News Release: 'Reform SBDM, restore chain-of-command in schools," BIPPS CEO urges committee
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For Immediate Release: Monday, August 28, 2017
(WILLIAMSBURG, Ky.) — Bluegrass Institute president and CEO Jim Waters urged the Interim Joint Committee on Education to return balance to the process governing Kentucky’s public schools by reexamining the scope, authority and impact of School-Based Decision Making (SBDM) councils.
The SBDM policy, implemented as part of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990, has, in its current form, failed to demonstrably meet its mandate of improving student achievement in schools statewide, Waters told the committee in a hearing on Monday at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg.
“Considering this approach toward school governance is more than 20 years old and yet federal tests indicate that fewer than three out of 10 Kentucky eighth-graders do mathematics at a proficient level, where’s the evidence that the SBDM model in most schools statewide fulfills the mission envisioned for it by KERA of creating an environment where students achieve at high levels?” he asked in prepared comments taken from this testimony submitted to the committee.
Waters also remarked on the lack of demonstrable impact these councils have had in turning around persistently failing schools, now known as “Priority Schools, noting:
Of the 47 schools now in “Priority” status, 31 lost their site-based council authority somewhere during the “Priority” process; only two have gotten their SBDM authority back.
While nine of the remaining schools currently are eligible to get SBDM authority back this fall – depending on their academic performance during the 2016-17 school year – it’s revealing that each one had actually exit-ed “Priority” status in October 2015 yet did not have their site-based authority restored at that time.
“Were these schools given a ‘Get Out of Priority Status’ card too soon – before they re-established the ability to govern themselves?” Waters wondered. “Or, do those conducting the management audits of these schools and determining their status believe the councils themselves hindered needed reform?”
He pointed to the situation at Maupin Elementary, which, while being one of the first two “Schools of Innovation” in the Jefferson County District’s “District of Innovation” program, was a place “where the council and even the principal were unable to maintain control and keep a focus on the curriculum and many other important areas of school governance.”
The chaos in the curriculum in different classrooms shows the council failed in these major areas of responsibility,” Waters said.
Along with the need for updated research on how SBDMs function in Kentucky schools –no known significant study has been conducted since 2001 – Waters said policymakers need to question whether the KERA-mandated makeup of the councils, consisting of the principal, three teachers and two parents, is good for either teachers’ workload or parental involvement.
“Do teachers really have adequate time and training to satisfy all of the council demands and responsibilities while teaching a full class load?” Waters asked. “The six hours of training required for new school-based council members hardly seem adequate to prepare them to make informed decisions regarding finances, much less guide complex curriculum options, which are becoming more intense as digital learning programs replace traditional classroom approaches.”
He stressed that reforming the scope and authority of SBDMs is not an anti-teacher proposal. Rather, he said, it’s about recognizing important roles other stakeholders play.
“We believe a reestablishment of a clear chain-of-command within each district and school would result in schools where teachers are focused on teaching, kids on learning, principals on leading schools, superintendents on leading districts and school-board members on being accountable to the citizens in their communities who chose them for this oversight duty,” he said.
For more information, please contact Bluegrass Institute Staff Education Analyst Richard G. Innes at dinnes@freedomkentucky.com or 859.466.8198.