One step forward

In his post my classmate, Mr. Noe' Martinez, lends his support to HB 1490/SB106. a bill which aims to adjust the jurisdiction of truancy infractions. Instead of parents being sent to criminal courts, students would be referred to civil courts. Additionally the bill would establish a tiered system that school districts would need to follow before escalating the issue to the court.

I agree with Noe's point that there needs to be a holistic approach that takes into account the complexity of a given student's situation. This bill makes a reasonable attempt at doing so with the tiered system the school districts would follow. However, I think the bill goes too far in neutering the power school employees have to get the attention of less engaged parents (by removing the potential for a misdemeanor to the parents). I'm concerned this bill will setup schools to go through some long, drawn out process that ultimately has no teeth.

That said, an interesting study [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805010/] found there are 5 components for an effective truancy reduction program which are as follows:

"(1) parent/guardian involvement, (2) a continuum of services, to include meaningful incentives, consequences and support, (3) collaboration with community resources—including law enforcement, mental health services, mentoring and social services, (4) school administrative support and commitment to keeping youth in the educational mainstream, and (5) ongoing evaluation."

This bill does seem to utilize the tiered system to get parents involved, get students in counseling, have students utilize community-based resources, and keep the school involved in the process. For these reasons I think the bill is ultimately a step in the right direction.

Perfect is the enemy of good

There has been a lot of activity around education reform during the 84th Ledge; both the governor and lieutenant governor have a set of initiatives they are pursuing on this front.  While I disagree with many of their initiatives outright, at least one seems to be a step in the right direction, namely the expansion of pre-kindergarten programs.  While it could have and should have gone further, the Ledge should pass HB 4.

The bill would require school districts and charter schools with at least 15 eligible students to provide at least a half day pre-kindergarten class (an eligible student is more or less a poor kid that may or not speak English).  Districts and charter schools that already offer a pre-kindergarten class could opt into the program for additional funding, but they’d need to modify any parts of their existing program to meet the standards set by HB 4.  The standards seem to involve a certificate for teachers, some bit of data collection, “parental engagement”, and some general curriculum requirements.  Built into the bill seems a good deal of latitude surrounding said requirements which I imagine is why a good deal of educative entities present in the committee hearing supported it.

$525,024,611, in case you were wondering, is the expected price tag for the biennium.  The bill “would make no appropriation” and instead will be squeezing blood out of the Available School Fund (the reader may recall this as the “spendable” portion of the Permanent School Fund).  While I’m not thrilled about this choice, no matter where the money comes from, the state should expect a solid return on its investment.  Studies show that students which participated in pre-kindergarten were much more likely to have success in school, graduate high school, and earn at least $20k/yr by age 40.

Today the bill was put up on the calendar. We shall see.