Randy Richardson, a former teacher and retired associate executive director of the Iowa State Education Association, provides his personal assessment of a bill that has flown below the radar. -desmoinesdem

It’s a jab, a right cross, a left hook followed by a right uppercut. That’s how it seems for educators in Iowa since the General Assembly convened in January. The most recent blow came almost one month ago when Senator Amy Sinclair introduced Senate Study Bill 1137 in an education subcommittee meeting. That bill eventually became Senate File 475, the Education Omnibus Bill. The bill has passed the Senate with limited support from Democrats and now sits in the House awaiting debate and a vote.

The thirteen page bill, carefully divided into seven divisions, contains a lot of items that educators hate and very little that would be considered redeeming.

Division one of the bill contains proposals expanding online education.
Current law limits the number of students who receive instruction primarily over the internet to:

1. not more than eighteen one-hundredths of one percent of the statewide enrollment of all pupils, and
2. the number of pupils participating in open enrollment for purposes of receiving educational instruction and course content that are delivered primarily over the internet to no more than one percent of a sending district’s enrollment.

Under current law only two school districts are allowed to host virtual schools with private, for-profit companies. Currently the CAM school district hosts a virtual school in conjunction with the Connections Academy and the Clayton Ridge school district hosts a virtual school with K12, Inc. According to a 2017 report filed by the Iowa Department of Education, 808 students from across the state are currently enrolled in the two virtual schools.

Currently, the two virtual schools receive state aid for each student who enrolls. The virtual schools are allowed to keep 90 percent of that with the remainder going to the two host school districts. According to a 2017 article in the Des Moines Register, the two virtual schools received $5.2 million in state aid this year. The two local districts serving as hosts brought in $219,000 for their role in schools.

Both Connections Academy and K12, Inc are big businesses. K12, Inc has virtual schools in 33 states and brought in $872 million in revenue in fiscal 2016. Both companies have come under fire for the quality of education they provide. In fact, the 2017 report prepared by the Department of Education noted that the percent of students proficient in reading, math, and science both districts’ online programs decreased this school year, and the decreases in performance were substantial. The Department also commented on student turnover in these programs, which is a problem faced by both companies nationwide.

Senate File 475 would remove the cap on enrollment and allow any number of online providers to offer classes to students across the state. This means that there would be no limit on the number of students who could attend these schools. It would also allow the two current virtual school providers to expand to other districts as well as allow other vendors to enter the market. Keep in mind that the Iowa Department of Education already has a state sponsored online education program offered through Iowa Learning Online. The bill does retain the language requiring online schools to align content to the Iowa Core and to go through an annual evaluation.

Division two deals with something called concurrent enrollment in community college classes. Concurrent enrollment allows high school students to take community college classes for credit. The home school district covers the cost of the class. Under current law a school district may contract with a local community college to offer math, liberal arts, and science courses. If those classes supplement the current curriculum then the district generates supplementary weighting in the school aid formula aimed at covering part of the cost of those classes. If those courses supplant (replace) the current curriculum then no supplemental weighting is received. Senate File 475 removes this distinction and allows school districts to receive supplemental weighting regardless of whether or not the college classes supplant existing curriculum. While there is no additional cost to the state for the FY2018 budget that is not the case for the following year. In FY2019 the Legislative Services Agency estimates that this change will cost the state an additional $1,057,599 of which $935,052 comes from State aid and $122,547 from an increase in property taxes. Providing supplementary weighting for classes that supplant those offered by high schools may encourage public schools to eliminate teaching positions since those same classes can now be offered by the community college. In rural areas this may require more online classes or require students to drive long distances to access classes.

Division three makes changes to the current requirements that all students must have vision and dental screenings before enrolling in school. Those requirements are removed and in their place the bill creates an 18 member Student Health Working Group which will study the requirements along with looking at blood lead testing and immunizations. This group will prepare a report and provide it to the General Assembly by December 31, 2017. Since we have no idea what the Student Health Working Group will recommend, it’s difficult to determine the long term impacts of this. The current system seems to work just fine so it’s puzzling why any change may be needed.

Division four examines the Area Education Agency (AEA) system. The AEA system was created in 1974 to provide special education assistance and instructional media to schools around the state. The bill creates a 22 member task force whose job is to review the essential functions of the AEA system. The General Assembly has been slowly starving the AEAs financially for several years and several people suspect this is an attempt by the state to do away with the system. It may be telling when you look at the language in the bill that mandates the make-up of the committee. According to the bill the committee shall be made up of:
• Four individuals representing the department of education, including the director of the department of Education or the director’s designee and three individuals who shall be appointed by the director.
• Three individuals representing school administrators who shall be appointed by the school administrators of Iowa.
• Three individuals representing the area education agencies who shall be appointed jointly by the area education agencies.
• Three individuals representing educators who shall be appointed by the professional educators of Iowa.
• Three individuals representing teachers who shall be appointed by the Iowa state education association.
• Three individuals representing school board members who shall be appointed by the Iowa association of school boards.
• Three individuals who shall be appointed by the Iowa advocates for choice in education.

For readers who may not be aware of who some of these groups are, I want to take just a little time to point out what I might see as some inequities in the study group. First, the AEA’s only get three representatives on the committee. As a former AEA employee I strongly suspect that the AEAs will appoint three administrators to this group and that not one rank and file AEA employee will have a say.

The second issue I see with this is that Professional Educators of Iowa (PEI) gets the same level of representation as the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA). Depending on who you talk to PEI has somewhere between 2000-2500 members around the state. It does not provide any representation to AEA employees in the state. By contrast ISEA has just under 34,000 members statewide and provides representation to employees in all AEAs.

The final issue with representation revolves around the involvement of three individuals who are advocates of school choice. Since the AEA system has little involvement with school choice issues I have to admit I’ve somewhat baffled by their inclusion. I suspect they will just serve as vultures that hungrily eye the ever more decimated carcass of the AEA system hoping that there will be enough left to fund their school choice proposals. The AEA Task Force must meet and then write a report to the General Assembly by November 17, 2017.

Division five revisits open enrollment in online schools. This division allows the resident district of a student enrolled in an online school to retain up to 15 percent of the state aid for that student (in 2018 that will be $988.65). This can then be used to cover the cost of the student’s participation in co-curricular or extra-curricular activities in the resident district.

Division six creates something called a Biliteracy Seal that designates that a student is fluent in two or more languages. An actual seal will then be affixed permanently to a student’s transcript. The program is voluntary. The Biliteracy Seal movement came out of California and has spread to several other states wanting to recognize students who are literate in more than one language. Given the lack of attention to teaching foreign languages in our schools this seems to be a positive development.

Division seven limits the ability of the Department of Education to provide an interpretation of a law or rule. It’s not unusual to have rules and laws written that are less than crystal clear to school districts. Districts commonly contact the Department and ask for clarifications or interpretations of the rules. The legislature obviously believes that the rules and laws have a clear, unambiguous meaning that should be clear to school districts. This seems to amount to a “gag order” on the Department.

The bill has changed considerably since it was originally introduced with three divisions being removed through the amendment process. At this time it’s difficult to predict when the bill will move in the House and if additional changes are coming. For educators it might be a good time to take page from former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammed Ali. In 1974 Ali faced a younger, stronger opponent in George Foreman. Ali realized he couldn’t go toe to toe with this foe and chose to use the “rope a dope” strategy of laying against the ring ropes while Foreman wore himself out throwing punches. Let’s hope Republican legislators are about worn out from all the punches they have thrown at educators this year.