Debate Transcripts
LB 1228 (1998)
General File
March 4, 1998
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: We'll next move to LB 1228.
CLERK: Mr.
President, the Legislature last discussed 1228 yesterday. As the body may
recall, the committee amendments were divided. They were considering the first
component of that divided committee amendment, FA545, which consists of Section
2 of the committee amendments. There was a series of amendments offered to that
piece of the committee amendments. When the Legislature adjourned, Senator Chambers,
you had pending an amendment to that. Your amendment, Senator, is FA556, it's
found on page 893 of the Journal.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Chambers.
SENATOR
CHAMBERS: Thank you.- Mr. Speaker, I'm going to withdraw that amendment.
SPEAKER KRISTENSEN:
It is withdrawn.
CLERK: Senator
Bohlke, I now have from you, Senator, AM3499 as an amendment to this piece of
the committee amendments. (See page 905 of the Legislative Journal.)
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bohlke, you're recognized to open on your amendment to the
committee amendments.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker and members. I am currently having passed out to
you a summary of the amendment so that you have that before you, and what I
hope will clarify for you any of the questions that you may have. As we ended
yesterday, we were talking with ... Senator Chambers was raising the issue with
the high ability learners and if there really should be a student present ...
when a student is present, if you should have to serve that student? What... in
discussing with Senator Chambers and a number of other people who are
interested in that particular area, what the amendment does is take that from
the primary group and move it over to what we call the premiere group. And
then, as you'll see before you, it leaves the primary factors as academic
standards, alternative education, and the above average college admission
tests. Then In the premiere factor you would have two premiere quality
12696
factors for the
third and fourth, three quality factors for the fifth and sixth, and four for
the seventh. You now have five there, so it gives the schools the flexibility,
really, of not using one of those in the premiere category. And in that
premiere category, that's one teacher with the national certification, 36
percent of teachers with graduate degrees, or according to, with the addition
of Senator Stuhr's amendment, 30 graduate hours, mentors for all first year
teachers, improve the drop-out rate or maintain it below 4 percent, and the
high ability programs for all identified students. The quality factors for both
high ability learners and mentors are refocused on assuring that each
identified student and first-year teacher in the local system are served,
rather than concentrating on the policies of the individual districts. The
local systems qualify and receive quality education incentive payments. And
last year we changed to systems, and there-seemed to be some question from
members on the floor as what does make up a system. And if you look at the
bottom of the top page, a local system consists of a K-12 district. An example
is Omaha is a system, or a K-12 district and affiliated Class I districts. You
have a number of districts who have a high school and have a number of Class I
districts affiliated, or a Class VI district with Class I districts that are
part of that Class VI system. So what we're saying is that you have to, if you
have a student in that system, they have to be served. I think that meets the
concerns that a number of people were articulating, and I hope that this
summary helps you in clarifying for you what we've attempted to do and
questions that were raised yesterday on the floor. I have some other things
that are going to be passed out to members that I'll ask the Pages to do on the
bill now, that are color-coding, that helps you separate different parts of the
bill and be able to concentrate on those areas that you are most interested in.
Thank you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Engel.
SENATOR ENGEL:
Mr. Speaker, members of the body, I'd like to ask Senator Bohlke a question, if
I might.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bohlke, would you respond, please.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
12697
SENATOR ENGEL: I
might have missed some of this, so I'd like to have you bring me up to date as
far as every first-year teacher will have a mentor. Is that correct?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
If they have a first-year teacher in that system.
SENATOR ENGEL:
If they have a first year ... okay, right.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
And if they choose to do this, if they choose this as one of the things they
wish to do.
SENATOR ENGEL:
Okay, if they choose to do this, then how much time will each one of these
mentors spend with each one of these new teachers?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
That's a good question for us to review, because people did ask that. And it's
really up to the local district. You may see different types of situations,
generally that's true. It may be that someone spends just time on the weekend
or after school with a teacher, it may be that someone dedicates their planning
time to go in and observe the teacher in the classroom and then meet with the
teacher.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Excuse me, Senator Bohlke. Could I get you to speak in the
microphone just a little bit.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Sorry.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Thank you.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yeah, it's hard to make eye contact with ... but I will do that, to meet with
the teacher during their planning time, and so it can be a variety of
arrangements, whatever really works best for that particular local district.
SENATOR ENGEL: Then
one more question. Will one mentor work with several first-year teachers, if
there are several first-year teachers in a system, or will you require a mentor
for each teacher?
12698
SENATOR BOHLKE:
We don't require.... One could work with more than one, if they wish, but then
again that's up to the local board of education on however they wish to
structure it.
SENATOR ENGEL:
Is it...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
They will have a mentor, but one mentor could serve more than... I mean suppose
that they had someone who volunteered to be a mentor, they could be a mentor to
more than one person.
SENATOR ENGEL:
Now when they devised this plan, how did they feel? Did they feel that, if a
school district accepts this mentoring program, which is voluntary, then as far
as what's come up through your committee and through the Department of Ed.,
have they made any suggestions of how much time they should spend with each
teacher and so forth?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
They go through a training process, Senator Pederson (sic), and the money is
there, that's where the money is in the lottery to train the mentors. And
during that training process they would certainly, you know, point out what
works beat for those mentors.
SENATOR ENGEL: I
was accused yesterday of looking like Senator Pederson, but really I'm not..
(Laugh.)
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Sorry about that.
SENATOR ENGEL:
No, that's okay, it's a compliment to me. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bromm.
SENATOR BROMM:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Senator Bohlke, could I ask a question or two?
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bohlke, would you respond?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay. The amendment that's actually been filed,
12699
that's on the
screen, but it hasn't been handed out, has it?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes,...
SENATOR BROMM:
Has it been handed out?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... it's on your desk.
SENATOR BROMM:
The actual amendment?
.SENATOR BOHLKE:
Page 2, yes. Second page.
SENATOR BROMM: I
got you.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Sorry.
SENATOR BROMM:
No, that's okay.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Sorry, Senator Bromm, I ...
SENATOR BROMM:
No, there was so much on the first page that I thought it probably... I guess I
didn't look. I figured it was longer than this. But it basically moves the high
ability learning criteria over to the premiere quality factor list, as you
explained. Is that correct?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
That's correct.
SENATOR BROMM:
And then it requires that... in the prior amendment each system had to meet
those premiere quality factors, as I see it, except that the mentoring criteria,
each district had to participate in the mentoring. Now are we changing that so
that the system participates in the mentoring, but not necessarily each
district? Would you explain if there's a change on that.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
If ... the system provides the mentoring program for... excuse me, wait a
second. Every teacher in the system, Senator Bromm, has to have the mentor.
SENATOR BROMM:
First-year teacher.
12700
SENATOR BOHLKE:
First-year teacher in the system.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay. Is that the responsibility of the system, or of each individual district
within the system where you've got a Class VI or an affiliated situation?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
That would be the district.
SENATOR BROMM:
It'd be the district's responsibility.
Is that... is that...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR BROMM:
... what your intent is?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay.. A little bit, and I may be going
in another section here.
But I meant to ask about this
anyway. If a district
gets... if a system gets money under this
incentive plan, one of the
questions I had was, in the
affiliated situation or the
Class VI situation, how is that money
distributed throughout the system? And my recollection is that the payment is made to the high school district, and
the high school district determines how that money is going to
be used after consultation with the Class I school district. Is that correct?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
That's correct.
SENATOR BROMM:
So, if the high school district has control of the money, so to speak, I'm just
asking sort of a rhetorical question here, I'm not proposing an amendment at
this point, would it make sense to have the responsibility for like the
mentoring follow the money and go to the high school district as opposed to the
Class I having the responsibility but not necessarily having the money? But
then again I realize the. money...
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: One minute.
SENATOR BROMM:
...isn't necessarily for mentoring. But would
12701
you want to
comment on that?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
The money isn't for the mentoring. And the difficulty in that is you would then
have the high school district actually interfering with what may be something
that the Class I district would wish to do.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay* okay* I think the...I think I like the amendment. I think it's an
improvement over some of the concerns that were being talked about yesterday. I
have some things that I'd like to talk more about and think through on the
responsibility between the high school district and the subdistricts, I will
call them, with respect to...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
I remember one year, one time last year when we were calling them subdistricts.
(Laugh.)
SENATOR BROMM:
Well, I shouldn't use that. The system's responsibility, or high school
district responsibility...
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Time.
SENATOR BROMM:
... versus the Class Is is what I should say. Thank you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Janssen.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, members of the Legislature. I'd like to
carry on this conversation a little bit with Senator Bromm about the way I
perceive that this money would be distributed. Senator Bromm, I believe that
they would, if that district received the grant money, that it would probably
be distributed the same way as their budget dollars are distributed now. And
that would mean that that high school, or the junior-senior high school within
a Class VI would be the one that would be responsible for distributing this,
even though it could have been an independent Class I within that Class VI that
would be receiving that money. Could that be possible? What do you think about
that?
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bromm.
12702
SENATOR BROMM:
On the bottom of page 4 and the top of page 5 in the amendment, in the original
amendment, Senator Janssen, it says that the incentive ... the payment shall be
made to the high school district and the high school district shall determine
how the payments shall be used after consultation with all Class I districts in
the local system. Quality Education Incentive payments, or portions of such
payments, may be transferred to the Class I school districts. And I assume that
means may be transferred by. the high school district, but the payments made to
the high school district, and they determine how the payments shall be used is
the way it's stated.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
But it also says that they may be transferred. That means that the Class VI
junior-senior high school could keep it.
SENATOR BROMM:
Right.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
Yeah, it's the same way with their budget money right now, they could keep it
all. They don't have to give the Class Is any money.
SENATOR BROMM:
No, they can't keep their budget money, they have to give them at least the
average cost per pupil of the budget money in the legislation last year.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
All right. If they averaged that all out, there are some that probably have 200
students in it, and would it be on... is that on a per pupil cost then?
SENATOR BROMM:
Well,
SENATOR JANSSEN:
And some have six kids, and some have ... have...
SENATOR BROMM:
...they have to give the money to the Class I that the Class Is budgeted, but
they have some control over approving that budget.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
You're right. Okay. And when we train these mentors, did I hear, did I ...
Senator Bohlke, did I hear you say that some of the lottery money from that
fund is going to go to
12703
train mentors to
help the first-year teachers, there was going to be a training session?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Senator Bromm, in fact, it's the first call, I mean... I'm having trouble,
Senator Janssen, they got the. first call on that lottery money to set up the
training for the mentors. The mentors go through a training program.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
All right. Where is that training program going to be at? The dornhusker Hotel?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
(Laugh.) No, the ... no. And I remember very well what you're talking about. It
would be through the ... well, last year the issue with the teachers from your
district ...
SENATOR JANSSEN:
Um-huh, right.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... who, on the mini grant? No, it would be, as we envision it, through the
educational service units. That's what...
SENATOR JANSSEN:
Okay, it would come through the Department of Education.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Right, the Department of Education.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
They would conduct the training session.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Right.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
You know, how much training is a teacher going to need, a retired teacher, who
I perceive as the ones who are going to be doing this mentoring. You know, if
they've just retired within the last year or two, I don't think there would
have to be that much training...
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: One minute.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
... cost, unless there is a specific type of training that they had to have,
other than experience. To me experience would be one of the best situations.
With that, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
12704
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Schellpeper.
SENATOR
SCHELLPEPER: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. LB 1228 is a bill that
really gives me heartburn. I don't know whether it's something that... just the
way that it's... it seems to be a ... whether it's really that way. It makes
major changes in the ... with the increase in state control over education. I
think this ... the state is just going to be taking over what happens with our
schools more and more each year, and in my view it's going to favor the larger,
richer schools over the other schools. Now maybe that's just what I'm thinking,
but I think the incentives in Section 2, they probably could be called rewards
for being rich, because I think if you're ... the best indicators of success in
standardized tests have been economic status of a family and ethnic background.
And I just think it's A way. for the richer districts to get richer I also have
a concern with the incentives with budgeting from year to year. And if they
don't... if they qualify one year and then not the next year, then they have to
cut back on their programs because
they've lost some revenue. To me the incentives are sort of like a ... the federal government
always does for us. They always
say, well if you'll put in seatbelts, we'll give you more road funds, or if you do this, we'll give
you more funds. And it's just an incentive to always,
continually get you to do
more things. I'm not saying
it's bad to have a better education
or more curriculum, but
it's just...there's always that theory out there that we'll give you money and then you will do
it. The lottery funds, I think, going for
education is very important, but
this is a major change in it. I think the testing in this bill
is a whole new level of state control and involvement ... the involvement in local school boards.
There's also about two and a half
million dollars of General Fund revenue. So this is a bill that I don't
feel comfortable about. Maybe it's going
to be okay. If I had to
vote for it this afternoon, I just couldn't vote for it, 'cause I don't
think a lot of the senators are
really looking at this bill, how it's going to be a major change, how the state controls
education, how they take real control over it, how it affects the
rich district. I just have a lot
of concerns with it, so maybe I can get some of those
answers later on this afternoon. But right now I just have a lot of concern with this bill, 'cause I
think it's ... have the
12705
rich get rich
and the poor drop away, or the large get larger, and the smaller drop away; it
just seems like that's what the bill is designed to do. So, thank you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bromm.
SENATOR BROMM:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will make a
couple of comments and when Senator Bohlke makes her way to her
microphone, I'd like to carry on a little bit more dialogue. The language of the amendment says that each
first-year teacher in a local system
is provided with a mentor participating
in a mentor teacher program, or a mentor teacher program established by the district and
approved by the state board. And I want
to establish some legislative record as to what that means, if that means that it will mean
whatever the Department of
Education regulations require, or if it means having a mentor throughout Senator Bohlke,
could that first year, or
just what it means, could, would you yield to a question or two?
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: (Gavel.) Members, could you please hold your conversations down so
we can hear debate. Thank you.
SENATOR BROMM:
At least they're not falling asleep, Mr. Speaker. (Laugh.) Senator Bohlke, if I
could as you a question about the intent of the language in your amendment.
Each first-year teacher in a local system is provided with a mentor
participating in the mentor teacher program, et cetera. Now, to the extent that
a mentor is required, I mean whether it be the first month or two or the first
semester or the entire year, will that be determined by rules and regulations
of the Department of Education, or how is a district to know when they are
fulfilling that requirement? If I could... I'd like to create some legislative
history on that, if I could.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Senator Bromm, the state board certainly will develop the rules and regs. And
so I'm sure there will be some guidelines there. But, as we've said, there is
intended to be some flexibility for schools in that at the local level.
SENATOR BROMM:
So it would be... I don't want to misstate your intent, but would it be
accurate to say that that would be up to the assessment and judgment of the
district on how much
12706
mentoring a
particular teacher might need? Some first-year teachers probably come in, hit
the road running, so to speak, and others need a lot of help. So that
flexibility would be up to the local district, as far as you're concerned, or
state what you intend, I guess.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Senator Bromm, yes. That flexibility, as far as I'm concerned, would be up to
the local district. And I...you know, any mentoring program that I've looked at
there's been flexibility in it, depending on the needs for that particular
school and, as you've indicated, all the way to the class room for that
particular teacher. It has to be approved by the state Board of Education, so
there, like I said, there will be general rules and regulations as far as I
would imagine we talked about, you know, using a certified teacher, those types
of things.
SENATOR. BROMM:
Okay., But probably not how many hours have be spent or anything like that, as
far As you would intend?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Absolutely not.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay, thank you. We're going to run out of time, but I want to also discuss,
before we're done, the portion of your amendment dealing with high ability
learners, an approved program for learners with high ability. And I want to
also generate a little intent language on that. But I don't think.... How much
time do I have left, Mr. Speaker?
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: One minute.
SENATOR BROMM:
One minute. Okay, I think I'll wait until the next time to speak on that. I
think as we're dealing with this bill, hopefully, we can keep in mind that the
purpose of the lottery funds is to add a dimension of excellence to education to
provide an incentive for districts to improve the quality of their education
and what they're doing to instruct students. That's the bottom line. So any
change we make, I think we should make with that in mind. I think this change
is for the better, and I will support this amendment. And I will still want to
ask some questions, and I'll punch my light on again on the high ability
learning aspect.
12707
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bohlke.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, Mr. Speaker, I had my light on in case I needed to respond to any
questions. So, Senator Bromm, do you want to continue that discussion on ... or
wanting to go and discuss the issue with the high ability learner?
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bromm.
SENATOR BROMM:
Thank you, Senator Bohlke. And in that connection, I wanted to get into a
couple of questions with you, if I could, please. If you would yield.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR. BROMM:
Mr. Speaker, I wonder if Senator Bohlke would yield to a question?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes. It's my...
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Well, it's Senator Bohlke's time, I think.
SENATOR BROMM:
Oh, so her mike is still on. That...
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Yes.
SENATOR BROMM:
... that makes sense. Thank you. Senator Bohlke, the amendment says, an
approved program with high ability...for high ability learners pursuant to
Sections 1106 to 1108. The Department of Education would specify what programs
are acceptable in that area, and if so have they...is that information already
promulgated?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Senator Bromm, you know, we did the identification of high ability learners.
And so they worked in the area of how the rules and regs for high ability
learners. They, in asking former Senator McKenzie about.... In discussing it
with Senator ... with...
SENATOR BROMM:
Yes.
12708
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... Mo. McKenzie, they are right now working on the rest of the, in a more
detailed fashion, what's necessary there for the approved programs. There are
some general guidelines now.
SENATOR BROMM:
Is that Rule 3?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
And that's Rule 3 here.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay, okay. Thank you. I'll yield the rest of my time back to Senator Bohlke,
of her time,, I should say.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker and members. In response certainly to the issue
that I spoke to yesterday and as I've said, as far as it being an issue between
small, or large, or rural, or urban, we had taken... spent a great deal of time
to see that there was that balance there._ And as you can see, if you go and
look at the hearing, it had support from small schools, large schools, urban,
rural. And so certainly those people who look at the bill saw that there was a
balance there, and certainly didn't tip the scale one way or another. And that
was, I think, very important to everyone who worked in this area to see that
that was true. And so you can look on your committee statement as far as the
small schools, or the urban schools. And if you look in each of the categories
you will find some things that are more difficult for small schools, some
things that are more difficult for large schools. And as I said, it was never
meant to be easy for any school, that's not the point. The point is to help
schools to make a commitment to improving the quality of education in their
schools. And it was never the intent to just ... we've discussed before should
we just give lottery money out. Certainly the grant, we got into that whole
issue with the grant program and had people, a number of people talk about
well,...
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: One minute.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... it's not helping small schools. When we actually saw the results, we found
out that, in fact, a number of small schools, in the Education Committee had
the privilege of traveling and seeing where there ... some small schools had
gotten a great deal of money. And so I don't think with the
12709
lottery funds
we're talking about state takeover of education. We have lottery funds, and all
this is doing is rearranging how we distribute the lottery funds on this issue
that we're talking about right now. It is simply rearranging how we distribute
the lottery funds and saying that it's time to do something new and innovative,
because we've been doing the same thing for a long time, and schools have had
... certainly stated that the grant. process sometimes has gotten cumbersome,
taken a great deal of time. And we've all heard about that issue. This goes
about it in a different way.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Time.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
And then simply lets schools choose how they may spend the money.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Beutler.
SENATOR BEUTLER:
Senator Kristensen, members of the
Legislature, just a couple of quick comments. First of all, I wanted to note for you an item that relates, I think,
to the mentoring program and why
we have it and what it relates to
and it relates to some very widespread and ... widespread concern, and concern
among people who have really looked into how we compare to other educational systems around the world, especially the Japanese and the
Germans. And one of those studies
which was, I think, considered one of the best studies, was a
study of U.S. grade school students, eighth grade students and
mathematics and science teaching curriculum and achievement. And it was a comparison of United States eighth
graders with German and Japanese
kids. And one of the key points and
main conclusions of that particular study was stated thus, evidence suggests that U.S. teachers do
not receive as much practical
training and daily support as their German and Japanese colleagues. Now there are others that were
mentioned and were part of what
they perceive as the complex of reasons why our students don't see to do as well as the Germans and the Japanese, but they clearly
identified a gap or a difference,
I should say, that they thought to be significant in the way that we handle and train teachers. They
went on to say, in contrast to new
German and Japanese teachers, new U.S. teachers do not
receive a long-term structured apprenticeship in their
12710
profession. Once
on the Job, they have fewer formal and informal opportunities to discuss and
share teaching related issues and questions. And they at least believe that
that problem was of a serious nature. Not on that point specifically but just
generally on this bill, you know for some reason, here and there, there seems
to be a negative feeling about this bill, and maybe it comes in part from the
impact of (LB) 806, last year, and some of the results of that bill that were
perhaps unanticipated or that were necessarily tough. But this bill, this bill,
in my opinion, is one that people should be happy about. First of all, it
responds in, a very real way to, I think, everyone's constituency. We have
heard time and time again how there should be testing. We have heard time and
time again how the financial figures should all be done in the same way, so the
public can understand what's happening. We have heard time and time and again
about encouraging schools to do better in terms of their product. And here we
are with provision that relates
their product to how well their students
score on tests, and creating a tremendous incentive right there, and
creating other incentives that are going to have the effect of forcing schools,
of encouraging schools to really take a positive and close attitude about their
product, about what they're actually putting out in terms of education, because
it's going to start to be measured, and it's going to start to be looked at by
the public in a very different and closer way. And it's going to be able to be
compared. And I don't see that as negative. I think rightfully we have not gone
as far as some other states in terms of letting our public education system
deteriorate and going to private, competitive systems to teach our children.
But within our public education system I don't think it hurts us a bit to
insert some competitive factors, and to insert some means by which schools can
be compared. I think the public wants that.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: One minute.
SENATOR BEUTLER:
I think we're being very responsive to the public when we do the things that
are in 1228, and I don't think those things are going to hurt any school
districts, they're going to help them all. And so I hope that this hangover
from (LB) 806 doesn't pervade on 1228 and (LB) 1209, 'cause God knows they all
need scrutiny, but I don't think we're talking about
12711
anything that
potentially harms any schools. It's a matter of doing good for all of them,
maybe not as much good for some as for others, but certainly a positive good
for the system taken as a whole. Thank you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Witek.
SENATOR WITEK:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. members of
the Legislature. I just...I guess as we're talking about improving the schools in Nebraska and
making a lot of these changes, I
want to remind people that by everybody's standards in the United States, Nebraska is one of
the top performing states on...
anyplace that you look. We're already doing what they call a NEPT test, N-E-P-T test, that tests schools from all
over the country and gives those
scores in comparisons. And on
that test, in 1996,
Nebraska's eighth grade students scored fourth in math. And in our student-teacher ratios here in Nebraska
we are also fourth in the nation.
So we have small classes and we
have 14.5 students per teacher; that's fourth in the nation. So when you're talking about a mentoring
program, I guess I take it
somewhat with a grain of salt. It's not... it's an idea that my district is already doing, and we
will qualify for probably any
level that you change on this piece of legislation. But I guess as you're looking at the bill itself and trying to make
the bill better for schools across
the state of Nebraska, I want to
just say that we are already the top performing schools across, and we do have small class sizes. It's
not like we're trying to work with
like some of these states that have put
these mentoring programs in place 25, 30 students in a class room. And a lot of class rooms have
paras already in them, paraprofessionals already in them to
help with a lot of the more
mundane tasks. So those first-year teachers aren't necessarily all by themselves on their own in probably most
of the class rooms across the
state. And I've talked to first-year
teachers who ... about this issue now. And a lot of those first- year
teachers feel that they are ready to teach, and that they don't necessarily think that there will
be any additional things they can,
I guess that we should spend these tax dollars on, that they would get from teachers that have been
teaching for 30 years, enough to
make -it into an entire program. If
it's something like a buddy
system, where they can work with
somebody occasionally, or talk with somebody occasionally, they feel
12712
comfortable with
that. 'But instituting an entire training program and going through the costs
that you see in LB 1336, which was the original bill on mentoring programs in
state of Nebraska, talks about the total estimated costs of this program will
be 1,367,000 for training for first-year. teachers, and 1.1 million to provide
stipends to mentor teachers. That's a lot of money for ... what I'm not sure
everybody is clear on would be the men ... the actual mentoring program, since
we don't really know what the mentoring program will be when it's done at the
Department of Education, and what the training will be, and how much time will
be required out of these mentors in the teaching day. So there's a lot of
unknowns here , as we're discussing doing something like this. And I guess we
re talking a lot about improving education, which is always a good thing to
talk about, but I just wanted to make sure that everybody understands that
Nebraska is one of the top 'performing states with very small class room sizes.
And-when you read information that comes from other sources on problems that
they're having, it's not necessarily problems that we're having in our schools
across the state of Nebraska. Thank you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Cudaback.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Mr. President, members, I'd like to ask Senator Bohlke a question,
please, if she would, please.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bohlke, would you respond?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Senator Bohlke, for a slow learner like myself, I would just like to
have you more or less walk through what ... at any given point, or maybe when
the check leaves the Treasurers Office, or wherever it leaves from, walk
through that ... those dollars, where it comes to the system, and where it goes
to, and what schools might get those dollars, whether it be a Class I, or be
the high school, or whatever, kind of walk through that for myself and maybe
even for the record. I know you've already stated this one, but...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Just how the money is appropriated, Senator Cudaback?
12713
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Yeah, dollars from this so called grant or...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Okay. You have the grant money, and it's school.... First of all, the grant
money, the first call on the grant money is to establish the training for the
mentors. Then after that, you have the ... you have grant money that is
distributed, $50 per student or $100 per student, if it's in a very sparse
area, according to how they qualify. That money goes out to the system, to the
high school, who then distributes it throughout the system.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Explain throughout the system.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
A system, and I have that at the bottom of one of the handouts, the front page
of this that says AM, the AM on it, where it tells you a system, the first
example, one., K-12 district. All right, Omaha is a system. The next example is
a K-12 district and affiliated Class I. Lexington have Class Is affiliated.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Right.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
They are a system.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Right.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
The third is a Class VI, like Adams Central, with a Class I, they are a system.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Right. Okay, how about, now would the Class I actually get a pay ...
get some of those dollars as a unit or as a Class I? Would the Class Is be
receiving any of those dollars?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
They would through that high school receive... I mean, but it says in
consultation with. You may have the Class I, say, and a Class VI district
decide to use the money combined in a certain fashion to do something for the
system.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: And will those dollars become part of the budget, a part of the
budget or will that be in excess to the
12714
Class Is?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Pardon?
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Will those dollars become part of the budget or will they become a
separate, what you may say, dollars for the Class Is?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
They're really separate.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: They will be separate, right?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
And then you have the long list of things that schools could pick out in order
to spend the money. It is really operates very much like the lottery funds
today. It is just shifting how they are being awarded.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: So that Class I receives those dollars, now do they have to spend
that, awhile ago you said they didn't really have to spend it on a mentor.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Oh, no. No, they do not have to. It does not ... they do not have to. Once they
get the dollars, it then has nothing to do with what we talked about on the
program. They may, if they wish,...
SENATOR
CUDABACK: If they wish.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... they may use it for technology. They may use it for any number of things,
just as they currently may with the lottery dollars.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Okay. Senator Beutler said we should all be happy for this, the
changing in the way we distribute dollars, and I am extremely happy because I
never did like the old system, and how we distributed it.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
we've ... we've heard ... we have heard from schools across the state, Senator
Cudaback,...
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Yeah.
12715
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... that they wished to have it changed...
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: One minute.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... and have more flexibility, and rather than going through the grant process
they've been going through. And some people who have been analyzing it, that really
they've started to lack some innovation.
SENATOR
CUDABACK: Thank you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Janssen.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, members of the Legislature. Sitting here and looking at
some of the flyers that Senator Bohlke has passed out, I began to wonder if...
I think that the smaller school
systems in our state are going to
be able- to profit from thi's much more than the larger schools are. I visited with Senator
Bohlke about this. You know, they're ... the small schools come in
and tell us, you know, we're
providing a good education to the kids. Our test scores are above the average, and so on, and
so forth. Well, you look, look at one of the criteria here on
your ACT and SAT test, well, if
that's the situation, they're going to qualify for that, and I think in the poverty, they may...
they will qualify for the poverty
a little ... a little greater, some of the rural areas, and I believe that the dropout rate will be less in
a smaller school, especially in
the rural area, in the rural areas
where most of the small schools are at. And if there... if I am not looking at this right, I hope that
someone gets up and pushes their light on and proves me wrong on
this, but the way it looks to me
the rural areas are going to be more beneficial by this than the metropolitan areas will. If I am wrong, I
hope someone stands up and says
so. With that, I give the Chair back
the rest of my time.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bohlke.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One thing that we hadn't talked about, when I read off
on the poverty factor and I think some people were surprised at the number of
rural communities that really qualify. Last year you may remember
12716
that on LB 806,
Senator Wickersham and I worked very hard on getting that income in the factor
for the poverty. When we did that, it increased the number of rural areas that
now qualify for that poverty factor. So when I read down the long list of
districts that would qualify, you saw that Omaha was in there. But then after
Omaha, it was almost all rural areas. And so I didn't know if any of you had
remembered that we had introduced that income into the factor in looking at
poverty last year, and I think that's the reason for the increase in the number
of rural schools that qualify.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Suttle. Senator Suttle.
SENATOR SUTTLE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker and members of the body. Senator Witek was talking about mentoring, and I happen to
be very close to a first-year teacher, who happens to be my daughter, who is teaching her second
semester; this semester. And she
started In the middle of the year last year, and it would have been wonderful for her to have had a mentor. I
do think that first-year teachers
are scared to death when they walk
into a classroom for the first time all by themselves. And you look out there at those little
expectant faces and you wonder,
why have I decided that I think I can teach these people anything? The NSEA puts out ... put out
a ... what a mentor does, and it is from Planting The Seed,
Mentoring New Teachers. it's a
report that what mentors do, the criteria for selecting mentors, interview questions for
mentors, nomination forms, open-ended questions for teachers,
recommendations, the team recommendation
form, and between mentor... a model contract between mentor and principal. There are lots... there is
lots of. information out
concerning mentors. Nobody has to reinvent the wheel. Nobody needs to rethink and redo everything from scratch. It's all there and they all
... all schools are privy to it. And if you would like to have a
copy of this, Senator Witek, I will be glad to make it available to you. Thank
you, Mr. Speaker.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Witek.
SENATOR WITEK:
Question. I'd like to call the question.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: The question has been called. Do I see
12717
five hands? I
do. The question before the body is, shall debate cease? All those in favor
vote aye; all those opposed vote nay. We are voting on ceasing debate. Have you
all voted? Please record.
ASSISTANT CLERK:
25 ayes, 1 nay to cease debate, Mr. President.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Debate has ceased. Senator Bohlke, you're recognized to close on
your amendment to the first division of the committee amendments.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, Mr. Speaker and members. I would remind you that this is simply the
amendment that's on your desk that was handed out that moves the high-ability
learner to the premier category from the primary category, and I think there
has been indication of general support on the floor for this, and I ask for
your positive consideration. Thank you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: You've heard the closing. The question before the body is the
adoption of the Bohlke amendment to the first division of the committee
amendments. All those in favor vote aye; all those opposed vote nay. Please
record.
ASSISTANT CLERK:
30 ayes, 0 nays on the adoption of Senator Bohlke's amendment to the amendment.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: The amendment is adopted. Next item.
ASSISTANT CLERK:
Senator Bohlke would move to amend with AM3518. (See page 906 of the
Legislative Journal.)
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bohlke, you are recognized to open on this amendment.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, Mr. Speaker and members, this amendment really is just a follow-up for the
last one that gets a bit more specific, and it says that, on the amendment that
was handed out before you, on line 11, after the word approved by the ... a
mentor teacher program established by a district in the local system and approved.
by the state board, and then it adds wording, and there is at least one
first-year teacher in the local system, and the same following with high
ability in the
12718
local system and
there is at least one learner with high ability identified in the local system.
I think that's being handed out to you now on the floor and it just clear ...
clarifies something that we probably should have had in that first amendment.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bromm.
SENATOR BROMM:
Senator Bohlke, if I could ask a question, does that mean that if a district
doesn't have a first-year teacher in the system, that they don't meet one of
those primary ... that they don't meet one of those premier factors, and if
they don't have a high-ability learner, they don't meet one of those premier
factors?
SENATOR, BOHLKE:
Senator Bromm, as you see, we move to five in that premier and so,...
SENATOR BROMM:
Correct.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... yes, what you're saying, if they would not have either of those, then they,
in the year after year four, I guess, if they didn't have either, but they
always have ... they have ... they can meet four and have one that they don't
meet. So a district could not have a high-ability learner and always continue
to qualify, or they could not have a first-year teacher and always continue to
qualify. However, if in the...at some point in time, they had neither, which I
think the probability would not be high.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay, let's talk through that a little bit. One of those five factors is
improving the annual percentage dropout rate. Now most small schools don't have
a dropout rate. So if it's zero, you can't improve from zero. So that's one of
the five.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
But that's to maintain, Senator Bromm, maintain or 4 percent.
SENATOR BROMM:
Maintain...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Maintain less than 4 percent, so small schools, I would assume, would always...
12719
SENATOR BROMM:
Maintain less than 4 percent dropout. So then if they met that one, and they
had a teacher certified by the National Board, that would be two. If they had
at least 36 percent of the certified teachers having advanced degrees, that
would be three.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Or 30 hours according to Senator Stuhr's...
SENATOR BROMM:
Right.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... amendment, Which would be fairly...
SENATOR BROMM:
And then if they had a high-ability
learner, that would be
four, or if they didn't have
a high-ability learner, if they
had a first-year teacher and they used
a mentor, that would
be four, our., or I mean.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Right.
SENATOR BROMM:
... one of those.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Right.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, I think that...
SENATOR BROMM:
Clarification also on the certified teachers in the system. I know in some
schools, they even use ... they have aides to the certified teachers
because...because they can hire them, frankly. Do they ... are they expected to
count those or are they not included in the count? That would make the
difference in some cases.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
The Department of Education data, you know, contains all certified staff, so we
would have to go by...
SENATOR BROMM:
If they are an aide....
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... their counting.
12720
SENATOR BROMM:
...are they considered certified staff? I thought. they were not.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
I will have to check, Senator Bromm.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay, that ... that would be something to clarify probably, not in here, but
for us to make clear on the record, at least. Okay, thank you, that answers my
questions and I'll support the amendment.
SPEAKER KRISTENSEN:
Senator Witek.
SENATOR WITEK:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The concern with this amendment is, for those
individuals who might want to qualify for these grants, is that not every
school district hires new teachers every year. There are some smaller districts
out there who don't have an opening for a new teacher every year. So that
knocks this portion of the qualifying out for those districts who might have
teachers, a lot of older teachers maybe who, you know, are going to be staying
on for awhile. Millard's teachers, I think, are ... we'll have new teachers
every year. We have openings every year for teachers, but I don't know about in
some of the smaller districts, or even midsized districts, how often you
replace teachers. We may be accelerating, with the retirement accelerating
teachers going out and having an opportunity to have first-year teachers, but I
guess that's something everybody is going to have to decide on, whether you
want to stick with the language that calls for just having the plan to do that,
or whether you want to go ahead and say that you ... a plan is not good enough,
I think we might have just done that with the last amendment, and now we have
to have an actual program up and running, and now with this amendment, you
actually have to have a first-year teacher in order to replace it to qualify
for that year's grants. So if you don't replace teachers very often, this is
going to be a hard qualifier for those schools. I am not sure what the
justification is for counting that out of it or making it that much more
difficult. I know that these grants are not to sustain these programs. These
are just to take this money and put it into something else, so if you go ahead
and start up a mentoring program in your district, and you want to get at this
grant money, the money that you get from this grant money will not pay for your
12721
start-up costs,
nor will it pay for your mentor or your teacher training. That will come from
the state, and what you pay, if anything, to your mentor is something that you
decide within your district. The only thing that you will get if you qualify
under this is an opportunity to get that money from the lottery money as a
grant, and that money has to be applied to some other area of either that
program or another program. So this will make it more difficult. I understand
the senators who want to make sure that it goes to those districts that
actually are having these programs up and running, and actually have first-year
teachers, but I would remind everyone that that is more than likely going to
be... I will tell you Millard is going to qualify every year, and more than
likely Omaha, and so I don't just wave aside Senator Schellpeper's concerns
that this is going to go most often to the larger districts because of the
changes that you are making, because it will be very easy for us to go ahead
and qualify for this opportunity, and it will be more difficult for those
districts that don't change very often, don't have any first-year teachers in
that year, and don't have some up and running mentoring program for that
first-year teacher. So I just want to ... where we are making these changes,
there are going to be consequences for the different school districts. Thank
you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Seeing no other lights, Senator Bohlke, you're recognized to close
on your amendment to the committee amendments.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, this really just, I think, clarifies the
previous amendment in saying that the student must be present in the system. Thank
you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: You've heard the closing. The question before the body is the
adoption of the Bohlke amendment to the first division of the committee
amendment. All those in favor vote aye; all those opposed vote nay. Have you
all voted? Please record.
CLERK: 26 ayes,
0 nays, Mr. President, on adoption of Senator Bohlke's amendment to the
committee amendments.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Next item, Mr. Clerk.
12722
CLERK: Mr.
President, I have nothing further pending to this piece of the committee
amendments.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bromm, we are now debating the first division of the
committee amendments.
SENATOR BROMM:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The section of this amendment that we haven't talked
about I don't think at all is at the bottom of page 2, which pertains to taking
the standard college admission
test. I would like to focus on that for a minute to be sure that we understand
what we have in terms-of the requirements in the language. It says that at
least 60 percent of the graduating seniors in the local system have taken a
standard college admission test and those students have an aggregate average
score, using the most recent test score on each test for each student who has
taken at lest one of the tests, above the state average score on an one of the
standard any college I admission tests, and I ...
and I'm confused when I read it. I am sure it's explainable. Senator Bohlke,
could you yield to a little discussion or question on that?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR BROMM:
In the third line of that subsection (d), it says students have an aggregate
average score. Now let's say that we've got seniors, some taking the ACT, some
taking the SAT. I don't know what other tests there are, but I suppose there
probably must be some other tests. Now when you take the different tests, how
do you compute an aggregate average score of different tests, and there's
probably an answer, and I just... I'll give you an opportunity to explain that.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Senator Bromm, they may use either test as long as 25 percent of the students
are taking it. As you know, in Nebraska generally students take the ACT. There
are where the SAT is taken if usually they are intending to go to a college
back east.
SENATOR BROMM:
So at least 60 percent would have to take the same test?
12723
SENATOR BOHLKE:
No, they may use either, and then they ... and there is a way to come up with
that aggregate score.
SENATOR BROMM:
There is a way to come up with an aggregate score even if 30 percent take the
ACT and 30 percent take the SAT?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
It would be the aggregate score on either test, but In that case, they could
choose whichever one... in that case, they could choose whichever ... which
they would rather use, the ACT or SAT. If they had...
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay, that's where I get lost a little bit. Sixty percent have to take a test.
They don't have to take the same test, but they have to take a standard test,
is that right?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
That's correct.
SENATOR BROMM:
And then, somehow, you get an aggregate average score, and are you saying that
they could ... the school could choose whether they would take the results of
the ACT or the SAT or the California or whatever tests there are?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Generally, it's the SAT and the ACT. In that situation, yes, they could take
either one, either score.
SENATOR BROMM:
And if the score they chose to take, at
least 25 percent of the
graduating seniors would had to have
taken ,that test and scored
above the state average? If they
choose the ACT, as I
read the rest of the language ... this is why I want to hive
this discussion because I'm confused ... do at least 25
percent of the graduating seniors have to exceeded the state average on one test or the other, whichever test they choose....
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: One minute.
SENATOR BROMM:
... to compare? Or are we comparing some sort of an aggregate achievement score
with the statewide average? That ... that's where I need to get some
information.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Senator Bromm, you don't aggregate the two tests together.
12724
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
They ... you may use either test, but what we say is that you have to have at
least 25 percent take it, because you could have a school system, say, maybe
that wouldn't qualify on an ACT, have one student take the SAT, do very well
and qualify. So at least 25 percent, if you're going to use that test, have to
have chosen that test. Like I said, most times it won't...
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... be a problem because most schools use the ACT.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay, at first I was thinking and I thought that you were indicating that
somehow they averaged or aggregated the scores, even though they were taking
more than one test. But what I'm...
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Time.
SENATOR BROMM:
... hearing is that...
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Jones.
SENATOR JONES:
Mr. President and members of the body, I just want to talk a little bit more
about the grants going out to schools. I had a case where the ESU 16 applied
for a grant that would help a bunch of schools, like for the communication and
the distant learning in all the schools, which would pay them all. So with that
in mind, I would like to ask Senator Bohlke one question, if I could.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bohlke.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR JONES:
Did you hear my start out?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
I am sorry, Senator Jones, I didn't.
12725
SENATOR JONES.
You realize, like 16, put in for this grant, and they had distant learning in
all them schools, that I think they had a million and a half grant, and it
helped a bunch of the schools. Now if each school in this, like ESU 16, would
qualify for this grant, can an ESU do it so it would benefit all of them? I am
thinking more of the technology that we don't know what's coming down the road
ahead of us yet, and there might be technology that could help a group of
schools? Could the ESU do this and not individual schools do it?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Senator Jones, ESUs could or the example I gave yesterday where Arthur,
Thedford, Tryon could pool their money and decide to do something. They said
that they thought that was very interesting, and if you used the student
numbers, remember I said that Arthur would get 10,000, Thedford, 14,000, Tryon,
10,000. They could put. that :together and do something by sharing and coming
up with something common that they would like to spend the money on. So it
could be ESUs or schools going together.
SENATOR JONES:
That was my question. I.didn't know whether it could go back into the ESUs,
like it did before, but I realize they would all have to qualify.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
They all have to qualify, but then there is... I think that's what schools
really, as I said, really appreciate about this is this is the first ... one of
the first times we've ever said, we are going to give you the responsibility
and you can decide how you want to pool the money, use the money, as long as it
is under the guidelines of the innovative, as we have always done with the
lottery money, and it is not a long involved grant process. You indicate if you
have these, and then you qualify for the money.
SENATOR JONES:
Thank you. I got one more question, I've got a lot of Class Is, as you realize
in the Sandhills strung all over.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, you do.
SENATOR JONES:
And they, a lot of them up there will not
keep a
12726
teacher over two
years. Now does that interfere with...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
That should help them out because they will always have that first-year
teacher.
SENATOR JONES:
But, I mean, they might not be a. first year, they might just move from one
school to the other. They just kind of do this so that they won't...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Well, they would be a first-year teacher in that district.
SENATOR JONES:
And that's okay, that's what I wanted to know. It is not a first year out of
college. It's a first year in that school.
SENATOR. BOHLKE:
Right.
SENATOR JONES:
Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Witek.
SENATOR WITEK:
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Senator Bohlke, if I could ask you some questions. I
guess I'm not quite understanding this section. It says at least 60 percent of
the graduating seniors have to take a standardized test, which most of them I
assume, in my district, take the ACT test. And those students have to have a
combined average score, using the most recent test scores on each test taken
for each student who has taken at least one of the tests, so you take all the
students who have taken the test, and their ... and it has to be above the
average statewide score in any of those tests of at least 25 percent of the
graduating tests that seniors have taken. So if 60 percent of the senior class
needs to have a score higher than the average score, then the average score...
I mean we're averaging out the score of 100 percent, correct?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bohlke.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Sixty percent of the students have to take the
12727
test. That
doesn't enter into averaging the scores.
SENATOR WITEK:
Okay, so 60 percent take it, period.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Then...right, then ... then it's the average of all the students taking the
test.
SENATOR WITEK:
Well, if all the students are taking the test and the average is at 50 percent
of 100 percent, that's the average score.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
You have to score over the statewide average.
SENATOR WITEK:
But the statewide average is going to be based on all the students taking the
test.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yea,. I m not understanding then ? you're I re asking.
SENATOR WITEK:
Okay, if we're...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Fifty percent are going to be above, 50 percent are going to be below.
SENATOR WITEK:
Right, and 60 percent of your students have to take a test.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR WITEK:
Okay, so one of the criteria is 60 percent of your students have to take a
test, and how many of those students have to be above the average score?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Half of those.
SENATOR WITEK:
Okay, 60 percent have to take the test, 30 percent have to be at the average
test score, which is 21.5 or whatever on the ACT. So half of the students
taking the test have to have an ACT score of the average, mean average of the
state, which is like 21.5 on the ACT. Is that correct? I am sorry.
12728
SENATOR BOHLKE:
I am sorry, Senator Witek, yes. I think...
SENATOR WITEK:
Okay, half of the 60 percent of the students who take a test have to have a
test score at 50 percent or above.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Basically, yes.
SENATOR WITEK:
If you are taking the students, half are going to have a test score at 50
percent of average or above.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
I am sorry. I am looking... if what, Senator Witek.
SENATOR WITEK:
If you're taking a group of students, whether that's 60 percent of the class or
100 percent of the class, half of those kids are always going to be at half of
the te ... they're going.-. that's what the average is. .,, Half of the
students Are always going to be above average and half are going to be below
average.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
But you are going to have an average with the state, Senator Witek. I think
that's where you're... it's getting confusing.
SENATOR WITEK:
Okay.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
You have an average for the state, and then your school takes the test, and you
have half of your students in that school have to score above the separate test
that's the statewide average.
SPEAKER KRISTENSEN:
One minute.
SENATOR WITEK:
When we set the statewide average, how do we set the statewide average, on all
the test scores, correct?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Do we set the statewide average on all the test scores?
SENATOR WITEK:
Yes.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
12729
SENATOR WITEK:
Okay, thank you, Senator Bohlke.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Senator Bromm.
SENATOR BROMM:
Senator Bohlke, I'm going to support this
section of the amendments, and I want you to know that, but I still have a little bit of discussion
on this testing section, and here
are some concerns that I want to express to you, and I don't know that there is
anything anybody can do about it. I do not want to see schools discouraging
students from taking a college
admission test because they might think it might pull down their average. And if a school has 90 percent of
their students take the test, do
they have to count all 90
percent into their average
score? Is the answer yes? The answer
is yes. So we all know that
in any graduating senior class, we
have a range of abilities, and I do not want to think that schools will not... I want them to
encourage all students to take the
ACT and the SAT or whatever test they want because they're lots of times surprises. I had a very,
very good friend who was told by
the high school counselor, don't even bother to go to college. And he is a practicing veterinary, and he's one of
the best cowboy poets in the
country, and he's got A lot of
abilities, just not your orthodox student, and so I sure hope that schools don't cut off the taking
of the test when they hit the 60
percent of the top student level and discourage the rest of them. In some ways that's bothersome
to me, but I don't know what you
can do about it. I guess I also don't want schools to teach to test, and it's awfully hard, probably, to teach to
an ACT or an SAT maybe. I know
there are review courses for those
things, and some students take review courses in an effort to try to up their score. And I would
remind the body that this is one
of the three basic criteria and a school must meet this criteria to get the money. And so it's
going to be fairly important to
those districts to try to qualify. Those are concerns that I have that I don't think can be adequately addressed at this point, and I Will support this section of
the committee amendments.
SPEAKER
KRISTENSEN: Seeing no other lights, we are prepared to close on this division
of the committee amendments. Senator Bohlke, would you like to close on this
division?
12730
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Mr. Speaker, members, I thank you for
your patience. I hope that in the handouts that we've given to you that look at this section, if you
look at what are the lavender and
yellow, these are the issues that we are dealing with, and that that may help you keep this
particular set of amendments in
mind being as we have divided the question. And, actually, I think it's been a good idea, so that
we can approach this section by
section. But I think you've heard a good
discussion about what the different incentives are. I think that, once again, I need to say to you that
the reason and the philosophy for
doing this really goes to listening to schools and to listening to individual senators in the past few years
as we've talked about the concerns
of the lottery funds and the
application that was going on with the grant, having the dividing of the grants. And, most important, that we
have done some really exciting
good things for schools, but we have
begun to see the same type of thing over and over, and no longer see some .'of the innovative things
that we hoped schools would be
doing through the lottery grants. Because of that, we tried to put
together, as a committee, those things that we think could add that innovation back into the classroom while really attempting to improve the
quality of education in the
schools. And, at the same time, I think that all of us have heard, at least I have since we've been here,
that sometimes we tend to
micromanage things for the school districts. This recognizes that when boards make good decisions to offer
programs in their schools, that we have the confidence
then In saying that we will give
you the amount of dollars times the number of students you
have, and then you get to decide how you want to spend that money that fits the guidelines
under the lottery grants. I think
that's very important. I think schools have welcomed that
opportunity, and, actually, I think increases our ... who we, as a Legislature, and especially
those of us who have been involved
in education, in saying you re doing a great job for your district, you're
adding and offering in your curriculum
the things that truly makes a difference, and we would like to recognize that. So with that, I urge
the adoption of this section of
the committee amendment.
SENATOR BRASHEAR
PRESIDING
12731
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Bohlke. You have heard the closing on the first
component of the committee amendments. The question before the body is the
adoption of the first component of the committee amendments. All those in favor
signify by voting aye; those opposed nay. Have you all voted? Mr. Clerk, please
record.
CLERK: 27 ayes,
0 nays, Mr. President, on adoption of that component of the committee
amendments.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: The first component of the committee amendments is adopted. Mr.
Clerk, items for the record.
CLERK: Mr.
President, just a couple of items, thank you. Enrollment and Review reports
they have examined and reviewed LB 1035 and recommend that same be placed on
Select File. That's all that I have, Mr. President. (See page 906 of the
Legislature Journal'.`)`
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Would you please direct our attention to the
next component of the committee amendments before the body.
CLERK: Mr.
President, thank you. The next component, Senator Bohlke, I think consistent
with your wishes, is consideration of Section 5 of the committee amendments.
It's floor amendment 548, but I believe Section 5 of the original committee
amendment is where you want to go next.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
That's correct.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you. Senator Bohlke, to open on this portion of the committee
amendments.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, this really is a floor amendment at this time. We've had a great deal of
discussion on the mentoring program, and so I will not take a lengthy time to
open on this. However, I will take the time to correct an answer that I gave to
Senator Jones, when he asked me if a new teacher could be someone who has moved
from a district to a new district, and I said yes. And that was incorrect,
Senator Jones. It has to be a new teacher, and so I want to correct that on the
record and
12732
make clear to
you the answer that you were asking for. What we've said is the State Board is required
to develop a mentor teacher program for individuals entering teaching. The
State Board shall conduct a comprehensive study of the needs of new teachers
and how these needs can be met through a program of orientation and mentor
support. The State Board shall...also shall develop and coordinate mentor
teacher training to be funded by the Education Innovative... Innovation Fund,
and shall develop criteria for selection (sic) excellence, experience, and
qualified teachers. The funding of the training is limited to 10 percent of the
Education Innovation Fund, and has first priority on those funds. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: You have heard the opening. Mr. Clerk.
CLERK: Senator
Bromm would move to amend this component of the committee amendments, Mr. President.
Senator, floor amendment. It's on page 895 of the Journal. (See FA553.)
SENATOR BROMM:
Thank you, Mr. President.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Senator Bromm, to open.
SENATOR BROMM:
Thank you, Mr. President. Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, let me tell you
what this amendment does, and it's a policy decision and a... I think it's
important enough to discuss. One of the things that I've heard some of my
colleagues say as we started discussing this bill yesterday was why do we need
to train mentors to mentor? Why do we need to spend money, up to 10 percent of
the lottery funds, to teach experienced, qualified teachers how to teach other
teachers? Is that a valid expenditure of up to 800 or 900 thousand dollars of
the fund, the lottery fund for education? And as I thought about that, I
thought I think we should at least consider spending that money to help pay for
the mentoring program. Now the amendment was drawn here on the floor, and I am
not extremely proud of the draftsmanship, but I can tell you that the intent of
the amendment is that the State Board of Education shall develop the mentoring
program, and the mentor teacher program shall be funded, shall be funded by the
Education Innovation Fund up to the 10 percent. I did not amend yet a later
section of the bill on page 10, which says that up to
12733
10 percent shall
be for mentor teacher training. But
if we adopt this amendment,
then at some point, we'd want to amend that section to provide that up to 10
percent would be to pay for the mentor teacher program. How
would this work? My vision of how
this would work would be that, of course, the Department of Education would develop the program
as is stated, conduct their
comprehensive study of needs and how those needs can be met through a program
of orientation and mentor support. But
then the actual mentoring that occurs, there would be financial support to pay for the actual
mentoring. Now the maximum amount
of money that could be used for this is capped at 10 percent of the fund, and that's fine. So there may
only be 50 or 75 dollars, or a hundred and fifty
dollars, to pay each mentor or
school district that hires a mentor, and the school will have to certainly pick up the balance of any
cost. But as it is structured without my amendment, the
money out of the fund simply goes for training mentors, and
for the studies, and so forth,
that the Department of Education conducts. I am concerned not about the value of a mentoring program at all,
and that's where I didn't
communicate very well with
Senator Robinson yesterday.
I wasn't questioning the value of having a mentor. I think that's valuable, paid or unpaid, and I think it's been used in practice throughout the ages in all professions. But what doesn't make
sense to me, and maybe I'm the
only one looking at it this way, is I don't see why we need to allocate it that much money, possibly up to 8 or 9
hundred thousand dollars, to train
mentors, when I think the people
that will be used for that
task and who will be naturally qualified
are people who are experienced teachers, perhaps some will be retired and some will not, but they
will be professionals who are the
kind of people in their profession that others can look up
to, learn from, and seek guidance from. Now, the training should
be minimal if it even needs to be. There may need to be some
structure criteria suggested to schools on how they would
implement a program, but the cost will be borne by the school district
in the sense that, and I can't imagine what this would cost in a school like
Lincoln or Millard. I don't know if
anyone is here from Lincoln Public Schools that knows how many teachers
they average per year, but I'd be interested if Senator Beutler or anyone is
familiar with the Lincoln Public School system to be able to answer that
question. The district will have to pick up the cost of paying the mentor. What
I'm
12734
suggesting is
that we use a good portion of this 10 percent fund to help defray the cost of
the mentors through the distribution of those funds to the schools that
actually use mentors. Now there will need to be some blanks filled in in my
proposal, but I'm putting the proposal out there for you to consider and
discuss, and either do a thumbs up or thumbs down. I would rather use the money
to pay for the mentoring than to pay the people to train the mentors, and
that's the entire purpose of the amendment. Thank you, Mr. President.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Bromm. You've heard the opening on the Bromm
amendment to the amendment. Senator Bohlke.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, Mr. Speaker, and members. And, Senator Bromm, if you would be available to
answer a couple of questions as we kind of explore your thought on this. As you
stated, it is up to 10 percent. If there is a concern, you know,, maybe there
re is some discussion if that's too much money. That would be about $50,000 per
service unit for if we were thinking of it that way; nineteen service units, if
each one offered a training program. The question I have, if I understand it
right, you're saying that any money not used for the training could be
available to pay ... for school districts to pay mentors? Is that what you're
trying to accomplish?
SENATOR BROMM:
That's correct.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Then it's great because it' s your amendment. You get to figure out how we get
the money out to the school districts. How ... seriously, how would that, how
would that work? Just each ... within each service unit, would we divide it up
by service units then...
SENATOR BROMM:
That would be one way, Senator Bohlke. Another way, perhaps, would be to pick a
date when it is determined how many first-year teachers there are in each
service unit and distribute the money that is available based on the number of
teachers, first-year teachers in each service unit. That would be another way.
As I stated, they ... the mechanics of it, I am... I haven't figured out. I
just know that I think that schools could use, and I'm using your time,...
12735
SENATOR BOHLKE:
That's all right.
SENATOR BROMM:
...that schools could use help financially to pay for the mentors, and I don't
think there is going to be a lot of money needed for training these people, at
least there shouldn't be a lot of money spent on that, I would hope.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
And perhaps, and we can visit here a minute here off of mine, too, Senator
Bromm. I am not, you know, I am not... I'm interested in talking about this
point, and, you know, I'm not, first blush, not opposed to it, only I want to
understand the mechanics. And if we have to work a bit on the mechanics,
perhaps that would be something that we could do on ... we could raise the
issue now, have some discussion on record, work on it between now and Select
File. Because if we do it, as you know, that. sometimes.. gets a little
complicated, and we could work together and address it at that time, and that's
just merely a suggestion, and an indication from me that I recognize what
you're saying, and that up to 10 percent, you know, we don't know what it's
going to cost. But that there very well may be some amount of money there that
I would think might be available to do what you're wishing to do. And so with
that, I will continue to listen to your reasoning and, like I said, perhaps if
we don't have the mechanics down, we could work that out between now and Select
File. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Bohlke. Speaking to the Bromm amendment, Senator
Robinson, followed by Senators Beutler, Janssen, Witek, Bromm and Thompson.
Senator Robinson.
SENATOR ROBINSON:
Mr. President, members of the body, Senator Bromm, I have a question to ask you
about your amendment.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Senator Bromm, will you yield?
SENATOR BROMM:
Yes.
SENATOR
ROBINSON: Are you talking about putting all the money in to pay the mentors?
SENATOR BROMM:
No, Senator Robinson.
12736
SENATOR
ROBINSON: I am not sure if I quite under...
SENATOR BROMM:
The bill, further back, says that up to 10 percent can be used for mentor
teacher training, and I am saying let's take up to 10 percent and we implement
the mentor program and to the extent that we can we help defray the cost of the
mentors for the schools by directly giving them money, that have mentors, to
help pay for the mentors.
SENATOR
ROBINSON: But how much is up to 10 perecent, I know that you've talked about
that.
SENATOR BROMM:
Between 8, close to 9 hundred thousand.
SENATOR
ROBINSON: Vie are going to spend 900,000 on a mentor program,? Is that....
SENATOR BROMM:
Well, it's up to that, Senator Robinson..
SENATOR
ROBINSON: Yeah, yeah.
SENATOR BROMM:
It wouldn't have to be that, but it's up to that.
SENATOR
ROBINSON: So we're taking a group of experienced teachers and we are going to
take them-down to Lincoln, and the people at the state department are going to
tell them how to teach. Don't make me laugh. Those people could probably teach
the people over at the state department on how to be a mentor. I guess I have
questions of that amount of money. I think the money... I think there ... the
money ought to go to the people that are mentoring. I think that's where the
greatest amount of money ought to go to. I mean, you could have a summer
seminar or something, but, I ... boy, spending that much money, I just... I
really question. I called the Blair Schools. We have nine beginning teachers
this year. of course, Blair is a big school, too. It is one of the class...
largest Class B schools in the state of Nebraska. But, boy, I don't know,
that's a lot of money to... I think you'd be better off if you put... if you
got 10 or 15 of the outstanding teachers in the state of Nebraska and talked
about it and come up with some criteria on what ... how
12737
to be a good
mentor. I think most people that are outstanding teachers, I not sure if they
really need any...much background on being a mentor. Senator Bohlke, I don't
know, you were gone, I just said I have a problem with spending up to $800,000
on a mentor program. I think if you have outstanding teachers, I think they are
pretty good mentors to begin with, and I am not sure how much they are going to
learn from the State Department of Education. And, in fact, they are more
experienced than the people that consultants over there, and I would rather see
more money go into the ... to helping the mentors, although I can see where you
get some people together in the summer time, some of the outstanding teachers
... the Nebraska... in Nebraska, and come up with some criteria for mentoring,
but... and I like the idea of mentoring. While you were gone, I said there were
nine teachers, nine new teachers in Blair this year. So, just for a little ...
thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Robinson. Mr. Clerk.
CLERK: Mr.
President, very quickly, Appropriations will be meeting, is meeting, if you
will, in Room 2022 now; Appropriations, Room 2022 now. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Speaking to the Bromm amendment, Senator Beutler.
SENATOR BEUTLER:
Senator Brashear and members of the Legislature, Senator Bromm raises an
interesting point, and creates
mixed feelings in myself, also, because I guess from my perspective I think
there is a point and a purpose, and a very good one, to funding at whatever is
the appropriate level training for teachers, albeit those who are good teachers
themselves, but also a point to trying to assist, if there is that much money
to go around, in the payment of the mentors themselves. I think maybe there is
an additional perspective and a
little bit different one to Senator Robinson's perspective that these people
are the experts and they don't need any
training, I think all of us know people who are experts in their fields
who kind of naturally, or instinctively or because of their personality
characteristics, do well at what they do. But having done it so long and never
having thought about it for a long period of time, it may take a bit of a
different, a
12738
substantially
different orientation to think through why it is that they, themselves, have
done well, to analyze how another person is doing something differently from
what you do, to take in and absorb all of those different things that are
important in being a mentor that we discussed earlier, and there are a whole
number of aspects to helping a beginning teacher. I am not sure that there
isn't a very substantial job to be done there to orient mentors, however good
they may be, to the logical and analytical problems that are before them in
assessing what they, themselves, do, what makes themselves good, and then
transferring that knowledge to other teachers. So while we consider what
Senator Bromm is suggesting, which I think is an important discussion, I hope
we will not underestimate and just assume that good teachers, great teachers
will be great mentors without helping their transition with the experiences of
North Carolina' and other places where mentor programs are in operation,
letting them know ''as quickly as possible what works, and what they need to
think about, and what they need to analyze, and how they can be most helpful in
the shortest period of time. I think there is a job to be done there. Thank
you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Beutler. To the Bromm amendment, Senator Janssen.
SENATOR JANSSEN:
Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Legislature. I ... right now I support
the Bromm amendment because I can see that we may be going down the path that I
had spoke about later or earlier about we used to bring teachers and
administrators to Lincoln to study. We would give them $5,000 to learn how to
get a bigger grant. That was changed last year. Anyway, to me that was a waste
of money when they would come down here for a week and study how to get a
larger grant. I think we would be going down the same path again. That did not
work, and I hope that with the Bromm amendment we can do something different,
and I think it will work. I think that would work. Instead of ending up blowing
a lot of money, we would be able to help pay for those mentors who are going to
work with that first-year teacher. We don't know how many of them there are
going to be. We don't know how many schools will apply for those ... for this
money, but I certainly can see where 8 to 9 hundred thousand dollars would go a
long way in helping
12739
to pay the
mentors who are helping the first-year teachers. I think that would be the more
prudent way of spending that money up to 10 percent, to help out the districts
who are trying to better their education of their children, get high ...
achieve higher tests, and there ... thereby getting some extra money through
the grant program. That money can be distributed when, as I said, when the
school applies for some assistance for their mentor. We don't know how many
that is going to be. I fear that we're going to, if we did it the other way, we
sent everyone who wanted to be a mentor down to ... down here to Lincoln to have the Department of
Education train those people, we would probably have an excess of people going
there. So I believe this would be, you know, a lot easier, just when you send
in your application to apply for the grant, list the mentors you had, how much time they had spent with the
first-year teacher on your application, and you would be refunded the money
that way. There are a lot of smart people to figure those things out, a lot
smarter than me, and I think this
in be right way to go
rather than would be the
righ setting up another you might
call a black hole where money could be funnelled into for no reason at all because these mentors, if they are retired teachers or teachers with a
certificate, I think they have the
expertise to help the younger teachers. It really doesn't make much...a teacher, whether they are
older or not, doesn't make much
difference. The experience they've gained in the 30, 35 years of teaching can be very helpful to that first- year
teacher. With that, thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Janssen. Speaking to the Bromm amendment, Senator
Witek, followed by Senators Bromm, Thompson, Stuhr, Bohlke and Robinson.
Senator Witek.
SENATOR WITEK:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of
the 'Legislature. As I understood this money, and if you go to page 10 of the amendment that we're
working on, in line 17, it says
that up to 10 percent of the lottery money can be used for the mentor teacher training program,
and Senator Bromm, as I understand
it, wants to utilize some of that money to actually pay for the mentors instead of the mentor teacher
training program. But then as I
understand it, we can't use the lottery
dollars to pay for the mentor because of the line in this, and I am not...I don't know exactly where it
is right at this moment,
12740
the line that
says that this lottery money will still have the same use that it does now, and
that is that it will just go for the grants, the innovative grants, that you'll
have in your district. And as Senator Bohlke explained it to me yesterday, that
would free up some money for implementing these other programs. But when
Senator Bromm discussed utilizing this lottery money to pay mentors, we can't
say, okay, we get this $50 per pupil of the lottery money and use that to pay
mentors, and then as Senator Bromm is saying, we're going to take money out of
the 10 percent of the money that we're allocating for the mentor teaching
training program and use some of that for teacher... or for mentoring pay. If
you look at the fiscal note on (LB) 1339, their estimates were a million
dollars a year for teachers' stipends for that, and even at this rate, you
can't put together a training program plus pay mentor teacher programs with 10
percent of the lottery fund, and you're going to have somebody picking up the
tab somewhere along the line for either-.the -mentors that you have or whatever
innovation grants you are going to put together to get to use that other money
for. So the only thing that the 10 percent of the lottery money can be used
for, according to this legislation, even with Senator Bromm's amendment, as I
understand it, because of other areas of the bill, is for teacher training and
not to pay off your mentors. Because as Senator Bohlke told me yesterday, this
is not a sustaining amount of money that you're getting in these grants. You
could get it one year and you won't get it the next year, depending on how much
it is. You could get $50 if there is a lot of people, you could less than that.
So it is not something you can count on in your budget, so to speak, to pay for
your mentors. And if you can't use it from the grants that you're getting to
pay for your mentors and you're not going to have the money in your ... and you
can't use it from this language in here that says 10 percent of that money will
be used for the mentor training program, then I guess the way that I read this
is you cannot use any of this money to pay for your mentors, regardless of how
much you put into the training program. We are more or less telling them on
page 10 of this amendment that you can use at least 10 percent, no more than
that, or you can use 10 percent, no more than that, up to 10 percent, for your
mentor teaching training. We're saying that. So if you got to change that, you
got to change that in that section on page 10 to say that some of that 10
percent can also be used to pay for
12741
mentors because,
otherwise, we're going to be stuck with a teacher training program over at the
Department of Education that, first of all, half of you don't think the mentors
need, but we're making them...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: One minute.
SENATOR WITEK:
...put it together and we're giving them 10 percent of our lottery proceeds
into the Education Fund to pay for, and second of all, we're prohibiting them
from using it to actually pay for mentors in any way, -shape, or form, and,
third, we're not using this as money that is sustained from year to year to
year. So I know this sounds complicated and is complicated, but the bottom line
is your school districts are not going to have money for mentors from this
bill, period. And that is with or without the Bromm amendment. You are not
going to have. money to.. pay for or your mentors if you start a mentor program
with this entire concept, and I just wanted to make that clear again for those
schools. Millard has already got a mentor program, we're already going to have
... we're paying for our mentor program already. I hope we don't have to send
our mentors to this training program. They you're just spending your money on
our mentor program or our ... more of our money on our mentor program, but this
is not going to change the statute, and you can't use this money for mentors.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Time. Thank you, Senator Witek. Senator Bromm, to your amendment.
SENATOR BROMM:
Thank you, Senator Brashear. Senator Witek, when I began the discussion on
this, and I probably didn't make it as clear as I should have, but I indicated
that if we adopted this amendment, we would need to go in on page 10 and revise
the language as to how that 10 percent of the money could be used, and that's
the fifth division of the amendment. So we would deal with that when we got to
that division, I assume, but that point is well taken. As I think about this,
and it seems to me that a good way to organize it would be to involve perhaps
the ESUs. I am informed and Senator Stuhr may talk about that when it comes to
her time to talk that at least some of the ESUs are involved in a mentor
teaching program already. And so we may be able to funnel the necessary funds
in that direction to provide
12742
the cost of the
mentors so that the local schools that want to participate in this don't have
to find money elsewhere to do it. Also, I think it's good for us to remember
that all schools in the state will be eligible to participate in the mentor
teacher program, whether they qualify for grants or money under this act or
not. It's not just the schools that meet the first criteria ... well, I'd
better clear that up. Senator Bohlke, are you in the area? Okay. My
understanding, as I read Section 5, would be that the mentor teacher program
would be available to all schools who have first-year teachers. Now I would
like to ask Senator Bohlke a question.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Senator Bohlke, will you yield?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR BROMM:
Senator Bohlke, if we develop this mentor teacher program through the State
Board of Education orwhomever, all schools who have first-year teachers would
be able to participate in the mentor teacher program, is that right?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
SENATOR BROMM:
They wouldn't have to meet the criteria of the primary factors the first two
years and the premier factors after that?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
No.
SENATOR BROMM:
Okay. That I think is significant because this means that a portion of this
money in the lottery will be available to help all schools who have A new
teacher, and I think that's a good thing, and I think that I want to say again
if we adopt my amendment, the intent of adopting my amendment is that we shall
use the money primarily to help pay the cost of providing the mentors, and not
primarily to train the mentors. Now there will have to be a program, I guess,
developed by the State Board of Education. There may be some training involved
or some expense involved that will come out of this 10 percent. And, Senator
Bohlke, if I have any time left, I would want to discuss that with you. You and
I talked about the first year there might need to be more of this money used to
set up the
12743
program or to do
some training so that the guidelines that are developed by the state board
would be followed, is that right?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, that was our discussion that...
SENATOR BROMM:
Go ahead.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... certainly there would be more people, I am sure, that first year who would
get trained as a mentor. After that, there would be years...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: One minute.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... that would follow others that it wouldn't be nearly the number that would
be there that first year of operation.
SENATOR BROMM:
And on or before Dec-ember 1 of* '98", "-the stateboard and Department of
Education would develop guidelines and report back to us on how they would
implement this, is that right?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
That's correct.
SENATOR BROMM:
So this would take effect then for what school year?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
It would be not next year, the year after, Senator Bromm.
SENATOR BROMM:
So it would be 199-2000. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to just make those
points clear. All schools would be eligible to use the mentoring money, and
we'll have the details on that developed by December I of '98. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Bromm. Senator Thompson, to the Bromm amendment.
SENATOR
THOMPSON: Mr. President, members of the body, I was just wondering if I could
ask some questions of Senator Bromm about his amendment.
12744
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Senator Bromm, will you yield?
SENATOR BROMM:
Certainly.
SENATOR
THOMPSON: Would school districts have some options in ... under your amendment,
for example, to use the funds to pay subs to give release time to key teachers
who would be good mentors or do you just see this amendment as allowing extra
pay for the mentor teachers? And I will just tell you why I asked the question,
because there are some people who do this type of mentoring and master teacher
programs in other areas who are given release time from their regular duties to
be able to be in a position to do those extra things, but wouldn't necessarily
have to be receiving extra compensation to do that.
SENATOR BROMM:
This calls for the state board to develop those criteria. I would be
comfortable with what you have just said.
SENATOR
THOMPSON: Allow the ... um-hmm.
SENATOR BROMM:
If that were to happen, I think that would be a good use of the money. If the
criteria developed by December I would include that alternative, I'd be very
comfortable with it.
SENATOR
THOMPSON: Okay, I just think it would be good to give districts some options.
It is expensive to pay subs and expenses, particularly, to take training, and I
think we should be cognizant of the fact that we need to help the districts a
little bit, too. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Thompson. Senator Stuhr, to the Bromm amendment.
SENATOR STUHR:
Thank you, Mr. President and members. I have just been visiting with my local
ESU #6. They have had a mentoring program for the last 13 to 14 years. There is
another ESU that has had a mentoring program for 15 years sounding very similar
to what we are talking about now, and providing for first-year teachers,
selecting a mentor teacher from that school; also working in cooperation with
the building principal, so that they have a team of three, and then having four
workshops provided by the local ESU sometime during the year,
12745
and addressing
many of the concerns that we have been talking ,about in mentoring teachers.
Interested in Senator Thompson comment about the flexibility from other schools
because they said this is really a very low-cost program. They do have to provide
some substitute money for the two teachers that are involved, the mentor and
the first-year teacher, but I am wondering in this whole discussion then that
it would seem to me that the ESUs would certainly be a very appropriate unit to
provide in the core services that we have been talking about this particular
program, bringing together then these mentors and these first-year teachers so
that they can exchange and learn from each other. And I think that's what it's
all about is having that experience I, at this time, do support Senator Bromm's
amendment and I hope that we can continue our discussion on mentoring. I think
it's a very beneficial program. As we have been talking about, I think we have
some options out there, and I think that we should explore all the options that
are available. Thank you.,
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Stuhr. Senator Bohlke, followed by Senator
Robinson to the Bromm amendment.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, Mr. Speaker and members, Senator Bromm and I have had a discussion about
working out the mechanics between now and Select File that I think would be
very important. Certainly, Senator Thompson's questions, a number of other
people on exactly how the mechanics of it are going to work, and ensuring as we
look at that...the first year of the program and making sure that there is
enough there for the training. But with that in mind and the commitment from
Senator Bromm that we can continue to work out those mechanics, I will support
the Bromm amendment to the amendment. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Bohlke. Senator Robinson..
SENATOR
ROBINSON: I'll take... I agree with what Senator Bohlke said, and I won't take
any more time. Would you want some more time, Senator Bohlke? Do you want some
more of my time? You can have it.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Senator Robinson, I just like having on record that you agree with something
that I said, so I did it.
12746
SENATOR
ROBINSON: Did Senator Schimek agree with you?
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Oh, oh.
SENATOR
ROBINSON: Well, I don't know.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Thank you. I do not need the time. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Senator Bromm, there being no further speaking to you amendment, you
to close.
SENATOR BROMM:
Thank you. Just to reiterate for the body what the intent of this amendment,
what it says and what the intent is. What it says is in Section 5 of AM3320, it
strikes the words beginning in line 17 with "state" through the word "to" in
line 18 and inserts "mentor teacher program shall." Now what the intent of that
is, is that the money that we're going to out in to gram will be used up to 10 percent to help into to the meaning pro fund the cost of the program, which
could include paying for mentors. If we have the flexibility envisioned by
Senator Thompson, which I would
support, it would include reimbursing
for substitute teacher time if you have a master teacher that you want to free up to do some
mentoring, a fairly flexible
arrangement. The
guidelines, as set forth in AM3320, the
criteria for the mentoring program will be developed by the State Board of Education and reported
back to this body by December 1 of
'98. The program would go into effect for
the school year, '99-2000,
so we would have a chance to react to
those guidelines next session if we felt that we needed to. I
also pledge my support or assistance or time or whatever to Senator Bohlke to work on any
additional changes to the language
that might be necessary to clarify the intent between now and Select File. I also want to say that in
Section, I think it is, 7 of the
bill where it specifically says that up to 10 percent of the fund will be used for training, that that language
will need to be changed, and when
it comes to that section of the
bill, I'll offer an amendment to do that. But we will continue to work on clarifying it, but I hope
I've made the intent very clear.
Thank you, Senator Brashear.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Bromm. You've heard the
12747
closing on the
Bromm amendment to the amendment. The question before you is the adoption of
the amendment to the amendment. All those in favor signify by voting aye; those
opposed nay. Have you all voted? Senator Bromm, for what purpose do you rise?
SENATOR BROMM:
I'm...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Have you all voted?
SENATOR BROMM:
Chair, I'm going to ask for a call of the house and I will accept call-in
votes,
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: The question is, shall the house go under call? All those in favor
signify by voting aye; those opposed nay. Mr. Clerk, please record.
CLERK: 17 ayes,
0 nays, Mr.. President, to place the- house -,under call.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: The house is under call. Will all members please return to the
Chamber. Will all unauthorized personnel please leave the floor. The house is
under call. Senator Bromm will accept call-in votes. The house is under call.
Will all members please return to the Chamber. Will all unauthorized personnel
please leave the floor. The house is under call. Senator Bromm has indicated he
will accept call-in votes on the Bromm amendment to the amendment.
CLERK: Senator
Hartnett voting yes. Senator Kiel voting yes.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Mr. Clerk, please record.
CLERK: 25 ayes,
0 nays, Mr. President, to adopt Senator Bromm's amendment to the committee
amendments.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: The Bromm amendment to the amendment is adopted. Senator Bohlke,
there are no further speakers to the second component of the committee
amendment, otherwise Section 5. Senator Bohlke, to close.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, I will just, being as we have some people
12748
here, I believe
we've had a detailed discussion. I will not take any more time to close so
people can vote and get back to whatever meetings they may need to. Thank you,
Mr. Speaker.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: You've heard the closing on the second component of the committee amendment.
The question before you is the adoption. All those in favor signify by voting
aye; those opposed nay. Have you all voted? Mr. Clerk, please record.
CLERK: 35 ayes,
0 nays, Mr. President, on that portion of the committee amendments.
SENATOR BRASHEAR:
The second component to the committee amendments is adopted. Mr. Clerk, items
for the record.
CLERK: Mr.
President, Revenue Committee reports LB 20, (LB) 176, (LB) 181, (LB) 198, (LB)
276, (LB) 296, (IS), 492, (LB) 496, (LB) 668, (LB) 916, (LB) 920, (LB) 931,
(LB) 980, (LB) 1131, (LB) 1155, (LB) 1185, (LB) 1252, (LB) 1260, (LB) 1292,
(LB) 1296, (LB) 1361, and LR 62 as indefinitely postponed. (See pages 907-908
of the Legislative Journal.)
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you. The Chair apologizes, the house ... the call is raised. I
am sorry.
CLERK: Senator
Preister would like to print amendments to (LB) 395, Mr. President. That's all
that I have. (See page 908 of the Legislative Journal.)
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Will you please direct our attention to the
next component of the amendments.
CLERK: Madam
President, the next piece, Senator Bohlke, one I'm going to characterize as
Section 4. Senator.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes.
CLERK: It's
floor amendment...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Sen...
12749
CLERK: Floor
amendment, excuse me, Mr. President, FA547, which is Section 4 of the original
committee amendments. (See page 908 of the Legislative Journal.)
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Senator Bohlke, to open on the third component
of the committee amendments.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, Mr. Speaker and members, to help
clarify for you what
component this is, this gets at the issue of the statewide
testing program. And the committee has spent a great deal of
time on this, and one thing that I would like to point out to
you is it is not just in committee that we have spent time on
this, but this was part of our interim study over the summer. And
as we did that, we had a number of
senators involved in
looking at the testing program and the
statewide test, myself,
Senator Brashear, Senator Bromm,
Senator Wickersham, but on
the subcommittee we had a number of
other people who
represented schools from across the state
and interested in the
statewide test. We had... I'm looking down the list, we
had Craig Kautz from the Hastings Public
Schools, Kristine Wolzen
from Arlington Public Schools. We had
Connie ,Spellman from the Omaha Chamber, Jim Findley from Westside Schools, Linda Richards from the Association of School Boards, and so Katherine Endacott, who was representing the
State Board of Education. And so as you can see, we
had a number of people looking at this issue and, of course,
have had great dialogue with the State Board of Education. Last
year I introduced a bill on the statewide testing, and it
... did not really push it to go
forward in that looking at it, knowing that we would be looking at
it over the interim and also having an opportunity to talk to members from the State Board of Education
and certainly with Dr. Christensen
on the direction that they are
going. You've read that the
state board currently is having an
analysis done by the Burros Institute on the tests that are presenting being offered in Nebraska,
that having... see if they can
have them normed to the standards. Probably one of the issues out there is if they can do that, but
more importantly then if they can
come out with one score after deciding if they can accomplish that. But they have not...so far they have
not been able to do that.. But I
think it's important to understand
and talk about what the purpose of the testing programs are. Certainly, to evaluate whether or
not students have acquired
12750
skills and
knowledge to meet or exceed state academic standards, to measure the progress
of students toward meeting state academic standards, provide information for
analysis of standards and consideration of new standards, allow comparisons
between the achievement between local systems, and allow comparisons between
Nebraska students and other states. I think that in other states you may have
read that they got into a great deal of expense, and certainly, they had
developed their own tests. If you look at the green sheet that was handed out
to you, on there I have tried to give you an example of what the cost would be
to the state. As I said, the board has already discussed and have the Burros
and are spending the money having the Burros study how we might norm tests. And
so it's not ... the question is not if we're going to do a test, the question
is really what test and at what cost. What I have shown you is that if you do a
test in each of 'the grade levels, you would take the number of students,
divide, it by, three,. and then we.actually called testing companies in to
present resent to our interim study committee what they do on a test, what the
cost is of a test. One very interesting thing is they said the very low cost is
$5 up to the highest range of $15 per test. We had the national companies in
that are known most on testing. And so I use the high number there for you
because when you get into the area of testing, people question if we are using
criterion or norm. The tests...and if it has a writing sample. All of ... when
you do the combination and add the writing sample, then that usually ups the
amount. Previous states who have gone ahead with this, the companies did not
have what we would call an off-the-shelf test. They now all have that that
combine the referencing and the criterion and have a writing sample on there, and
all of them. testified that the top cost would be $15. And so that's the figure
I used for you in an estimate of what the cost would be. If the state wouldn't
do the cost, then the only thing left would be for local school districts. But
more importantly, I think it's very necessary for us to, after we have our
standards, to measure how our students are doing. If we have our standards and
never measure if we're making progress, it seems to me that we would question
why we're doing the standards. I would also point out that I think at this time
there, are only three states who do not do a statewide test. And so certainly
we have watched as other states have developed them, and I think that we have
watched the expenses that other
12751
states have
gotten into. Nebraska will be able to avoid that by going to one of these
off-the-shelf tests and certainly are not going to spend the money to develop
their own test. As... I think that, I know there'll be a number of questions.
Certainly it's a complicated area, but it is one that, as I've said, I think
generally people in Nebraska want to know how our students are doing. If we're
going through the time and an effort of setting standards to increase the
achievement of students, then we must have a way, I think, to measure if we are
improving, and not only that, I think we need a consistent way to measure that
across the state. And so with that I will be happy to try and answer any
questions you may have.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Bohlke. You have heard the opening on the
committed amendment on this component. Mr. Clerk.
CLERK: Mr.
President, Senator Witek vould move to amend this component Senator Witek, I
have AM3470 in front of me, first of all, Senator. (See page 89S of the
Legislative Journal.)
SENATOR WITEK:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
Legislature. My amendment is asking you to consider that instead of Nebraska putting together
its own statewide test, to allow
school districts to keep the tests that they are doing now, which in 90 percent
of the school districts in Nebraska are
either California Achievement Test, Iowa Test of Basic Skills, or the Metropolitan Achievement Test,
and to report their scores to the
Department of Education where they can put together some kind of a calibration of the state
standards, match those tests up to those state standards to go ahead
and judge how our students are doing in relation to those
state standards, and that way we will cause a lot less
disruption to our school districts
across the states than if you start requiring and put together a Nebraska test and then requiring those
school districts to go ahead and
give those tests. Every
school district in the state
gives some kind of a test of
their students. Probably the most
divisive issue on which test
to use, up to this point
in time, has been that every
testing company across the
country, at least these big three that I've
mentioned in my amendment, have a corresponding. textbook line to go along with them. So you'll find that
the districts that use
12752
those textbooks,
that they give the corresponding test.
For instance, the California Achievement Test has McMillan (phonetic), McGraw-Hill test,
the Metropolitan Achievement has
Harcourt Brace, and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills has Hoyt-Miflin (phonetic). So when you're teaching to
those tests, you're teaching with
the proper textbooks for those tests.
if we put together a Nebraska test, we won't be able to have a whole line of textbooks that teach to
the Nebraska test. So what we're
teaching to is just the state standards. And what we're asking to be done is to put together an entirely
new test. I know Senator Bohlke gave you a green sheet with the cost of that test, but a much more
comprehensive analysis of putting
together a statewide test is in the fiscal note on LB 712 that I've handed out to each of you, a
white copy of the LB 712 fiscal
note. And if you'll look through this fiscal note and read for exactly what Senator% Bohlke is asking to do
in her amendment is establish a
state test, you'll see that you're
going to 'put together 1 a custom instrument for those students established by the standards of the state, they were asking
I for", this last year. A
customized assessment will be much
more expensive than any shelf product because of the need for one state to bear fully the cost of its
development. That would mean
Nebraska would bear the cost, the entire cost of its development. obviously, developmental cost can be reduced significantly should Nebraska
choose either to use a shelf product or to use a test similar to the
one already developed by another
state, in a high volume state like California and New York or Texas, which is what my amendment is asking you
to do, to go ahead and use those
tests that those high volume
states already have, and
those tests that have corresponding
textbooks. One would also need to deal with the issue of test
currency. Since the curriculum is
constantly changing and under
development, over time it's necessary to change the test. So you don't just have the one time
development cost for doing a state test, but you have development
costs all along as you're developing your test every few years to keep up with
the changes in your curriculum.
And it's generally recommended that the multiple choice component of a
statewide test be reconstructed
every five to seven years and a new performance assessment developed
every single year. So you, if you go along with the way that this amendment is
written now on state testing, are going to ask the taxpayers in state of
Nebraska to take the
12753
entire cost of
those developments and the continuing costs yearly of the performance
assessment, and at least every five years to the other components of the test.
And then it also shows the cost estimates from the Fiscal Department on the
costs of the different tests that they were looking at the time. The test that
was chosen and written into the piece of legislation that you're considering in
1228 is the third or the highest cost for the custom instrument. You're taking
the cost of a custom instrument with one major performance task, and you're
putting ... that performance test would be a writing component, in each areas
of three grade levels in addition to the contents of the middle choice, and the
three estimates of the highest contains a true writing assessment to be scored
by human raters. So that's what they're asking for in this test, in 1228, is
that the writing component would need to have human raters deciding how
students did on that writing component. That's why it's one of the most
expensive choices., And if you turn to page 3 of this fiscal note, it talks
about the approximate test cost for the Nebraska statewide assessment in that
type of a test with a writing component that has to be tested by human raters.
The first year cost for the development and the test was over $7 million. The
second year cost was over $4.5 million. So the green copy that Senator Bohlke
has given you is no where near the same fiscal estimates that were just the
year before, by our fiscal department, and they also contacted three of the
major test publishers in the country to get these costs. And we do have a test
company here in the state of Nebraska that we could also get some of this
information from. But what I'm asking to do with my amendment is instead of
going through all these high costs and this continual high cost, and in
addition. you're putting together a test that can't be rated to any other
state. So you can't take the Nebraska test and judge the Nebraska students in
relation to the Iowa students. So those states that have gone ahead with their
own test, like Texas, for instance, did that so that they could see how the
schools in their state were doing, but you can't compare the Texas test
students to the Nebraska test students once you go ahead and develop this
Nebraska test. And in their own piece of information, the Texas test is easier
than the NAEP test that Nebraska students are scoring fourth in math on at this
point in time. So we already have a national test that we are participating in
called the NAEP test. We in addition to the national test that our
12754
students
participate in, each school district does a test. Omaha does California Achievement, mine does MAT OLSAT
and so does Lincoln, and most of
the others do the Iowa Basic
Skills Test. So we can use those tests to compare to other students across the sta ... the United
States that use those same tests,
and we can use those textbooks that correspond to those tests, none of which you can do if you
adopt a Nebraska test only other than to look at if you want to spend all this
money to see how Nebraska students
are doing in comparison to the
state standards. That's the only advantage to putting together your own statewide test, and it's a
very expensive procedure to go to to see how students are doing. Our state
board was encouraged many times to
adopt standards from some of the other
larger states that they had already had in place, we adopted our own standards. I know they did look at
some of the Texas information when
they made that decision. But those are the big states, when they make a. decision. on which way to go
that% all the money 1. and all the
dollars follows in textbooks. it's
not like somebody's going to go out and develop textbooks for Nebraska students to match the
Nebraska test. So what I would
like to do is go ahead and allow the tests that we're already giving to Nebraska students, that we already have
bought all those textbooks to go ahead and match
with the test that each of our
school districts are doing, to say that we will allow them to continue to do those tests that they do here in the
state of Nebraska and that they
already give to those students and
to just report those test
scores to the Department of Education
and to ask the Department of Education to calibrate those test scores in relationship to the
state standards so that we will
also know how our students do as a measurement in comparison to the state standards, but we won't have the added cost
of putting together our own state
test. So that's... and I am... I also
have the confidentially
language in here, that these test scores
will be reported in the aggregate, in a group, instead of as individuals, individual test scores
will be kept by the district.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: One minute.
SENATOR WITEK:
So I've also put that language in there for anyone who would be concerned about
that issue. so as you're considering adopting a new statewide test, I thought
you should
12755
have an option
of doing a much less expensive way to go ahead and get that accountability that
we've already had, and in addition to that, to remind you that Nebraska
students do participate in the NAEP test, which is a national test, so that you
have the overall umbrella of the national test, in addition to that you have
several large tents that you can compare your students to the neighboring state
in Iowa, if you do Iowa Basic Skills, or California Achievement to the students
in California if you want to compare state by state. But the only thing that
you can't do is go ahead and have your own statewide test with my amendment,
and you don't incur the cost. So I would ask you to adopt this amendment and
I'd be happy to answer any questions.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Witek. You have heard the opening on AM3470,
Senator Bohlke, to the amendment.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes., Mr. Speaker and members. First of all, Senator Witek, it would be
difficult to compare to Iowa because Iowa doesn't do a statewide test. Iowa and
Nebraska are the only two currently, although they do have what was ... used to
be the Iowa Basic. They do not do a statewide test. But as we're on the subject
of testing, I would... I was listening to you and listening to your biggest
concern with the testing issue in 1228, so I'm going to challenge you with a
little test. You say that we shouldn't develop our test, could you... I'm
reading the 1228 and all the discussion the committee has had, we say you
purchase a test. Where in the bill does it say that we would be developing an
expensive state test?
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Senator Witek, will you yield?
SENATOR WITEK:
Yes.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Current, in 1228.
SENATOR WITEK:
Well, if you're implementing a statewide testing program and it's based on the
statewide standards that you just adopted with the State Board of Education,
there are no national tests that I know of now that are based on Nebraska State
Board standards. So I don't know how you could ... the Iowa Basic isn't based
on that.
12756
SENATOR BOHLKE:
But where does it say in the bill that we're developing a statewide test?
SENATOR WITEK:
If you are requesting a test that is based on the Nebraska standards, and
you're saying the purpose of this program is to provide the information for
analysis of the standards, to measure the progress up to these academic
standards established by our state board, and you're using those standards as a
criteria to develop a test, Senator Bohlke, I assure you the California Achievement
Test was not developed...
SENATOR BOHLKE:
You're on my time, Senator Witek...
SENATOR WITEK:
I'm sorry.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
just asked you to., find it. But if
you would go to page 7, on line 2, and it says the testing program shall consist of one test
purchased from a recognized
testing service. We had the three big that you were talking about come and do a presentation before the
committee, those are the very
people who said standards are similar across the country. They have those tests that are now in
place. You may, may not know that,
they have the off-the-shelf test currently that reflect the standards, and very much at the cost that I had
put before you. But, Senator
Witek, as I read your amendment, and I
will go to the very first lines of it, it says "The State Board of Education shall require all public
school districts to report the
results of district-wide standardized tests to the State
Department of Education", here's the important part, "for grades four to six, seven to nine, and
ten to twelve." The way I read
that, you are going to test, you said the number of tests we already do, you are now going to do a statewide test
for fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh.-
and twelfth. That's the way this reads. You also say that it will include writing. The current tests
that are used in the schools do
not have a writing sample. And so there are a number of things that I think you will have to clarify, certainly
in your amendment. But it seems as
if the argument's going basically
if we should ... the cost at what it would be to develop our own statewide test. That simply isn't
in the bill. There are testing
firms...if there are only two states in the nation who
12757
do not do a
statewide test, I can name you a number of states who have purchased the
off-the-shelf test...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: One minute.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... that do the very testing necessary to measure if they're making
improvements. The other point that 'Senator Witek has is to allow schools to
continue to do a number of these tests, gets at another issue that I think is
very important, when you would do that. It would be like if you go out and test
drive a Chevrolet, a Ford, a Plymouth, a Dodge, and a Toyota. How do you make a
judgement or a standard when you have so many different variables as to which
one meets your particular standards that you have set? It's very difficult.
It's going to be very confusing and very difficult to, not only to school
districts but certainly to the general public, when you will have to explain,
well, yes, maybe we didn't do as- well , 9 Iowa Basic and we don't use the but
you led, we use the California Assessment. And another school district's going
to be saying, well, maybe we didn't come out as well, but you see we use...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Time.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
... Terra Nova.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Bohlke. Senator Beutler, to the Witek amendment.
SENATOR BEUTLER:
Senator Brashear, I would certainly oppose the Witek amendment, and I guess I
would be following up in my remarks on what Senator Bohlke has said. One of the
purposes stated for the testing program is to allow comparisons to be made
between the academic achievement of students in one local system and students
in another Nebraska local system. And I believe, at least from what I hear from
my constituents, that they are crying out for some objective criteria of what's
'happening, not only in our school district, but they want to be able to
compare it to other school districts. They want information. They understand
that testing is not the be all and end all, but they do understand that it is
also a tool and a very valuable tool, and an instrument for indicating to them
how
12758
well the school
system is doing. I think this is one of the most important parts of the bill. I
think if you allow the Witek amendment you will have all sorts of different
tests and it'll all disintegrate into a lot of money spent and no good gotten
out of it. So I hope of all provisions of the bill that this one can be kept
intact pretty much. as it is. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Beutler. Senator Witek.
SENATOR WITEK:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
Legislature. First of all, if you read the language in, this section in the original 1228, it tells the State Board of Education to implement a statewide
testing program for students in these selective grades, which that
is true, I can change that
language in my amendment to say that it's a select grade. I'm sure Senator
Bohlke knew that that was my intent. And it tells them that the testing program shall consist of a test
purchased from a recognized
service with which tests students in the areas of math, reading, science, and social studies, plus one writing test, either developed within the state by educators
with expertise in writing
assessment or purchased as a part of a
test. It says the purpose of the testing program are to evaluate whether or not students in a
school system have acquired skills
and knowledge which allow them to meet or exceed the standards established by Nebraska State Board to measure
the progress of students in a
school system toward meeting
academic standards
established by Nebraska State Board, provide information for analysis of adopted standards and
consideration of new standards by
Nebraska State Board. There is no test
on the market at this time
that does that. So it would leave
me to assume, and I'm sure
that's what they're going to do with this
type of money is develop a test that looks at those Nebraska standards and develops a Nebraska test. Many other states
have done it, that's why we have
the information to tell us how
expensive it is to do it, and that's why if you look at the fiscal note on (LB) 712 it'll tell you exactly how much it
is to develop a test basing it on new standards that we have
here in Nebraska without an underlying textbook program to go ahead
and help with that. And what I'm
suggesting is, we go ahead
and keep the tests that we
already have in place. All the school
districts in this state presently have these tests, and they do them in these classes every single
year. We're already paying
12759
for this. So
what you're doing is, you're telling your own district either you can continue
to do that, in addition to that you can do the Nebraska statewide test, and on
top of that you can also do the NAEP testing, which is the national testing. Or
what you can do instead of having an additional Nebraska test is do away with
your California Achievement Test, your MAT and OLSAT test that my district has
decided that that's what they want their curriculum based on and that's what
they want to test on. You can have both that test and in addition to that
you're going to make the taxpayers pay for, implement, and go ahead and test
your kids on every single year in the state of Nebraska, so you're going to pay
for that additional test, and you're going to make them pay for the national
test with your federal dollars. So what I'm suggesting is instead of paying for
those three different tests or times and tests for all those students, we can
just accept the test that we're already doing in all of our districts, that
already match the books that we're using in districts and say that that's enough
and we re going to calibrate all of that information as other states have done.
Virginia has done the exact same thing, I know for a fact. They've taken these
tests; they've allowed these tests to be used. And even if we put a test
together, as Texas did, which Texas is the number one on the NAEP test, it says
that the Texas test is easier than the NAEP test, but it's much tougher than
most states. Well, we already score very high in the NAEP test, so we're doing
something right in this state, even with the testing that we're allowing now.
And we're allowing our school districts to decide which tests we're going to
use. And if you want to compare students, you have comparison tests of ACT
tests, when your students are in the high school. You have the comparisons of
the NAEP test that our students also take. And we also have comparisons, if you
want to compare with Iowa, their test is the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, we can
go ahead and those school districts that do Iowa can compare with Iowa, those
school districts as do the California Achievement can...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: One minute.
SENATOR WITEK:
... can compare with all of the other states that do the California
Achievement. There is no reason to put together a separate Nebraska state test
and go through the expense and the time out of the classroom that it takes to
12760
administer these
tests. And as a mother I can tell you there's a lot of testing going on in the
classrooms already. We don't need to have the state decide that another test
needs to be done. We have all the comparison information you could possibly
want. And our students are already testing in the top five states on those
tests. You're just being asked to do this and to spend this money because it's
the neat thing to do in the education establishment right now, and I'm saying
there's no need to spend millions more dollars to accomplish what is already
being accomplished in this state. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Witek. Senator Bohlke, to AM3470.
SENATOR BOHLKE:
Yes, Mr. Speaker, just to finish out a
couple of things that I was going to point out. Senator Witek talks about the NAEP test, which
currently we're having difficulty
in Nebraska- finding ..we allow districts to opt out-. We do, not even now have enough districts taking
the NAEP test to use it as a Nebraska sample. And also, the NAEP test does
not reflect district scores. The
other part that I have to continue
to emphasize, and Senator Witek, in my estimation, continues to misrepresent what the bill is saying.
It does not say that we should
develop a state test on our own. I do not think that we should. It simply...and the committee went through the
pains of having the three
companies in to make sure that the tests
that they have reflect the standards. It is a very simple thing for those companies. We asked if the
$15 would include any work that
they would have to do looking at our standards, and they said yes because that is very minimal. And, of
course, one issue that I have
always been very concerned with is the
issue of writing. And many of the tests that Senator Witek has alluded to do not have a writing
sample on them. The new tests that are off the shelf do have writing
samples and certainly are an
improvement. I think a writing sample is one of the more necessary parts of a test, and certainly one that has
not been met, although we do have
in our ESU, one ESU who have
developed a writing sample, a Nebraska writing sample test on their own and is used by a number of school
districts at this time. And that
could be one that the state board would wish to adopt. But as I've said, I've worked with the
commissioner and the state board
in clearing up certainly any issues before on the bill
12761
last year. I
think it's important to keep 1228 in front of us, and it's certainly important
to make it very clear what the bill says and what it does not say, and I think
to be ... make it very clear of what Senator Witek's amendment says or does not
say. And certainly, I think I pointed out some flaws that she said were her
intent, but the way that it's written is what's before you. And the way that it
is written, it says that we'd be doing more testing than we've ever thought of
doing in the history of this state. I stand opposed to the Witek amendment.
Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Bohlke. Senator Wickersham.
SENATOR
WICKERSHAM: Mr. President and members of the body, I am going to
rise to oppose Senator Witek's amendment for a variety of
reasons. One, as I read the amendment and I think others have
suggested, it literally requires testing in every grade ,four through twelve. That's, I think,
unnecessary. It's expensive. I don't know if it could be
accomplished for any good purpose. The requirement that we
use the currently utilized tests, I don't know, that
might be possible. I don't think it's necessary for the
Legislature to direct that kind
of restriction to the
Department of Education, or the State
Board of Education, or
anyone else. They're bound to change
the names, they're bound to
change the purpose, they're bound
to change something and
then they'd have to come back for
a statutory amendment. I am
quite comfortable with the
language in this section of
the bill in that it sets out the
broad parameters and gives
a clear statement of what we would
expect to achieve out of a
testing program. And I would submit to
you that that is far more
important than specific testing areas
or some of the other issues
that are raised in Senator Witek's
amendment. And, in fact, as we
were discussing this
particular proposal in the
Education Committee, I kept asking,
repeatedly, what is it that
we are trying to do? What is it that we
want the result to be? What
do we want to know? What are
others entitled to know as
a result of the testing proposal? And
that questioning is the ...
brought about the language that you now
see on page 7. If we are
clear about what we want or need to
know, I think that's the
most important component. And it isn't important to specify some of the things
that are specified in Senator Witek's amendment. Now some of the things that
she
12762
suggests may be
appropriate, but not all of them. I think the frame work that's in the
committee proposal is far more satisfactory and is a far better way to direct
or guide the activity of the State Board of Education, of the Department of
Education, and to request information and to develop a testing program that
works in all of the schools across the state. Now I suppose the more
fundamental issue is whether or not we should do any testing at all that we can
use on a statewide basis to determine whether our schools are performing,
whether students are performing. I understand that that argument has been
fought in a variety of context, but I cannot believe that you want to guide the
ship of education without a-radar screen, without knowing or being able to
measure where you are without knowing what may lie ahead, without knowing
somewhere that you have been. And that, I think, it is essential to have a
testing program that you have confidence in, that is used in all schools, is
used on some basis that is ... makes it comparable from school to school, and
in some base... and in some ways' gives us a comparability measure so, that we
can compare Nebraska schools with national schools, so that we can, I think my
expectation would be, that we will wind up patting ourselves on the back...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: one minute.
SENATOR
WICKERSHAM: ... for the quality of our schools. But if the quality of our
schools ever begins to decline across those national comparabilities, we'll
want to know that. We'll want to know if we have ... a school system should
want to know if there are difficulties in their school system meeting the state
requirements or how they compare on a national scale, on some basis that is
reliable for them. So I think that's at the root of it. Give enough direction
to achieve those things, create the test, administer it. It is far more
critical to know where we're headed and why.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Wickersham. Senator Witek.
SENATOR WITEK:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, Millard schools have been in operation for
at least 30 years, and that school district decided that their curriculum would
be based on
12763
a list of
locally controlled curriculum requirements, and they decided which textbooks to
go with, and they decided which tests to give all. the Millard students. We're
not reinventing the wheel here, we're not starting up education in the state of
Nebraska and it means that the Legislature has to step in and decide what tests
that all these school districts need to take. All of your school districts
already have tests, and they already have textbooks to go along with the tests
that they're doing. So they've already made significant investments. All you're
going to be doing here is another layer of testing based on the state board
standards to go ahead and give to the Nebraska students. You could do away with
that layer, go ahead and allow, as in my amendment asks you to do, allow our
districts to report to the state board, or to the Department of Education. And
if you want that based on the standards, then you go ahead and decide how that
test works with the state standards, and you can go ahead and ask them to do
that so you don't have to pay for a $1 million, or 1.4 million, even by Senator
Bohlke's estimates, to go ahead. And if you want the Legislature or the State
Board of Education or the Department of Education to pick the one test that this
state is going to do and it's not going to be a Nebraska test that we put
together, that we don't develop, then you're going to tell every school
district in the state of Nebraska, you're going to pick either the California
Achievement or the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, they're all ... the ones that
don't do that are going to have to buy all new textbooks because they're going
to want to perform well on that test, so that's going to be a tremendous
expense, and then you're going to tell them that the state will pick up the
cost. Would be ... that would be just fine with me if you're going to actually
do what Senator Bohlke said could be done, and decide which one of these tests.
But I think this should be a local decision. My district's already decided. We've
already made the investment in brand new textbooks. We've already decided this
is the test that we're going to use. So what we're going to have to do is both
of them, more than likely, so my taxpayers are not only going to have to
continue on the MAT and OLSATs that we've already got something on, but we're
going to have to pay for the Nebraska test that's developed with this piece of
legislation. And in addition to that, we pay for the NAEP test, and if you're
worried about not enough schools participating in the NAEP test, then require
that the NAEP test
12764
be done in
however many years you want that done. And you've got the ACT test for most of
our high school students, or the SAT test. We have a lot of tests out there.
This is just a neat thing that a bunch of states have done who are trying to
say that it makes them more accountable, which it does not. These are not any
more rigorous than the national tests. You have that information from the other
tests. And they're different than what you're already doing. So when we're
telling these school districts that we want them to sit under a lid, in
addition to saving money, we're going to turn around and put together another
test regardless of what it is. If we say this is a statewide test, they're going
to want to do well on a statewide test because you're going to compare them, so
they're going to get whatever new textbooks on whatever test you pick, and
they're going to teach to those textbooks. And for those districts that don't
have the textbooks, if any of them, for whatever test you do decide to do at
the state level, they're going to just be out of luck. It's an additional
expense, not only at the state to put the test together, and I still say if you
pass this piece of legislation that the people who want to spend money in the
education establishment are going to interpret this language to put together a
new test. And you look at the hit on (LB) 712. They've prettied it up on 1228
with this green copy to rake it look like it's so much less money, but it's
not. And if you want a writing component, MAT and OLSAT have that, Millard and
Lincoln already do that. I don't know...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: One minute.
SENATOR WITEK:
... if California Achievement already has a writing component. So we're already
doing that. So our board's already decided to do that. We don't need the
Legislature to toll us that this is something else we need to do. If you really
want local control of your schools on something as important as the curriculum
that they're doing in their schools, and you really want to look at your
taxpayers in the face and tell them that you're trying to help them adjust to
those lids, then you should vote for this amendment. Thank you.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Witek. There being no further speaking, Senator
Witek to close.
12765
SENATOR WITEK:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last year
the Education Committee had
before them LB 712, and it talked
about putting together a
test. So don't think that they're
not thinking about this,
considering this, discussing it,
and putting in language in
this bill that would do just that. Regardless of whether the fiscal note
you see on this green page is so much less than the fiscal note
you see in 712, I'm telling you that to put together a statewide
test with a performance based writing component is already
listed on page 3 of the fiscal note in 712, and it will be over
$7 million the first year and 4.5 million the next year, and
every couple ... every year you have to change the writing assessment
and every five years you change the rest of the test.
In addition to that we're going to have to pay for people
to administer the test, so there are significant administration
costs that go along with all of these in the area of two-and...
$1 and $2 million in these -areas. This could be an extremely
expensive state funding for this test. An id if 'you" re telling me
that you're going to pick a test off the shelf, then whoever
doesn't have the textbooks
that go with whatever you
decide to pick statewide, they're going
to be out of luck and
they're going to have to go and buy
new textbooks. So that's
going to be a significant expense.
You're putting in an extra
layer of costs here that Nebraska
taxpayers don't need.
Because all of our schools are already doing some kind of a
test of their students, whether it's
California Achievement,
Iowa Basic Skills, MAT or OLSAT, 90 percent of the districts
go ahead and use those three tests and they go ahead and buy the textbooks that correspond to those tests.
What my amendment is asking you to
do is take the scores from those
tests 'and give them to the Department of Education. And at that point in time the Department of Education can look over the state standards, decide how those tests match up to
those state standards and go ahead and calibrate
those test scores so they can give you some kind of a statewide
assessment as to how your schools are doing in relation to other
schools. And if you're trying to look at how your schools are
doing nationally, you won't get that with this test because
nobody else in the country is going to have a Nebraska state test.
You can't even use this test to look at and compare to what
other states are doing. That's one of the big downsides to
putting all the money into a state test. If you want to look at how
you're scoring
12766
nationally on
national tests, you can already do that because you're already paying for the
NAEP test, the ACT test, the SAT test, those are all national tests. All this
is doing is trying to follow what a lot of other states with a lot more money
than the state of Nebraska are putting together. And let me tell you, if you
look at states like California and Texas, those are the states that textbook manufacturers
look at now to see what their tests are and then they base their textbooks on
theirs. We just follow along with whatever they do in those areas, and this
isn't going to change that, we're not going to be able to get books for our
kids any different than what we can get now. So if you can't get textbook that
teach to any other different tests, if y ou've already paid for the textbook
that match the test that we re doing, if every single one of our local school
boards have already decided that these are the tests that they want our
students to take in our districts, then why would we step in and demand a
Nebraska state test that is going to be
very expensive 'far as I'm
take up more class time, and as* concerned is totally unnecessary. So I
would ask you to at least consider this amendment, gives you an
opportunityso people know where
you stand. If you want to put in another layer of testing, if you want to pay
for another...
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: One minute.
SENATOR WITEK:
... layer of testing, and if you're really, truly trying to tell these people
that you're going to put them under lids and you want them to keep their
spending down, this is not the way to do it because it's going to be very
difficult for districts 'Like mine, if you go ahead and pick the California
Achievement Test and you tell us that that's what we have to adhere to, we're
going to have to change all of our textbooks, it's going to be very expensive,
and it's going to be very difficult under the restrictions that the Legislature
has imposed. So think it's very unfair of this Legislature to come in at this
late date, after we've imposed all these restrictions, and now tell them that
we're going to decide which tests our local districts administer. I would
appreciate if you'd at least consider this. It's a very expensive proposition,
what's in 1228 now, and I'm asking you to save some taxpayer dollars. Thank
you.
12767
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Thank you, Senator Witek. You have heard the close. The question
before the body is the adoption of AM3470. All those in favor signify by voting
aye, those opposed nay. Have you all voted? Have you all voted? Mr. Clerk,
please record.
CLERK: 2 ayes,
11 nays, Mr. President, on adoption of the amendment to the committee
amendments.
SENATOR BRASHEAR:
The amendment is not Adopted.
CLERK: Senator
Witek, I now have from you, Senator, AM3441.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: Senator Coordsen, for what purpose do you rise?
SENATOR
COORDSEN: I would like to move that we adjourn until tomorrow morning at 9:00
a.m.
SENATOR
BRASHEAR: You've heard the motion, the motion is to adjourn. All those in favor
signify by saying aye. Those opposed nay. We are adjourned.
Proofed by:
Gregory S. Friend
12768