Thirteen Iowa institutions and organizations applied to serve as regional STEM network hubs, which will physically house the coordinating centers and their network hub managers.  A review panel selected by the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council Executive Committee recommended the six finalists to Branstad, who accepted the recommendations without changes.

The six hubs are:

Northwest hub – Iowa Lakes Community College
Northeast hub – University of Northern Iowa
North central hub – Iowa State University
Southwest hub – Southwestern Community College
Southeast hub  – University of Iowa & Kirkwood Community College
South central hub  – Drake University
 

“These six regional STEM network hubs will be the driving force offering Iowa youngsters more opportunities to learn about STEM, which will better prepare them to someday consider STEM careers,” Branstad said. “STEM fields are among the fastest-growing, with many jobs that pay well.”

Supported by No Child Left Behind Waivers and movements across the country to look at performance based pay for teachers, several states have been looking at ways to change how teachers are evaluated. The changes are supported by federal programs including Race to the Top which requires performance based provisions to be part of educational systems in order to apply for merit-based grant funding.

The Louisiana package being put forward by Governor Jindhal would reduce considerations for seniority and tenure focusing instead on student performance. The package would also expand an existing state plan that provides vouchers for charter school tuition.

Teachers have flooded the state capital, protesting the reforms, calling them unfair to teachers.

In Iowa, Governor Branstad is encouraging legislators to “be bold,” on passing reforms. Education has been a key focus of the Branstad administration and the Governor has been very vocal in his wishes for change.

Currently teacher evaluations happen every three years, under the new bill formal evaluations would continue on that timeline with yearly peer review evaluations happening every year. High school seniors would also be required to pass a skills test before graduating high school.

Since the waiver program was announced by the Obama administration more than half of states have applied to opt-out of several provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. Iowa applied for the waiver noting that the federal accountability system imposed by No Child Left Behind was more focused on failing urban centers, and left out rural schools which accounts for many of the schools in Iowa.

The Act also requires 100 percent of students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, a goal which many educators have said is unrealistic given the current system and resource constraints.

The state also plans to change the way it conducts teacher evaluations. Current state and federal laws require a formal evaluation be completed every three years. The state will preserve that requirement but also implement peer reviews in the years between formal evaluations.

The changes are viewed as a compromise as many parents and state officials have called for yearly teacher evaluations but school administrators have noted that the amount of time and resources involved in conducting yearly formal evaluations would have an adverse impact on already strained education budgets. The peer reviews will not be recognized as formal evaluations but officials hope that they will improve overall teacher quality and development on a slightly faster time line than a performance review that only happens every three years.

All of these measures will have to be approved by the state legislature. Education funding is currently being debated, with Republican lawmakers slashing a $17 million proposal for more funding from the Governor. If that is allowed to stand any new reforms passed will go unfunded in this cycle.

Ohio is launching the first ever state-led initiative to provide a statewide 100 Gigabits (Gbps) per second broadband network. The state wants to leverage its existing medical research and university network to bring companies and funding into the state in order to create jobs and grow the economy.

Under a recently approved agreement with Cisco and Juniper, Ohio will invest approximately $10 million to lay over 1,800 miles of fiber, and increase its current 10 Gbps capacity to 100 Gbps. At this speed, every one of Ohio’s 1.8 million enrolled K-12 students could download an eBook simultaneously in just over two minutes.

At the event, Governor Kasich noted that in a hospital setting at this speed, “300,000 x rays could be transferred in one minute, 8.5 million electronic medical records could be transferred in one minute.”

This expansion leverages the fiber optic network operated by OARnet, a member of the Ohio Board of Regents Ohio Technology Consortium. The 100 Gbps network will connect Ohio’s major metropolitan areas to northern and southern connection points of Internet2, a nationwide advanced networking consortium led by the research and education community, spanning U.S. and international institutions who are leaders in the worlds of research, academia, industry and government.

So far, the network is gaining traction with the private sector, Cisco has recognized the network as transformative for the state. Venture capital firm Kliner Perkins has also invested in medical research in the state.

State officials are working with both the university system and the hospital system to create a medical corridor that will run on the new network and leverage existing facilities such as the state’s world class medical simulation center in order to attract research dollars and new businesses.

“We want to build a medical corridor and become a hub for technology like neuromodulation,” the Governor said.

In 2010, Colorado passed a bill that established a new education panel that would examine existing evaluation standards and create new ones more focused on performance. The bill was considered controversial at the time, but their resulting recommendations have been met with broad approval. The bill signed into law this morning by Governor Hickenlooper reflects the work of the panel that has been approved by the state board of education so far.

Under the new standards, student test scores will account for 50% of teacher evaluations. Additionally, teachers that have been deemed ineffective over two separate evaluations will not be eligible for tenure or can lose tenure if they already have it.

The law is also expected to force a shift in how the state handles standardized testing. According to the Denver Post more than 70% of teachers do not have a standardized test for their grade level but the state is working on developing suitable assessments. School districts in the state have until 2015 to implement all of the new requirements.

As CivSource previously reported, several states are grappling with out to make changes to teacher evaluations to make them more performance focused. However, the efforts are not without controversy. Teachers unions have continually raised objections to a performance focused model claiming that more qualitative factors tell the story of an individual teacher’s capability.

In order to get federal funds under Race to the Top, states are required to perform annual teacher evaluations and submit performance data to the US Department of Education. Movements are also going forward in some state court systems to make this performance data available to the public, creating new challenges for school districts as they are caught between employee privacy and the public’s right to know.

This morning, New York City and the United Federation of Teachers struck an historic deal on teacher evaluations in order to make the city eligible for Race to the Top funds. The union opposed a new ratings system proposed by the city that would make teacher evaluations public, saying that teachers had a right to privacy and that the ratings system lacked a sufficient appeals process.

New York’s Governor Cuomo also announced a separate deal with teachers unions statewide over a new ratings system that will govern all other districts and make the state eligible for federal funds.

Governor Susana Martinez met with regents, governing board members and post-secondary institution presidents yesterday, to unveil the new funding formula for higher education. Currently, some higher education funding allocations are made based on the size of the institution. Other funding is allocated based on the number of courses and degree programs started. The Governor plans to change that and tie more funding to student performance.

Going forward funding will be allocated past on the number of courses and degree programs completed. Institutions will also receive funds for graduating students in high-demand fields such as science, technology, engineering, health and mathematics.

“For the first time in the history of New Mexico, the younger generation is less educated than the generations before,” said Higher Education Secretary Jose Garcia. This is he result of funding allocations that incentivized higher education to build new buildings to gain more money instead of focusing on educational programs. Higher education institutions in the state have agreed to stop all new building for two years while they examine the formula changes.

The Governor will also be allocating $5.5 million to K-12 education according to a new A-F performance grading system for schools. Each school will be graded on the new system and funding awards will to to the highest performing schools. Schools will get their first round of grades this week.

Schools with the lowest grades D’s or F’s will also receive funding on an improvement oriented basis. Up to $3.4 million of the $5.5 million allocation has already been set aside for those schools. The money will go to attracting better teachers and paying for facilities improvements. High performing schools may win awards of up to $50,000 to support their efforts.

The Governor is allowing the application to go forward as part of his focus on education. However, he has stated that if the funds come with any additional requirements or includes too much federal involvement he will reject the funds. The state is eligible for up to $100 million under the program.

Governor Scott has made education the central focus of his administration but has had harsh criticism for the Race to the Top program. Only four states are eligible for the program and Florida is one of them. If approved for funds the state plans to use the money for early education programs for high-risk children. Scott wants the funds to be a one-time influx of cash that will be broken up into smaller awards spread statewide.

Florida’s application insists on a one time funding boost and explicitly states that the state will reject any longer term program requirements. The state will also reject the funds if the tax payer burden is deemed to be too high or if any restrictions against private business are included.

The state expects that the new law will add 2,500 students to the pool of eligible applications for Cal-Grants, this addition amounts to 1% of all available aid in the $1.4 billion program. The law overturns a veto of the same bill by former Governor Schwarzenegger.

The passage of this bill in California is a significant move as a similar bill is being considered at the federal level. Under the federal bill, high school students would be eligible for discounted in-state tuition rates and limited student visas to attend college. Tens of thousands of students in the United States have been brought into the country illegally by their parents and are currently attending school in the K-12 grades.

“Going to college is a dream that promises intellectual excitement and creative thinking. The Dream Act benefits us all by giving top students a chance to improve their lives and the lives of all of us,” Brown said.

New York City and the United Federation of Teachers have been fighting to keep the evaluations of its 12,000 teachers private, but earlier this year the State Supreme Court ruled that ratings must be made available. This decision was appealed and upheld by the New York Court of Appeals last month. The rulings have created a precedent for other districts across the state and may even establish a set of practices for other districts nationwide.

The ruling says that value-added ratings for teachers based on students’ standardized test scores must be released. The United Federation of Teachers claims that releasing these ratings is a violation of the personal privacy of teachers. However, supporters of the ruling and the courts have determined that as public employees, teachers are allowed afforded less privacy under the law.

The ruling notes that the public has a significant interest in knowing the overall performance of public school teachers. But, district offices say that providing this information presents a significant challenge, specifically the administrative cost tied up in separating sensitive information from the ratings, and providing ratings while all districts are still coming online in the evaluation process.

Several states are working on piloting new teacher evaluation systems and reconciling the information contained in them with freedom of information requirements. Appeals to overturn the ruling are expected to continue in New York and opponents are already working on asking for two years of data to be complete for comparison before releasing evaluations as an alternative option.

Recently, I’ve been traveling to various states to meet with gubernatorial candidates, new governors and their staffs. In the course of these discussions, several of the governors identified the link between higher education performance and their states’ success in creating the workforce of the future. States will be less able to retain major employers or attract new employers if they are not equipping students with the skills necessary to be successful in the workforce.

At Deloitte, we also recognize this challenge, if for no other reason than our own significant human capital needs. That is one of the reasons why we have selected education as the foundation for our corporate social responsibility program. I’m particularly proud of the relationship we have with the College Summit, which is focused on encouraging and equipping inner city students to get into college, and to be successful once they are enrolled.

Additionally, the Canadian member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited recently released a major study on higher education performance titled “Making the Grade: A Study of the Top 10 Issues Facing Higher Education Institutions.”

Those 10 issues impacting higher education are:

• As funding declines, cost management is key
• Competition to attract the best students is heating up
• It is important to set priorities carefully
• Higher education technology upgrades are essential
• A renewed focus on resource optimization is required
• Education programs need to be linked to outcomes
• It is vital to attract and retain talented faculty
• Enhancing environmental performance is a priority
• Tackling diversity, accessibility, and affordability is important
• Addressing new responsibilities requires better disclosure and transparency

You can see the study in its entirety here.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Mr. Robert N. Campbell III is Vice Chairman, Principal, Deloitte LLP and is the U.S. State Government Leader, based in Austin, TX

The Gallery is a forum for ideas and examination of matters facing state and local government. Readers, members of the media, academics or the business community are invited to submit guest columns to bailey{at}civsourceonline{dot}com. Member of the public sector? We’re interested in hearing from you too, learn about how you can contribute. CivSource does not endorse the views presented in The Gallery, but offers them in an effort to present more diverse coverage. CivSource will review all submissions but does not guarantee publication of all works submitted.