Policy Update: Colorado: Truth in Consequences

Vital Statistics
176	Public school districts
1,468	Public schools
688,000	K-12 enrollment
28%	Minority students
12%	Children in poverty
9.9%	Students with disabilities
$3.4 billion	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

"This is the necessary capstone of the entire school reform program," says Moloney. "Standards and assessments are meaningless if there are no consequences. This bill is about consequences."

The law requires each district to sign a contract with the state outlining standards and goals to be met over a six-year period. Districts that fall behind may get technical help from the state. Those that fail to take corrective action could lose their accreditation.

"There is a lot of trepidation about that," Moloney says. "Most districts have a raft of norm-referenced tests they are very comfortable with." Such tests compare students against a national average, rather than gauge their knowledge of specified subject matter, as the state tests will do.

But some districts are starting to scrap their existing assessments to cut down on the amount of time students spend taking tests, Moloney adds.

The legislature left it up to the state school board to hammer out most of the particulars of the accountability standards for districts. The board had until the end of last year to devise "accreditation indicators."

"I'm sure the devil will be in the details," says Phil Fox, the deputy director of the Colorado Association of School Executives. Both his group and the Colorado Association of School Boards lobbied to moderate the accreditation bill. They wanted to make sure local school boards still decided graduation requirements, and they successfully fought proposals to mandate what time of day the basics would be taught and what teaching methods could be used.

One provision of the law adds consequences for students as well. Beginning in spring 2003, all seniors who scored below "proficient" on their 10th grade assessments must retake the tests and reach that level to get a high school diploma.

Last year ranked as a busy one for education issues both in the legislature and at the ballot box.

At the same time they elected Bill Owens the state's first Republican governor in 24 years, voters also resoundingly rejected an income-tax credit that parents could have used to pay for private school tuition. The credit was pushed by many of the same advocates of a 1992 private-school-voucher ballot measure, which also was soundly defeated.

Owens, who supported the tuition tax credit last fall, said after the election that the message from voters was clear: They aren't interested in such school choice ideas for the time being.

The new governor, who was the state treasurer before winning a close race to replace retiring three-term Democratic Gov. Roy Romer, said he would push his education agenda of rewarding schools that cut costs and put more resources into classrooms.

Voters last fall also rejected a measure that would have allowed the state to spend about $1 billion out of $2.5 billion in surplus revenue over five years; the money would have been used for roads and schools. Colorado has a state constitutional amendment that requires voter approval of most tax increases and spending of surplus revenue.

The K-12 portion of what was called Referendum B would have provided about $60 million a year for five years for construction and renovation of school buildings. But opponents painted the measure as a major tax increase, and it was overwhelmingly rejected.

Colorado legislators were active on school issues well before the election season got into full swing. Lawmakers passed two bills addressing teacher dismissal and evaluation.

One measure addresses the teacher-dismissal process by reducing the length of hearings and requiring prehearing conferences designed to expedite the procedures. The other calls for student performance to be factored into teacher evaluations. The law leaves it up to local school boards to determine how to do that.

Deborah Fallin, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Education Association, a National Education Association affiliate, says the teachers' union has no problem with the new evaluation process.

And in a sign that the charter school movement is here to stay, lawmakers eliminated a "sunset" provision for the state's charter school law. Colorado was one of the first states to authorize charter schools, and the provision was meant as a way to end the experiment if the independent public schools did not work out.