Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.
Colorado lawmakers are proposing big changes to the state’s school accountability system. Many of the recommendations come from a task force that worked for over a year on suggestions for how to improve the system.
But some of the proposed changes go further than the task force recommendations. One would give the State Board of Education more options when deciding what to do with schools and districts that have failed to show academic improvement for more than five years.
A bill proposing the changes, House Bill 1278, had its first hearing in the House Education Committee last week. But the committee held off on voting, because so much of the bill’s language is expected to change.
In part that’s because the bill’s initial fiscal note estimates the proposed changes would cost the state almost $18 million over three years, at a time when lawmakers are struggling to cut about $1 billion from this year’s state’s budget.
But it’s also because various groups are still pushing for changes.
Currently, the state’s school accountability system, in use since 2009, mostly uses standardized test scores to rate schools and districts. High schools are also rated on their graduation rates and on how many students move on to postsecondary options.
Schools can earn one of four ratings, while districts can earn one of five. The law requires the State Board of Education to step in when a district or school has reached five years of low ratings, but the State Board is limited to ordering changes that include: closing a school, turning a school into a charter school or community school, or granting innovation status, which allows a school or group of schools to get waivers from state laws or union contracts and try new approaches. The state can also order a school or district to turn over management to an external group, or can strip districts or schools of accreditation.
New language being drafted in a 12-page amendment would allow districts that have reached this five-year point to instead “take other actions that are comparable or that have a more significant effect…as proposed by the school district.”
“Actions include, but are not limited to, contracting with an external management partner, using contractors or resources provided by the department, engaging school districts to work together to monitor progress and provide assistance, or comprehensive school redesign,” the amendment draft states.
The task force was unanimous in its 30 recommendations, which are mostly all reflected in the proposed bill. But the task force report, published in November, didn’t mention changing the allowable state actions for when a school or district has reached five years of low ratings, also known as the end of “the clock.”
Rep. Meghan Lukens, one of the bill sponsors who is a Democrat from Steamboat Springs and also a teacher, said that the task force did have a goal of giving schools and districts more flexibility. Other leaders involved in drafting the bill say the amendment is related to one of the task force recommendations to “support schools and districts pursuing bold solutions to turnaround.” But the report from the task force explains that recommendation as suggesting the state provide more funding for more district improvement efforts.
Among those who spoke at the hearing last week, a few were opposed to the bill, stating that the accountability system is still inequitable and that schools are still underfunded, while most education leaders who spoke were in favor of the changes. Some asked for a few more.
“The current draft shows significant promise but its expansion of and emphasis on standardized testing is simply tone deaf,” said Kara Smallwood, a speech language pathologist who was one of several educators to speak on behalf of the Colorado Education Association. “While well intentioned, we urge testing companies, legislators, and parents to hear us when we say that doubling down on standardized testing does not improve students’ experience in school nor their preparedness for the future.”
CEA President Kevin Vick told lawmakers that the union supports amending the bill to ensure that the state doesn’t double down on testing, and that teacher retention is a focus.
Vick also said they are working with bill sponsors on amendments so the system “prioritizes community-led approaches over more punitive state-led actions such as mass firings, use of external managers or other things that devalue the efforts of the people in our respective districts on the clock.”
Adams 14 lawyer and former lawmaker Joe Salazar told the House education committee last week that the Adams 14 district has felt like the state’s guinea pig for the accountability system.
Adams 14 is the only district in the state that has earned low ratings for more than a decade, triggering all of the system’s most severe consequences.
The latest district administration pushed back against state orders and managed to get the state to back off a request that the district reorganize, which could have meant dissolving the district or merging parts of it with neighboring districts. The neighboring districts united with Adams 14 in rejecting the state order.
Now, district leaders say they are making better progress working with the state in a collaborative relationship, as opposed to an adversarial one, but state ratings have yet to improve.
“What we have endured since 2018 has been punitive and counterproductive,” Jason Malmberg, Adams 14 teacher union president, told the committee. “It created chaos in an already vulnerable system.”
Malmberg spoke of the amendment, titled L6, adding new options for schools and districts at the end of the clock, saying that it takes “an important step forward,” by shifting the focus of the accountability system.
“I urge you to learn from the mistakes of the past,” Malmberg said.
The current draft of the bill also proposes, as recommended by the task force, translating standardized tests into other languages, or adopting tests in other languages, for students who are still not fluent in English.
This component of the bill is the most expensive, estimated at possibly $4 million in the first year alone.
An amendment is being drafted to narrow the requirement and lower the cost.
Another part of the bill requires the state to do more to encourage participation in state tests, by clarifying how schools and districts can encourage students to take the test, and by requiring that information sent home include statements from the state about the importance of taking the test.
Here are some of the other changes proposed by HB 1278:
- Requiring a study on the effectiveness of external management partners, which are consultants the state has required districts to hire to help improve achievement, and the return on investment they offer to districts. The study would also need to look at what is necessary for the consultants to be successful, and the department of education would need to create a list of groups qualified to work as external managers.
- Students who fall into subgroups such as students with disabilities, English learners, or those who qualify for free and reduced price lunch should be combined into one “super subgroup,” so schools are only evaluated for them once.
- Requiring the department of education to look for early indicators of distress to provide support earlier to schools and districts before they have five years of low ratings.
- Requiring that improvement plans toward the end of the clock include financial plans.
- The State Board would have to adopt new requirements for what school districts must do to earn a distinction rating, the highest performance rating available, including that none of the disaggregated student groups can have the lowest “does not meet” result in any performance category.
- Requiring that if a district earns an insufficient rating due to low participation for three years in a row, it must submit a corrective action plan to the state.
- Requires various studies for future changes to the accountability system including adjusting weights of the different factors evaluated, changing the labels for each rating, and increasing equity.
Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.
Denver7 is committed to making a difference in our community by standing up for what's right, listening, lending a helping hand and following through on promises. See that work in action, in the videos above.