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SBE Faulted for Tardy Agenda Materials Time to read, absorb and thoughtfully respond to late-appearing documents relating to fast approaching deadlines – or more specifically the lack of such – was a topic that surfaced again and again at this week’s State Board of Education (SBE) meeting in Sacramento. On Wednesday, the SBE was the target of several complaints. Leading off was Ken Burt of the California Teachers Association (CTA), who strode to the microphone during public comment and reminded the SBE of the Bagley Keene Open Meeting Act (which dates from 1967). Burt – who has brought up the topic before – complained that there “are too many blue handouts” on the table outside the SBE meeting room – documents that had been released the morning of the SBE meeting, or shortly before. “I go to a lot of other agency meetings, where this does not occur,” Burt said. “When you get something at the last minute, you don’t have time to look at it. At worst, it’s policy making by ambush.” Burt – whose deep, rumbling voice could probably earn him a second career as a voiceover artist – sternly advised the SBE “You need to put the agenda out in a timely manner, and put out the attachments in a timely manner.” SBE president Ted Mitchell allowed that “All of us are frustrated with the speed-reading policy” that results when agenda documents get in people’s hands shortly before the meeting begins. Larry Carlin, also representing CTA, raised the same point as Burt regarding Agenda Item 9, involving a cohort of districts recommended by staff for Program Improvement Corrective Action. Some of the agenda backup had only been released on the preceding Friday, November 13. “We object to the untimely additional information,” Carlin said. “We request that any action take place at the January meeting,” allowing more time for people to be notified and prepare a response, he added. Bob Blattner, representing the Elk Grove Unified School District, made the same complaint as Carlin and Burt, in regards to possible corrective action by the SBE that might require that district to buy extensive new curriculum materials in a year when Elk Grove has been laying off teachers, librarians, counselors and vice principals. Blattner indicated that Elk Grove had been surprised to find out that the SBE was contemplating such a decision, and said “We respectfully ask that practitioners in the field are notified and have an active role in what’s determining the best course for kids.” Sherry Griffith, representing the Association of California School Administrators, raised the same point as Blattner regarding a cohort of districts that the SBE was considering for Program Improvement Corrective Action. “These 30 districts need to have proper notification . . . they were not advised of an addendum posted to the agenda last Friday with modifications.” Griffith asked the SBE to postpone action until January “and e-mails go out to these 30 districts so they will be fully prepared to speak to you.” Griffith noted that the SBE had pulled a portion of the agenda item the preceding night “but several districts have representatives that traveled for an item that has been bifurcated” – so that the hasty trip to Sacramento was all for naught, from the district’s point of view. Ultimately, the SBE took limited action on Item 9, adopting criteria by which districts will be measured, and assigned to “light, moderate or heavy intervention” under Corrective Action 6. “(Then) in January, we will have a full discussion on how we want to define Corrective Action 6 with special respect to the materials adoption issue,” Mitchell said. The next meeting of the SBE will be on January 6-7, 2010. The SBE took no action on another Program Improvement-related issue (Agenda Item 16) involving another cohort of Local Education Agencies that are assigned to work with a DAIT team. Carlin raised the issue of late documents again, saying “We would like to see you put this off until January, because of untimely information. And Griffith said “If you decide that there’s a group of districts that you want to interface with, then you invite them” to come to the meeting. On Thursday, the discussion turned to the topic of insufficient time once again – but this time, it was SBE member James Aschwanden expressing concern that there isn’t really enough time to prepare for some of the fast-approaching deadlines for the state to apply for funding under the federal Race to the Top (RTTT) program. “When we say we need to have a hard conversation (about education), we ought to allow more than 56 days,” Aschwanden said. “There’s a whole lot of things we ought to be talking about that we’re not (talking about)” in the discussion about the pending RTTT application, he said. Aschwanden indicated that he’d like to see that discussion include problems with California’s high schools, and the number of college graduates who end up taking further courses through community colleges. “If we’re going to Race to the Top, we need to look at a lot of data that we’ve ignored thus far,” he said. “We shouldn’t have to rely on RTTT money to have that conversation,” Aschwanden added. “We’ve had 25 years of conversation (about education reform) that’s gotten us to this point. At what point do we say ‘Can we just do it differently?’ The federal government has given us the opportunity to have that conversation. My term (on the SBE) ends in 2012, and I’d like to have (that conversation) before then.” Rick Miller, Deputy Superintendent for Policy Development and External Affairs with the California Department of Education, urged Aschwanden to consider California’s RTTT application as a framework for the discussion Aschwanden called for, rather than as a final document. “When we turn the application in, we have to have the structures in place to allow the conversation. It’s just to make sure we have no barriers,” Miller said. “We’re not expecting to have designed a growth model (for evaluating academic progress) or to have redesigned our high schools (on the RTTT application). “Those are the types of conversations that will go on (after the RTTT application is approved) and we’ll have funding to have those conversations,” Miller said. Editor's Note: Jeff Hudson is the editor of EdBrief and an award-winning education reporter and writer in print, radio and television media. |
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