Governor to Talk Ed “Blueprint” at Central Campus Town Hall

Since unveiling a plan for sweeping educational change earlier this year, Governor Terry Branstad has been travelling across Iowa to talk about his “blueprint,” respond to questions, and gather public input. The Governor is making another stop on his town hall tour this week in Des Moines, home of Iowa’s largest provider of public education.

On Saturday, December 10, Governor Branstad along with Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds will host a town hall meeting at 11:15 A.M. in the multi-purpose room at Central Campus (1800 Grand Avenue). The meeting is open to the public.

“The Iowa Education Blueprint is just that, a blueprint,” Lt. Governor Reynolds has said since the reform package was rolled out. “Revisions will be made based on the feedback we get.”

Both Branstad and Reynolds also held a series of town hall events leading up to the education summit in July. The summit was the centerpiece of a process that culminated with the release of their education proposal – “One Unshakable Vision” – in October. A final proposal is expected to be presented to the Legislature in January.

Key elements originally proposed in their plan include:

• Attract and support talented educators with an increase in starting teacher pay, more selective teacher preparation programs and improved recruiting and hiring practices.
• Create educator leadership roles in schools and develop a meaningful peer-based evaluation system that requires annual and multiple evaluations of all educators.
• Develop a four-tier teacher compensation system with Apprentice, Career, Mentor and Master Levels and substantial pay raises for teachers who move up. Add other options for increasing teacher pay, such as work in extended day or year programs.
• Establish a definition of educator effectiveness and tie job protections to an evaluation system based on this definition.
• Free up principals from some managerial tasks to lead and support great teaching.
• Improve and expand the Iowa Core to put Iowa’s standards on par with the highest-performing systems in the world.
• Develop an assessment framework that includes measuring whether children start kindergarten ready to learn and high-stakes End-of-Course assessments for core subjects in high school. Have all Iowa 11th graders take a state-funded college-entrance exam.
• Provide value-added measures for all districts, schools, grades and educators that take into account student background characteristics and consider student growth.
• Seek a waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind law and work with key education groups and leaders statewide to design a new accountability system.
• Ensure children learn basic literacy by the end of third grade with high-quality reading programs, supports for schools and students, and an end to social promotion for third-graders who read poorly.
• Nurture innovation with funding for transformative ideas, greater statutory waiver authority for the Iowa Department of Education and pathways to allow for high-quality charter schools in Iowa.
• Create a state clearinghouse of high-quality online courses available to any student in Iowa, and back the courses with licensed teachers and the best online learning technology available.
• Set goals for student outcomes, including a 95 percent high school graduation rate and top statewide performance on national standardized assessments.

The Governor has recently indicated that some parts of the original plan, such as revamping teacher pay and evaluation, may be placed on hold.

Currently the “blueprint” has no price tag attached to it. Last year’s General Assembly approved a two-year state budget which called for zero growth in education funding in year one and a two percent hike in year two. How the adoption of educational reform legislation might impact general fund school aid is one question yet to be answered.

According to Dick Murphy, Vice Chair of the DMPS School Board, it’s important for the public to examine the proposed reforms before any formal legislation is advanced: “Too often we wait until the issue has been decided before we make our voices heard. We need to speak out at the beginning of the process in order to ensure Des Moines students have the best possible opportunities.”