Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
March 3, 2000, Friday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 2992 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF KATHRYN A. T. KNOX, PH.D. HEADMASTER COMMON KNOWLEDGE,
COMMON VIRTUE& COMMON SENSE SHARP POINT DRIVE, FORT COLLINS, COLORADO
BEFORE THE HOUSE EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
BODY:
I am very proud to represent Liberty
Common School in Poudre School District, Ft.
Collins, Colorado. As you
know, as a charter school, we operate under a contract with significantly more
autonomy than the typical public school and yet with clearly articulated
expectations for accountability and high standards. Our school is a K-9 school
with over 500 students. We have grown every year and have a waiting list and
lottery pool with over 900
students. In addition to successfully
implementing 100% of the Core Knowledge curriculum and creating a 9th grade
Classical Honors curriculum, a character education program, a solid teacher
education program, and a strong and well-articulated literacy program with 98%
of all students at or above grade level in reading by the end of first grade, we
are active participants in the charter school and Core Knowledge movements. We
have also been leaders in seeking alternative financing for capital needs and
are state and local leaders in standardized testing results. Our Board of
Directors are very committed parents who contribute enormous amounts of time in
general governance support, in financial oversight and visioning. We are
committed to high standards, student achievement, citizenship and development of
community. Our mission is excellence and fairness in education, and our dominant
metaphor is the journey. With the focus on Federal support for charter schools,
I'd like to consider several initiatives for discussion.
Goals 2000
provided a framework for meeting National Education Goals by promoting coherent
and systemic education reform. The Public Charter Schools Program was created to
provide financial assistance for charter school start-up and growth. The
Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program offers grants to assist
schools in developing comprehensive school reforms. All of these are helpful to
charter schools and the schools of choice movement.
However, in the goal
to help schools, some determinations on what is a good program (often coming out
of a current philosophical or political slant--such as with the new math wars;
phonics or not; content/process differences) can color who gets financing,
because grant reviewers have predeterminations on what is a "good program". The
school effectiveness research of today should focus on results rather than on
the philosophy of those in charge.
With the reauthorized Federal charter
school expansion act of 1998, schools are reviewed every five years to ensure
the school is meeting the terms of its charter. Accountability is important to
most charter schools, including our own. We hold high standards and want to
measure our progress quantitatively and qualitatively and create benchmarks and
goals for continual progress. I have been a team leader and a team participant
in the Colorado League of Charter Schools Accountability Process. This process
has had the support of some state representatives as well as many district
personnel across our state. It seems that initiatives like this one, that focus
on how well the charter is meeting the terms of its contract, reviewed by
somewhat objective reviewers, are worth supporting. Such accountability
procedures take the renewal process to a larger audience by putting more eyes
than simply those coming from the district personnel on the charter school.
The Federal Charter Act also rewards states that have made progress in
increasing the number of high-quality, accountable charter schools. We have been
the beneficiary of some of these financial awards. We received Title X grants
for two of our three years, with the first allocation being
$116,312. in the 1997-1998 school year, and the second being
$179,562. in the 1998-1999 school year. We also received a
$10,000 Title III ESEA technology grant, which
helped us get a working computer lab going. The Title X grants were used for
much- needed books, science materials and so forth, to bring a school from
start-up to solid operations.
The Act also stresses the requirement for
the same state assessments as other public schools. We take more standardized
tests than other schools in the district, and also participate in all the CSAP
(Colorado state assessments) tests. Our results have been very gratifying. Last
year (and last year there were only tests in 3rd, 4th and 7th grades), we
exceeded both the district and the state results with percent of students at or
above proficient. Reading results follow: (NOTE: Chart not transmittable)
Let me stress that the results come out of clear definition of goals
throughout the school, hard work and persistence of all involved, a focused
approach to teaching, parent support, and coherent and consistent approaches to
achieving our goals. We are very accountable to our public and at the
"grassroots" level, it is immediately evident if students are not reading at
grade level. We attribute our success to the ability to have autonomy and be
free of unnecessary or burdensome bureaucratic regulation. We have an
entrepreneurial spirit in approaching teaching, and all of us involved in the
school put in more hours, do more focused activities, and work together more
consistently than most schools I have been involved in. Teachers, parents and
administrators are committed to do the best we all can to help students succeed.
We use materials and methods that work, even if they are not the currently
accepted ones of the district (such as a phonics-based approach to literacy
including literacy immersion; and Quantum methodology to support better
learning).
The Act also provides new authority for charter schools to
serve as models. We have been pleased during our two years to "share the
knowledge" of what is working, where to find resources, how to organize lessons
and units effectively and which methods work well. We networked with other
schools, set up a web site and sent teachers out to observe at other schools,
and be observed in turn. We did all this without remuneration. However, now, we
are very solid in our third year, and we look forward to being able to apply for
a Dissemination Grant where we can possibly help other charter schools more
directly and consistently.
The new IDEA has caused all schools some
confusion in interpretation, but overall, it is workable and provides more of a
platform on which parents, administrators and teachers can work together to
improve learning for all. The confusion primarily lies in who decides whether
misbehavior is a direct result of the disability or not.
The National Study of Charter Schools is very helpful for gathering and
disseminating data about the effectiveness of charter schools. We have
participated in this study, in a local study by an R&D center in Ft.
Collins, with other data-gathering efforts, and also now with the Harvard
Charter School study.
The US Charter Schools Web Site, the Colorado
Department of Education site with links to charter schools, the information
shared by the League of Charter Schools during our initial year of start-up, our
own web site, and many other helpful internet sites, are all contributors to
sharing the knowledge. Many administrators and teachers in charter schools are
very interested in gaining knowledge, skills, processes, methods and procedures
that will improve their schools and classes, and believe that we can learn much
from others.
Limitations that have turned into areas of
challenge for us have of course been inadequate access to capital funds and
operating funds. The receipt of start up grant monies from the Federal
government (Title X) was extremely important to the successful first two years
of our school in that the monies allowed us to purchase start-up resources,
books, science equipment and so forth. Our district did not provide a building
for our school, and our lease took almost a third of our revenues. At present it
is still taking about a quarter of all revenues. Through bond financing (and
being the first school in the nation to qualify for tax-exempt bond financing
for our building), and creating a 501 (c)3 we have saved substantial revenue
which we have applied to increasing student achievement. Even with this creative
and very-time-consuming process, our students remain at a disadvantage compared
to other district students. Though the new state law here allots 95% of funds to
charter schools, it does not take into account other sources of funding that
contribute significantly to a school's budget. For us, these include an
inability to access vehicle license fees, mill levy funds, capital reserve
funds, and facilities bond funding. When you add this lack of access to those
funds to the cost of providing our building, providing our own maintenance,
repair, utilities, custodial services and grounds maintenance, we are operating
on about 73% of each dollar other district schools receive, and yet our students
are public school students just like any others in the district. The lack of
fair funding has been a huge hurdle for us to overcome, and it is for most
charter schools. We have a substantial burden that other schools don't have, and
that seriously impacts the full educational opportunities for our students,
especially without access to grant monies.
Another Federal grant, the
Title III ESEA funds for technology ($10,000
received by our school) helped us to start up our computer lab. However, it
would not have been sufficient without substantial "sweat equity." As with many
charter schools, labor is contributed by parent volunteers, and in fact in our
case, our parents set up the LAN and actually ran all the wires to set up our
lab. Nevertheless, even with all the parent volunteer time and creative
financing, we continue to have substantial capital needs. As a school that
includes an elementary and a junior high, we need to expand our facility (add a
regulation gymnasium for example), and are finding it very difficult to find
ways to finance these needs. We would welcome Federal support in grants related
to capital growth for third year schools.
In addition to capital funding
limitations, the lottery requirement potentially inhibits our ability to
increase the socioeconomic diversity of our student population. The reason for a
lottery is undoubtedly to increase diversity within a school, but in a city like
Ft. Collins which is not extremely diverse, the lottery may have the opposite
effect, potentially pushing the chances for a student of color or a student
at-risk back in the pool. In our charter, we have stated that we want to set
aside and hold slots for at-risk students but this is counter to the lottery
requirement.Another idea I would like to put forth is the possibility of Federal
support of rigorous alternative paths to licensure (both teacher and
administrator licenses) including apprenticeship models, the license being
accepted in any state. Many of our teachers want to keep a license up to date,
but they get caught up in the various state requirements for classes,
in-services etc., and we find that there is often the necessity to "create our
own program" for these teachers to get them re-licensed. We have found that
teachers need solid content knowledge in order to engage students and teach them
well. Of course, good methodology and an understanding of student learning is
also requisite. However, much of the current teacher preparation programs focus
primarily on method rather than on content, and thus the licensure process also
does as well. I would like to see content specialists who are also excellent
teachers of students, be able to gain licensure that would ensure them
continuance within the teaching profession. I would also be supportive of
alternative administrator licensing models including apprenticeships and
experiential components. I would like to see this licensure process supercede,
or at least be an alternative to, much of the state-to-state licensing
requirement.
Other challenges we have experienced are similar to any
other school, including the need to provide content-based training for teachers
to keep them up-to-date in their fields, and the importance of retaining good
teachers using financial as well as organizational benefits. We have accepted
this challenge and we have implemented many successful systems including A
Learning Organization philosophy, an intensive recruitment and training process,
cooperative planning time, partner teachers, mentoring, a bonus pay system,
teacher-created benchmarks for literacy, math and science, a habits of mind
program, regular professional development, and opportunities for teacher
leadership.In addition to Federal support initiatives, we have also found that
local support has been extremely helpful, such as the new regional Core
Knowledge Center in Colorado (for disseminating information, coordinating
training, and locating resources), and the CDE charter school outreach of
information and resources, through knowledgeable people like Bill Windler and
Denise Mund.
A brief summary of our academic goals and results is
included below. We attribute our success to our ability to determine our goals
and focus efforts without burdensome bureaucracy. Our teachers are encouraged to
develop leadership and "do what has to be done" to help increase student
literacy, math skills, and so on, and are not inhibited by mandates coming from
a central office. We implemented a standards-based, well-articulated curriculum
K-8 at the beginning of our charter, for example, not because we were told to,
but because we knew it was the right way to start a school. We are very
accountable to our public and we receive immediate "grassroots response" if we
fall below our standards and goals. In addition, parents volunteer and support
the school because they believe their efforts will make a difference.
1.
Reading Goals
a. all students mastering all 70 phonograms of the English
language by 2nd grade
b. all students reading at or above grade level by
end of first grade
c. 22% or less below proficient on District Level's
tests in grades 3- 6
d. a minimum of 75% of 3rd graders and 50% of 4th
graders at or above proficient with a goal of less than 5% or less below
proficient on state CSAP tests
e. a decrease in the number of at-risk
readers each year
RESULTS:
a. all students mastering 70
phonograms of the English language by 2nd grade (goal met)
b. in K-2,
162 of 168 students at or above grade level in reading
c. 18.5% in
grades 3-6 below proficient in reading (goal exceeded)
d. Third grade
CSAP results: 86% at proficient or advanced levels; 0% unsatisfactory (goal
exceeded; first in district, top 10% of entire state)
e. Fourth grade
CSAP results: in 1998, 83% at proficient or advanced; in 1999, 91% at proficient
or advanced (goal exceeded, top 10% of state)
2. Writing Goals
a. increase student proficiency across the school
b. create
benchmarks and monitor student progress
c. exceed state and district
results on state CSAP standardized assessment
RESULTS:
a.
narrowing of gap of students below grade level.
b. 4th grade state
writing assessment exceeded district and state results; first in entire district
3. Math Goals
a. 7% annual increase in mean ITBS developmental
scores
b. early diagnosis of math level of upper students; use of
technology to support enrichment and remediation
c. schedule math at
same time of day so students can attend at appropriate level
RESULTS:
a. Increase in ITBS developmental scores in all grades ('98-'99); new
CSAP 5th grade scores will be out this month
4. Coverage of 100% of Core
Knowledge Sequence with depth and breadth, using the Thinking Framework and
Habits of Mind in various content areas
5. Many avenues of regular
professional development both on and off- site (these have included training in
the areas of content level learning, health and safety, methodology,
organization and leadership)
We also have public speaking goals
(including oral presentations at all grade levels), community service and
character education goals (handout attached for examples of program
development), and goals to increase electives and enrichments (adding Latin and
foreign language; economics experiences; bands and choirs; athletics and
technology options, for example). We will always have the goal of strong parent
involvement (parent survey results enclosed). Liberty administration uses
principles articulated by Senge, Sergiovanni, Covey and others to create a
foundation of trust and learning, in which teachers work well and effectively
together.
I strongly believe that much of our success is attributable to
the entrepreneurial spirit developed and maintained by all involved in the
school. This spirit is nurtured through being free from much bureaucracy. We
have a few shared statements including, "no muda" (eliminating what consumes
resources but gives no value), and "the main thing is student achievement, and
the main thing is to keep this main thing the main thing." We also use theideas
of "servant leadership," "collegiality (not just congeniality)," and doing what
has to be done for excellence and fairness in our system. Many of our parents
are very committed to the mission, vision and principles articulated by our
school and work with us because they know that parents and teachers working
together make a huge difference in student achievement.
We have been
invited to apply for a John Irwin Schools of Excellence award by the state of
Colorado, and we have received a plaque qualifying us as a 100% Core Knowledge
school. These are simply a few of the outward symbols that we are continuing to
do the job we signed on to do. The real heart and soul of a school can be seen
and felt, experienced in a child's eyes and measured in learning. We continue to
be committed to excellence at Liberty Common School and we appreciate your
support of school choice and charter schools in this nation.
END
LOAD-DATE: March 8, 2000
