of urgency here.”

Comparing Colorado and Massachusetts

Colorado’s application is in stark contrast to that of Massachusetts, the state that will take home up to $250 million after achieving the highest overall point total of the ten Race winners announced Tuesday.

Click on graphic to enlarge.

Reviewers laud that state’s progress on national and international tests, noting its students ranked first on all four National Assessment of Educational Progress exams in 2005, 2007 and 2009.

One reviewer called Massachusetts “an unquestioned leader in the nation” on the NAEP.

Like Colorado, the state did lose some points for union participation – 56 of 276 union leaders, or 20 percent, did not sign on, including Boston.

Another reviewer gushed about Massachusetts’ plan for the equitable distribution of teachers in the most challenging schools, describing it as “visionary and catalytic”:

The state allows principals of its lowest-achieving 4 percent of schools to require all staff to reapply and it has lessened the “just cause” requirement of teacher dismissal to “good cause.” It also allows the principals to choose staff without regard to seniority.

Both Colorado and Massachusetts received high marks for developing and adopting common standards and for making education funding a priority.

But they differed again where charters are concerned – Colorado fared well for enabling high-performing charters, for equitably funding charters and for providing charters access to facilities.

Massachusetts just lifted its cap on charter enrollment in January but still restricts the number of charter schools to no more than 6 percent of public schools statewide, which cost the state some points.

Nancy Mitchell can be reached at nmitchell@ednewscolorado.org.

How the five reviewers scored Colorado’s application

Use the right and bottom sliders in the graphic below to see Colorado reviewers’ detailed scores in each Race to the Top application category. Or click “here” to go to an easier-to-read spreadsheet format:

That was the conclusion Jim Lyons came to after nearly four hours of the Wednesday meeting of the Higher Education Strategic Planning Steering Committee.

The group was hoping to work its way through and polish up a strategic plan rough draft prepared by Department of Higher Education staff (see document). But after first deciding it didn’t like the “theme” suggested by DHE chief Rico Munn, the panel then got bogged down on the toughest issue it faces – changing the way state colleges and universities are funded.

At the very start of the meeting, Munn said, “We really need to walk out of here today with a consensus on the philosophical pieces” of the draft. That hadn’t happened by the time Lyons decided another meeting was necessary.

Jim Lyons

A Denver lawyer who co-chairs the group, Lyons professed himself “thoroughly confused” by the finance discussion and asked Munn and his staff to do some additional work on the issue before a special meeting of the committee on Sept. 3.

The group hadn’t been scheduled to convene again until Sept. 22. But it’s planning a mid-September set of public meetings around the state to gather comment on the plan, so it will need to have a document in some sort of shape by then. “We’re running out of time,” Lyons said.

The finance discussion was kicked off by Co-chair Dick Monfort, who repeated the proposal he’s been making for months – that state tax support for higher education should go directly to students to spend at whatever state colleges they choose.

“If you’re ever going to pass any tax increase, the money has to go to the students,” Monfort said.

State aid currently is distributed through a formula that allocates some funds on a per-student basis and other money based on special costs and services at individual campuses, such as those associated with the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus. Because of declining state support for higher ed, legislators have juggled the current system every year primarily to ensure that each campus bears a proportional share of cuts.

Some committee members share Monfort’s general view but would like to create a system that also rewards campuses for performance (like higher graduation rates) and incentivizes colleges to serve under-represented groups of students and meet other state goals.

Russ George

Committee member Russ George, director of the state Department of Transportation, dissented, saying, “I’m still unpersuaded that giving money to the students will achieve the goals we want.” Noting the financial stresses facing higher ed, George asked, “Why would you do that at a time like this? … What’s the point of adding stress?”

George said the funding system shouldn’t be changed until extra revenue is available.

Everyone agreed that such a new system would create “winners and losers” among state colleges. Committee member Greg Stevinson noted the longstanding political realities of higher ed and said funding shifts would send “all the institutions running to the governor and the legislature.”

As the discussion got more and more complicated, committee member Ray Baker quipped, “This should be real easy to explain to the public.”

Colorado colleges and universities have annual revenues of some $2 billion, but about three-quarters of that comes from tuition. And in the last two budget years, some state tax dollars have been replaced with federal stimulus funding, which won’t be available in the future.

Some observers fear tax support could drop to around $300 million in 2011-12 if the state revenue slump continues.

It’s estimated that $1.1 billion in extra revenue would be needed to restore higher ed to the level of support it would have now if enrollment growth and inflation had been accounted for over the last decade.

Committee doesn’t like “big idea”

As a theme for the committee’s report, Munn and DHE staff suggested “5 by 10,” meaning the state should strive to increase higher ed graduation and completion rates by 5 percent a year for the next 10 years.

Doing so would create about 670,000 additional degrees. Colorado state institutions currently award about 41,000 degrees and certificates a year.

Panel members weren’t sure that struck the right tone. “I’d like to see it really connected to jobs,” said member Meg Porfido. “I see this as a tactic, not a strategy,” said Lyons.

The staff will go back to the drawing board.

Does the public care?

The board also heard a presentation on public attitudes about higher education and how to fund it, given by pollster Lori Wiegel of Public Opinion Strategies.

Wiegel, relying on a 2008 study and on more recent work in her field, said, “Higher education tends to fall to the bottom of the list” when people are asked about a set of government needs. “Cute little kindergartners trump college students.”

“They perceive you as having an income stream [tuition] that is independent,” she said, adding that the public often is supportive of restoring budget cuts but less interested in expansion. Voters do understand the connection between higher education and good jobs, she said.

“We are still in that fear-of-the-future mode,” Wiegel said, referring to the economy. “Confidence in the government has plummeted,” especially concerning the federal government. “We are seeing that creep in at the state level in Colorado.”

Dick Monfort

Monfort had his own take on public attitudes. “I think the perception is that if you’re funding higher education, you’re paying for a bunch of liberal professors who work five hours a week.”

The steering committee hopes to have a final report ready for the Colorado Commission on Higher Education and the governor by Nov. 4.

Previously: Higher ed panel wrestles with tough questions

Gov. Bill Ritter and Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien weren't at all happy with the way the state's Race to the Top Application was judged, and they said so at a news conference Tuesday.

“There were some flaws in how objective the scores were,” said Gov. Bill Ritter at a late-morning news conference with education officials and legislative leaders. “We believed all along we would be funded.”

Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien, who’s led the state’s R2T effort since last year, said reviewers had “a tin ear about how things are done in the West,” where local control of schools is the tradition. “A couple of reviewers had trouble recognizing that.”

Education Commissioner Dwight Jones and others vowed the state would continue to pursue the reform policies laid out over the last three years, although he acknowledged, “It does slow down how we move forward.”

“We believe our reform agenda is the right agenda,” said Randy DeHoff, vice chair of the State Board of Education. Ritter stressed, “We really believe in the reform course we have charted.”

The winners are Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.

Colorado’s final score was 420.2 out of a possible 500 points, or 17th out of the 19 finalists.

Three of the reviewers who judged Colorado rated the state’s bid highly. But scores by two other reviewers brought the overall score down, especially in the areas of local district participation, broad stakeholder support, improving student outcomes and closing achievement gaps. Those were part of the state success factors section of the application, where Colorado received 97.6 of a possible 125 points.

Use right and bottom sliders to move graphic and see how Colorado fared in each area of R2T.

The state also was marked down in the section dealing with great teachers and leaders, scoring 105.2 of 138 possible points. The state’s scores were stronger in the sections on standards and assessments, on data systems  and in a catch-all category that included school funding, charter schools and choice.

Click on graphic to enlarge.

“There were these two judges who just consistently marked us down,” said Ritter, whose irritation was evident. “We’d be in the money if we’d had just judges one, two and five.”

The governor said he talked Tuesday morning to Education Secretary Arne Duncan and vented his frustrations. Asked what reply Duncan made, Ritter said, “He listened a lot.”

Duncan, in a press conference call with reporters, said he was “very, very sorry” not to be able to fund Colorado’s bid but that the money simply ran out.

“Colorado has been, and will continue to be, a national leader in driving reform,” Duncan said. “I think the country has a lot to learn from Colorado moving forward … with more resources, we would love to have been able to put money behind Colorado’s effort.”

He also said “geography was irrelevant” to the list of winners put together by teams of peer reviewers, and that he chose not to deviate from their final list.

Massachusetts scored highest with 471 points. Of the winners, Ohio had the lowest at 440.8.

Monetary awards ranged from $75 million each for Rhode Island and the District of Columbia to up to $700 million for New York and for Florida.

State officials had hoped that Colorado’s new effectiveness law, which requires at least 50 percent of educator effectiveness be based on student growth and which will change the rules for teachers to gain and keep tenure, would improve Colorado’s chances in round two. The state also finished near the bottom of round one finalists.

Finalists met in person with reviewers two weeks ago. Jones said at the time that reviewers seemed to like and understand Colorado’s reform plan, and that questions focused on Colorado’s ability to actually implement those reforms (see story).

But Jones told EdNews Tuesday that he sensed during the interview that two of the reviewers seemed skeptical about parts of the state’s application.

O’Brien noted during the news conference that more than half the questions asked during the Aug. 10 interview concerned implementation and local control.

All the finalists except Rhode Island improved their scores based on the interviews. Colorado moved from 408 points to the final 420.2.

Lack of federal funding is likely to extend the implementation timetable for Colorado reform programs further into the future, to 2015 or beyond, given that the tight state budget situation will make it difficult to find extra funds for the projects outlined in the R2T application.

The key elements of the state’s reform program include the 2008 Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids, which required improved content standards, testing and alignment of grades; a new district and school accountability and improvement system passed in 2009 and just now rolling out; and the educator effectiveness law passed last spring. Other initiatives include a dropout prevention program, expanded opportunities for dual enrollment in high school and college, and increased funding for preschool and full-day kindergarten.

“There’s not a better place in American to launch reform,” Ritter said of Colorado.

Education Commissioner Dwight Jones said Colorado will push ahead with education reforms despite not being awarded R2T funds.

Jones said he still feels Colorado can meet the 2014 and 2015 timelines contained in recent state reform legislation. He said R2T funds could have speeded some things up.

“I think we can stay on schedule,” Jones said, but he added that “some tough conversations” will have to take place around how to do that.

Despite the criticism of the scoring, Jones said, “We will go through this (the evaluation) again and again” to see what can be learned.

Along with Colorado, the losing states included Arizona, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Thirty-six states applied for round two.

Total requests came to $6.2 billion. Some $3.2 billion was awarded.

Delaware and Tennessee were the only two round one winners; the other 14 finalists in that round made the cut in round two.

There were different tiers of possible award amounts based on state populations. Colorado asked for $377 million in the first round, during which tier limitations did not apply.

Details of Colorado’s application

The state’s 193-page application for $175 million pitched Colorado’s history of education reform measures.

The bulk of the funds would have been used for implementing new content standards and tests at the district level, creation of new educator evaluation systems, encouraging effective principals and teachers to work in low-performing schools and providing turnaround help for the state’s most struggling schools.

About $90 million of the $175 million would have gone directly to participating districts, as the program requires at least half the funds go to local education agencies.

The department signed memoranda of understanding (formal agreements to participate) with 114 districts and other education agencies, 64 percent of the 180 in the state. Those districts include 89.9 percent of the state’s students, 84 percent of schools and 91 percent of poor students. For the first round application, the state had agreements with districts including about 95 percent of the state’s students.

The Colorado Education Association participated in round one but boycotted round two because of concerns about the educator effectiveness law. The Colorado unit of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents primarily the Douglas County Schools, signed on to round two.

Colorado’s application promised, by 2014, to increase:

• College enrollment from 62.9 to 70 percent
• College retention from 66.3 to 75 percent
• 4th grade National Assessment of Education Progress math proficiency from 45 to 55 percent
• Higher school graduation rate from 74.6 percent to 90 percent
• 4th grade NAEP reading proficiency from 40 to 60 percent
• 8th grade math NAEP proficiency from 40 to 60 percent
• 8th grade reading NAEP proficiency from 32 to 52 percent
• Overall CSAP math proficiency from 54.5 to 85 percent
• Overall CSAP reading proficiency from 68.3 to 85 percent
• Reduce the achievement gap among all subgroups from 30 to 10 percent
• Those goals raised skepticism in some quarters, but state education leaders argue that Colorado has the infrastructure for reform in place but needs the funds to implement those programs.

Here’s a breakdown of how the state proposed to spend the $175 million:

• $13.6 million – Statewide implementation and administrative costs, primarily at the state Department of Education.
• $13 million – Funding the Content Collaboratives and Regional Support Teams to roll out new content standards and assessments to school districts, creation of an instructional improvement system on the department’s SchoolView website and extra support for small and rural districts.
• $5.8 million – Subsidies and incentives for districts to create and share curricula, for purchase of formative and interim tests and for state review of available interim tests.
• $15.2 million – Build out and support of an expanded SchoolView system, including teacher, principal and administrator portals; expansion of Colorado Growth Model data; and incentives for effective educators to provide instructional materials to others.
• $8 million – Money for state personnel and outside consultants to help districts develop and implement new educator evaluations systems and to identify measures of educator effectiveness, especially in currently untested grades and subjects.
• $5.1 million – Funding for the State Council for Educator Effectiveness and for districts to implement evaluation systems.
• $4.1 million – Development of effective teachers and principals with a focus on low-performing schools, including residency programs, increased numbers of national board certified teachers and hiring of Teach for America members.
• $4.3 million – Expansion of the department’s School Leadership Academy, including a Turnaround Leaders Academy.
• $3.2 million – Expansion of the number of students who take Advanced Placement classes and of the number of under-represented students who take college-prep classes.
• $884,000 – Funding for the department’s existing dropout prevention and student re-engagement program.
• $11 million – Creation of a school Turnaround and Intervention Unit within CDE to help districts conduct successful turnarounds of low-performing schools.