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My Name is Tom
Olson and I am speaking for Oregon Save Our Schools
My testimony
addresses recent activity of Rudy Crew and the OEIB on the subject of Achievement
Compacts with Oregon’s k12 school districts
Last year the Obama
Administration offered waivers regarding NCLB performance if States would, among
other requirements, create a system of ‘Achievement Compacts’ between the state
and each educational unit within the state.
The Governor
requested legislation that would permit achievement compacts to function in the
statewide education system. Senate Bill 1581 is that legislation.
- SB 1581 clearly
sets forth that the OEIB was responsible for establishing the form of the
Compacts as well as the outcomes and measures of progress that would allow each
(district) to quantify progress.
- SB 1581 also
requires that the OEIB inform districts of their actual funding level AND the
funding that would be ‘full’ funding as identified by the QEM process.
- SB 1581 then
places the Compacts and the funding data in the hands of each District and
requires the governing body (school board) to identify target numbers and
percentages AS PART OF THEIR BUDGETING PROCESS.
In this temporary
first year the calendar was not in place and 1) OEIB had not provided the amount
of QEM funding in time for district budgeting and 2) Districts did not have previous years statistics to
benchmark their achievement compacts which were to be submitted by July 1.
This failure
hampered the ability of districts to fulfill the objectives of SB 1581.
Unbelievably, even
with this failure, in September, Rudy Crew declared that 69 Achievement
Compacts were not acceptable and demanded resubmittal with higher targets.
This is where
Oregon SOS moves from criticizing the overall structure of the bill and instead
suggests that Mr. Crew, under the auspices of the Governor, is not following
the law.
SB 1581 does not
provide any authority for his call for resubmittals. The responsibility of
setting targets is solely the responsibility of the local school boards. . SB
1581 clearly outlines the authority of the Chief Education Officer as the
following:
Section 1 of the Act states that the
"direction and control" authority of the Chief Education Officer is
"limited to matters related to the design and organization" of the State's
education system"
And in Section 14 the Act specifies,
"the governing body of the education entity shall set the targets
for the outcomes and measures of progress it intends to achieve, and may add
other measures approved by the OEIB,"
We
believe these two sections clearly show that Mr. Crew is acting outside his authority
as specified in SB1581 when he overrides both of these sections by his actions.
One of the things our
organization observed during our discussions with many legislators since the
advent of this bill is that they recognized the strong protections in it for
local control. If Mr. Crew is able to act outside of the confines of the law these
protections are lost.
This behavior is not a precedent that can be allowed to stand. The
Governor and the OEIB must
operate within the law as written.
Oregon SOS urges the Governor, the OEIB and its officers to
correct these errors and make sure it does not happen again.
We
know the OEIB does not respond to public testimony and the Governor never stays
for this
testimony but we need to have those assurances either now or later in
writing.
Oregon SOS is open for discussion on these matters as always. Thank you.
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