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School Board News Bulletin
December, 2003

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IASB delegates seek sweeping reform of federal NCLB Act

School attorney shares tips on NCLB challenges

School boards associations look for clarification in U.S. pledge case

Of eight teacher strikes this year, none remains unsettled

National math test scores up, reading scores stable; NAEP

NEWS HEADLINES

ILLINOIS SCHOOL DISTRICTS

Sales tax plan in East Peoria includes tax freeze prerequisite

Palatine district wins rare national award

TOOLS FOR SCHOOLS

Board members to lobby at FRN conference Feb. 1-3

Instill 14 qualities for better middle schools

LEGISLATIVE ACTION

Legislature departs with major issues unresolved

Required teacher training deadline agreement stalls

TRIP rescue legislation anticipated in spring

THE NATIONAL SCENE

NCLB-model school system’s gains seen as illusory

WHAT'S NEW

IASB delegates seek sweeping reform of federal NCLB Act

Board members vote for push to scrap NCLB sanctions against local school districts

Illinois school boards have agreed to seek a major reform of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) on grounds that the law is based on inconsistent standards and unrealistic requirements. Representatives of more than 280 Illinois school boards, convening at the annual conference of the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) on November 22 in Chicago, voted to seek fundamental changes in NCLB, including new provisions to:

• Focus the law on professional development for teachers and administrators;
• Fully fund any requirements placed upon local school districts;
• Remove the provisions for sanctions on local school districts; and
• Expand state assessments to include classroom-level tests that would allow NCLB to be used for the first time to directly aid student learning.

The proposals-contained in two separate resolutions-were approved by the IASB Delegate Assembly at IASB's three-day joint conference with the Illinois Association of School Administrators (IASA), and Illinois Association of School Business Officials (IASBO).

IASB delegates representing local school districts voted unanimously in favor of the reform of NCLB, including a proposal to request lawmakers to provide schools with "necessary resources of funding, professional knowledge and organizational focus."

"Moving problems around within the system will not solve them," the resolution stated, a clear reference to NCLB's student transfer provisions.

"Simply creating negative consequences for underperformance will not change the system," the IASB resolution added.

In their annual business meeting, local school board representatives voted on resolutions that set policies and lobbying directives for their Association for the coming year. The meeting was part of IASB's Joint Annual Conference, which drew nearly 11,500 people to Chicago and featured workshops, clinics, speakers, exhibits, and more than 100 panel discussions.

In other Delegate Assembly voting, representatives adopted new resolutions directing IASB to:

• Urge Illinois lawmakers to commission a retirement system study on the effects of "salary bumps" that sometimes are granted to school teachers and administrators. The study would specifically look at the impact of statutes that now allow up to 20 percent salary increases per year to count toward final pension determinations. The 20 percent ceiling was set in times of double-digit inflation, when such increases were needed to allow salaries to keep pace.
• Support legislation to switch the election date used for choosing school board members from early April of odd-numbered years back to the old date, in early November of odd-numbered years. The sponsors of the resolution said problems have cropped up with the new schedule adopted in 2000, including more inclement weather, budget timing problems, and lower voter turnout.

Besides adopting new positions for IASB, school board delegates also voted to amend existing IASB position statements on reducing dropout rates and changing school accounting practices.

Voting by IASB leaders also included selection of the following IASB officers for the coming year:

President: Raymond Zimmerman

Raymond Zimmerman was elected for a one-year term as President of the Illinois Association of School Boards. He is a member of the Board of Education of Flanagan C.U. District 4 in Livingston County. A former teacher, he was first elected to the Flanagan school board in 1988. He has served on the IASB Executive Committee since 1999, and has been Director of the Association's Corn Belt Division since 1995. Before he was elected president of IASB he served two terms as vice president.

Vice President: Marie Slater

Marie Slater was elected to a one-year term as vice president of IASB. She is a member of the Wheaton-Warrenville District 200 Board of Education.

Treasurer: Thomas Hannigan

Thomas Hannigan was selected by IASB's Board of Directors to serve as treasurer of the association. He is board president of the Mundelein Community High School District 120 school board.

For more information about the conference, including photos and stories on a wide array of conference activities, visit the IASB Web site at www. iasb.com and click on "2003 JAC Report."

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School attorney shares tips on NCLB challenges

School attorneys who are convinced that the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is not lawful would be smart to set aside such feelings when weighing appeals under the act. Appeals on NCLB administrative rulings "should be made on procedural and implementation errors, not on the law's flaws," said attorney Michael J. Hernandez during an IASB-sponsored pre-conference seminar on school law.

Hernandez appeared at the 17th annual school law seminar, held Friday, November 21, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. The event is sponsored by the Illinois Council of School Attorneys, which is affiliated with IASB and the National School Boards Association. The event provided Illinois school attorneys with a chance to discuss key legal issues facing their school clients, including questions on NCLB, student discipline, and special education.

On NCLB, Hernandez told fellow school lawyers that the Illinois State Board of Education appears woefully understaffed to adequately administer the federal law. Thus, he said, errors are likely to crop up in data collection, which may in turn cause schools to be misidentified as failing to make adequate yearly progress.

A miscounted student or two may be enough to cause this, Hernandez warned. School attorneys should be alert to this possibility and should always file "Rule 150 challenges" to contest the integrity of potentially faulty data the first time a school is assigned to the state's list of "failing" schools.

Under state law, Hernandez noted, school districts are entitled to a hearing on the facts before an advisory committee within 30 days after the state receives any written appeal under the state accountability system pertaining to NCLB. After 30 more days the advisory committee must issue its recommendations for action to the State Superintendent of Education. Then the state board of education is required to make a final determination on each appeal.

A subsequent discussion centered on student discipline lessons learned in handling the now-infamous Glenbrook student "powder-puff football" hazing incident that was caught on videotape last spring and replayed countless times on television stations around the world. Thirty-one Glenbrook North High School seniors, most of them females, ultimately were expelled from school for one year for their role in the May 4 hazing at a Northbrook forest preserve, an incident that left five junior girls injured.

Many of the student participants were fortunate not to have been charged with aggravated battery, according to the attorney for Glenbrook schools in the hazing incident, Anthony G. Scariano, of Scariano, Himes and Petrarca, Chtd., Chicago. The one-year expulsions and community service agreements that were ultimately obtained included a provision that the participants could not profit from the hazing or "engage in commercial appropriation of the incident," according to Scariano.

The biggest lesson to be drawn from this outcome, however, is that "schools have authority to govern these rituals," even if they occur away from school property and after school hours, Scariano said. But he added one caveat: schools also "need trained public relations people" to help school boards and administrators deal with the firestorm of press controversy and criticism surrounding such cases. A professional PR firm was hired by the Glenbrook district, Scariano noted, which greatly aided the board in getting out the facts about the incident.

On yet another law seminar topic-complying with special education law-a panel of three attorneys advised school lawyers to familiarize themselves with new regulations issued in April 2003 under the federal IDEA law on the subject. School attorneys were also advised to work with ISBE staff to understand the regulations. "Leadership at ISBE is better now than ever" on special education concerns, according to panelist and attorney Merry C. Rhoades, of the law firm of Robbins, Schwartz, Nicholas, Lifton & Taylor, Ltd., Collinsville.

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School boards associations look for clarification in U.S. pledge case

School boards associations in 10 states will look for direction in the U.S. Supreme Court's determination to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit's rejection of the Pledge of Allegiance. The case is cited as Newdow v. U.S. Congress, 321 F.3d 772 (9th Cir. 2003).

The key issue in this case is whether inclusion of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge violates the First Amendment's establishment clause in the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of a state religion.

Ten school boards associations filed a friend-of-the-court brief last June urging the high court to take the case in order to provide guidance to the nation's public schools on the constitutionality of reciting the pledge.

Illinois and many other states have laws that require schools to regularly recite the patriotic oath, and in many states, federal courts have not ruled on that practice's constitutionality, according to the brief by the school boards associations.

In those states, "the Newdow case has cast a long shadow of uncertainty" and presented schools with the dilemma of either ignoring their legislatures' instructions or running the risk of costly lawsuits by those who object to the pledge," the associations argue.

The case was first brought by Michael Newdow, the noncustodial parent of a child attending public school in Elk Grove Unified School District (California). He filed suit in federal district court challenging the district's policy of requiring teachers to conduct recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in their classrooms.

Unlike several previous suits challenging recitation of the Pledge on free speech grounds, Newdow's challenge relies on establishment clause objections. The Ninth Circuit agreed with him, ruling that inclusion of the phrase "under God" constitutes an establishment clause violation. As a result, the Ninth Circuit held-in a ruling that does not directly affect Illinois school districts-that the school district's Pledge recitation policy was unconstitutional.

The court refused, however, to address whether California's Pledge statute and Congress's 1954 act that included the phrase "under God" in the Pledge is unconstitutional because those issues had not been raised in the district court.

In accepting the petition for certiorari in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, Docket No. 02-1624, the Supreme Court is limiting review to the following questions:

1. whether Newdow has standing to challenge as unconstitutional a public school district policy that requires teachers to lead willing students in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance; and
2. whether a public school district policy that requires teachers to lead willing students in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, which includes the words "under God," violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

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Of eight teacher strikes this year, none remains unsettled

At press time no Illinois school district was faced with an ongoing teacher strike, out of a total of eight strikes called this year by teachers organizations in the state. Thirteen other school districts, however, were still faced with active intent-to-strike notices.

Teachers were on strike almost until press time at Ottawa Dist. 141, in LaSalle County in north-central Illinois. The Ottawa strike, involving a bargaining unit of 142 teachers, began on December 3 and ended on December 12.

In contrast, a strike was averted recently in Chicago District 299, where the bargaining unit includes approximately 33,000 teachers, as well as 3,000 teacher's aides, clerks and other support workers. An intent-to-strike notice was filed against the district on Nov. 5, but the contract dispute was settled on Nov. 19, thus avoiding Chicago's first strike in 16 years. The contract reportedly is a four-year deal with an improved health plan and 4 percent annual salary increases.

Meanwhile teacher strikes have been settled recently in: Park Ridge-Niles Dist. 64, Hononegah C.H.S.D. 207, Freeburg C.C. Dist. 70, and Smithton Dist. 130. The Hononegah work stoppage was by far the longest of these recently settled strikes. It lasted nearly three weeks, wiping out football season and homecoming activities, and prompting some parents to transfer children out of the district.

Earlier this year strikes had been settled at Woodland District 50, Gages Lake; Benton Consolidated High School Dist. 103; and East St. Louis Dist. 189.

Following are the school districts now faced with an active notice of intent to strike (and the date of notice filing): Freeburg Community High School Dist. 77; Round Lake Dist. 116; Naperville C.U. Dist. 203 (Nov. 13); Edinburg C.U. Dist. 4 (Nov. 10); Carbondale Dist. 95 (Oct. 30); Brussels C.U. Dist. 42 (Oct. 29); Sandridge Dist. 172 (Oct. 27); Pickneyville C.H.S.D. 101 (Oct. 24); Flora C.U. Dist. 35 (Oct. 24); Amboy C.U. Dist. 272 (Oct.16); Rantoul Dist. 137 (Oct. 10); West Prairie C.U. Dist. 103, Colchester (Oct. 7); and Nashville C.H.S.D. 99 (Oct. 3).

Source: IASA data.

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National math test scores up, reading scores stable; NAEP

The 2003 edition of the "nation's report card," officially known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), was released on Nov. 13. Math scores have risen significantly since 1990, the report said, but reading scores have remained flat. But in both math and reading, more than six out of ten students are scoring at or above basic levels by NAEP's standards.

Illinois' eighth graders scored above than the national average in math and far above in reading, and the state's fourth-grade students scored roughly on par with the national average in both subject areas.

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, usually a stern critic of public education test scores, hailed the math results as "stellar" and added, "I think our nation's teachers, administrators and students have a lot to be proud of."

The data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress is available on the Web at: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/.

Sources: The New York Times, "Students' scores rise in math, not in reading," Nov. 14, 2003; and NCES Web site on the Nation's Report Card.

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Reducing the size of urban high schools and mingling students of varied abilities within classrooms could help more students stay interested in school, according to a study by a government research agency. The National Research Council study found that personalizing high schools-and making their curriculum more relevant to pupils' lives-would cut dropout rates in U.S. cities (USA TODAY, Dec. 2, 2003) ... Fully 25.8 percent of black males dropped out of the public high schools in Chicago in 2001-02, an analysis of state data indicates. The dropout rate for black students there was 20.3 percent. Both numbers represented the highest dropout rate for any ethnic group (Chicago Tribune, Nov. 11, 2003) ... Normal C.U. Dist. 5 was honored recently as the first school district to take part in the Illinois Clean School Bus Program by switching its buses entirely to biodiesel fuel. Biodiesel contains a 20 percent blend of soybean fuel, a blend that reduces harmful emissions by 40 percent, said Renee Cipriano, director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. The district also has begun retrofitting its buses with oxidation catalysts that remove carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and soot from emissions (Peoria Journal Star, Oct. 31, 2003) ... Enrollment in public and private schools is expected to grow at just 5 percent over the coming decade, upping the total number of students from 54 million students to 56.4 million, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The picture varies widely by region for public schools, with projections for big gains in the West, little change in public school enrollment in the Midwest, a small increase in the South and a drop in the Northeast (The Associated Press, Dec. 1, 2003) ... School report cards are not only late this year, they contain hundreds of errors, the State Board of Education has announced. State Superintendent of Education Robert Schiller sent a memo on Dec. 10 to school district leaders blaming bad data on test participation rates for more than 300 Illinois schools initially misclassified as not making adequate yearly progress. Those schools will be identified, contacted and allowed to check the school report card data, Schiller said. "We will resolve this together," he wrote. The school report cards are scheduled to be publicly released Dec. 19.

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ILLINOIS SCHOOL DISTRICTS

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Sales tax plan in East Peoria includes tax freeze prerequisite

The East Peoria City Council voted December 2 to make supplemental funds available to four local school districts for 30 months through a quarter-cent hike in the municipal sales tax-half the amount the districts had requested.

But the city council plan also came with strings attached that, if accepted by any of the school districts, could result in worsened financial problems after the plan's 30-month span. That's because the council plan requires school districts to freeze property tax rates for as long as they receive sales tax revenue.

"I'm uncomfortable with that," East Peoria Dist. 86 Board President Gary Densberger told the Peoria Journal-Star.

Densberger and East Peoria C.H.S.D. 309 Superintendent Cliff Cobert reportedly left the city council meeting with gloomy expressions after the schools' proposal for a half-cent sales tax hike was narrowly defeated.

Local school officials had said they needed that amount, estimated to generate $1.6 million annually, in order to prevent major teacher layoffs and cuts in programs.

Had the original plans for a half-cent sales tax increase been approved it is estimated District 86 would have received about $600,000 over a 30-month span, District 309 would have received about $525,000 and Robein District 85 would have received about $75,000. Washington District 50, which feeds a few students into District 309, also was to receive a small percentage of the new sales tax revenue.

The quarter-cent sales tax increase adopted does not represent the first agreement of its kind in the state designed to share city-generated sales tax revenues with local schools. The same amount of increase to aid local schools, but for two years only, was approved by the city council in Mt. Vernon in April after voters there first approved an advisory referendum in favor of the idea. Mt. Vernon's city council pledged up to $450,000 per year from their sales tax to help support local schools.

Source: Peoria Journal Star, Dec. 3, 2003.

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Palatine district wins rare national award

Palatine CCSD 15 has won the coveted national Baldrige award for education. Dist. 15 is only the fourth school district in the nation to win this prestigious award for organizational efficiency, customer service, and high productivity. Named for Malcolm Baldrige, a former U.S. secretary of commerce and advocate of business restructuring, the Baldrige Award criteria were created as a competition for American corporations. The Baldrige Award soon became the most celebrated honor in the U.S. business world. Eventually the Baldrige criteria were broadened to encompass all kinds of organizations, including school districts.

On the state level, the Lincoln Foundation for Performance Excellence recently announced that the 2003 Lincoln Award for Commitment to Excellence had been awarded to: Elk Grove C.C. Dist. 59; Huntley Dist. 158; and Pekin Dist. 108. The same award went to two schools at the building level: Friendship Junior High School, located in Des Plaines C.C. Dist. 62; and Holmes Junior High School, located in Mt. Prospect Dist. 57.

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TOOLS FOR SCHOOLS

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Board members to lobby at FRN conference Feb. 1-3

A delegation of IASB school board members will join hundreds of other board members from across the nation in Washington, D.C. to meet and lobby federal officials at the Federal Relations Network (FRN) conference February 1-3, 2004. The occasion is the 31st annual FRN conference, an opportunity to express the concerns of local boards of education to congressional representatives and other national leaders. The FRN is a nationwide organization of local school board members-one for each congressional district-coordinated by the National School Boards Association (NSBA).

This year's FRN lobbying effort will focus on: the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) reauthorization, and increasing federal funding for both of these mandates, as well as defeating voucher and other privatization proposals. A full day of Capitol Hill lobbying on these issues is set for February 3. For more information call NSBA at 800/950-6722.

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Instill 14 qualities for better middle schools

The National Middle School Association (NMSA), a national organization focusing on middle-level schools, recently announced that research shows 14 qualities "have the potential to dramatically improve" schooling for 10- to 15-year-olds. NMSA called for policymakers to act now to instill these helpful qualities.

The 14 qualities focus on both cultural and programmatic aspects of middle level schools. Among cultural qualities are having: educators who are trained specifically to work with students in the middle-school age group, high expectations for every student, and leaders who are willing to change and take risks for their students.

A summary of the report This We Believe: Successful Schools for Young Adolescents can be found on the NMSA Web site, www.nmsa. org.

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LEGISLATIVE ACTION

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Legislature departs with major issues unresolved

The Illinois General Assembly completed its business and adjourned the fall veto session on November 21 with some of the key education issues that were at or near passage stage unresolved.

The General Assembly will return on January 14, 2004. Lawmakers could take up important education issues soon after, including a stalled proposal in S.B. 1400 to mandate school breakfasts, a stalled legislative agreement on S.B. 1553 to repair a training loophole for thousands of fledgling teachers, and a much-discussed further bailout of the Teacher's Retirement Insurance Program (TRIP).

An eleventh-hour push to adopt the breakfast mandate bill-which rushed the Senate-adopted bill to the House floor-was forestalled by "grassroots opposition from local school districts," according to an Illinois Statewide School Management Alliance lobbyist.

"Local school managers called their State Representatives and explained what it would cost their district to implement a new school breakfast program, building by building, and even breaking it down item by item," explains IASB's associate executive director of governmental relations Ben Schwarm.

The Alliance testified in opposition to the bill, claiming that the costs to implement the bill would not be covered by either federal or state funding. "Programmatic costs such as the labor costs for transportation, food preparation, clean-up, and supervision would certainly not be covered, making this a very costly unfunded-or at least underfunded-mandate," explained Schwarm.

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Required teacher training deadline agreement stalls

A tentative agreement stalled to extend a deadline for teachers to obtain state-required training. The proposed plan, which may resurface in January, would allow for a one-year delay in setting up training programs for some 7,000 instructors who now have been teaching for more than three years.

A recent law required all new teachers to complete ongoing education within their first four years of teaching in order to obtain "standard" teaching certification. The trouble is, most of the required training programs don't exist or have not yet been officially approved.

Under the law, teachers who fail to meet the training requirements in four years can lose their jobs or must request one additional year to complete the training.

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TRIP rescue legislation anticipated in spring

In late October Senator Denny Jacobs (D-East Moline) called a legislative meeting to discuss the Teachers' Retirement Insurance Program (TRIP). This issue has been on the legislative docket for over three years, hitting a fever pitch when the insurance fund was facing insolvency. A new contribution this year by school districts has allowed the fund to run in the black for the short term.

Although TRIP legislation was not forwarded in the fall veto session, it is expected to be intensely debated next spring. "It is expected two bills will emerge: one that creates an entirely new insurance pool comprised of retired teachers and active teachers (a concept supported by the teachers' unions and the retired teachers association); and one that proposes changes to the current TRIP plan to make it more cost-effective (supported by most school management groups and the insurance industry).

Senator Jacobs has said there will probably be no provision for a school district to "opt out" of a statewide pool of active and retired teachers and school employees, or that an opt out would be "extremely difficult."

"This kind of legislation would not be acceptable to the Alliance. If a statewide pool is created to provide health insurance for retired teachers and active school district employees, each school district must have the right to determine whether or not to join the pool–without a financial penalty," said Schwarm.

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THE NATIONAL SCENE

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NCLB-model school system's gains seen as illusory

Houston public schools get a great deal of national attention these days. No doubt that's because President George W. Bush, of Texas, and Rod Paige, his secretary of education who was formerly superintendent of Houston schools, have repeatedly praised the district's gains in student achievement. Both point to Houston schools as the model for the No Child Left Behind act, the Bush administration's education reform policy.

In working toward that law's passage, Bush and Paige often cited the school accountability measures Texas had adopted during Bush's time as governor. The Texas plan called for regularly raising the bar on academic standards and measuring student achievement against those rising standards with a statewide test of basic skills, just like NCLB does.

But a December 3 report in The New York Times comparing Houston students' performance on the Texas standardized test that preceded NCLB to those same students' performance on the national Stanford exam uncovered a wide gap. Compared to students outside Texas, the Times story stated, Houston pupils had improved incrementally or had unchanged or, in some cases, diminished academic performance.

The Times story was based upon an independent analysis of the district's state and local test scores. Compared with the rest of the country, the testing experts found, Houston's gains on the national exam, the Stanford Achievement Test, were modest. The improvements in middle and elementary school were a fraction of those depicted by the Texas test-the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS)-and were similar to those posted on the Stanford test by students in Los Angeles.

"Over all, a comparison of the performance of Houston students who took the Stanford exam in 2002 and in 1999 showed most did not advance in relation to their counterparts across the nation," said the Times' report, titled "Gains in Houston Schools: How Real Are They?"

Houston school administrators defended their district's relatively low scores, however, saying their students performed well in light of the city's large population of poor and minority students.

"But questions about Houston's accomplishments are increasing. In June, the Texas Education Agency found rampant undercounting of school dropouts. Houston school officials have also been accused of overstating how many high school graduates were college bound and of failing to report violent crimes in schools to state authorities," the Times' report stated.

What does all this mean for those following the national debate on NCLB? The Times story contained an answer from one national testing expert: "If you anticipate that you can have the gains shown on TAAS – and that's what No Child Left Behind would be requiring in many states – that's not going to be likely to happen, based on this," said Robert L. Linn, co-director of the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing at the University of Colorado.

The Times' story also contained anecdotes about Texas students who performed remarkably well on Texas standardized exam only to fail college entrance tests.

"But many here [in Houston] saw the replacement of the Texas exam last spring with a tougher exam as the most stinging indictment of the test. On the new test, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS, race gaps widened, and passing rates fell," The Times' story added.

Source: The New York Times, "Gains in Houston Schools: How Real Are They?," Dec. 3, 2003.

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