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Lots of really lousy education bills are on the docket for
tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 25. First, in
the Senate Ed Committee at 8am, and then in the House Ed Committee at 4pm. If you are able to attend and comment on any
of them, that would be great! Please
pick at least one bill (if you can’t do all of them) and email the appropriate
group, as listed below.
Quick info: How to read a bill.
If something is underlined, it will be added to the law, if
the bill passes. If something is crossed
out, then that will be removed from the law, if the bill passes. Everything else is existing law.
Quick Info: How to email committee members.
See the list of Senate and House Ed committee emails listed
below. It’s best to put in the subject
line something like: Vote NO on HB114Sub2 ((that means House Bill 114 Substitute
2).
Then address your email to each individual Rep or
Senator. You can certainly copy and
paste the body of the email. Make it
short, sweet and to the point. If you
want to add more information, you can finish the email, and then say, for more information
on this…and basically add a PS, so they can go as long or as short as they’d
like. They need to get these emails
ASAP, as the Senate will probably not read emails once the committee hearing
starts at 8am. If you are a constituent
of one of the committee members, please let them know that.
*Senate Ed Committee: 8am Write the Senators and ask
them to VOTE NO!
HB114Sub2: You can read it here. https://le.utah.gov/~2020/bills/static/HB0114.html
: Early Learning Training and Assessment
This bill allocates $17.55 Million to establish additional testing
and support coaches and early learning plans for math and reading. It’s important to know that our current Math
and English standards (which, sadly, are still Common Core) were declared to be
developmentally inappropriate for grades K-3 by 500 Early Childhood Experts in
2010. I would argue if we fixed our
current math and English standards, we wouldn’t need to waste $17.5 Million in
trying to assess and coach our teachers to teach our kids stuff that isn’t
helping them read and do math.
SB136: https://le.utah.gov/~2020/bills/static/SB0136.html
Healthy Lifestyles Revisions
For those of you who are wary of CSE (Comprehensive
S3xuality Education—typo intentional to avoid spam filters), this is the bill
to change our school health requirements to be broadened. Incidentally, if you go to the CDC website,
you will find that Utah has one of the lowest rates of STIs of any of the
states. The states with higher rates,
many of them, have implemented CSE programs.
But because we have such a low rate, the health department touts the
fact that we have a huge increase. Yes,
but that’s a percentage increase from a very, very low number to a higher
number, that is still low. It’s
important to understand that Public Education used to be about those things
that we could all agree on (2+2=4). Once
you start down this road, there will be very little agreement, and that is
problematic.
Some concerns:
Changes communicable disease to infectious disease. While there is obvious overlap, infectious
disease is, by definition, a disease that is transmitted via bacteria, or
virus, etc. The focus of infectious disease
is the “infecting agent”. Communicable
disease is a disease that is spread via human to human contact in some
form. The focus of communicable disease
is the human transmission to others. In
light of this being a health course and not an immunology course, the current
wording “communicable” is probably more relevant. See lines 60-62 and lines 68-70. Current law allows emphasizes the importance
of abstinence before marriage and fidelity after marriage as methods of
preventing communicable diseases. The
references to marriage are removed, and abstinence is listed as a method for
preventing certain infectious diseases.
Also, current law prohibits advocacy or encouragement of contraceptive
devices. This would be removed if this
bill passes. Line 187 includes a
requirement that the course include “healthy relationships”, but there is no
definition of what a healthy relationship is.
207-209 requires the local district or charter (LEA) to report to the State Board
the percentage of children who are not opted out of the course. This will allow the state to know how many
kids are not taking the courses, and will, in the future, no doubt lead to
greater pressure on parents to have their kids take the courses.
**House Ed Committee: 4pm Write the House Reps and
ask them to Vote No!
There are 3 bills that are extremely problematic. 1 that is mostly a waste of time and
money. I will list them in the order
they are on the agenda, but the most egregious one is listed 3rd
(HB323).
SB0093Sub1: https://le.utah.gov/~2020/bills/static/SB0093.html
Math and Science Opportunities for Students and Teachers
This bill will cost $4.8M.
The idea that the state decides to use this money up front for this purpose
undermines local control. That’s $4.8M
that doesn’t go directly to the schools that choose not to participate in this
program. The real issue with students
not learning math has nothing to do with not having the Opportunity provided in
this bill (that’s mostly just money) and everything to do with the adoption of
sub-par math standards (Common Core).
This bill is mostly just a waste of time and money that could be better
spent elsewhere, especially at the local level in reducing class sizes.
SB0099: https://le.utah.gov/~2020/bills/static/SB0099.html
School Leadership Development Amendments
This bill will create a mentor program for principals to the
tune of $15.2 Million. Similar to others,
this takes $15.2 M off the table to be spent in any other way at the local
level. So, if you are sure principals being
mentored is a higher priority than anything else your local district would spend
that money on, then this is the bill for you.
But if you think maybe that’s a waste of money or that the local school district
might prefer to use the money differently, then you should encourage your Reps
to vote NO! In Alpine School District, we
already pay an annual fee to participate in the BYU Public School Partnership,
along with 4 other districts. As part of
this partnership, we have a Principals/Leadership Academy that employees who
are interested in becoming principals can take.
Also, ASD usually appoints principals from among applicants who have already
spent a few years as assistant principals.
So, there is already a formal structure for mentoring. Finally, in my years of knocking doors and
talking to people, I have never received a single comment from the people that
said we needed to spend more money on mentoring principals.
HB323: https://le.utah.gov/~2020/bills/static/HB0323.html
School Mental Health Amendments (THIS IS THE REALLY REALLY REALLY
BAD ONE!!!)
Because schools and teachers, especially are already
overwhelmed, we are going to require the State Board to create a Mental Health
screening tool that can be administered to every student in our public school
setting. We will either be creating a
greater need to have mental health counselors in our schools to assist with
this (instead of spending the money on actual reading, writing, and arithmetic)
or we will delegate this to teachers. It
also opens up the possibility of parents being bullied into allowing their kids
to be tested, and once tested, if a parent disagrees, then there is evidence
that they went against the “state”.
Could Child Protective be called on parents who refuse? It wouldn’t be out of the question. Whenever we have societal problems, we tend
to put all the focus on our public schools to “solve” the problem for us. This is not the place to do mental health
screenings. Your pediatrician or a
mental health counselor of the parent’s choosing would be the appropriate place
for it. Schools should focus on academics,
art, etc. They are to be supportive of
parents. They are not to replace
parents.
HB241: https://le.utah.gov/~2020/bills/static/HB0241.html
Kindergarten Attendance Amendments
This make Kindergarten a required grade. Currently, children are only required to
attend school from ages 6-18. This bill
will require school from age 5. Some
problems (besides the obvious increased cost that will occur if more people put
their kids in Kindergarten): Many students are not developmentally ready for
Kindergarten at age 5. Many parents
choose to keep their kids home an extra year and then enroll them in
Kindergarten at age 6. You would be able
to do this still, but you’d have to fill out a homeschooling affidavit, and
then, see lines 131-134, the school board is required to give you information
about the knowledge, skills, and competencies required before Grade 1. This is
only required for homeschool Kindergarten.
Currently, there is no requirement other than if a parent requests this
information for the other grades. It is
not a requirement for those who choose a private option. Additionally, if children are not, yet,
developmentally ready for school, it could create more students who are
identified with learning disabilities or special needs. Those students so identified would require
more state (and federal) funding, as well as administration of IEPs (individual
education plans), etc. And as mentioned
above, our current set of K-3 standards are developmentally inappropriate for
K-3 children anyway. So, we’ll put more kids into a no-win situation. All in all, there is no compelling reason to require
Kindergarten attendance.
*Senators on the Senate Ed Committee:
Senator Henderson - dhenderson@le.utah.gov
Senator Davis - gdavis@le.utah.gov
Senator Fillmore - lfillmore@le.utah.gov
Senator Grover - keithgrover@le.utah.gov
Senator Hillyard - lhillyard@le.utah.gov
Senator Millner - amillner@le.utah.gov
Senator Reibe - kriebe@le.utah.gov
Senator Stevenson - jwstevenson@le.utah.gov
**Representatives on the House Ed Committee:
vlsnow@le.utah.gov
susanpulsipher@le.utah.gov
mballard@le.utah.gov
dnjohnson@le.utah.gov
blast@le.utah.gov
csmoss@le.utah.gov
jeffersonmoss@le.utah.gov
leeperry@le.utah.gov
vpeterson@le.utah.gov
mariepoulson@le.utah.gov
adamrobertson@le.utah.gov
swaldrip@le.utah.gov
christinewatkins@le.utah.gov
Rep. V. Lowry Snow (R), Chair
Rep. Susan Pulsipher (R), Vice Chair
Rep. Melissa G. Ballard (R)
Rep. Dan N. Johnson (R)
Rep. Bradley G. Last (R)
Rep. Carol Spackman Moss (D)
Rep. Jefferson Moss (R)
Rep. Lee B. Perry (R)
Rep. Val L. Peterson (R)
Rep. Marie H. Poulson (D)
Rep. Adam Robertson (R)
Rep. Steve Waldrip (R)
Rep. Christine F. Watkins (R)
