I_COESSAComm_2016A 12/13/2016 01:07:51 PM Committee Summary

01:08 PM -- Update from NCSL



Lee Posey and Michelle Exstrom, representing the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), introduced themselves. They distributed a copy of their presentation (Attachment A). Ms. Posey spoke about the Every Student Succeeds' Act's passage and provisions. She spoke about what can be included in state plans, and the role that legislators can play in the process of formulating the state plan. Ms. Exstrom spoke about stakeholder engagement in Colorado and the participation of the state's legislators in the process of writing the state plan. She spoke about other states' processes and methods for engaging stakeholders. She discussed the drafts being completed in other states, and gave examples from Nevada adding emphasis on career readiness, Idaho creating a new accountability system, and Oklahoma emphasizing project-based learning and teacher training. Ms. Exstrom discussed braided funding and responded to questions from the committee. She continued her discussion with an overview on efforts in Washington relating to opportunity gaps and Louisiana relating to measuring growth. She discussed the use of early indicators and an auditing board composed of subject-area experts in Louisiana. She spoke about NCSL's ESSA website and its college/career readiness website as well: www.ccreslegislation.info.



Attachment A.pdf



Ms. Posey described the federal rule-making process and the final rules that were promulgated by the U.S. Department of Education (ED). She spoke about regulations governing assessment and state plan submission and mentioned that the new deadline for state plans is in September, not April. She spoke about comprehensive support and improvement requirements for the lowest 5 percent of schools and schools with low graduation rates. She also described targeted support and improvement for consistently underperforming subgroups and low-performing subgroups as well as flexibility to look at school performance with multiple indicators and use of a performance index that measures achievement at multiple levels. She described other important elements of the regulations, including the "n" size for disaggregating groups, which is not prescribed but a state must justify proposing an "n" size larger than 30 students. She mentioned that the new measure of academic quality or student success must be supported by research showing high performance or improvement on the measure is likely to improve student learning. Ms. Posey responded to questions from the committee, and described the range of reactions to the regulations. She went over proposed rules on the "supplement, not supplant" (SNS) federal financial requirement. This requires states to use Title I funds only to supplement funds that would be made available from state and local sources. She stated that the methodology for allocating state/local dollars should not take Title I status into account. She described the reaction to proposed rules around SNS. She summarized her presentation and described mechanisms that Congress can use to review the regulations promulgated by ED. Ms. Posey responded to questions from the committee, and Ms. Exstrom spoke about a series of webinars NCSL will be running during the legislative session.



01:58 PM -- Update from CDE



Dr. Katy Anthes, Commissioner of Education, introduced herself and spoke about the department's efforts to create the state plan required by ESSA. She described the impact of the new rules on the department's efforts, in particular the push back on required submission dates for the draft and final state plan, and the state board's requirements for submission. She spoke about the department's hub-and-spoke committee process. She described the hub committee's advisory role and the State Board of Education (SBE). She described the spoke committees' subject area focuses: accountability, assessment, effective instruction and leadership, school improvement, standards, title programs plans and assurances, and stakeholder consultation and program coordination. She described Colorado's stakeholder engagement process as very robust, especially in comparison to other states. She spoke about upcoming meetings of the hub committee and how it will try and come to conclusions based on the work of the spoke committees. She went over the timeline of the public input process. She said that once all sections of the plan are drafted, they will present it to the SBE. She spoke about the availability of documents on the committee's website related to its work on the state plan. Alyssa Pearson, representing the department, responded to questions from the committee relating to the new indicator requirement. Committee discussion ensued.



02:24 PM -- Federal and State Education Policies



The committee recessed.



02:43 PM



The committee came back to order. Julie Pelegrin, Office of Legislative Legal Services, introduced herself and distributed a research memorandum and copy of her power point presentation to the committee (Attachments B and C). She spoke about potential conflicts between the new federal law and current state law and areas of law where the legislature has options it did not have before the passage of ESSA. She described statutory cleanup related to testing and the high school assessment exception and how the ACT may not meet new requirements. She spoke about the required participation rate of 95 percent and how the state must now incorporate that into its accountability system. She said that state law now requires districts to have an opt out plan that cannot punish parents or students. Ms. Pelegrin responded to questions from the committee regarding the opt out rate. She said that SBE directed the department to exclude parent-excused students from calculating the participation rate. She spoke about how low participation rates invalidate data, so that CDE has added a rating for insufficient data, but that statute does not allow for that. She suggested a statutory change that addresses low participation rates and continued responding to questions from the committee.



Attachment B.pdf Attachment C.pdf



Ms. Pelegrin spoke about English language learners (ELL) and addressed the differences between ESSA and state law regarding the number of years an ELL student can be tested in his or her native language. Ms. Pelegrin responded to questions from the committee regarding ELL students. She pointed out that state law directs the department to apply for a waiver to exclude ELL students' scores from accountaability for the first two years, but that ESSA makes allowances for only the first 12 months, uses scores only for growth in a student's second year, and in the third and subsequent years uses the scores for both proficiency and growth.



Ms. Pelegrin described the new requirements for performance indicators and identifying schools for support, in particular identifying the lowest-performing five percent of schools as required by ESSA. She continued speaking about differences between state and federal law in the area of accountability, including the timeline for support for low-performing schools. She spoke about the assessment pilot program in which up to seven states will participate, and about requirements relating to educators. Ms. Pelegrin responded to questions from the committee.



03:22 PM -- Public Comment



Senator Hudak, representing herself, spoke about Senate Bill 09-163 and about the state's accountability system and the importance of aligning the state's accountability laws with ESSA. Senator Hudak responded to questions from the committee. Committee discussion ensued.



03:27 PM



Representative Pettersen thanked the committee. The committee adjourned.