Policy Update: North Dakota: Baby Steps

Vital Statistics
234	Public school districts
569	Public schools
116,800	K-12 enrollment
10.9%	Minority students
13%	Children in poverty
10.6%	Students with disabilities
$609.0 million	Annual K-12 expenditures (all revenue sources)

A declining birthrate, an aging population, and rural-to-urban migration are causing a slow transformation of public schools in the state. In the past 25 years, the number of districts has dropped by nearly one-third, from 364 to 234, and enrollment trends indicate a 14 percent decrease in the student population by 2010.

Districts had to submit to the state education department by November plans for dealing with the demographic changes in their areas. The plans had to include information on future school populations, finances, and staffing.

Districts were also encouraged to hold "declining enrollment" public forums to discuss response measures. The data and plans for the future are expected to be reported in this year's district profiles and be presented to the legislature.

"What school districts say will cause changes," says Lt. Gov. Rosemarie Myrdal, a former teacher. She suggests that revisions will likely occur in how schools are financed and organized.

North Dakota's funding formula provides a flat $4,223 per pupil. Because most other funding is derived chiefly from local property taxes, small, rural schools have run into money problems.

Although the state targets some additional aid to these "small but necessary schools," as the state labels them, they will be the hardest hit by drops in enrollment.

When North Dakota's biennial legislature meets this month, it must deal again with the equity of its funding system. "We work with [equitable financing] year after year with small steps," Myrdal says.

Reticient to tinker with the funding formula, the legislature seems most comfortable raising the amount of foundation aid to districts, as it did in 1997, and targeting specific funds to the poorest districts.

Talk in Bismarck about another school funding lawsuit has quieted down. Since a 1994 lawsuit, which failed in the state supreme court, there has been discussion, most strongly by the North Dakota Council of Educational Leadership, the state's school administrator organization, of a lawsuit that would challenge the property-based funding system.

Though there have been only "minute improvements" in equity since the last court decision, says Larry Klundt, the president of the council, "things don't seem bad enough to win a lawsuit."

On the accountability front, North Dakota has yet to finance a statewide assessment linked to state standards. Currently, the state mandates that all public schools use an off-the-shelf, norm-referenced test; the results are reported annually in the school district profiles.

With federal aid, the state has drafted an assessment for new language arts standards, but the exams have been used in only a few districts so far. State mathematics standards are expected to be released this year after two years of development and public comment, and, again with federal funds, the state plans to pilot an assessment. The North Dakota education department intends to ask the legislature for $1.1 million this year to subsidize a statewide assessment program for both the math and language arts standards.

"Personally, I think it has gotten to the time to pass a [testing program]," Rep. RaeAnn Kelsch, the GOP chairwoman of the House education committee, says, "but it depends on the content of the test and how the bill reads."

Traditionally, state legislators have been reluctant to loosen the purse strings for testing, arguing, in part, that the state's 116,800 public school students are too few to make such a program cost-effective. In the 1997 legislative session, the proposed Myrdal Fund for Excellence, an initiative of Gov. Schafer's, would have formed a task force to examine the possibility of adopting another state's standards and assessments. But the bill was defeated.

Given the downturn in the state's agricultural economy last year, the legislature might be even more frugal with its education funds this session.

Yet, to see North Dakota's students as underaccomplished would be entirely mistaken. The state performs near the top on national tests, and often it seems that the main worry of the state's education leaders is whether its students will beat out Montana and Maine in the next National Assessment of Educational Progress. In part, North Dakota's high scores on the national sampling of students in core subjects are due to the demographic advantages of the state, where only 13 percent of children are poor. Moreover, the governor said in his March 1998 budget address that he "boast[s] to other governors that 86 percent of our students live with two-parent families."

The state is scheduled next fall to distribute for public comment its revised teacher standards in math, science, reading, English, and education leadership. The state re-examines those standards every five years. But state leaders concede that in this go-round, not many revisions have been made, except in teacher-candidate assessments, where more performance-oriented exams have been suggested to the teacher education colleges.

A study released in 1997 by the state higher education board found that teachers in North Dakota were the least likely in the nation to pursue a higher degree. Only 18 percent of the state's teachers have a master's, compared with 47 percent nationally. The reasons cited by researchers were varied, including that teachers fear taking more training because low-wealth districts cannot afford the associated pay raises. Most prominently, the study warned that "the environment for graduate education in North Dakota is obscured by the success of its K-12 students." To address the problem and implement solutions, the higher education board in 1997 established the Council for Teacher Education, which began operating last year.

In another attempt to enhance the state's teaching corps, Gov. Schafer last fall proposed to pay the costs for teachers to undergo certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. His plan calls for subsidizing the $2,000 fee for 10 teachers in 1999-2000 and 30 more teachers the following school year. Those who earn certification as master teachers would also receive $5,000 salary increases per year, apart from their regular wage hikes.