Joint Education Committee – October 6, 2009
Posted on October 6th, 2009
Date & Time: Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 1:30 PM
Location: Room 171, State Capitol
Committee Information: House Members on Committee – Senate Members on Committee
Agenda: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2009/Lists/Meetings/Attachments/12247/I7829.pdf
Attachments: none
This committee reviews matters pertaining to public kindergarten, elementary, secondary, and adult education, vocational education, vocational-technical schools, vocational rehabilitation, higher education, private educational institutions, similar legislation, and resolutions germane to the subject matter of the committee.(House Rules 62.1)
This committee reviews matters pertaining to public kindergarten, elementary, secondary, and adult education, vocational education, vocational-technical schools, vocational rehabilitation, higher education, private educational institutions, and similar legislation. (Senate Rules) In case you were wondering, here are the Joint Rules for the House and Senate.
1:34 pm – Meeting called to order by Rep. Abernathy. Minutes from the last meeting approved.
1:35 pm – Mr. Richard Denniston, Superintendent of the Deer/Mt. Judea School District is providing updated information and supplying deferred answers to questions concerning the Reverse Economy of Scale Adjustment (RESA) Proposal they made at the last meeting at their school.
1:36 pm – The RESA Proposal is intended to be an objective method for waiving the 350 student limit on minimum school size for geographically isolated school districts.
1:38 pm – Dr. Tom Kimbrell, the new Commissioner of Education for the Arkansas Department of Education, is being introduced and is making introductory remarks. He is familiar to most legislators because he previously served as the Executive Director of the Arkansas Education Administrators Association.
1:42 pm – Dr. Kimbrell is saying that too often the role of the AR Dept. of Education is percieved as one of a “gotcha” organization. He intends to work to change that perception.
1:53 pm – Dr. Kimbrell said, for him, this position is like making the major leagues (referring to playing major league baseball).
1:59 pm – Rep. Cole said that there is a school in his district that has a 95% graduation rate but a 85% remediation rate. His question to Dr. Kimbrell what he intends to do to make that better. Dr. Kimbrell talked about what we can do to address remediation. He said that the remediation is based on one score, the ACT, but seemed to think that there may be a better way is to compare to national standards in reading math. The problem with that is that the higher education institutions have found that there is a very strong statistical correlation with ACT scores and the success those students achieve when they are in college.
2:06 pm – The Dept. of Education cannot dictate to the higher education institutions what they use for gauging remediation. Therefore, the Dept. will need to demonstrate the same strong statistical correlation to success with whatever alternative proposal is presented. Dr. Kimbrell said that students are not usually the cause of failure, but that “we” fail the students.
2:07 pm – Dr. Kimbrell seemed to hint that we need to align the curriculum to the standards what “we” wish the students to learn. That seems to be an awfully loaded concept and I won’t hazard to guess what exactly what that means.
2:09 pm – Rep. Saunders asked about contracts to assist academically struggling school districts. Dr. Kimbrell acknowledged that the contract is with a national group. Rep. Saunders followed up with the statement that we “know” what it takes to properly educate a child. Dr. Kimbrell agreed and pointed to standards and processes we have in place. Rep. Saunders hinted that perhaps since we know those things, then we might be able to bring some of those functions “in-house”.
2:13 pm – Rep. Allen said that good teachers make good students and asked what Dr. Kimbrell would do to make sure we have good teachers. Dr. Kimbrell stated that he wanted to make sure that teachers were paid well.
2:15 pm – Rep. Lea asking a follow up question about testing to narrow where the disconnect to learning that occurs where children stop enjoying learning. Dr. Kimbrell was referring to something different, he was talking about a desire to learn, and excitement about learning. Rep. Lea is not happy with the answer, she is asking follow questions. She is asking about his statement, “We need to return to the past raise the stature of teachers.” She said the stature of teachers has gone down to due to some of their own actions.
2:20 pm – Rep. Clemmer is asking questions about how the department will hold teachers accountable. Dr. Kimbrell is talking about the accountablity methods that are in place. He is referring to metrics that we already use, and said that “we” are going to need to take action on what those metrics are telling us. He told a story about a teacher who was a very good teacher and spent two weeks on “Johnny Appleseed” and the kids were engaged and learned tons about “Johnny Appleseed” but not a stitch of it was on the benchmark standards. He is making the point that the teaching needs to be directed at that standards.
2:26 pm – Rep. Hobbs is asking if there is anything that the Dept. can do to make sure that the colleges are teaching teachers to teach. He said that the Dept. is working closely with the college deans and the accreditation standards boards. He said that there is not much regulatory authority to do so.
2:36 pm – Senator Broadway asked about the utilization of technology in the educaton system in Arkansas. He stole some of the content of what I was going to ask. I asked about Arkansas developing something similar to the California Learning Resource Network.
2:43 pm – Sorry about missing part of the meeting. I took a moment to speak with Dr. Kimbrell about the CLRN
2:45 pm – We are currently reviewing the update and scheduling regarding the Review of the Adequacy of the State’s Public Education System. The Subcommittees are being formed.
2:51 pm – Sen. Jimmy Jeffress is making the point that there will be a tutorial on the funding matrix. He makes the point about how important this meeting will be to attend. I think that anyone serving or intending to serve in the legislature needs to make sure they undertand the content of that meeting.
2:53 pm – Meeting adjourned.
Filed under Uncategorized |
Comments are closed.
