Last Minute Early Morning Committee Meeting Rushes Low Priorities

Did you ever wonder how last minute wheeling and dealing happens at the legislature? Here is a summary of some that I observed today.

Freshman Senator, Aaron Osmond, chairs the powerful Senate Education Committee this year. He got permission to hold one last committee meeting four days before the end of the session so two of his bills and two sponsored by others could get the stamp of approval of a last minute committee hearing. This despite the fact that we all know that rush decisions with little discussion are often poor decisions. Senator Osmond assured me before the meeting started that there had been lots of behind the scenes discussion before these bills were brought to this public committee meeting.

Sen. Osmond's SB216 would require the State Board of Education to spend $450,000 of Education Fund money to contract for online tools, hardware, software, training resources, and incident management processes to provide greater security for secondary schools. Former Utah First Lady, Jackie Leavitt, testified in favor of the bill.

I argued in committee that districts could better use that money to improve security in the way that is best for their district. I also said that last minute bills targeted at a specific service provided by a specific vendor were not in our best interest.

SB217, also sponsored by Sen. Osmond, would spend an as yet unknown amount of money for a group of BYU professors and secondary school math teachers to quickly create on-line math textbooks to be used to teach math that meets the new Utah Core math standards. It would create textbook information which would belong to the state and would be far less expensive than paper textbooks currently available.

Although I did not testify against the bill I am still concerned about a last minute vendor bill passing in an early morning special committee meeting.

Senator Jerry Stevenson, representing Davis County, sponsored SB248. It would spend $6 million of state economic development funds over 3 years to provide grants to 10 schools. An education technology vendor would then provide these schools with an integrated school-wide technology plan. This plan would include a mobile learning device for each student, computers for classrooms, and a wireless network with internet filtering.

I testified that educators would be happy to receive $6 million from other than an education fund, but that districts like Davis already have schools where every student has a netbook as their textbook. Implementing these things locally is a better way to innovate than top-down direction.

Finally, I was troubled that Sen. Niederhauser brought his bill, SB174, to the Education Committee at this late date when this committee has no background knowledge of land use issues. His bill would allow subdivision of large agricultural land parcels without producing a plat map.

I told the committee that this kind of last minute work did not lend itself to good decision making.

At the end of the day, this wheeling and dealing ended with all four bills passing the committee unanimously.

SB67 (Sen. Adams) Teacher Evaluations and Merit Pay

Utah's public school teachers who work in school districts receive pay increases according to a pay scale which recognizes the college degree they have earned and the number of years they have worked for their school district. These pay scales are referred to as “Steps and Lanes”. We all believe those two measures should make teachers better. But, wouldn't it be better to actually evaluate how well they teach and pay more to those teachers who excel in their teaching evaluation?

Senator Adams (R) has proposed a bill which, over the next 8 years, would gradually eliminate steps and lanes and replace them with locally designed pay scales which reward teachers for better annual performance evaluations.

One of the outstanding features of this bill reduces steps and lanes while allowing local school districts and charter schools to establish their own pay scales. It also lets local districts and charter schools establish the mix of which types of evaluation measures they will use. It calls for 60% of the evaluation to be based on student's growth in learning. The remaining 40% can be made up some combination of the principal's evaluation, parents evaluation, students evaluation and peer evaluation.

Beginning in the 2014-2015 school year, teachers will be evaluated annually as performing in one of four performance levels. No teacher may receive any kind of salary increase if he/she is rated in the lower half of the performance levels. Teachers in the higher performance categories may receive higher pay. The bill also allows salary supplements to teachers assigned to difficult schools, critically short teaching areas, or who have additional academic responsibilities.

The bill would require publication of a grade for each school and the ratings of the teachers in that school. It would also allow any principal to reject the transfer of any employee to his/her school.

Thank you, Senator Adams, for this rare and wonderful bill which provides broad-based performance evaluation and a transition to real pay for performance.

As of this writing the bill had passed the Senate Education Committee and was awaiting debate and a vote on the floor of the Senate.

Democracy at theUtah State Capitol

In early February 2012 many of our state legislators participated in a very common and typical event in the rotunda of the state capitol building which I consider to be an inappropriate political activity .

The Community Action Partnership of Utah, America's Poverty Fighting Network, sponsored a box luncheon for their member organizations with the state legislators.  

The event was part of what they called " Democracy Day". This may sound quite innocent until you consider that our founding fathers strongly opposed the form of government known as "democracy".  They much preferred the form of government which our constitution provides, a "republic". Consider these eight quotations from our founders:

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. 

        James Madison

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. 

        John Adams

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty. 

       Fisher Ames, Author of the House Language for the First Amendment

We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. . . . Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt. 

       Gouverneur Morris, Signer and Penman of the Constitution

The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived. 

       John Quincy Adams

A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils. 

       Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration

In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth. 

       Noah Webster

Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage. 

       John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration

In addition, it seems wrong that a charitable organization spend its precious funds to buy lunch at an expensive venue for legislators and for their non-poverty stricken administrators. It seems doubly inappropriate that most of the funds these organizations have at their disposal come from federal and state taxpayers and were intended for the relief of the poor.

 I do not approve of my tax dollars being spent by government-sponsored non-profit organizations to attract legislators to convince them to appropriate more of my tax dollars for further misuse by the non-profits. 

May I suggest that our legislators should be willing to mingle and visit with citizens and groups who come to the capitol during the legislative session without the enticement of a free lunch or dinner paid for by monied special interests. Normal average citizens cannot afford to buy lunch for legislators in the capitol rotunda and should not have to do so in order to get a few minutes of their attention.
 

HB213 School Community Council Member Qualifications

Each public school in Utah elects a School Community Council (SCC). Among other things the SCC decides how the school will spend its share of funding provided by the School Lands Trust Fund. For most schools this runs from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars. The SCC is made up of two types of members, parents and school employees. It was required that parents outnumber school employee members.

When first established, SCCs were often dominated by school district employees because school employees could be elected as school employee members or as parent members. In 2011 the legislature restricted district employees from being elected as parent members of the SCC in the district where they work. That change troubled school employees because they usually could not serve on the SCC of the school where their own children attended.

HB213 Would now revise the law again so that school employees could serve as parent members on the SCC where their child attends as long as that is not also the school that the parent works at. In order to prevent dominance of the SCC by school employees, HB213 also requires that parent members outnumber employee members by at least 2.

Some schools seem to have trouble recruiting enough parents to serve on the SCC. Because parents want their childrens' schools to be excellent, they should, as good and involved citizens, take their turn serving on their local School Community Council.

HJR8 Article V Amendments Convention

Our state legislature is considering a very dangerous resolution this session. It would call upon the U.S. Congress to “call a convention for proposing amendments” to the constitution of the United States. The amendment which HJR8 requests to be considered would require approval of a majority of states in order to increase the debt of the federal government. Pres. Ronald Regan's friend, Phyllis Schlafly, has adamantly opposed this idea for decades. The Utah Eagle Forum has consistently fought against this idea.

Why? The history of the creation of our U.S. Constitution provides a stark warning against any call for a convention to amend the constitution. A convention was called only to amend the Articles of Confederation. That convention exceeded its mandate and produced an entirely new constitution. That constitution was ratified by the states and became our current constitution.

If the states today were to call for a convention to amend the constitution, the convention would be organized by the current U.S. Congress and be conducted by the rules established by the current U.S. Congress. I do not yet trust our U.S. Senate and House to be as wise as our founders and retain the guarantees of our freedom and the protections of our rights which we currently have.

Proponents of this bill will argue that we are safe from a runaway convention because three fourths of the states must ratify any amendments the convention proposes. I argue that one must only consider the broad coverage and persuasiveness of the liberal main stream media to see how many states could be deceived into ratifying amendments which would damage our constitution with socialist ideas.

Another mistaken argument supporters cite is, “The constitution is divinely inspired and it provides this method of amending the constitution. Therefore we must use this provision.” I contend that God expects us to use the provisions from the divinely inspired constitution at the times and in the ways which are best. He does not dictate that we must gamble with the future of our constitution.

The amendment which this convention would consider, is also faulty. It would require a majority of states to approve any increase in the national debt. But states are already so dependent on federal funding of their state programs that most states would not commit fiscal suicide by refusing to approve an increase in the national debt and thus have their federal funding cut.

Unfortunately, there are a number of good (even conservative) members of the Utah legislature who believe this VERY risky convention is a good idea to rescue our republic and our fiscal stability. The bill was defeated in the last legislative session, but it is back with many new legislators now considering voting in favor of it. Many states have already passed this resolution.Utah must not be the state to put us over the top to call a new constitutional convention.

If you are willing to join in the fight against this constitutional convention, please contact as many legislators (especially the newer ones) as you can to ask them to vote against HJR 8.

HB123 Education Savings Accounts

Thank you, Representative John Dougall for sponsoring a landmark piece of education legislation. House Bill 123, Education Savings Accounts, if enacted, will change the way Utah pays for high school public education. Kindergarten through 8^th grade funding will NOT change at all. Rather than paying secondary schools a fixed amount per student enrolled (called the Weighted Pupil Unit or WPU) this bill provides for education funding, both state and district to be provided to each individual student's Education Savings Account. Students then pay for courses out of their education savings account. Students may choose courses provided by school districts, charter schools, applied technology centers, authorized online course providers, state-funded community colleges, state-funded universities, or private non-profit colleges or universities in Utah as contracted with the state board of regents who oversee higher education in Utah.

This bill will provide several significant benefits to our public education system. Because the Education Savings Account can be used for college or applied technology centers, students will be motivated to save some of the fund for use in earning college credits even after high school. It will encourage a productive and healthy competition among educational institutions for the enrollment dollars of students. Students will have the easy means of taking courses where they will be best served. Schools will not receive funding for those class periods when a student is not enrolled in a class.

Under this bill students will be eligible to participate in extracurricular activities at a school where the student takes one or more courses, whether a full-time or part-time student. Families with secondary students will enjoy a savings because course fees will be able to be paid from the education savings account whereas they are currently paid by students and their families.

Surely the public education establishment will not like this change in their system. But, citizens who value their own freedom to choose how they educate their children and value the benefits of free market competition will actively support this bill. Call or e-mail your legislators to voice your support for this historic bill.

More Than Half of Student Growth Now Enrolled in Charter Schools

The Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee today heard a stunning report about public charter schools. Although charter schools only enroll about 9% of all stutents in public schools, they enrolled more than half of the increased number of students in the state over last year. Estimated new students in Utah in 2012 are about 12,500. Charter schools enrolled about 6,500 new students while public school districts only enrolled some 6,000 new students. Charter schools also enrolled more new students than public schools in 2000, 2006 and 2009. This trend shows how popular charter schools are with parents. If we do not artificially restrict the number of charter schools, we can expect charter schools to continue to serve a large proportion of our growing student population. As some school districts struggle with growing pains, they may trust the charter school community to help with accommodating a large portion of that challenge. 

I love the robust and competitive form of education in charter schools. I also am pleased to see that so many families in Utah also recognize the quality of such a form of public education. One of the great strengths of charter schools is that parents must be very strongly involved not only in their student's learning, but also in the policies and running of the school.