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By Anthony Brino | Illinois Statehouse News

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois is hoping to join the growing number of states that are being allowed to skirt the requirements of federal education reform known as No Child Left Behind.

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By Lynn Campbell  |  IowaPolitics.com

DES MOINES — Iowa’s effort to transform its education system is receiving national attention, as the proposal faces key milestones in the Legislature next week.

“If all these reforms get passed, it puts Iowa in the top third nationally, maybe even top 10, when it comes to reform,” said Tim Melton, vice president of legislative affairs for Students First, a California nonprofit advocating education reform. “The wind is certainly on our backs to get this stuff done.”

The Iowa House Education Committee at 4 p.m. Monday is expected to debate its version of education reform, which will largely mirror what’s proposed by Gov. Terry Branstad, with some amendments. Senate Democrats on Monday will present their vision for education reform.

“I think it will be interesting to see how the conversation changes when there’s another piece to look at,” said Mary Jane Cobb, executive director of the Iowa State Education Association, or ISEA, which represents more than 34,000 educators. “What’s really needed from our perspective is more time for teachers to collaborate and work together. We don’t see that in the bill.”

Talks about how to again make Iowa a world leader in education started in July, with an education summit convened by Branstad that attracted national and international leaders in education. Branstad in October unveiled a 10-year plan to transform Iowa’s education system, and in January released a more immediate $25 million plan that would:

• Retain third-graders who can’t read;
• Require high school students to take end-of-course exams before they graduate;
• Require a 3.0 grade-point average for admission into teacher-preparation programs;
• Evaluate teachers annually instead of every three years;
• Widen the pathway for starting charter schools.

Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said the version of House Study Bill 517 expected to be approved Monday by the House Education Committee will include the majority of the concepts proposed by Branstad.

A plan by Senate Democrats will include more opportunities for teacher collaboration, as advocated by the ISEA. And instead of retaining third-graders who can’t read, Democrats will propose offering more help — tutoring, after school, summer school and greater parental involvement — to those students who are struggling and falling behind.

“We have some language that I believe is a more balanced (approach). It focuses a lot of attention on reading, but it’s not Draconian,” said Senate Education Chairman Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, an associate economics professor at Iowa State University.

Quirmbach said retaining a child at the same grade level must be a highly individualized decision because “what you’re doing, long-term effect, is you’re taking away a year of the kid’s adult life.” He said that child would graduate a year later or go to college a year later.

Students First leaders said the organization plans to be there for Monday’s developments.

The group aims “to be a counterbalance to the folks that protect the status quo” and is active in 15 states, Melton said. It has 1.1 million members nationwide and about 10,000 in Iowa, along with a full-time state director and lobbying firm. The group is advocating for changes involving Iowa’s teacher evaluations, alternative certification, charter schools and teacher tenure.

Cobb criticized Students First as not truly understanding Iowa in its push to reform teacher tenure.

“Their focus on eliminating ‘last in, first out,’ I think, is a national issue looking for some roots in Iowa that don’t exist,” Cobb said. “It’s pretty easy in education reform to take global, nationally held ideas about education and fit them into state-specific circumstances. In this case, it doesn’t fit.”

But Jason Glass, director of the Iowa Department of Education, said national attention from advocacy groups hasn’t deterred Iowa policymakers from moving forward with a plan that’s right for the state.

“The governor’s education reform proposals were decided and built around Iowa’s context,” Glass said. “While we listen to and were influenced by national and international thinking, it’s very much an Iowa design and Iowa-built plan.”

Students First advocates performance-based teacher pay, which Melton said is not controversial with the public.

“Everyone in the workforce is kept in their jobs because of performance,” said Melton, a former Michigan Democratic state lawmaker who served as House Education Committee chairman there. “With busboys, if there are cutbacks, who do you keep? The one who’s cleaning the table the fastest. A lot of these practices are already adopted in the general workforce.”

But Branstad’s proposal to move Iowa to a four-tier teacher compensation system has been put on hold until next year. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale, has said the governor’s plan could cost between $200 million and $300 million in fiscal 2014.

“That four-tiered system was supposed to be the centerpiece of the governor’s proposal. ‘One Unshakable Vision’ was the title for their blueprint,” Quirmbach said. “And then four, six weeks later, it got all shook up.”

Glass said the blueprint for education reform released in October indicated that Iowa wouldn’t make any changes to teacher compensation until 2014-15, at the beginning of a new two-year budget cycle.

“When you talk about educator compensation, that’s where all the money is. Because of the enormous cost implications, it’s wise to be cautious and prudent,” Glass said. “Part of the reason that the governor wants to slow down this discussion — right now, we’re just not as certain how this economy is going to perform.”

Cobb said she agrees that teachers are key to student success. But she disagrees with Students First, as well as the bill before the House Education Committee, on the mechanics of how to get there.

“Some of the pieces that are in the legislation around teacher employment policies don’t have a place in the conversation about how we improve student learning,” Cobb said. “There’s too much focus on how we evaluate teachers. Something like extending the probationary period from three years to five years doesn’t get us anywhere with student learning.”

Listen to interview with Senate Education Chairman Herman Quirmbach:
http://www.iowapolitics.com/1009/120217Herman_Quirmbach.mp3

See HSB 517:
http://tinyurl.com/7jylav3

Some 400,000 Illinoisans lost their jobs in the Great Recession from February 2008 to January 2010 and 118,000 of those losses were in manufacturing, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security. 

Most of the company’s 850 manufacturing employees are welders, Rubottom said. Others, like Del Castillo, program and operate the computerized machines that cut metal precisely.

Castillo and a few others also operate “E-coat” (or electrocoating) cleaning and painting machines, which require only one or two people to run and do the work that, 20 years ago, required 20 people, Rubottom said.

In Gov. Tom Corbett’s annual budget address Tuesday, taxpayers heard proposals for no new tax increases and cuts in higher education funding. However, Corbett failed to give any guidance on how to tackle the state’s transportation needs.