One board member, Peggy Littleton, R-5th District, has been campaigning for rejection of the standards, and at her request a public hearing will be held at 7:30 a.m. Monday before the board formally convenes  to hear a recommendation from education Commissioner Dwight Jones, discuss the issue and vote.

Rejection of the standards could trim points from Colorado’s R2T application.

While several state boards around the country have adopted the standards without controversy, Colorado’s vote is surrounded by a little more drama.

It’s tough to predict how the board will vote, given that one member is in favor, two are leaning against and two more say they haven’t made up their minds – or aren’t showing their cards in advance of the meeting. The final two members haven’t responded to questions about their positions.

The meeting originally was scheduled as a teleconference. But, at least three members are expected to show up in person for the hearing and four for the vote.

At a July 21 board teleconference Jones praised the openness and care with which Colorado has reviewed the common standards but said a decision hadn’t been made on his recommendation. But it’s widely expected he will propose adoption.

The standards were developed under the leadership of the National Governors’ Association and the Council of Chief State School officers, of which Jones is a member. State Department of Education officials were involved in the discussions and drafting that led to the common standards.

And, the state’s R2T application states, “Colorado also has embraced the rigorous Common Core Standards, which will be presented to the State Board of Education for adoption in August 2010.”

During that July 21 meeting, CDE officials and a consultant said the common standards are 90 percent aligned with the new state language arts and math standards adopted by the board last December and that the two sets are about equally rigorous.

Officials also said they believe taking parts of the common standards and adding them to the Colorado documents would constitute “adoption.” (More details on the common standards and the board’s July 21 meeting.)

Adoption of the common standards is worth 20 points in the 500-point scoring system for R2T grants. Earlier this week Colorado was named one of 19 finalists for round two of R2T.

All the finalists except Colorado and California have adopted the standards. California’s state board also will meet Monday to vote on adoption, which has been recommended by an advisory panel.

All 19 finalists scored more than 400 points each, although specific scores haven’t been released because they may change based on state delegations’ interviews the week of Aug. 9. Loss of points could put Colorado at a disadvantage.

Overall, 31 states have adopted the common standards, Iowa being the latest to do so on Thursday (see map). Florida’s board unanimously adopted the standards on Tuesday. It’s predicted that as many as 40 states could adopt. Alaska and Texas declined to participate in the common standards project.

State Board of Education member Peggy Littleton, R-5th District.

Littleton has been trying to rally opposition to the common standards based on the argument that they’re part of a creeping federalization of K-12 education, echoing concerns by some other conservatives around the country.

“Colorado has put together a good reform plan without Race to the Top,” Littleton said in her statement. “The [Race to the Top] application should include a ‘meets or exceeds’ box for us to check for the standards, because our state’s new standards, that were just adopted after an 18 month long process which was clear and transparent and included citizen input from all over the state of Colorado, and are at least as rigorous as the proposed Common Core, and without the risk of undermining our freedom and local control.”

She predicted 100 people will show up at Monday’s hearing to oppose the standards. CDE has received about 500 e-mails on the issue.

Here’s what some board members currently have to say about their positions:

Elaine Gantz Berman, D-1st District – “I am voting for common core.”

Angelika Schroeder, D-2nd District – “I’m waiting for more information from staff right now.”

Marcia Neal, R-3rd District – “I will probably vote to oppose,” she said. In a recent blog post,  she praised the rigor of the national standards in a recent blog post but also wrote, “What are the downsides to this adoption? Is the money that we would gain worth the exchange? … Will this acquiescence lead to further demands, to loss of Colorado’s greatly valued local control? (Full blog post). Neal attended the annual Colorado Association of School Executives convention in Breckenridge this week and said small-district administrators “are almost unanimous in their opposition.”

Chair Bob Schaffer, R-4th District – Didn’t respond Thursday to a message. As chair, Schaffer signed the state’s R2T application.

Littleton – In a statement Thursday, she said she opposes the standards because “Adopting these national standards would invite greater federal intrusion into the education of Colorado students. It would open the doors to national standards in other areas, like science (currently underway) civics and health, while moving us closer to national assessments and national curriculum.”

Vice Chair Randy DeHoff, R-6th District – “I am being heavily lobbied by both sides (not unexpected, nor unappreciated). This is shaping up to be one of the most difficult votes of my 12 years on the board.”

Jane Goff, D-7th District – Didn’t respond Thursday to a message.

In August 2009 the board unanimously passed a resolution supporting Colorado’s participation in the common standards project. Jones and Gov. Bill Ritter had announced in June that the state would join the effort.

Some board members expressed concerns at that time that the common standards could one day turn into federal mandates, so the resolution was carefully worked to read, “Colorado along with each state throughout the country will make its own determination as to the voluntary adoption of the Common Core Standards.”

Littleton said at that meeting, “The states are the ones defining what it is our children are learning, and it is not the federal government’s responsibility to do that.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s R2T regulations that made the common standards part of the competition weren’t published until November 2009.

Littleton is running for El Paso County commissioner and will face Democrat Mike Merrifield, the powerful outgoing chair of the state House Education Committee, in November.

Schroeder, who was appointed to her seat, is up for election, and Littleton and DeHoff will be leaving the board. There are contested races in both districts.

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U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, shared lunch with Thornton students in April.

Colorado child and health advocacy groups are frenziedly writing and calling Washington as the clock ticks down on the 111th Congress — but the legislation necessary to reauthorize funding of the nation’s school lunch program still has not been approved.

One major hurdle was cleared this month when the House Education and Labor Committee passed HR 5504, the “Improving Nutrition for America’s Children’s Act.”

The $8 billion, 10-year package of legislation would expand access to free and reduced-priced school meals, expand summer feeding and other out-of-school meal programs, and boost the quality of school meals while increasing funding for nutrition education. The legislation passed 32-13.

In March, the Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously passed a similar — though much less costly — bill, the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.” Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat who serves on that committee, said the legislation is a priority, particularly given his former job as superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

But now, both bills must still be passed by their respective chambers and then be reconciled before the legislation can be signed into law. And with the August recess looming and a dwindling number of days left for this Congress to act, advocates of the legislation fear it may not work its way to the top of the priority pile.

Or, as one Senate staffer noted, it’s a top priority but there are a lot of other top priorities as well, and it’s hard for school lunches to edge out jobs and the economy for legislative time. Still, on Wednesday, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, brought up the legislation on the Senate floor and requested at least eight hours to discuss the bill.

“No one is opposed,” said Kathy Underhill, executive director of Hunger Free Colorado, the local advocacy group that has taken the lead in promoting the legislation.

“The biggest enemy is apathy, and this really needs to be a priority,” Underhill said. “So right now, we’re just encouraging everybody to call. The policies enacted today will be written on the brains and bodies of the next generation.

“If Colorado is serious on the issue of education reform, you have to tackle the issue of hunger first,” she added. “You can have the best teachers in the best classrooms with the best training but if you have a classroom full of hungry kids, none of that matters.”

Hunger Free Colorado, along with the Colorado Health Foundation, LiveWell Colorado, the Colorado Children’s Campaign, the School Nutrition Association and other organizations have been urging members and supporters to write and call members of the Colorado delegation to keep up the pressure for action.

“Most of the organizations have been doing blasts out on their listservs to constituents around the state,” Underhill said. “Now that the House bill has passed, you can expect to see that spike up again.”

Kay Bengston, formerly the domestic policy officer for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America until her retirement in 2005, has been phoning and calling as a private citizen these days.

First Lady Michelle Obama made her first comment on pending legislation when she urged lawmakers to pass the school meal bills.

“I do it because I have a commitment,” she said. “Hunger is one of the most critical human needs. And members of Congress want to hear from their constituency. Sometimes they just count the calls and record the number of yeses and nos. That tells them something, and every call means something.”

First Lady Michelle Obama, an outspoken proponent of healthier school lunches and crusader against childhood obesity, has added her voice in support, issuing a statement earlier this month urging the House and Senate to bring the bills to the floor and pass them without delay.

It marked the first time the First Lady has commented on pending legislation.

Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, serves on the House committee that passed the legislation, which included several provisions that he sponsored. Polis is optimistic about the chances for passage before the end of this legislative session.

“The chances of child nutrition reauthorization are very strong because there is widespread, bipartisan recognition that we cannot afford to further delay taking action on the interrelated problems of childhood hunger and obesity,” he said in an email to Education News Colorado.

He noted that the House legislation received the support of three of the committee’s 18 Republican members — which is what passes for bipartisan support in today’s political atmosphere.

“As in all legislative business, nothing is guaranteed and in the case of child nutrition, time is of the essence as the programs expire at the end of September,” Polis said. “With a shrinking legislative calendar during an election year, we need to act fast and I urge swift and decisive action as soon as we get back from the recess.”

Polis admitted that the cost of the House legislation is an issue. Unlike the $4.5 billion Senate version, which Senate committee members “paid for” by identifying available funding sources and offsets, the House has identified only $1 billion in offsets.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, has vowed to identify the needed additional funding sources before the bill comes to a floor vote in the house. “I am confident that we will be able to find them,” Polis said.

Both the Senate and House bills authorize a number of changes to the nation’s school lunch program. Those changes fall into three categories: reducing childhood hunger, improving nutrition and addressing childhood obesity, and improving the efficiency and integrity of the programs.

In the first category, reducing childhood hunger, both bills seek to eliminate red tape and make sure children who are eligible for free and reduced-price lunches are automatically enrolled in the program. Both would expand after-school snack programs as well.

In essence, they would turn “snacks” into full meals, meaning that some children would be provided with three nutritious meals a day at their school.

“If the after-school or supper program expanded to Colorado, that would be huge for our kids to be able to get that third meal,” Underhill said.

Both bills also would increase the reimbursement rate for school lunch for the first time in 30 years.

While both bills would expand access to free and reduced-price meals, they differ in the size of that expansion. The House version would allow school districts to automatically provide free meals to students who are enrolled in Medicaid programs. That would mean almost 1 million low-income children would begin automatically receiving free meals for the first time without having to fill out any additional paperwork.

The Senate bill would provide free meals to only about 115,000 new children.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, successfully amended the House nutrition bill and is urging its passage.

Likewise, the Senate bill requires the establishment of nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools during the regular school days. The House bill expands that requirement to include any foods sold in schools at any time, even after the end of the regular school day.

The House bill also includes a substantial investment – ½ cent per lunch served – in nutrition education and promotion activities in the school districts. That provision came at Polis’ insistence.

Polis also successfully amended the House bill to include a two-year Healthy School Meals pilot program, which would provide incentives for schools to offer vegetarian options and remove restrictions on non-dairy milk alternatives.

Finally, Polis succeeded in amending the House bill to include the establishment of professional standards for local food service directors, including minimum education, certification and training requirements.

It’s difficult to say just what the impact of the legislation would be on Colorado schools, Underhill said.

“No one has mapped that out because the versions are so different,” she said. “But every piece of it is critical. There’s no piece of the legislation that would not directly impact Colorado.”

Rebecca Jones can be reached at rjones@ednewscolorado.org.

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He also talked about pushback from the nation’s teachers unions, who say his policies are too tough on those in the classroom.

To read an account of the speech, given at a gathering of the Urban League, click here to read Education Week’s article “Obama defends Race to Top.”

But to hear straight from the president himself, click in the video.

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U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan

In a half-hour speech Tuesday at the National Press Club, Duncan argued that “a quiet revolution is underway in our homes and our classrooms,” with teachers, parents and public officials working locally to reform schools.

Duncan said the Obama administration “is playing a modest role in this quiet revolution.”

“I’ve learned a lot about the proper federal role in education,” Duncan said, listing the “bully pulpit,” ensuring transparency and “incentives like Race to the Top” as the three things Washington can do in education.

He said, “We need to stop labeling so many schools as failures” and instead give recognition to high-performing schools and give middling schools “much more flexibility to improve.”

“The only place where we are explicitly proscriptive is with the bottom 5 percent of schools. … If we don’t mandate real consequences … nothing will change.”

He noted that R2T funding equals less than 1 percent of national K-12 annual spending and said the reform impetus created by the program is perhaps more important than the actual grants:

“As we look at the 18 months, it is absolutely stunning to see how much change has happened … because of these incentive programs.”

Duncan added, “It’s really not about the money [but about] willingness to drive reform at the local level. … We really unleashed this huge amount of innovation and reform around the country.”

He noted that 13 states have liberalized their charter-school laws and 17 states have reformed their educator evaluation systems since R2T was announced.

He claimed that the total package of federal stimulus money for education should be credited for “literally staving off an education catastrophe in our nation’s classrooms.”

Here are some other remarks from Duncan’s speech:

“No one thinks test scores should be the only factor in teacher evaluation.”

“I also challenge reformers to stop blaming unions for all the problems of education.”

Asked about recent firings in the Washington, D.C., schools – “I don’t think anyone’s going to fire their way to the top.”

Duncan also mentioned Denver in a list of cities where “district and union leaders are moving beyond the battles of the past.”

The secretary took another half hour of questions before naming the R2T finalists. Questions ranged from civil rights aspects of education to career and technical issues to whether basketball superstar LeBron James should have gone to college. Duncan passed on answering that one.

Related: Colorado make R2T finalist list

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U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was to make the formal announcement during an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington.

The list also includes Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina. A total of 36 states applied for round two.

The state’s 193-page application for $175 million pitched the state’s history of education reform measures, including the new educator effectiveness law, and it primarily requests money to implement those reforms.

The bulk of the funds, if Colorado wins a grant, would be used for implementing new content standards and tests at the district level, creation of new educator evaluation systems, encouraging effective principals and teachers to work in low-performing schools and providing turnaround help for the state’s most struggling schools.

The application retained many of the elements of the state’s unsuccessful first-round application and added requests to help implement the educator effectiveness law (Senate Bill 10-191), which was passed late in the legislature session after Colorado lost its first bid.

About $90 million of the $175 million would go directly to participating districts, as the program requires at least half the funds go to local education agencies.

The department has signed memoranda of understanding (formal agreements to participate) with 114 districts and other education agencies, 64 percent of the 180 in the state. Those districts include 89.9 percent of the state’s students, 84 percent of schools and 91 percent of poor students. For the first round application the state had agreements with districts including about 95 percent of the state’s students. The only two notable non-participants in round two are the Pueblo County and St. Vrain districts.

The Colorado Education Association participated in round one but boycotted round two because of SB 10-191. The Colorado unit of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents primarily the Douglas County Schools, signed on to round two.

In broad terms, the state’s application focuses on these goals, as required by the federal government:

• Increase student learning through teacher mastery and delivery of common standards and assessments.
• Use, learn, and leverage high quality information to drive increased student performance.
• Ensure all students have access to effective teachers and principals.
• Turn around persistently lowest-achieving schools.

Build a statewide system of accountability and support to accomplish and sustain those goals.

Colorado’s application promises, over time, to increase:

• College enrollment from 62.9 to 70 percent
• College retention from 66.3 to 75 percent
• 4^th grade National Assessment of Education Progress math proficiency from 45 to 55 percent
• Higher school graduation rate from 74.6 percent to 90 percent
• 4^th grade NAEP reading proficiency from 40 to 60 percent
• 8^th grade math NAEP proficiency from 40 to 60 percent
• 8^th grade reading NAEP proficiency from 32 to 52 percent
• Overall CSAP math proficiency from 54.5 to 85 percent
• Overall CSAP reading proficiency from 68.3 to 85 percent
• Reduce the achievement gap among all subgroups from 30 to 10 percent

Those goals have raised skepticism in some quarters, but state education leaders argue that Colorado has the infrastructure for reform in place but needs to funds to implement those programs.

Here’s a breakdown of how the state proposes to spend the $175 million if Colorado wins that amount:

• $13.6 million – Statewide implementation and administrative costs, primarily at the state Department of Education.
• $13 million – Funding the Content Collaboratives and Regional Support Teams that will roll out new content standards and assessments to school districts, creation of an instructional improvement system on the department’s SchoolView website and extra support for small and rural districts.
• $5.8 million – Subsidies and incentives for district to create and share curricula, for purchase of formative and interim tests and state review of available interim tests.
• $15.2 million – Build out and support of an expanded SchoolView system, including teacher, principal and administrator portals; expansion of Colorado Growth Model data, and incentives for effective educators to provide instructional materials.
• $8 million – Money for state personnel and outside consultants to help districts develop and implement new educator evaluations systems and to identify measures of educator effectiveness, especially in currently untested grades and subjects.
• $5.1 million – Funding for the State Council for Educator Effectiveness and for districts to implement evaluation systems.
• $4.1 million – Development of effective teachers and principals with a focus on low-performing schools, including residency programs, increased national board certification and hiring of Teach for America members.
• $4.3 million – Expansion of the department’s School Leadership Academy, which will include a Turnaround Leaders Academy.
• $3.2 million – Expansion of the number of students who take Advanced Placement and of the number of under-represented students who take college-prep classes.
• $884,000 – Funding for the department’s existing dropout prevention and student re-engagement program.
• $11 million – Creation of a school Turnaround and Intervention Unit within CDE to help districts conduct successful turnarounds of low-performing schools.
• $90.3 million – The funds that will go directly to participating schools districts and other local education agencies.

Representatives of the semi-finalist states will make in-person presentations the week of Aug. 9. States will have different reviewers than they did in round one.

Winners will be announced in early September. About $3.4 billion is available, and there are different tiers of possible award amounts based on state populations. Colorado is listed in the set of states that could receive between $60 and $175 million.

• Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania are in the $200-$400 million range.
• Arizona, Maryland and Massachusetts are in the $150-$250 million range.
• In addition to Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana and South Carolina are in the $60-$175 million range.
• The District of Columbia, Hawaii and Rhode Island are in the $20-$75 million range.

The House recently passed a budget bill that proposes to trim $500 million from R2T, but the Senate has rejected that amendment.

Colorado asked for $377 million in the first round, but the only winners were Tennessee and Delaware. An award can be spent over four budget years.

Do your homework

• Related Education News Colorado stories
• Full Colorado application (PDF)
• Appendices, including list of participating districts and budget details (large PDF)
• U.S. Department of Education R2T information

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By Caralee Adams, Education Week

Ever since elementary school, Bonnie Slocum knew that if she kept her grades up, her home state of Nevada would reward her by paying $10,000 toward college tuition.

Students at Saginaw Valley State University listen as Gov. Jennifer Granholm urges state lawmakers to restore the Michigan Promise scholarship program. Photo by Jeff Schrier of The Saginaw News.

As a low-income, first-generation college student, Ms. Slocum relied on $960 this year from the Gov. Guinn Millennium Scholarship, along with a federal Pell Grant, to pay for her freshman year at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno. She’s anticipating $1,920 this fall from the state toward her studies in English and linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno.

But Ms. Slocum is not sure what she can count on after that.

The state merit-based scholarship program was teetering on the edge this year, largely as a result of the legislature diverting nearly $33 million over the past three years toward other programs. To save it for next year, a legislative interim finance committee decided this month to transfer money within the state treasurer’s office to fill the $4 million gap for fiscal 2011. Only the legislature, which convenes in February, can decide if the funding mechanism for the fund will be restored.

“It would be very reassuring if the treasurer and members of the legislature would outline viable solutions for the future rather than continually leaving us guessing about their next move,” Ms. Slocum said. “I expected this was more of a promise from our state government than just a luxury that might or might not be there.”

In Nevada and across the country, the weak economy is forcing many states to cut back their merit-based scholarship programs. The combination of rising tuition and decreasing tax revenues has put many lawmakers at a crossroads. To keep programs from going under, some states are raising the minimum grade point average or testing criteria to reduce the number of awards. Others are offering a set amount rather than total tuition coverage. Some states, such as Michigan, have ceased financing merit-based scholarship programs altogether.

When states were flush in the 1990s, large-scale, merit-based programs popped up across the country, but now limited resources need to be used with more sophistication, said Paul E. Lingenfelter, the president of the State Higher Education Executive Officers in Boulder, Colo.

“In this economic climate, and given the educational needs of the country, making it very cheap for some students with ample financial resources to go to college, while others are denied the opportunity to enroll and complete in a timely fashion, doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It’s a matter of balance and a matter of priorities.”

Political Considerations

Of the money that states spent on grants helping undergraduates in 2008-09, 72 percent was need-based and 28 percent non-need based, according to a recent survey by the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs. Overall, states spent about 5.6 percent more this year on all college grants. Even with the increase, though, state financial aid didn’t keep up with inflation as in-state tuition rates rose by 6.4 percent in 2008-09, the College Board reports.

States have learned lessons from merit-based programs that will affect future policy. Too often, programs spent money on students who would have gone to college with or without the state’s help, said Mr. Lingenfelter. Also, using grades as the single criteria wasn’t the smartest approach for motivating students. Some avoided challenging courses or reduced their course load to maintain a B, he said.

And now, states are realizing that when times get tough, large programs are not designed in ways that can be sustained. Still, it’s difficult for politicians to cut popular education programs, especially those that help the middle class.

Look at the Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship. It’s facing some financial challenges in light of the economy, but this is an election year. The study committee scheduled to meet over the summer to come up with recommendations to change eligibility requirements or aid has yet to convene, said Tim Phelps, the associate executive director for grants and scholarships at the Tennessee Student Assistance Corp., the agency that administers college loan programs and scholarships.

In Michigan, lawmakers failed to renew funding last year for the Michigan Promise Scholarship, which would have provided $140 million in grants to about 35,000 Michigan college students.

“Everyone is saying this is a terrible thing, but there wasn’t the will or the money,” said Val Meyers, the associate director of the office of financial aid at Michigan State University.

The decision was made so late last year that it left 10,000 students at MSU who were expecting $1,000 to $2,000 awards in the lurch. The university used $8 million in federal economic-stimulus funds to cover the shortfall. Ms. Meyers does not expect the Promise Scholarship will be revived, although all the candidates for governor say they want to restore it.

In 1993, Georgia Gov. Zell Miller championed the HOPE Scholarship program, promising free college for students graduating from the state’s high schools with a B or higher average. Funded by a lottery, it was the first statewide merit-based program in the country with a goal of increasing high school achievement and college participation. The program has resulted in more students attending college, but whether it has helped increase completion or high school performance is hazier, said David Lee, the director of strategic research and analysis for the Georgia Student Finance Commission, which administers the program.

In its first year, the HOPE program spent $21 million helping about 43,000 students. By 2009, its costs had soared to $639 million to cover college expenses for 248,000 students. If the sheer growth weren’t enough, program costs have increased at double-digit rates, while lottery proceeds have been flat.

To shore up the program, changes were made in 2004 to keep it safe until this year. Beginning in 2007, the state standardized the method of computing who indeed had a 3.0 grade point average rather than leaving that to districts to determine. The result: a one-third reduction in the number of freshmen eligible in the first year, Mr. Lee said. Also, triggers were put in place so if the unrestricted reserve falls below a certain point, money for books and mandatory fee payments are cut.

This year, the HOPE program will spend more than it earns and likely remove about $150 million from its $600 million unrestricted reserve fund. Legislative committees are meeting in August to look at options.

“There are only two ways to go, unfortunately,” Mr. Lee said. “You either have to reduce the number who qualify or reduce the amount they get. So, we are looking at both sides.”

A flat award may be considered rather than covering total tuition, which fluctuates and makes it difficult to budget.

“The state will have to make some tough decisions,” he said. “HOPE is the most popular program, probably, in the state. But that doesn’t mean it can go on as it is now. Revenues won’t permit it.”

Shifting Criteria

West Virginia faced a similar plight with its Promise Scholarship Program, but the state has upped eligibility criteria and cut awards to keep it going. Started in 2001 and financed with video lottery-machine revenues and general funds, the program originally covered students who had a 3.0 GPA with full tuition and fees at in-state schools.

In 2008, the legislature capped the award at $4,750 a year—about 80 percent of tuition and fees. It also incrementally increased ACT score requirements.

“Those were difficult decisions. Each time you raise standards, there are students that statistically will not qualify for the program,” said Brian Noland, the chancellor of the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission.

Those changes will take effect this fall, and he anticipates that the program will be viable as is for the remainder of the next decade.

The state has more than doubled spending on need-based aid in the past six years, and the number of students receiving scholarships has increased markedly, added Mr. Noland.

Florida also changed its merit-based scholarship program last year to provide flat awards. The Florida Bright Future Program, which is underwritten by a lottery, originally paid a percentage of tuition (on average $3,000 a year), but now offers a flat award per credit hour enrolled, which last year amounted to about a 5 percent reduction in awards overall.

“Having a flat award may not equal exactly your tuition and fees, but it’s very predictable. Students and families can count on an exact amount to help with their funding exercise and planning,” said Theresa Antworth, the director of state scholarship and grant programs in Florida.

This year, the legislature decided that future graduating high school classes will have to earn higher test scores to qualify for the program. Still, the state isn’t necessarily expecting fewer awards. “Sometimes student behavior meets the challenge,” Ms. Antworth said.

New Jersey’s Student Tuition Assistance Reward Program, or NJ STARS used to cover community college tuition for students in the top 20 percent of their high school graduating class; now, it’s for the top 15 percent. After two years in a community college earning at 3.0 GPA, students could get a second scholarship for two years at a state university. Now, they need a 3.25 GPA, and the award is limited to $7,000 all told. As of this fall, only tuition is covered—not fees.

“Everybody realizes we’re biting the bullet. Everyone has to absorb some,” said AnnMarie Bouse, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, the state agency that oversees the STARS program. “We’re pushing to have complete funding restored, but we’re happy to have tuition restored.”

Merit-based programs have put the spotlight on higher education and meant more students often studied in their home states. But Mr. Lingenfelter of the State Higher Education Executive Officers group maintains that the objective in the future should be to get as many people into college as can benefit from it and help them all succeed.

One model approach, he suggests, is the Oklahoma Promise Scholarship Program. It requires high school students to take rigorous courses, keep up their grades, and have a family income under $50,000 to be eligible for full tuition coverage at an in-state school. Immune from a slipping economy, since its inception in 1992, the program is the first item funded by the state legislature with a dedicated source of general revenue.

Ms. Slocum is hoping she can persuade the Nevada legislature to guarantee funding as well. The rising college sophomore started a Facebook page to encourage students to speak up about the changes, and about 3,400 have joined so far. Still, she says it’s hard to be hopeful considering the condition of the state’s economy.

“Even though I’m a National Merit scholar finalist, graduated at the top of my class, with a 4.0 GPA, I’m still struggling to find a way to get through college even in a state college,” she said. “I think that’s ridiculous.”

Please contact EdNews’ news editor Nancy Mitchell if you have comments or questions about this article or the EdNews’ partnership with Education Week.

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The council held its fifth meeting Wednesday, but the panel is still struggling with organizational issues.

Members did agree to an “initial draft” of a teacher effectiveness definition and began discussion of more-detailed quality standards for teachers.

And, education Commissioner Dwight Jones dropped by to give the group a brief pep talk.

“Thank you for doing this important work,” Jones said. “I sure plan to get more engaged … just to listen and offer any support where you think it might be helpful.” Jones noted that the council’s duties expanded when Senate Bill 10-191 was passed after the council was created. He encouraged members to challenge their “core beliefs” as they do their work.

“The governor’s very interested in what ultimately is going to come out of this council,” Jones also said. (Gov. Bill Ritter, who originally created the council and appointed its members, will be out of office by the time the group makes its recommendations to the State Board of Education next March.)

A significant part of the discussion Wednesday focused on organizational issues.

Members recently filled out a survey about the council’s work, and Co-chair Matt Smith noted the survey found “a frustration that the council’s work wasn’t moving as rapidly as some would like.” Smith is an executive with United Launch Alliance.

Smith also noted members have varying opinions about how much of the group’s work should be done by the whole council and how much should be done in small groups.

“I’m not sure the meeting structure we have … is going to get us where we want to go,” said Tracy Dorland, director of teacher effectiveness for the Denver Public Schools.

The group discussed whether to meet more often than once a month and whether to hold a multi-day meeting in the fall.

“The more time we spend in one shot the more we’re going to get accomplished,” said Margaret Crespo, principal of John Evans Middle School in Weld County.

Eduation Commissioner Dwight Jones (left) gave a pep talk to the State Council for Educator Effectiveness on July 21. Co-chair Matt Smith (right) led the discussion about the body’s pending organizational issues.

Smith finally suggested having small groups do preparatory work for full-group sessions, meeting twice in September and twice in October and holding a retreat sometime in the fall. The details are to put in writing and circulated among members for approval.

Nine of the council’s 14 members attended the monthly session. One of the council’s four teacher members was present, and the council’s two school board members and one superintendent were absent. (Council members were appointed from various segments of the education community.)

The council also spent considerable time discussing an initial definition of teacher effectiveness, with members going back and forth on elements that should be included and the level of detail a definition should include.

As a starting point, members finally settled on five core elements used by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Those are:

• Teachers are committed to students and their learning.
• Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students.
• Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning.
• Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.
• Teachers are members of learning communities.

Under the requirements of SB 10-191, the council has until March 1, 2011, to make makes recommendations to SBE on definitions of teacher and principal effectiveness, different levels of effectiveness, permitted differentiation of evaluations, testing and implementation of new evaluation systems, appeals processes, parent involvement and on costs of the new system.

The council is being advised by a 22-member volunteer Technical Advisory Group, which reviews education research and prepares documents for the council. Co-chair Nina Lopez, a CDE executive, noted Wednesday that the exact details of the working relationship between the two groups still are being ironed out.

The state board will have until Sept. 1, 2011, to adopt regulations and also is allowed to make decisions on any issues on which the council doesn’t act. And, those SBE regulations will be subject to legislative review.

If the whole process plays out as planned, the law won’t be fully implemented until the 2014-14 school year (detailed background on SB 10-191).

• Council webpage with minutes, current meeting schedule and full list of minutes

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And, adopting the common core may be as simple as adding parts of those documents to state standards, a consultant and Department of Education officials said.

The board was briefed by education Commissioner Dwight Jones and other CDE staff about line-by-line comparisons of the common core and the state standards, which were adopted only last December. Reviews were done by an outside consultant and state content subcommittees.

The core standards were developed under the leadership of the National Governors’ Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. But, the U.S. Department of Education has made adoption of the standards an eligibility requirement for the second round of Race to the Top grants.

Board members asked how the two sets of standards compared in their rigor. “On the whole … it’s almost a wash,” said Stanley Rabinowitz, a consultant for the education research agency WestEd. While there’s variation in some individual standards, “I’d say there’s equal rigor across the two documents,” he added.

Jo O’Brien, CDE assistant commissioner of standards and assessment, said, “It’s almost a draw.”

The board met on the same day that the Thomas B. Fordham Institute issued its comparison of the common core with individual standards in all 50 states. Fordham judged Colorado’s language arts standards as equal to the common core but ranked state math standards as considerably less rigorous than the proposed national set.

Board members also asked what exactly adopting the common standards would mean.

Elaine Gantz Berman, D-1st District, asked if adoption would mean the state would “in no way … be watering down the Colorado standards.”

Rabinowitz said that if parts of the common standards were added to state documents, “You’re probably making the standards more rigorous in some cases.”

Berman wanted reassurance that merely adding sections of the national standards to Colorado’s would constitute adoption. “That is correct,” said O’Brien, an answer affirmed by Jones.

Rabinowitz said, “No one has fully defined what adoption means or what 15 percent means.” (The 15 percent reference is to the federal requirement that a state’s standards can’t deviate more than 15 percent from the common core.) O’Brien said there’s about 90 percent overlap between the two sets of standards.

Rabinowitz explained to the board that the comparison “was a very difficult study to do” because in many places the common standards are much more detailed than Colorado’s. “There are parts of the common core standards that read much more like curriculum than standards.”

O’Brien noted that Colorado’s “standards are an expectation of what students should know and be able to do at the end of good curriculum,” not a detailed list of what students should be taught throughout a school year.

The Fordham study judged the common standards, which were released in final form last month, to be “clearer and more rigorous than today’s [language arts] standards in 37 states and today’s math standards in 39 states. … In 33 of those states, the Common Core bests both ELA and math standards.”

In Fordham’s rating system, the language arts common core got a B+, 6 out of 7 points for rigor and content and 2 out of 3 points for clarity and specificity. Colorado’s marks were identical. (California topped the charts with an A, a 7 and a 3.)

“In sum, these standards represent a very thorough and rigorous set of expectations for the students in Colorado. Some streamlining and editing to exclude nonacademic and unrealistic goals would improve them tremendously, but as written, they earn a solid six points out of seven for Content and Rigor,” the Fordham report said the Colorado’s language arts standards.

In math, the common core scored an A-, a 7 and a 2, but Colorado was graded as only a C, a 3 and a 2. (California was the top scorer again.)

“With their grade of C, Colorado’s mathematics standards are mediocre, while those developed by the Common Core State Standards Initiative earn an impressive A-minus. The CCSS math standards are significantly superior to what the Centennial State has in place today,” the Fordham report argued.

O’Brien attributed Fordham’s math critique to a particular “point of view” that prefers a more detailed, curricular style of math standards than Colorado’s document, which emphasizes student end-of-year competencies. A memo prepared by CDE math content specialist Melissa Colsman concluded that Fordham “overlooked” or “misunderstood” elements of Colorado’s math standards.

(See the Fordham study’s contents page, executive summary and Colorado analysis, plus links to articles about common standards issues.)

Just over half the states have adopted the common standards. Massachusetts’ state board approved them Wednesday, despite an opposition campaign by some conservative think tanks.

The SBE meets on Aug. 2 to hear Jones’ recommendation and to vote on adoption. The commissioner seemed to make a point of reminding the board that Colorado has had a very open process for reviewing the common standards and the final decision hasn’t been made.

However, Colorado officials have been heavily involved in the common standards development process, including review of earlier drafts, something Jones and O’Brien also brought up at Wednesday’s meeting.

The department is accepting public comment on the proposed standards until July 28. (Go here to send an e-mail.) About 420 comments have been received so far.

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Education Commissioner Dwight Jones is scheduled to give the board a telephone briefing Wednesday on differences between the common standards and recently adopted state standards in those subjects.

The board is scheduled to meet again by telephone on Aug. 2 to vote on adoption. That’s the deadline for states to adopt the standards if they wish to remain eligible for the second round of Race to the Top funding, for which Colorado has applied.

The core standards were not created by the federal government but rather were developed under the leadership of the National Governors’ Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. But, the U.S. Department of Education has made it clear it supports the effort.

While many in the education world are backing the common standards, some conservative and libertarian groups oppose them, arguing that they would lead to an unwise federalization of K-12 education and that the proposed standards aren’t sufficiently rigorous.

State board member Peggy Littleton, R-5^th District, has publicly criticized the common standards for those reasons. Some groups are trying to make a test case on the issue in Massachusetts, where the state board is scheduled to vote Wednesday.

Colorado’s reading and math content standards are about 90 percent aligned with the proposed national standards in those subjects, according to an analysis prepared for the Colorado Department of Education.

The final draft of the standards was released June 2, and CDE contracted with WestEd to do a line-by-line comparison of Colorado’s math and language standards with the common core. (WestEd is a California-based non-profit education research and consulting organization that has worked with CDE on a number of reform projects, including creation of the new Colorado standards.)

The WestEd analysis also was reviewed by subcommittees of experts that helped develop the Colorado standards. The documents were released late last week.

Jo O’Brian, CDE assistant commissioner, said, “The bottom line is that 90 percent of the two standards align. … There is extreme similarity.”

The primary differences are “only in two or three grades in mathematics,” O’Brien said. She noted that in some areas the common standards are more detailed and more like curriculum than are the Colorado standards. In some cases the two sets of standards differ on what things students should learn in which grades.

“The state board is going to have to talk that one through,” she added.

The federal R2T requirement for the common standards allows a 15 percent variation between a state’s standards and the common ones. Given that, O’Brien said, “We already are adoption-ready.”

Half the states have adopted the common standards, and advocates hope another 15 or so will do so by Aug. 2. The only other Western states to adopt so far are Arizona, Nevada and Wyoming. In California an advisory panel has recommended adoption.

Supporters of the common core envision that the standards will be the foundation for multi-state achievement tests that may roll out in 2014. Colorado has been a participant in both common standards development and in groups that are working on the multi-state tests.

That sort of multi-state standardization is what worries critics of the common standards. In a May 27 audio interview with Ben DeGrow of the Independence Institute, Littleton said, “Education should be taken care of by parents and states” and that the common standards push “flies in the face of choice in education and local control.”

Littleton also debated common standards with state Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, in a recent Independence Institute video.

Last December the state board unanimously adopted new standards in 11 content areas, dance; comprehensive health and physical education; math; music; reading, writing and communicating; science; social studies; drama and theatre arts; visual arts; world languages; and English language proficiency.

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Why? College leaders say they won’t know how much they may need to hike tuition until they get a better idea about how much state support will be available in 2011-12 and how that money will be split among institutions.

How to divide the money is the focus of ongoing work by the Department of Higher Education and the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. Whatever allocation system they come up with is bound to be contentious and to make some – or perhaps all – institutions unhappy.

Higher ed leaders are being forced to confront the issue because of a complicated and interlocking set of events and circumstances, including:

• The continuing state revenue crisis, which was highlighted in June revenue forecasts that warned the state may have to cut up to $1 billion from the 2011-12 state budget (see story). There’s no question that higher ed will receive less direct state support than the $620.8 million in the current budget, much of which is the last installment of federal stimulus funds.

• The hard truth that state colleges and universities have differing abilities to raise revenues from tuition and grants. It’s seen as easier for CU’s Boulder campus, CSU-Fort Collins and the Colorado School of Mines to raise tuition and still maintain enrollment than it is for some of the state’s four-year colleges, which have smaller pools of potential applicants and more lower-income students.

• A new state law (Senate Bill 10-003) that gives colleges greater freedom in managing their budgets and the right to ask for tuition increases higher than the 9 percent hikes that now are allowed annually through 2015-16. Another key piece of that law gives the CCHE more clout than it’s had in recent years, including review over those tuition authority requests.

At its July 8 meeting the commission adopted a deadline schedule and an application form for institutions that want tuition flexibility. Applications will be accepted between Aug. 2 and Oct. 1, review and negotiations with institutions is be finished by Oct. 29, CCHE decisions will be made by Nov. 4 and recommendations to the Joint Budget Committee will be made by Dec. 10. (See the template for college financial accountability plans.)

The deadline schedule was a compromise between CCHE and the institutions, but some college leaders are still uncomfortable with it. And, it doesn’t look like colleges will be rushing to file applications in early August.

Education News Colorado last week surveyed all 10 state colleges and systems. No institution is definitely planning to apply, and only Adams State College has no plans to apply. Representatives of the Colorado and Colorado State university systems, the community colleges, the School of Mines and the University of Northern Colorado plus Metro, Fort Lewis, Mesa and Western State colleges said they were still studying the issue or haven’t yet taken it up.

Metro State President Steve Jordan discussed the unknowns that colleges face. “We are doing some modeling that makes the presumption that general fund [state support] will be cut.” So, Metro will prepare an initial document that suggests different levels of tuition for different amounts of state cuts. “We intend to put in some markers … and then we will revise those once we know the reality” of state funding, Jordan said.

Metro State President Steve Jordan

Other colleges also are expected to prepare similar “what if” proposals.

Mesa President Tim Foster said, “We will probably hedge and ask for some nominal increase above 9 percent.  In that way we can keep an eye on what the legislature does with respect to higher education budgets and react accordingly with a possible amendment.”

Brad Baca, Western State vice president for finance and administration, said, “Most likely, the plan and the amount of tuition flexibility proposed will be indexed against varying scenarios of state support.”

The commission is scheduled to return to the allocation issue at its next meeting, scheduled for Aug. 5 at Front Range Community College in Westminster.

At a June 17 meeting, commissioners discussed guiding principles for proposed allocation of state funds. The key elements of that document were based on whether state support in 2011-12 is below or above $500 million.

If state funds are less than $500 million, DHE staff propose using a “total revenue” model that would “allow institutions better positioned to utilize tuition flexibility to do so while protecting core functions at community colleges and institutions less able to leverage tuition flexibility.”

If state funding is above $500 million, DHE staff propose using a blended model for allocating funds to individual colleges, taking into consideration prior year funding, ability to raise tuition and enrollment changes. (Read document.)

At a lightly attended meeting on July 8, DHE Chief Financial Officer Mark Cavanaugh presented the commission with more detailed scenarios.

In a worst-case scenario of $450 million in state support for 2011-12, a proportional cut would mean each school would lose 30.2 percent of the state and stimulus funding it’s receiving this year.

The cuts would vary if more state money is channeled to institutions with less ability to raise tuition. Under that model, cuts would range from about 41 percent for the School of Mines and the CU system to a low of 17.2 percent at Western State College. In theory, institutions that received less state support would raise tuition to make up the difference.

Cavanaugh also presented options for $550 million, which still is less than this year’s budget for higher ed. “Fiscal year 11-12 is going to be rough year,” Cavanaugh told the commission. “It’s a very difficult thing to know what that number [state support] is going to be.” (See the full document here. EdNews summary is below, and the story continues after the chart.)

Allocation of state support among colleges is an issue fraught with contention, because every institution and system zealously protects its own financial interests and is quick to see harm in proposals that shift support among campuses.

Leaders of community colleges and Metro, for instance, point out that they draw historically under-served groups of students and have had the largest enrollment growth. They believe funding allocations in recent budgets haven’t accounted for that growth.

Jordan told EdNews, “It seems to make more sense” to use the tuition-adjustment model and funnel more state support to institutions like his that “don’t have the ability to do that cost shift” – raising tuition and then using revenue from wealthier students to subsidize financial aid for poorer students.

Research institutions, particularly the CU system, argue that their ability to raise tuition much more is limited, that they’re key drivers of the state’s economy and need support for high-cost professional programs such as those on the Anschutz Medical Campus.

CU President Bruce Benson

CU President Bruce Benson said in an interview that proposed allocation formulas often slight the needs of high-cost programs like Anschutz and the CSE veterinary medicine program. “People keep disregarding the major assets of this state … in their formulas.”

Smaller outstate institutions like Adams State, Western State, Mesa State and Fort Lewis colleges point to the services they provide to their regions and their inability to significantly raise tuition, given the kinds and numbers of applicants they attract.

Community college leader also are reluctant to raise tuition because of their open-access mission and the large numbers of low-income students they serve.

“They [CCHE] ought to look at tuition-raising ability,” Benson said, but he suggested that more institutions than CU, CSU and Mines could afford to raise tuition rates, which he said in some cases lag behind costs at similar institutions in other states. “There is a capacity to raise tuition.”

The window for making budget recommendations is a relatively narrow one. The executive branch must make its 2011-12 budget recommendations to the JBC by Nov. 1, and the panel begins hearings on the 2011-12 budget shortly after that.

In the meantime, there’s going to be lots of rhetorical jostling in the higher ed community.

“Yes,” Benson said with a chuckle, “we’re going to have some serious discussions.”

While they’re debating allocations, institutions and CCHE also face an even grimmer financial assignment. SB 10-003 requires them to prepare plans for what they’d do if state support is cut by 50 percent in 2011-12. Those reports, to be coordinated by CCHE, are due Nov. 10.

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• Archive of higher education stories

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