arizona business and education coalition

Policy Briefs

Policy Briefs Overview | Arizona Learns

On this page, you'll find the Principles of Agreement and a Message to the Legislators for Arizona Learns.

Message to the Legislators — Arizona Learns

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A sustained business and education collaboration for a superior public education and future for Arizona K-12 students.

February 25, 2003

As Executive Director and Legislative Project Team leaders of the Arizona Business & Education Coalition (ABEC), we write to introduce ourselves, ABEC and the ABEC legislative agenda, the most recent product of our Board’s work in consensus and continuous improvement.

ABEC is guided by a board of 44 leaders: 50% from business, 50% from education, plus ex-officio members. The ex-officio members include designees from the State Board of Education, the State Board of Charter Schools, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Governor's office. We've requested, but not received, designees from the House and Senate. There are over 100 organizational members of ABEC with a distribution of over 300 individuals. The Champions and Advocates for ABEC from the business community include Arizona Public Service, Boeing, Cox Communications, Intel, Medtronics, Motorola, the Rodel Institute, and State Farm Insurance. Additional members include business leaders and educators from Tucson, northern Arizona, rural, urban and suburban school districts, large and small.

ABEC’s legislative agenda is focused on two areas:

modifications to Arizona LEARNS, and
protection of K-12 funding.

Attached is the document "Principles of Agreement" around implementation changes for Arizona LEARNS that came from our February board meeting. It evolved from a relatively lengthy process:

In December 2002, a small group of business and education representatives met with Department of Education experts.
In January 2003, the ABEC executive committee of 18 reviewed 2 additional drafts of proposed changes, including one from ASA, and the Department of Education for commonalities. Six areas of commonality were identified. The work was given to the Legislative Project Team to bring the three proposals together.
In January 2003, the Legislative Project Team met, and a preliminary draft was developed that contained common elements from the three drafts.
In February 2003, the Board of Directors met and heard the views of a former legislator, a member of the state board of education and from ADE regarding difficult issues with Arizona LEARNS and its alignment with NCLB (No Child Left Behind). The members had small discussions about the issues, and went through a dialogue, area by area, to identify what they could accept in a consensus amendment.

Attached is that document, with rationale. ABEC will support any amendments supported by these Principles of Agreement.

Regarding protection of K-12 funding, because ABEC believes that a strong public school system is directly linked to strong economic development, fully funding our K-12 system is important. ABEC looks forward to working collaboratively on issues that relate to funding K-12 education.

Principles of Agreement — Arizona Learns

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Timeline for improvement:

The timeline should be extended, and, if at all possible, be aligned with the timeline in NCLB (No Child Left Behind).
Benchmarks should be included within this extended timeline as an interim monitoring process.
There should be the opportunity to move from one classification to another, depending on progress on the benchmarks.

Rationale:

Currently, a school receives a classification in the fall. Underperforming schools must submit an improvement plan to the Department of Education in January. An AIMS assessment occurs again in the spring, dictating the next classification. Within this time frame, these schools are expected to hold public hearings on the improvement plan and to implement the plan in the spring. There simply is not enough time for a school to implement its school improvement plan before the next AIMS assessment. ABEC supports extending this timeline for improvement to at least 24 months.

With an extended timeline, however, ABEC supports establishing benchmarks for improvement, with a designated oversight team or mechanism. A school should have the opportunity within the 24- or 36-month timeline to move from one classification to another, should progress be demonstrated.

Classifications (labels):

To provide consistency in the definitions, the classifications existing in statute for “excelling” should be removed from statute.
The definitions should be developed by the Department of Education, and approved by the State Board of Education.
The classifications, when abbreviated, should make sense, be easily understood by the public.
Context should be added to include demographics of the schools.
Within the classifications, there should be a “trigger” that allows access to additional state resources, that are currently not accessed until a school is in the “failing” classification.
The Department of Education should continue to work on the classifications, since “excelling”, “improving”, “maintaining”, “underperforming”, and “failing” are not comprehensive. They are confusing, and do not distinguish the efforts of schools in the middle categories.

Rationale:

Currently, only one of the five classifications, “excelling”, is defined in statute. ABEC supports removing the definition from statute and allowing the Department of Education to develop definitions, for approval by the State Board of Education, to improve the consistency and accuracy of the entire scope of the classifications.

The classifications, or labels, themselves should be reconsidered. Currently, they are descriptive of only one measure: performance on a single test. The classifications should provide a more comprehensive, easily understood picture of a school’s performance. ABEC supports modifying the system of classifications, or extending the current classification for schools, rather than declaring a school as “failing”.

Appeals/Review Process:

There should be a timely appeals process.
The site-visit team should work within a protocol, with criteria and parameters.
The first-level appeal could be to the Solutions Team, from the Department of Education.
A school appeal should come to the school district and be approved by the local board of education, prior to coming to the State Board of Education or Department of Education.

Rationale:

Currently, a school disagreeing with or questioning their classification has no level of appeal. Because data can sometimes be inaccurate or incorrect, or extenuating circumstances may exist, ABEC supports the creation of a timely appeals process by the Department of Education.

Currently, during the timeline for demonstrating improvement, underperforming schools are reviewed by a site-visit team. This team has no power to change the school’s classification regardless of progress on the school improvement plan. ABEC supports enabling the site-visit team to consider performance and progress on the benchmarks in the school improvement plan and, consequently, recommending a change to the classification, within the extended timeline.

Language on School Board member election ballot:

Reference to language on the ballot for school board election in districts where there are failing schools should be removed from the law.

Rationale:

ABEC supports Governing Board accountability; however existing law requiring reference to failing schools on an election ballot should be removed. No other elected official is referenced in such a manner. In addition, Governing Board members often run for higher office and could unfairly carry that reference with them. ABEC supports removing such language from the law.

Transition to “alternative management” and returning to district oversight:

Clarifications to these processes need to be revisited in the future.

Rationale:

Clarification is needed in existing law regarding how a school is funded upon takeover by the State and how it is returned to district oversight.

February 4, 2003

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