Utah Education Issues

Weird Waterford software and Imagine Learning software connection. Who's getting state contracts?

2012-01-22T23:09:00.009-07:00

1. I posted extensively a few years ago about when the failed UPSTART bill for free laptops for preschoolers, or "Welfare for Waterford" bill was dishonestly lumped into an omnibus bill of dubious constitutionality. http://utahedu.blogspot.com/2008/10/maybe-worst-bill-in-education-omnibus.html

It passed, and then Waterford Institute received a whole bunch of money after a Request For Proposals was specifically tailored to obtain their sevices. I would love some very solidly documented data on the demographics, locations, and initial Reading Scores of the students receiving these laptops. Then I would like the follow-up scores, and a comparison of the free laptop kids with the other students at their respective schools. Howard Stephenson, the omnibus sponsor, is all about accountability. Is this data available?

2. I posted once last year about how a local software company got a statewide contract (a mysterious statewide contract--I have never been able to track down where, when, and why it was granted) to provide software to help students learn English after making $12,000 in campaign donations to prominent local Republican legislators and the governor.
http://utahedu.blogspot.com/2010/08/local-educational-software-company-gets.html
Is there data available on how many schools used this software for how many students and how much they paid? What about comparable before and after scores? The program looks awesome, but do we know?

3. The Daily Herald printed a glowing profile of Imagine Learning today.
There were a few paragraphs profiling Susan Praetor, the Imagine Learning CEO, and she was a Vice President at Waterford Institute for 11 years. She specifically was the head of the team that developed the Waterford Software being used on the laptops for preschoolers. It's been years, but now she's the CEO who gets a state contract the year after Waterford and after donating $12,000 from her current company to influential politicians.

That is a really weird coincidence.

4. The Beverly Taylor Sorenson arts program was also part of that 2008 omnibus bill, but was one of the about-to-pass bills held hostage for the failed bills. The appropriated money got shaved by 1/3 during the recession, but this specifically designated program survived the hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts. The program seems great, both in terms of effective learning and in enriching school for kids when so much is being sacrificed for literacy and math test scores these days. Beverly Taylor Sorenson seems like a powerful advocate for the arts and an extremely generous philanthropist. I would love for my children to participate in her program integrating arts and other academic subjects. She was also the top political donor in the state in the 2010 election cycle.

The impressive program needs $4 million in new funding for next school year. What do you bet she gets it?

5. Initial conclusion: It doesn't appear bad programs are getting funded because of political contributions.

However, typically, education money from the state is sent to local districts to make spending decisions at the local level according to need. A lot of good programs exist to meet a lot of important needs, and not every company gets the contracts they desire.

It does appear that the key to getting your particular good program singled out for a contract and funded at the state level, before being sent on to districts, is to make significant financial contributions to local politicians and/or hire an influential lobbyist.

What do you think?

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Notes from the Utah Taxpayer's Association's pre-legislative conference

2012-01-19T23:27:00.004-07:00

I attended the mostly informative and interesting Utah Taxpayer's Association's pre-legislative conference this morning in the Senate Building. We met in the nice Room 210 with 3 large screens for the various powerpoints we saw. It was less than half full. I counted during the private golf presentations, and there were about 82 people in the room, with a couple coming in and out from the hallway. That is counting 4 people from 2 companies looking to manage or buy government golf courses, 2 ALEC people here for a press conference afterwards, a number of legislators who were presenting bills, charter school people - Chris Bleak who presented, Carolyn Sharette, Steve, Sheldon Killpack who presented - and a bunch of guys in suits. People left after presenting and others entered. The crowd may have topped out at 90 people.

I think there were fewer than 10 "regular" members of the public in attendance counting myself, and the rest were lobbyist/insider types there for work and looking out for their respective interests. For example, the nice gentleman I sat next to ended up being a policy director for the UEA, but I Googled his name right at the end and didn't get a chance to really talk to him. Another indicator of who the meeting was really about was the list of "sponsors" on the back of the agenda who apparently paid for the handouts, the muffins and juice at the door, and probably a room fee. (Meetings of affluent lobbying groups apparently have sponsors.) They were: Billy Casper Golf, a management firm who presented for 15 min. about allowing them to run government golf courses while causing other bills to be pushed off of the agenda, Red Leaf Resources, an oil shale firm who wants favorable laws, 2 companies wanting to manage or buy our state parks: American Land and Leisure and Recreation Resource Management, Questar Gas, and Rio Tinto--both of whom have various tax, regulation, and clean air laws frequently before the legislature. But they of course did this out of the goodness of their hearts, wanting nothing in return; and our legislators would never be influenced by this, even if these companies are in fact paying clients of Senator Stephenson and the Utah Taxpayer's Association. (A law firm specializing in business litigation, and environmental and mining laws, Parsons, Behle, and Latimer, "sponsored" the 2012 Fast Tax pamphlet which is actually a very cool summary of government taxes, fees, and revenue generators in Utah. But they don't want any influence. It is just part of their charitable outreach for politicians with printing needs.)

What citizen could be cynical about conflicts of interest in our state legislature? Conflicts of interest are products of the liberal media, unless we are talking about Barney Frank or Newt Gingrich. But the real point is to never let the Utah Taxpayer's Association's euphemistic name and rhetoric mask the fact that the group is really just a lobbying firm with secret clients that makes a handsome living for its few employees, chief among them longtime State Senator Howard Stephenson. The organization and its aims are not about regular citizens; it exists purely to lobby for laws that financially benefit its secret clients. If Senator Stephenson stepped down from his influential position in the legislature tomorrow, the Association's revenues would immediately plummet.

The notes are long and fairly rushed as it was hard to keep up sometimes. Royce Van Tassell, 2nd-in-command at the Taxpayer's Association under Stephenson, was the emcee of the event. He frequently gave short introductions of the speakers and/or bills. I often wrote the presenter's name, and then wrote VT for Van Tassell, followed by his introductory comment. Hopefully, it's not too confusing. [Comments in brackets are my own thoughts about what I am summarizing.] I indicate questions with a ? followed by the question. Assume answers come from the presenter.

A traffic jam on I-15 made me 10 min. late and I only caught the last bit of Speaker Lockhart's remarks.

My notes:
Sitting by Jay Blain. Googled him right at the end and he is a UEA bigwig. I wish I had known and talked to him a little more.

Lockhart and Waddoups - Some issue will pop up. Maybe national popular vote says Waddoups.

9:19 Dougall – New revenue worst of times b/c of many requests.
1-time money: $128 million 49 gen 79 in education fund
Ongoing revenue: $280 million, 91 general, 188 in ed fund

Immediate needs:
Structural deficit 52 mill
Public ed growth 41 mill
Medicaid 68 , 44 one-time
Other Medicaid 28 M, 18 M 1-time
Legal 14 mill 1-time
Bldg myce 53 mill
1%WPU increase $23 mill
Employee bees 37 mill
Pay down debt 85 1-time

These exceed revenue coming in, both types
Reserve funds, Rainy Day gen 122 mill Ed. 110 Disaster 12
Debt level graph, Stay below line slightly below limit. Excessive debt limits flexibility. What if other downturn? 7 yr cycle? Started May 2008, 3 ½ yrs from next downturn?
Increased revenue volatility. Sales, income, corporate tax volatility increasing. Sales huge increase in swing since 1935. Even bigger in income tax. Showing Powerpoint graphs. Jay Blain points out big down swing in income coincides with Flat Tax implementation in 2007.

Lyle Hillyard on phone – US lost bond rating. Utah has never lost. 2 of 5 criteria are worrisome. 1. How much $ from Fed.? Hill Air Force Base, other firms, like the money, can’t control this area. Can control 2. How close to bond limit? We stayed at 40% historically. Now at 85% for I-15 extra length opportunity. Not stay here, but back down to 40-50% like used to be. Pressure for state bldgs to keep bond limit high. We’re pleased w/ Rainy Day Fund. Volatility might need higher than 6% gen 8% ed fund levels. Gov can make budget rec’s alone, not consensus of leg. Only see Gov final product. People see our deliberations. Go to committee, not leaders. Priority list, hearings, public process. People panic. See tough decisions. Mid Feb brings final rev estimates. Concerned w/ challenges. Uintah Basin rev up says Sen Van Tassell. Done at 9:33

Privatization concerns, 3 items.
Sen. David Hinkins – Audit Gen fund $ reduced rec to State Parks. Reward park financial perf. Business plan updated annually, max revenues, minimize expenditures. Analyze capital investment. Use lower cost staffing, seasonal employees, overlap of support staff eliminate. Reduce law enforcement cost. Reduce #, limited status, sep entity for enforcement at dept level, reduce retirement. Audit recs consider closing high cost w/ low visits, transfer to local. Privatize some, which best? 4 golf courses, 42 state parks, some heritage parks, This is the Place—if cut $800,000 they will give park back to us. So better as is. Benefit to state. Benefit to taxpayers—expect recreation in Utah. Why live here. Not looking to close any, but streamline. American Land and Leisure run Strawberry Res. Concessionaires. Most people don’t know diff. Still good. Not actually turning parks to individuals to make profit, just concessionaires. Can do more efficiently in some cases. Test case at Otter Creek St Park right now w/ concessionaire. They say their bus partnership model working. Privatization premature. Audit made parks more accountable. Now show costs of each park. Responded to requests. Costs are down. Look at all alternatives.

Billy Casper Golf Pres: Douglas White and Mike Cutler, VP’s, Dan Parkinson citizen, and Billy Casper himself. About quality. Industry rounds played way down 10%. 4.6 mill lost golfers. How retain golfers? Price quality service in parks. OP model must stop taking tax subsidies. Myths of privatization: Rates increase state approves, Res lose access, conditions worse, loss of jobs (we seek good people), service suffers. We have lower costs, expertise, buying power of nat org, municipality not manage day-to-day. Muni funds all cap improvements. Profits retained by muni. 3010 yr contract + renewals. Increased rev examples across country. Billy Casper is fav son. He comes in to clinch the deal. “I’ve never been in front of such wonderful people dedicated to the service of your fellow man. Hope you can keep up with it. Great to be with you.”
Ques from man—If eliminate Daylight Savings Time, how affect rounds? We can be creative. Manage capacity, peak and low times. [No answer, just we’ll manage.]
? Which type of 3 options do you prefer with muni? I like lease. Give up control, but pay capital. But man agreement, you retain profits. Make most sense here. Of 70 muni course, nearly 50% are leases. Van Tassel cuts off ?’s. Other providers too. Here:

Mark Whetzel local golf course managed firm: I love Billy. Since 1990, golf demand up 5% while supply up 60%. We don’t pillage, take profits for 1 yr or 2, then leave. We like long term manage deals. Prefer 10 yrs. We have 3 in N Utah, 2 S Utah, 1 in Mesquite. We like to lease to own, take all risk.
?Utah has high% of golfers right?” So fertile ground right? Yes.

[40 42. 82 people counting 4 golf company dudes, Billy, Legislators, presenters. Represent Utah?? How many lobbyists in the room?]

Rep. Ryan Wilcox – DABC restructuring. “Misdirection” powerpoint. Chuckle to self. I was an intern, then in leg. I was not happy to find myself selling alcohol as leg. I am religion against drinking. Force all Utahns into bus. Justifications. But we’re not measuring right things. DUI’s down and justification. Compared to other states we’re not doing that well b/c our low #’s mask problems. Where drunk? Why? Where teens getting? Why? Who’s irresponsible? Need to measure more and base policy on right metrics. 12 leg audits in past 2 yrs of DABC. Bad corruption and management. Big rev stream not reason for agency or justification. Always looking to sell more. Not just prob w/ last few directors—culture spans 30 yrs. Plan: Not relinquish control, but not a wholesaler or retailer. Focus on what actually reduces teen drinking, DUI’s family consequences. Use new measurement standards. We want to take baby steps, trying to talk to all parties. [Golf guy orange sweater leaves.]

VT – Water even hotter topic than alcohol. How to pay and change long term usage and needs.
Sen. John Valentine: Water allocation based on prior beneficial use. But no system on how to pay for that water. True cost of projects, delivery, and resource itself is masked b/c paid for by prop taxes. When I started in House in 1988, I saw that costs were intended to be masked. Jurisdictions say can’t do water projects on rates b/c not predictable, but say predictable enough for operations. Disconnect. Drafting bill now – phase out over 5 yr period prop taxes to water projects. Will increase water rates, but not cost of water b/c of prop tax decrease. [Kills renters??] Rural Utah cannot fund just fro rates, esp. w/ fed gov lands. CUP has big influence. Many details to work out. We should pay for water’s true cost and use, not masked in prop taxes. Low on details.
? How affect proj to dam Bear River planned 30 yrs? Should pay w/ water rates so recog cost. We hide allocation and use as if not scarce. If proj will go, has 5 yr window, then must be financed by rates.
? Across board, all users? I want to. But may have to compromise.
? Why should leg tell communities how to price services? Leg has respon for nat resources of state. City owns water right, but state has vital interest in nat resource. Can’t say air above city is only respon of city.
? How will this extend to water districts which already levy taxes? Not transparency in their budgets? These are Water Conservancy and Special districts. Must have trans period to ensure no bond defaults. [People leave after water discussion]

Chris Bleak – Head of State Charter School Assoc. – Ed is critical to state. We need fantastic ed system. Charters have grown at rapid rate since 10-12 yrs. 81 charters currently, 45,000 now, 50,000 students next yr. Lumped as 5th or 4th biggest district. Students chosing b/c so good. Focusing on disadvantaged students. Carolyn Sharette has 2 schools in SL Valley. For new immigrants. PProvide comp. 7.6% of all students. Facilities are biggest charter problem. Critical to way teach. They pay much higher % rate than normal districts. Districts can use full faith and credit state’s AAA credit rating.3 3.5 4 % Charters paying 7, 7.5, 8% despite state schools. Original charter ideas of renovating existing bldgs is not feasible b/c school bldg codes too strict. $ back to east coast bond firms. 1. Working with State Treasurer, Richard Ellis, Valentine, industry folks, to allow “moral obligation” AA rating which would save $100,000 to $150,000 per year for carters. 2. Only to those w/ strong track record of finan success, fgood management. Need Investment Grade Rating—many in state have now. No charter in country has failed in 20 yrs w/ Investment Grade Rating. Even with 2 economic downturns. 3. Create funding, State Charter Reserve Acct. Pay premium from rates to create insurance if there were a problem to protect state. Currently required to have 1-yr reserve anyway, other protections. Save $150-200 k yr per $10 mill in debt. More than 100 k in transaction fees. More buyers b/c more attractive bonds.
? W/ reg schools, district is responsible entity. Charters, the Assoc. is respon entity? Group that gets charter is governing board. Have open meeting, reporting req.s Non-profit. They bond for their school. ? WPU funding follows all students? [Weird question.] This is a state funded public school. Income $ follow. Charters manage operations off WPU.
?What is context of “moral obligation” that gets ;lower rate? State responsible if default? Some Steve guy with Bleak– County provided rate for 9 charters but not respon. Moral oblige for all students. ? Why bank would give 3% less? Not contractually required for state to back loan. But I believe state would. So better rate b/c of State's "almost" promise.

Sen. Howard Stephenson – Anti-voucher Student Opp Scholarship. Universal vouchers rejected. Unions sent out-of-state $ to say rich kids getting voucher, voters heard advertising and voted down. [Pro-voucher out-of-states sent MORE. Documented. He thinks people are brainwashed if disagree with him.] Somewhat legitimate argument that many best and brightest would leave. When I visit teachers, I ask what is biggest challenge? [When and where?] They almost always say 2-3 most diff students whether behavior - I was one of those - or low scores. I could really focus on other 24 in my room w/o the hard ones. This bill is focused soley on those 3-4 kids. If parents want to add $, they should eb able to. Not many priv schools that accept below grade level, but some. Cath schools want ELL and low performers, We can teach effectively. This will create market for new priv schools. Tax credit allowable if you donate to 501 scholarship orgs, you get 100% tax credit w/ “certain limits.” They will then grant schools w/ req’s for parents to pay part, skin in the game. Takes diff kids out of school system. Why not wait 10 yrs b/c voters rejected school choice? Arizona law was found legal by Supreme Court. OK to give public $ to vouchers, even religious schools. That’s why this bill this year. Myself and sev other legislators. Right time. Give lowest what they need b/c falling between cracks. The name has a ring to it, not a voucher. Already have Carson Smith special needs scholarship. This could be Carson Smith 2.0. Straw poll: Anti-voucher or Carson Smith 2.0. Like 1 person vs. 5 people. Most don’t raise hands. Stephenson laughs at own joke.
1 vote guy ? Union opp? Yes, already. ? School boards USOE support? No. How funded? Would take income tax credits that otherwise would have gone to public school student. System will actually have more money for studs that remain, positive fiscal note. [Billy leaving]

Sen. Margaret Dayton – Thanks to Royce and UTA. What to name Howard’s bill. Call it Student Opp Scholarship, SOS. 6-8 yrs ago opened bill to use ACT as eval for grad preparation. To compare to nation. Seemed like good idea b/c of state $ on state test. State Board sais ACT not allow that and couldn’t afford that. Former state sen. Dave Thomas, current State School Board member, now asked me to run bill to use ACT in place of UBSCT. Has multiple pos effects. 10th graders realize what need to work on or realize they are capable. Bill passed ed. interim committee. Stephenson amended bill to include another test, a military test for students who anticipate post-high school ASVAP? Ed, but not college, free to states. Still State Board rules. Concern is maybe military cuts will cut free tests. But state of Utah will provide readiness testing. Can save money through some sort of applying money toward test costs. [Didn’t understand.] Anticipated will pass quickly.

Sen. Wayne Harper – [Didn’t understand all of this.] Online retailer and phone comp must notify buyer of obligation to pay use tax. Nexus tax says if physical presence in Utah, must pay some taxes here. Like Cabela’s kiosks for online orders. Help people comply with law and make it easier for them to know. Mark Griffin – Internet industry guy – Hard for online companies b/c of diff state rates, agri taxes, school supply exemptions, etc. One state location cost us $350,000 and 2 months of programmer time to meet tax req’s. We oppose state piecemeal proposals b/c of implementation costs. Prob w/ those proposal. Putting another hurdle, info, on web transaction hurts “conversion” of want to sale. If do it on invoice, (other states want to do too) also has cost which may be more than tax collected. We get customer service calls. Cust serv calls from Utah cost us $5. [Really??] Internet not same as cash register. We need fed standard which we are working on. Nexus bill problems – This makes us collect tax to hire service guy in Utah. We stop employing Utah subcontractors to save $. State systems not good.

VT and Rep. Hughes introduce and praise Dr. Nick Trombetta. Hughes – Revolves around turf wars. We spend $3 bill yr. on ed. in Utah including all jurisdictions’ taxes. Adults fight over adult systems. This guy came to reform diff way. He was principal and Wrestling Coach in Midland, Penn, outside Pittsburgh. When steel mill disappeared, killed taxes and school. One school district. No other dist wanted cost of bussing and teaching. Students were shipped to Ohio. Trombetta would send wrestlers running down street to show public they exist. Sent from dist to dist. Midland kids would be sports, valedictorians, parents complain. Tom Ridge allowed charter schools. He is a Democrat. Dist sued over 70% costs paid to charter school. System worked. 40,000 students in 20 states getting online school from Trombetta. 11,000 in Penn on online curric. He came up against great opp b/c of turf, who controls. I want you to meet someone than for any other reason for those kids in that town. I want to see that model expanded in Utah.

Nick Trombetta – I am the son of Italian immigrants who came after WWII. My dad worked at steel mill. He taught me that good ed. is great equalizer, the American ticket to the American promise. Where you live matters in what quality of ed. you receive. We lost $ for ed programs in my town. Neighbors wouldn’t help. We had to buy services from another state. 25 person grant attracted national attention. Many wanted. In 4th yr, Rick Santorum enrolled his kids and enrollment grew to 4,000. We dedicate lives to help kids get ed. whether online or brick and mortar. In New Mexico yesterday, reservation kids online best students in area. I am a proponent of school choice and should receive bipartisan support. When inject free market, parents’ choice, good things happen to public schools too. In Penn 10 yrs ago, under Dem Gov Rendell, charters increased a lot. Opponents said 3 things would happen: 1. Will hurt pub ed and test scores down. 2. Teachers will lose jobs. 3. Dry up cash, take money away. But 3 things happened during Rendell– 1. Test scores went up statewide. 2. More teachers in Penn with less students. (Must look at that.) 3. Record surpluses. [B/C of charters or economy??]

VT – Should we be paying districts for students who left?
Sheldon Killpack – Work w/ Academica West, Charter school management – In Utah, income tax goes to operations of pub schools. Prop tax goes toward facilities. When charters created, WPU was easy. Send to charters. How make up for prop tax issue when students leave? Easiest solution rather than battle of districts taking money to follow child. What otherwise would have followed child, leg made in lieu money. This money comes off top, fund in lieu taxes, unfair to districts w/o lots of charters. Leg decided to take at least 25% of prop taxes for students. Worked. State still over $70 mill for charters. 13 yr phase in Rep. Menlove’s bill. New students’ will get prop taxes from districts into charter pot. Districts will get off top income tax money back. Local prop. $ will follow child. There is flexibility w/ funds from WPU, not from districts, Give districts flex to use prop tax money. Why don’t districts want more? Why not plan diff, fewer bldgs, more for operations. Allows parity of opportunity for districts and charters. HB 313. Money follows child.

Rep. Jim Neilson – Severance tax biggest thing of leg. Const amendment. When we sever nat resources from ground, one-time sev tax. Was put into permanent trust fund. Takes ¾ vote and Gov sig. to spend money. Only for more serious emergencies. More diff to use than Rainy Day funds. Only done once slightly after Olympics—not paid back. Some 2008 const amendment allowed leg to divert $ BEFORE going to trust fund by only majority fund. One-time monies. If we spend sev tax fund today, not there for urgent need tomorrow. New Const. Amendment to fix.

Sen. Wayne Niederhauser – Procurement code. [No idea what this is.] No major changes since 1979 American Bar Assoc. code changes. Will adopt much of modern lang. in 2000 Bar standards. Lots of clean-up. [Didn’t listen well here.] Bad code makes bad media stories. Teeth for intentional violation of procurement code.

Sen. Stuart Adams – Energy incentives.

Sen. Ben McAdams – VT says get districts out of business of helping local developers. Muni’s can charge up to 1% extra state sales tax. 50% to location of sale and 50% to location of population. $100 spent at Gateway. Local option 1%. $1 collected. .50 to SLC and .50 to statewide fund distributed based on population. SLC gets 8% of that other .50. Rough formula, not scientific, realizing population has costs. Fairly reflective of where needs fall. Mostly fair. SLC #2 in nation in daytime pop increase. 180,000 to 350,000 each day. Costs w/ that. 600 S. use 90% by non-res, police, fire, etc. Ran formula that SLC spends $280 on non-residents. [Seems fishy to me] Bro would have to spend $56,000 to make that in retail tax. Retail doesn’t do all. Tax incentives and population coming sometimes cancel out increased retail. Cities chase too much sometimes. Working w/ Rep. Nielson and Hughes, Sen. Stephenson. Add a component along w/ point of purchase and population. Add job wage $ to calculation, so not reject good jobs with costing facilities. Figure out dist. of wages and distribute some sales tax on that. Cities worried, don’t want civil war between cities. Only accept if new revenue on table. There is a federal movement to require online retailers to collect online sales tax. IF that happens, we should change dist. formula. We would see 5-10% increase. Law triggers IF fed. Law passes.

VT Sen Madsen is neighbor of mine. SB 27 film bill got wrapped up this morning.
Madsen – I’ve been working for 3 yrs on film issue. Text at 5:30 this morning that is resolved. I’ve been trying to help largest independent movie studio in world, Raleigh Studios, lots of cities, for 3 yrs. Wanted to come to Utah. Came to state about draconian local land use authority, could use only 1/6 of space. Tried to help over years. People are sovereigns. Delegate little auth to state, which then delegates further to local level. Some say leave “local tyrants.” Leg not accountable for that. I disagree. State has responsibility to ensure no gov in state turns into tyrants. How many movies could have been made in 3 yrs? How many jobs in that time? [Only money matters] If only gov understood, value of time. Gov not understand. [Lots of irony here about leg tyranny??]

Rep. Patrick Painter – HB 41 Simplify Taxes on Personal Property. Will help small business owners. Reduce audits.
? Prevent muni’s from raising other taxes to offset losses from bill? May very slightly affect prop taxes on all businesses and home owners. Makes it easier to do business.

David Crapo – SB 27 Taxpayers Right to Refund Some court ruled that individual had no right to ask for erroneously collected taxes if a vendor charged wrongly, gave to state. State not responsible if state didn’t make mistake. This amends code. State can give back even if vendor makes mistake. Puts burden on state to justify keeping $. Retroactive to help past claims.

VT Casey Anderson is w/ Speaker Lockhart, so not talking. Jonathan Williams and Megan Archer will do Utah Taxpayer’s Assoc. news conference in 15 min at cap bldg.

Stephenson and Utah Taxpayer Association's pre-legislative conference agenda: A voucher by any other name...

2012-01-11T23:54:00.006-07:00

Long time, no blog. I'm Twittering now and again for shorter examples of the hammer coming down on Utah Public Education from powerful legislators. @UtahTeacher

Saw the Utah Taxpayers Association's agenda for their pre-legislative conference today. Lots of coded voucher varieties and increase of state control over education. Reduce local district funding and control to give the legislature more power with less opposition.

http://www.utahtaxpayers.org/?p=4153
http://www.utahtaxpayers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Tentative-PreLeg-Agenda-Agenda.pdf

Some items from the pdf agenda:
10:00 Ed. Savings Accounts = Super "Backpack funding" = vouchers that students could just keep the money if they graduated early, also they virtually eliminate districts as entities and totally gut district programs, busing, Special Ed., ELL, magnet programs, closes schools in poor areas
Further info...
Further spin...
(Talking points = It's for the children vs. greedy teachers/districts, reward high achievers, family controls education, strategically ignore effects of destroying district programs = money directly to kids will solve all problems and provide all needed)

10:05 Anti-voucher Student Opportunity Scholarship = Tuition Tax Credits = vouchers from front end of funding rather than back
10:20 HB 15 Statewide Adaptive Testing = test multiple times per year with low statistical "validity" (tied to performance pay/value-added measures) -- there is good to these as instruments, but rhetoric behind implementation and reality of multiple administrations and use as an objective data comparison = problems
10:25 Charter School Bonding - Charters get permission to use public bonds? Screw districts?
10:30 SB 10 College & Career Readiness Assessments = New UBSCT = ACT?, eventual financial penalties for schools
10:35 Eliminating Funding for Phantom Students (presented by Sheldon Killpack??)-- Their dishonest way of saying local district bonding authority will be eliminated and sales tax increased to provide more $ for charter schools. Local control is only sacred when opposing Obama.
11:05 SB 27 Taxpayers Right to Refund -- No idea, but most likely more income tax taken from schools, right?

"Boxcar bills" waiting until the last two weeks to start big education budget battles

2011-02-22T01:18:00.005-07:00

I've been torn lately -- so much going on at the legislature and so little time to write about it. The small government loving Utah legislature has proposed 109 bills related to education for the 2011 legislative session. That is not counting the 19 abandoned bills at the bottom of the page or other education related bills not labeled as such like Rep. Draxler's bill HB 25 using "excess" oil and gas taxes to create "petroleum literacy" materials for elementary schools.

There are also numerous "boxcar" bills (meaning they have a name and a number, but the sponsor has not chosen to allow anyone to read the text of the bill yet with only 2 1/2 weeks remaining of the session ) sitting like timebombs, waiting to be sprung onto the floor "under suspension of the rules," which means they can be rapidly debated on the floor with no committee hearing to allow public comment and which also prevents the public and legislators alike from having time to read and understand the bill before it gets voted on. Some of these bills I've been watching finally received text on Monday, Feb. 21, Presidents Day.

There are multiple final education budget battles looming as likely candidates for last minute shenanigans, including again stealing locally voted funds for charter schools, de facto vouchers as "backpack" funding, funding for reading programs for K-2, actually funding growth instead of just moving funds around and claiming to fund new students, or completely removing the ability for local districts to raise taxes while increasing the sales tax on food, which is of course controlled and distributed by the state legislature. Watch Howard Stephenson who has a history of anti-education last-minute tactics and also has a bill tucked away intended to make school board elections partisan. Rep. Merlynn Newbold is his frequent partner in crime, initiating Stephenson's ideas as bills in the House -- like HB 313, an empty boxcar bill replacing the Charter School Finance Amendments bill Stephenson abandoned -- so it isn't as obvious how much Senator Stephenson is single-handedly manipulating education policy in Utah.

Here are some doozies to watch out for. These are all boxcar bills as of Feb. 21 if they are listed, unless I explain when the bill was made public next to the item on the list. You can sign up at the bottom of each link to receive email updates if and when these bills become active. Notice how many have vague titles about "amendments" and "modifications" which lets the legislator stick in anything they want at the last minute.

H.B. 65 Public School Funding -- Harper, W. Received text last week. Financial mumbo-jumbo that would usurp some local taxing control.
H.B. 123 K-12 Education Amendments -- Sumsion, K. Received text yesterday. This bill would totally change the whole basis of how the state distributes education funding, likely giving more to charter schools. It would also shorten terms for school board members. No big deal to hold it until the end.
H.B. 145 Education Amendments -- Eliason, S.
H.B. 151 Compulsory Education Amendments -- Briscoe, J. Received text last week. Would make kindergarten non-optional.
H.B. 290 Public School Transportation Amendments -- Wimmer, C.
H.B. 301 School District Property Tax Revisions -- Newbold, M. Received text last week. Another example of the legislature taking away local tax control and giving the power to themselves.
H.B. 302 Reading Program Amendments -- Newbold, M.
H.B. 307 Public Broadcasting Funding -- Herrod, C. Though Chris Vanocur has already revealed the liberal plot on this one.
H.B. 313 Charter School Funding Amendments -- Newbold, M.
H.B. 339 Charter School Enrollment Amendments -- Hutchings, E.
H.B. 346 Provisional Teaching Modifications -- Herrod, C.
H.B. 377 Higher Education Textbook Fairness Act -- Cox, F. Aimed at specific companies or increasing conservative leaning texts?
H.B. 388 Financial Oversight of Charter Schools -- Herrod, C.
H.B. 426 Education Funding Amendments -- Pitcher, D.
H.B. 427 Education Modifications -- Newbold, M.
H.B. 443 School Business Administrator Amendments -- Richardson, H.
H.B. 447 Modifications to Education -- Dee, B.
H.B. 455 Land Exchange Distribution Account Amendments -- Noel, M. Presumably related to this dust-up over HB 98 where Noel wants to further remove local control from counties. (Click on the Floor Debate audio file to hear his rant) Related to HB 400 yet another boxcar which Rolly references?
H.B. 464 State-Supported Voted Leeway Program Amendments -- Briscoe, J.
S.B. 4 Current School Year Supplemental Minimum School Program Budget Adjustments -- Buttars, D. C.
S.B. 78 Public School Early Graduation Counseling -- Buttars, D. C. Received text yesterday. Actually seems like an easy, good idea rather than eliminating 12th grade.
S.B. 163 School Restructuring -- Stephenson, H. Stephenson bragged on his radio show that this bill is intended to close down a set number of schools each year. No need to consult the teachers on this one, let alone the parents. Great candidate for a rushed debate.
S.B. 210 Utah Postsecondary Proprietary School Act Amendments -- Bramble, C. Received text yesterday. One of two or three bills Bramble is running about the regulation and taxation of private schools and training programs. I have no idea what these bills will do, but I smell a tax break for "economic development."
S.B. 217 Education Policy Amendments -- Bramble, C.
S.B. 224 Partisan School Board Elections -- Stephenson, H. Of course a "school board elections" bill run by the chair of the Senate Education Committee was not labeled education. Easy to miss this one.
S.B. 227 Student Based Funding for Public Education -- Liljenquist, D. "Backpack" funding. The PCE and charter lobbyists will hit hard for these pseudo-vouchers when this bill is unveiled in the near future.
S.B. 241 Tuition Waiver Amendments -- Hinkins, D.
S.B. 245 Higher Education Tuition Revisions -- Valentine, J.
S.B. 256 Teacher Effectiveness Evaluation Process -- Adams, J. S.
S.B. 263 State Board of Education Powers Amendments -- Buttars, D. C.
S.B. 265 State Charter School Board Modifications -- Madsen, M. Unnecessary due to SB 140?
S.B. 278 School District Modifications -- Bramble, C.
S.B. 292 Private Institutions of Higher Education -- Valentine, J.
S.B. 304 Bullying Amendments -- Okerlund, R.
S.B. 305 Economic Development Through Education / Career Alignment -- Stephenson, H. Stephenson's 2.5 to 8 million dollar career web app and chat room that will convince undergrads not to be dance majors. And of course, IBM developed this one-of-a-kind software prototype at his request (meaning no private company has seen promise in making a for-profit chat room developed around career information easily searchable for free already), but Senator Stephenson "doesn't know" if they would win a bid for this service. We have seen this before.
S.B. 316 Disclosure of State and Institutional Trust Lands Information -- Niederhauser, W.

I am 99% sure I have missed some boxcars or recently posted bills, but here are at least 36 education-related bills which have either not been posted for public viewing or only received their text in the last week. These last two weeks could get even uglier for education in what is already the worst session in recent memory...

Virtual Vouchers bill, SB 65 by Howard Stephenson, passes committee -- My notes of the meeting

2011-02-10T00:24:00.005-07:00

I posted about the "Virtual Voucher bill" a couple of weeks ago. I was able to listen to the committee hearing for the bill yesterday, which went much longer than I expected.

Committee hearings are the background nitty-gritty of the legislature where 95% of the meaningful debate and education about bills occurs. Fewer legislators are present; those legislators have more leeway to ask questions and read supporting evidence about the bills; they have been in that ongoing committee and usually have more background and expertise on the subject matter than the legislature as a whole; and the public is allowed to comment which usually brings in further expertise and perspective not possible in the stilted parliamentary procedure of the legislative floor meetings tightly controlled by the Senate President and Speaker of the House. The floor debate usually just repeats talking points as a matter of course, very rarely actually changing anyone's mind. In the majority of debates, everyone already knows if the bill will pass or fail before it is brought before the body.

So the committee hearings are the place to get good background and info about a proposed bill. You can listen to the audio of the Feb. 8, 2011 meeting of the Senate Education Committee here.

However, it is over 90 minutes long. My notes will probably take you 10-15 minutes to read and cover all of the main points. They are definitely not perfect and I especially apologize to anyone's name I butchered. I listened to the hearing live and just tried to keep up as I took notes. If anyone feels my summarization misrepresents what someone said, let me know and I'll go back and listen.

I inserted a few comments of my own as I typed and a couple afterward as I looked over the notes. They are in brackets. Realize that there are two senators with similar names on the Senate Education Committee. Howard Stephenson is the sponsor of the bill. Jerry Stevenson is another member of the committee. My shorthand for their names will make sense if you know that.

My notes:
[Annoying because starts late with no warning, missed first part of Sen. Stephenson's comments.]

Stephenson - Some book says high school families will demand better than current.
Claims 3 time teacher of the year John Taylor Gotto said NY schools were intentionally designed for mediocrity because business bosses were threatened by social mobility and need for labor. System hurts kids. We can learn from that. We can respect learning styles much better than before.

Current factory model puts 30 kids in a cubicle and one adult trying to pour knowledge uniformly into different minds. Howard Gardner, multiple intelligences, no bell curve of intelligence. More efficient to teach to middle, bore some, lose some. Instead 3-D bell that is impossible for one teacher to reach. We can now respect diff styles through online learning. Brain research shows that self-directed learning is more rapid and deep than otherwise. Research in seminars. Synapses of brain connect when we make a choice and become a permanent connection when we receive feedback if we are correct or incorrect. If no feedback, synapses withdraw as if connection were never made. We need to provide immediate interactive feedback. Piaget said anyone could be highly proficient in math and science with immediate feedback. [A teacher online with no class size limit cannot provide this. A software program can only provide concrete answers and can't help much with process. Writing software is a joke.] Today it can be provided by computer. Tech is available today, bit not in classroom. Lack of vision for using these modern tools.

This bill allows students to get online instruction. Online provider is paid 60% at beginning of course, and 40% when student tests proficient. [Multiple choice tests?? Given by provider? Or will CRT be test?] We're trying to scale this in a reasonable way and not just open floodgates because we don't know how many will apply. So 2 credits available ion first year and more each year until reach 6 credits. Portion paid up front and remainder as competency proven.

Niederhauser asks for more explanation of provisions of bill.

Steph -- Definitions on pg. 4. Pg. 5 purposes of the program. Pg. 6 Option to enroll and phased scaling of program so ultimately option for student to get all credit through online means. this doesn't take away from fact there are established online schools. They will have to compete with other providers. Those I’ve talked with welcome the competition be/c can provide for other students that only want 1 or 2 course rather than whole year. Requirement for online providers to be authorized by law, State Office of Ed. Must be certified by State Board. Standards for online course providers. Then payment process. 60% up front, rest as competencies are proven. pg. 9 Plan for payment also identified. Requirement for course credit to be recognized. Then administrative things. Then we want to require a report on online course providers so we have transparency who is performing. Make available to public to decide who they want. Rule making by State board of Ed. Legislature will review results as ongoing.

Niederhauser acting as chair-- About 15 public people to talk about bill.

Superintendent Shumway -- I'm a strong believer that direction of this bill is the right direction. I appreciate intentions of sponsor. Is their a fiscal note? Or do you have any idea what it might be?

Steph: Not yet. I don't think it will be significant b/c not new funding. Takes current funding of students in schools.

Shumway: I met w/ Sen. Stephenson prior to meeting and discussed bill a lot. Primary area I hope Stephenson will be open to change is phasing language. To provide time to deal with problems I didn't anticipate. There are many options for phasing. I really hope you will be open to that discussion before going to floor.

Steph: I'm open. Currently, it was meant to not open floodgates. Dr. Shumway suggested to me with another way of phasing it. Maybe start w/ few districts and few providers.

Shumway: As my staff and I, I see significant rule-making and monitoring and support necessary. I want to do it in way that doesn't constrain intention of the bill to provide more online opportunity but provide for quality.

J Stevenson - I don't like idea of limiting, but I see necessity of making it not a burden on dept. of ed.

Shumway: I spoke with staff. Long line of things to be resolved: FERPA, transfers, special ed. Not to throw down roadblocks, but to work together on implementation.

Steph: This bill puts burdens on board to plow new ground with rules. 2 ways to get publicly funded school now: Online high school at state office and charter schools. I'm hoping we can expand as drastically as possible these opportunities. I believe making them make rules respects their constitutional prerogative to make rules over education.

Ashley Hanson: Student at open high school - I really love this school. Teachers, activities, getting to know people. Teachers email me back in 10 min. I can see my grades easily. Nied: All courses online? Ashley: Yes: Nied: When? Ash: Most of day until about 3:00.

Mother and teacher: My son went to 9th grade charter school in N. Utah, New Aims school. Sounded great. Big problem in first week with bussing. The charter school had to bus students from certain distance b/c was public school. [This seems fishy to me. Charter schools don’t have to bus students now. Have they ever?] Was a hard issue. If this is a charter school, taking public funds, is school responsible to provide internet access, computers, laptops, etc.? What if student wants online class and can't use school computer lab? Will online high schools be responsible for internet access and computers with certain specifications?

J Stevenson: New Aims is by Davis District and very successful.

Mom: They fell under state laws that they didn't understand.

Leslie Phillips, mother and electronic high school 4-yr teacher, 20-yr teacher overall: Teachers at elec high school have been discussing strengths and weaknesses of bill. I brought handout and summary of our concerns. I think one of the keys to online ed working is relationship w/ schools. We have great relationship w/ schools b/c we don't charge them. they provide computers, admin and counseling support. We share curric. Aims and Granite using our curric. If you take us out of service role and put us in competition w/ districts and schools, will hurt support and mean fewer opps to students. Example. I teach English 12, half are juniors who want to grad early encouraged by counselors. Law says can't discourage, but provides incentives to not encourage. Rigor of curric will also suffer. I teach eng and class is tough. My 1st duty is to students. But bring in for profit orgs and their duty is to share holders. 16-yr-olds will choose between easy and quality. For profit will play to those consumers and water down curriculum.

J Stevenson - Sen Stephenson has expressed worries about completion rates. Reason for 60 up front, but 40 after. What is elec high school completion rate?

Leslie - I don't know. Principal is here, she can tell you.

Kathleen Webb, prin of elec high school: Depends what you mean. In some online environments, they don't count students until in for a month., count all grades, including F as completion. We have in past measured since day in class, and whether they receive a credit. From 20% to 50%. If count as other online high schools, our grad rate would be higher.

J Stev: H Steph, what is your definition of credit?

H Steph: Get a credit.

J Stev: Based on that, what is rate %?

Webb: I don't know grad rate. We don't track that. About 7,000 students received funding last year.

Stev: That's uncomfortable.

Nied: Do you want to speak? No. How are you funded then?

Webb: We're a line item in budget. We received 3,000 FTE's. All courses of all students adds up to about 600 full-time students.

Jackie Warren w/ 14-yr-old daughter: My 14-yr-old daughter is in 9th grade. 6th grade honors after home school. Skipped 7th grade and went to 8th. She is in 9th. Her counselor suggested she go to online ed b/c she is too advanced. She is very frustrated w/ education system. She has ideas how to better school system in USA.

Nied: She should be legislator. (Laughs)

Warren: She's on her way. She wants to be a JAG officer in Marine Corp and go into politics form there. She has issues in school b/c 12th grade reading and comprehension level. 9th and 11th grade students don't know the word sarcastic. These students don't belong in school system. They don't know meaning of redundant or sarcastic. When counselor comes to me, that your student is too advanced, so go to online system, after I came to USA from Australia, which was bad--So we need online b/c US system is screwed up and we should go for it. But current bill doesn't allow that.

Female - ______ Meyer student: We are not currently retaining enough knowledge. Onoine school will help retain better, help slower do well and advanced accelerate, we should do it.

Laura Belnap, Principal of Online school Washington District: online ed for 9 years, my kids have used elec high school and other things, purchased software. Online ed is a complement to traditional. Traditional school is all or nothing, no options. Need flexibility, esp in cash-strapped system. Wonderful Bountiful photography teacher cut b/c of funding. Could do online. Provides options, ed w/o boundaries, but stable parameters. Online ed is no longer cutting edge, is now mainstream and probably the future. Thanks Sen Stephenson.

Elaina Tonks, direc of Open High School, one of 2 online charter schools: Misperception--charter schools are public schools. I take many calls from parents wishing one or two classes, especially health and biology classes. Schedules make this hard. Many advanced students don't fit into factory ssetem. Many others want a slower pace. We can leverage tech promise and meet the needs of every single student. At our school, we focus on student as individual. We have choices in every phase of our life. Can choose Harmans over Smiths, cars, gas, etc. Students and parents deserve to have a say in how their child is educated. Students deserve access to best courses and teachers. We put our stakeholder's report in handout w/ grad rates, scores, etc.

Kelly Broadbent, parent of Open High School student, former teacher, board member of school: My son Nathan had stumbling blocks in last school. Needed diff approach. This school provided a teacher who can individualize instruction. Teachers are inventive and passionate. Exciting. No busty work, every assignment has purpose. [She is reading a sales pitch...She likes it, but brother.] Get skills not offered at school, slower or faster paced courses. This bill would allow more flexibility and best time of day and day of week. More opps to learn and grow.

Former superintendent, Patty Harrington: I represent self, not school boards assoc. today. - I also love tech. We don't have enough in public system. We need to improve. I love parts of this bill. An interim study of WPU funding. What about students who go to school and do online after and use more than 1 WPU? Like planned site to connect providers, including private providers. I have concerns. I want report, lines 270-284, about accountability of providers. Do we need districts to contract w/ private companies? Tracking requirements are laudable, but almost impossible. We need to look at it. Much is already happening. Elec high school, 2 charter schools Davis and Washington District we heard from. Private providers. Colleges provide. I have discussed with Steph frustration with credits from online schools not being accepted. This is a voucher bill giving public money to support private companies.

Some lady they know (UEA)? [Ends up being Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh]: Sen. Steph, appreciate passion for online ed and multiple intelligence. I heard in approp. committee this morning. Deaf and blind begging for money, K-3 reading begging, transportation begging. I'm concerned about money without funding basic program. Lines 260-267 = vouchers. Pay to private schools. Completion rates--what about students not completing? Would 60% already gone be returned to LEA's? WPU would be sent, my tax dollars out of state to online providers? No limits on class size. No way to monitor quality of services. In light of budget cuts, not expand a program when trying to keep basic, minimum services at this point.

Carry Valentine, parent: I heard this afternoon and raced down here. I have 3 students. 2 in school, Jr High and Elem. Fit public school mold. My other son is in Utah Virtual Academy and fits that mold very well. Would a student be enrolled concurrently in public and private school? We had to withdraw our son. That sounds like logistical nightmare to administer student in both. How would my tax dollars provide both? Would my tax dollars already increase? How divvy up? How is this different than what is already provided? Can purchase more or less privately. Parents provide $ currently, not public. In light of current budget situation, seems redundant to provide things already provided when cutting. Let's look at direction of public ed like universities. Provide online option along with classroom model.

Victor Shanti: Board qualified psychologist from U of U, parent of student both online charters, traditional schools, and private schools. My son was not being challenged, given false sense of compassion for African American student, low expectations. Machine didn't have that bias. 2 types. Machine ?'s and instantaneous feedback and person teaching via computer. He raised reading level in 6 months. Better expectations. Standards of proprietary schools not necessarily lower than public schools. Our school had high standards, tracking, success rate. I know there is a conflict between retention of employees which cost a lot. Leverage one employee through machines can save a lot of cost. We put him in charter school after machine learning, now he is not in lower quintile, but in middle range at traditional charter school. I favor bill and expansion of online ed.

Mother of 3 children in Utah Public system: I have read bill many times in last week. I am favor of online ed and all possible choices. There are legitimate concerns. This looks like system behind times and unnecessary. We already have quality online ed, not perfect, but offered and available. Current system works in conjunction with pub schools w/o competing for WPU's or other money. The limits would limit students making up credit initially. Current system allows. [Interrupted here] Something about limiting private and homeschool students.

This would open door to WPU going to private services by choice of student. I support choice, but not pub money going to private schools. Accounting would be confusing to districts, cause conflict. Stephenson says bill would allow choice. I think bill would hamper choice and complicate things. He also said $ to private entities. This is simply a voucher proposal.

Nied: Last 3 people allowed to speak.

Stan Rassmussen, Sutherland Inst. We support SB 65 to help families. Need customized and personalized ed. This describes online ed. Avoids other requirements of time or place. Allows parents primary control over education of children. Doesn't require parents to meet schools' terms. Not driven by adults. Student can take some online and some on site. Develop social skills while avoid social problems. Study found students in online schools as well socialized, and not significant differences in bad social behaviors. Focuses on student learning. Study shows discussion between teachers and parents is focused more on learning than trad schools.

Judi Clark, PCE director: We heard v-word thrown around with animosity. This is not voucher program. Several districts are using private providers already. That is a concern for establishment. Puts emphasis on individual needs and helps digital natives. We love that funding is extremely efficient. These precious dollars will go to provider of student choice. Rather than protect systems that are entrenched.

Person in red Shirt: David Salazar, student at OHSU, charter school: Me being able to work online. I only passed public school b/c teacher was sick of me b/c I was causing probs and ditching school. Now I can't do that. They notify parents right away when I don't finish work. Now I know computer tech, Skype. These teachers actually helped me. My other teachers wouldn't help me when I didn't put in the work. Better than public school. My teachers contact me every day and I get help right away.

Back to committee:
Sen. Thatcher - I think everyone understands that online is great for those who choose and can learn that way. My concern is how track completion online? I know some children do not have self-motivation to complete online. How know students actually getting ed we're paying for?

Sen. Stephenson - The tracking of completion rates under my bill would change current paradigm. Elec high school was uncertain how to define completion rates. Get paid for completion. Tracking will be pretty clear. I have confidence State Board will make good rules. Miss Gee [That’s what I heard…] from UEA wanted 60% back if student doesn't complete. I support that, but also for high schools. If students doesn't complete, then high school gives back money too. [choice people clap] That's answer to question.

Thatcher - If completion rate is so low? How educate?

Stephenson - Best to now pay 60% to allow staffing other things, etc. Future we can make it all dependent and refund all on completion.

Thatcher: People willing to educate on conditional basis?

Stephenson: Now online schools only get $2500 for WPU, when average student, including capital outlay, uses $8500. [DISHONEST use of numbers. Same as voucher debate. No school being built in Saratoga Springs has its locally bonded construction funds divvied up among the students of Utah. I don’t get the funding now. The online voucher kids will get more than the WPU??!] Providers want to compete. Only online school concerned is elec high school [Of two that testified]. They get a line item in budget. I supported online high school. Now it's time for them to get funded on merit. Students will start to review ratings of providers. They will check ratings about support, other things. Provides transparency for online education.

Thatcher - I'd love to see adjustment made in implementation timeline. Allow children to excel, move quickly, but balance burden on schools. I want you to continue to work with Superintendent Shumway.

J Stevenson - I like discussion today. This is direction of future. Knowing Steph will work with Sup. Shumway, I move this be passed to Senate floor.

Steph: Thanks for input. I will work with Sup. Shumway. I think some exceptions will be provided for students who thrive in this environment. Let them take more than 2 credits.

[I don’t think all classes can be transmitted and experienced online. English? History? Debate? Not same experience. The goal of college readiness will not be improved by online education, although it definitely has an important role. Relying on it to spend less $ on public education and make a philosophical voucher beachhead of transferring funds to private schools is the true goal here.]

Quick version without background: Utah is copying New York's school grading system, not Florida's

2011-02-03T06:58:00.002-07:00

The Senate Education Committee is voting on SB 59 School Grading System today at 2:15.

I have more to add about the methodology and effectiveness of the bill and the newest information about Florida's school grade improvement but here is the book excerpt I will include again in a post today or tomorrow.

Diane Ravitch is an educational historian who advised both George Herbert Bush and George W. bush on education and was a strong supporter of “market based” reforms and No Child Left Behind. She explains in her book why she has changed her position on many of these reforms after reviewing results.

From The Death and Life of the Great American School System. The underlined section was underlined by me.

pg. 164
Another (albeit mixed) example of positive accountability can be found in Florida, where the state gives a single letter grade, ranging from A to F, to all public schools. This is a practice I abhor, as I think it is harmful to stigmatize a complex institution with a letter grade, just as ridiculous to send a child home with a report card that contained only a single letter grade to summarize her performance in all her various courses and programs. That said, after the grades are handed out, the state quickly steps in to help the D and F schools with technical support, consultants, coaches, and materials. As a result of the state's supportive response, most of the low-rated schools have improved. For nearly seven years, the state sanctioned F-rated schools by giving vouchers to their students, who could use them to attend a private or better-performing public school. In 2006, a Florida court declared the voucher program unconstitutional.

pg. 85-87
The accountability movement entered a new phase in the fall of 2007, when the DOE revealed what it called progress reports for each school. Each school received a single letter grade, from A to F. This approach mirrored the grading system introduced in Florida by then-governor Jeb Bush a few years earlier. Most of each school's grade was based on year-to-year changes in standardized test scores (its "progress"), as compared to a group of schools that were demographically similar; if a school's scores went up, it was likely to win an A or B. If they remained flat or slipped, the school was almost certain to get a C, D, or F.

Some excellent schools, known for their sense of community and consistently high scores, received an F because their scores dipped by a few points. Some very low-performing schools, even some schools the State Education Department ranked as persistently dangerous, received an A because they showed some improvement.

To add to the confusion, the city's grades were inconsistent with the ratings issued by the State Education Department in accordance with No Child Left Behind. If schools failed to meet their adequate yearly progress goals under the federal NCLB law, they were called SINI schools, or "schools in need of improvement." If schools consistently performed poorly, the state called them SURR schools or "schools under registration review." In the first year hat school grades were issued, the city awarded an A or B to about half of the 350 schools the state said were SINI or SURR. More than half of the fifty schools that received an F from the city were in good standing with the state and the federal law. The next year, 89 percent of the F schools were in good standing according to NCLB standards, as were 48 percent of D schools.

In 2009, the city's accountability system produced bizarre results. An amazing 84 percent of 1,058 elementary and middle schools received an A (compared with 23 percent in 2007), and an additional 13 percent got a B. Only twenty-seven schools received a grade of C, D, or F. Even four schools the state said were "persistently dangerous" received an A. The Department of Education hailed these results as evidence of academic progress, but the usually supportive local press was incredulous. The New York Post called the results "ridiculous" and said, "As it stands now, the grades convey nearly no useful information whatsoever." The New York Daily News described the reports as a "stupid card trick" and a "big flub" that rendered the annual school reports "nearly meaningless to thousands of parents who look to the summaries for guidance as to which schools serve kids best."

The debacle of the grading system had two sources: First, it relied on year-to-year changes in scores, which are subject to random error and are thus unreliable. Second, the scores were hugely inflated by the state's secret decision to lower the points needed to advance on state tests. Consequently, the city's flawed grading system produced results that few found credible, while the Department of Education was obliged to pay teachers nearly $30 million in bonuses--based on dumbed-down state tests--as part of its "merit pay" plan.

How could parents make sense of the conflicting reports from the city, state, and federal accountability systems? Should they send their children to a school that got an A from the city, even though the state said the same school was low-performing and persistently dangerous? Should they pull their child out of a highly regarded neighborhood school where 90 percent of the kids passed the state exams but the city gave it an F? The city had no plan to improve low-performing schools, other than to warn them that they were in danger of being closed down. Shame and humiliation were considered adequate remedies to spur improvement. Pedro Noguera of New York University observed that the Department of Education failed to provide the large schools with the support and guidance they needed to improve. "They don't have a school-change strategy," Noguera said. "They have a school-shutdown strategy." Chancellor Klein acknowledged that opening and closing schools was an essential element in the market-based system of school choice that he preferred. He said "It's basically a supply-and-demand pattern...This is about improving the system, not necessarily about improving every single school." But there was no reason to believe that closing a school and opening a new one would necessarily produce superior results; in fact, half of the city's ten worst-performing schools on the state math tests in 2009 were new schools that had been opened to replace failing schools. [My note: SB 59 has no provisions to assist "F" schools in any way. Howard Stephenson has a bill in the chute to close a certain numbers of schools each year. He apparently means to replace them with charter schools that can limit the number of students and online classes. The extra students who aren't accepted to the charter schools or who need more help than an online class can provide...drive further.]

HB 83 and SB 140 update: It's hard not to be paranoid

2011-02-03T06:38:00.003-07:00

Update on my previous post about HB 83 and SB 140. One is apparently harmless and the other appears necessary even if it is annoying.

I was actually able to listen to most of the committee discussion on HB 83 Charter School Revolving Account, though it was short and I was interrupted a little bit. From the various organizations unanimously in support, it seems like a positive technical change. However, I was frustrated that no one actually explained what the difference was in the account designation beyond general statements like "It will now be in the proper place to do what the account was intended to do." Maybe it's detailed and boring, but I would appreciate even a one minute summary to give the public some idea of why these changes are being made.

SB 140 State Charter School Board Amendments appears to be a necessary change. I haven't been able to go back and listen to the committee discussion, but I read these two short summaries: Trib and D-News. For once, the Deseret News actually gave a lot more detail about the bill. For the State Charter School Board to effectively support and advise new charter schools, I agree it seems best to ensure there is more specific experience rather than just general experience on the board. Unfortunately, there is a relatively small pool of politically connected and lobbyist connected candidates who hold that experience, but I guess it's a necessary evil in this case.

It also appears I need to educate myself on the differences between the State Charter School Board and the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools. They must work closely and have a lot of overlap, but I like that the State Charter Board appears willing to assist schools which the Association has moved away from.

Legalese: Serious question--What do HB 83 and SB 140 do? Put lobbyists into charter school code?

2011-02-02T00:01:00.003-07:00

I think I follow the session, especially education related issues, as close as anyone not on Capitol Hill, but there are just so many laws and so many meetings that it is impossible to keep up. Plus, "education issues" encompasses a huge range of topics and I don't think anyone can understand the background and impact of every bill in every area.

This leads to my questions about two charter school bills from the Red Meat Regulators, Rep. Greg Hughes and Sen. Howard Stephenson. I just don't know enough about the technical twists of charter school funding and governance to understand the potential impacts of the bills. They will both be discussed in committee tomorrow, Feb. 2, 2011, and finding time to go back and listen to the audio after missing the live hearings will be tough for me this week. The written minutes of both the Senate and House Education Committees don't help either, listing the bare bones of who spoke for or against proposals. (As opposed to the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee--composed of both senators and House representatives who hash out the budget--which posts long, detailed minutes of debate.)

So, anyone interested, please listen and post here about the bills. I would love detailed summaries of debate, but I'll take even a quick snapshot. What is the rationale behind the bills? What are the claimed benefits? Who spoke in support and opposition of the bills?

1. SB 140 State Charter School Board Amendments -- Howard Stephenson
Senate Education Committee meeting, 9:00 AM, Feb 2, 2011
(The committees often start 5-20 minutes late. If you refresh the Meeting Schedule page I linked to, a Live Audio icon will appear next to the date when the meeting begins. You will need Real Player.)

There is already a seven member State Charter School Board that the governor appoints after receiving nominations from charter schools and the State Board of Education. I would not be able to explain very well what they do. This bill summary states that the bill:

"provides that of the seven members appointed by the governor to the State Charter School Board, three members shall: be nominated by an organization that represents Utah's charter schools; and have expertise or experience in developing or administering a charter school;

allows the governor to seek nominations from more than one organization that represents Utah's charter schools;

allows the governor to remove a member of the State Charter School Board at any time for official misconduct, habitual or willful neglect of duty, or for other good and sufficient cause;

What is the purpose of the bill? Looking at the bill text, I'm guessing it was fuzzy exactly who decided the nominations in behalf of "charter schools." The bill mandates now that the nominations will made by "organizations" that represent and manage charter schools. That seems like power is being given to the few charter school lobbyists and management companies who are almost 100% connected with conservative legislators and the Parents for Choice in Education voucher crowd. This City Weekly article treats the Utah Association of Charter Schools Board as the "State Charter Board." Is that accurate? If not, the association is another of the advocacy groups given power to pick the members of the state board. The article delved into the massive conflicts of interest on the association board, with legislators (Craig Frank) and board members profiting from contracts. 4 of the 7 members are are either directors or trustees of PCE, and most also run for-profit charter school contract management companies. The new board forced out the executive director of the association right after the previous article was written because he was providing too much "training and support" of charter schools, which of course conflicted with the business interests of the management company owners.

I have also written a couple of times about how Howard Stephenson purposely changed charter school law last year to allow conflicts of interest, and how at least one lobbyist/charter school board chair with ties to Howard Stephenson is now paying his sister's company $986 per student.

So I'm very suspicious that this purpose of the bill is literally to give board selection authority to lobbyists and relatives like Lincoln Fillmore, Jed Stevenson, and Carolyn Sharette. (Those are basically the only active charter management organizations in the state.) I would love to hear if I am wrong or right on this one.

2. HB 83 Charter School Revolving Account -- Greg Hughes
House Education Committee meeting, 2:00 PM, Feb. 2, 2011.

I just have no idea on this one. The summary reads:

eliminates the Charter School Building Revolving Subaccount within the School Building Revolving Account and creates the Charter School Revolving Account within the Uniform School Fund;

specifies the permitted uses of funds in the Charter School Revolving Account and procedures for making loans from the account;

and makes technical amendments.

Who knows the difference made by designating the Charter School Revolving Account as its own account instead of a subaccount of the School Building Revolving Account? Not me.

The bill's fiscal note reveals no costs. So what is the point? Is it just technical? Or does it change what the account can be used for? Other effects?

Please comment if you can. Thank you.

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SJR 1, SJR 9, HJR 15...Three different ways to give GOP leadership more control over education, but is the end game really partisan school boards?

2011-01-29T23:57:00.005-07:00

Using the permanent, significant process of amending the state constitution to achieve temporary, political ends would normally be something conservative Republicans would oppose, but if involves giving them more control, especially over public education which they have made abundantly clear this session that they hate, their standards become more flexible.

Utah Republicans have proposed three different conflicting constitutional amendments this year. If they pass both the Utah Senate and the Utah House by a 2/3 majority vote, they will go on the ballot in 2012 for the public to vote on the changes. I don't believe Governor Herbert can veto proposals for constitutional amendments, but I am not 100% sure about that.

SJR 1 Joint Resolution on State Board of Education Authority, Senator Chris Buttars
This proposed constitutional amendment would give the state legislature control over curriculum in answer to supposed socialist teachings and law breaking by schools. Click on the link and then listen to the audio recording of the Jan. 26 committee hearing to hear the claims. This has already passed a vote in the Senate Education Committee.

SJR 9 Joint Resolution - Governance of Public and Higher Education, Senator Stuart Reid
This proposed constitutional amendment would give the governor "CEO" power over both K-12 and Higher Ed. for the entire state, including the ability to dissolve the State Board of Education or eliminate the position of state superintendent. Governor Herbert knew nothing about this proposed amendment until after the session started. The sponsor, Stuart Reid, does not know what effect this change would have on the large system of educational governance in both systems. He and Senator Stephenson speculated in committee that they could pass the amendment and then figure out a bunch of laws they will need to change afterward. Once again, this proposal has already passed a Senate Education Committee vote and the audio of the justification can be found at the above web page for the bill.

Governor Herbert opposes both of these proposals, saying the current system of governance by the State School Board "is actually working pretty well" and that the legislature would just become "a super school board of 104 personalities." (Two more stories on the proposed amendments and committee debate: The Trib and Channel 4.)

HJR 15 Joint Resolution Amending State Board of Education Provisions, Representative Chris Herrod
This proposed constitutional amendment would eliminate public elections of the State School Board. School board members and the state superintendent would instead be appointed by the governor "with the advice and consent of the Senate." This amendment was sent to the House Rules Committee Friday afternoon and has not yet been discussed. It will likely be sent to the House Education Committee next week. Keep an eye on the "Bill status/Votes" link on the bill's web page or subscribe to receive updates at the bottom of the page. You can listen to the committee debate live or after the fact.

If the legislature had an excellent plan, an optimal alternative to the current structure and authority of the State School Board that they thought was important enough to change the constitution rather than just tweak a law, there would have been one proposed amendment with a compelling reason for its existence. Instead, three conflicting amendments have been thrown against the wall to see what sticks.

What is the common thread between the proposed amendments? These three amendments propose three different ways to put politicians directly in charge of education. I think the desire to gain control over the check and balance of an independently elected State School Board is plain. The board strenuously opposed private school vouchers in 2007 and has often opposed other pet GOP leadership proposals since. Sen. Hillyard asked the cogent question to Sen. Reid whether he would be proposing the amendment if the governor were a Democrat. Reid replied "Absolutely," but do you believe that?

I have commented before that the public trusts educators much, much more than politicians. This may not be true of the Eagle Forum echo chamber that sees public education as a socialist plot to "bring down America," but they don't represent close to the majority of public opinion, even in Utah.

So I'm not completely surprised legislators would attempt any of these power shifts, but I don't see any of them as likely to pass a public vote. Why the glut of huge changes now? I don't know how coordinated these amendment proposals may have been, but there is at least a plan to take advantage of the fear they are generating. On Red Meat Radio today, State Superintendent Shumway was interviewed again and asked about the proposals, including the possibility of the State Board or Superintendent being eliminated. At the end of the discussion, Senator Stephenson pushed Shumway to state whether he would prefer the State School Board being eliminated or elected in a partisan election with Republican and Democrat candidates voted on in political conventions. Shumway was badgered into saying he thought both were bad ideas, but he would prefer a partisan election to complete elimination of the State School Board.

Was this the dry run for the line of reasoning that will be used in committee? Partisan school board elections will be the "good cop" after the "bad cop" threats of complete overhauls of the education system via constitutional amendment?

Running state and/or local school board elections through party conventions will basically accomplish the same goals of the three amendments. Vouchers failed statewide, even among Republicans, but state and county Republican delegates as a group share many more of the antagonistic views toward public education held by Sens. Stephenson, Buttars, Dayton, etc. The highly conservative candidates vetted in the Republican conventions would automatically win 90%+ of their general races simply by virtue of the R before their name. Within two election cycles, the State Board of Education would be taken over by candidates who do not represent the common views of Utah citizens. The legislature could run extreme ideas such as vouchers, converting traditional public schools to charter schools, and drastic budget cuts, and be able to tell people "the State School Board supports our proposal."

I've already shared my opinion about partisan school board elections and some excellent links to arguments for and against. (Further clear discussion at Utah Moms Care.) If the threat of a partisan school board election bill amendment doesn't happen as detailed in the post, Senator Stephenson has a bill of his own in waiting titled "Partisan School Board Elections."

Utahns overwhelmingly oppose partisan state and local school board elections by 66% and 72% counts. The legislative leadership has demonstrated they don't care about that, vouchers being only the most obvious example of knowingly pushing their ideology over the will of their constituents, and they know they won't suffer any repercussions at the ballot box after emerging largely unscathed from their voucher defeat.

I am worried. Really worried. The legislature has spent the first week of the session on an all out offensive against public education and they have more in mind than just insults. Follow these important education bills and contact your legislators. Encourage other constituents to contact them with a voice of reason about public ed. as well. Public education is vulnerable and strained to the breaking point already. Don't let it be turned into a political football based on rigid ideology rather than concern for kids.

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Legislative rhetoric is running high in 2011 and excessive classloads are putting the accreditation status of many Utah high schools at risk

2011-01-27T00:24:00.006-07:00

I have followed the legislative session fairly closely ever since 2007 and vouchers. The rhetoric behind vouchers and the following debate over the referendum when the legislature campaigned against the evil UEA and teachers who care more about adults than kids opened my eyes to the depth of ideological hatred against public education in a segment of Utah politics. The 2011 session has started out as openly hostile toward public education and maybe even more.

I listened to a good part of two education committee meetings today (1-26-11) and heard elected officials and invited guests openly and indirectly accuse teachers of hating America, families, and students. I think most people have no idea how organized and influential this anti-public education group of legislators and Eagle Forum members are among the legislature. Legislators need to hear from the majority who are not represented by this extreme faction styling themselves as the moral mainstream. Please listen to any committee meeting from the three main committees dealing with public education. You can listen to meetings live or listen to the recording afterward. You have to block out 60-90 minutes to listen to one, but I think it will be worth it in order for you to hear who is really shaping Utah education policy and using what claims.

The Joint Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee is composed of both Utah House Representatives and Utah Senators. It is chaired by Senator Chris Buttars. The next meeting is Jan. 27 at 8:00 am.

The Senate Education Committee is chaired by Senator Howard Stephenson. The next meeting is Jan. 27 at 4:00 pm. Here is the direct link to the audio file for the Jan. 26 meeting which made me so frustrated. Karen at the Utah Moms Care blog has already posted her summary of the meeting. She also comments on her surprise at the "level of disdain being openly shown toward the administrators of public education in Utah."

The House Education Committee is chaired by Representative Bill Wright. The next meeting is not currently scheduled, but you can find the audio for the last two meetings via the link.

Finally, I want to call attention to another potential cost to the severe budget cuts in public education. In December, three Wasatch Front high schools from three different districts were put under "advised" status in their accreditation evaluations because of too many teachers with student loads of over 180 students. They were Kearns, Bingham, and Timpanogos High Schools.

All schools have to be accredited by the state of Utah and high schools have to be additionally accredited by the Northwest Accreditation Commission in order to have their credits accepted by universities.

The state's accreditation standards do not have a student load threshold, so we are free to stuff as many students as possible into jr. high and middle school classes because no one is checking. Student loads over 200 are the norm for full-time jr. high teachers right now. I have my first classes of 38 this year in my core class, and next year the numbers are projected to be around 40 students in core classes. The "non-core" classes are seeing class sizes closer to 50 right now.

However, the high schools facing the Northwest Accreditation standards face a limit to how many teachers can have these enormous student loads. Kearns, Bingham, and Timpanogos got caught, but schools only go through the accreditation process every 3 or 6 years, depending how they did on the previous evaluation. There are many other schools that would earn an "advised" status if they were being evaluated this year. The three schools on advised status need to show they have remedied the problems observed in order to leave advised status and not endanger their accreditation. There is little chance for those schools to hire more teachers with 7% budget cuts currently slated for public education, besides the fact that the system grew by over 13,000 additional students this year with no new funds to pay for them and is expected to grow by almost 15,000 students next year. Plus, an additional 1/6 of schools will face accreditation next year.

There could be serious, longterm consequences for public education if these extreme numbers are not addressed.

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Rolly was too nice. Senator Buttars showed his ignorance, Stephenson covered for him

2011-01-25T23:34:00.003-07:00

Paul Rolly just wrote a column about Senator Chris Buttars' misinformation in an interview with Senator Howard Stephenson and Representative Greg Hughes on their Red Meat Radio Program. He beat me to it! I tuned in just in time the second hour and transcribed the interview as best I could and have just been too busy to write up my frustration. I thought I was the only one still listening to the show.

Rolly caught Buttar's first two easy mistakes. "Incarcerating" youth when discussing the supposed hidden socialism in Alpine District and being unable to identify Granite District. He actually called it Wasatch District until Stephenson corrected him. I suppose these errors, especially the first, can be chalked up to understandable slips of the tongue. I know my students enjoy catching me when I mix up words.

Rolly also did an excellent job of supplying the correct information about the Granite School Board's supposed UEA infiltration--one member, along with some dubious other connections like one person having taught 33 years ago, along with a real estate developer. I was actually surprised the Granite Board had even one teacher. I can't remember any teachers being members of the Alpine School Board as long as I've been paying attention. And just about every idea Buttars espoused was nonsense, from the secret socialism to the local school boards being special interests...while being interviewed by the professional lobbyist who serves in the legislature.

However, Rolly didn't mention the most egregious mistake Buttars made, the one that is more than a dumb misphrasing, but reveals his ignorance about basic, easy-to-verify information. First, he again couldn't correctly name the "common core" when they broached the subject. Stephenson corrected him after some stumbling around. Then Buttars claimed that the "Common Core Standards" recently adopted by Utah don't exist. Go ahead and click on that link for the list of 9 long and frankly boring pdf files containing the core standards along with appendices. Or type "common core" into any search engine. The three I tried displayed the core as the first result.

I wrote about this last week, when a commenter on another blog claimed the same thing, that the standards are not written yet, but somehow we know they will be written by bad people and forced to teach them verbatim. This despite the blog writer having prominently posted the link to the standards in her post. I can only assume the bad information used by both that commenter and Buttars came from the Eagle Forum. Buttars will ironically base major claims and policy decisions on incorrect information that he trusts because of ideology after ripping on school officials for not giving him correct information.

Stephenson even asked Buttars a leading question along the lines of "The new standards increase the rigor of math and English? That's not socialist is it?" Buttars sounded confused and replied, "Well, no." But after a pause, he went into a diatribe that these independently developed standards only appear to be uninvolved with Obama, and that they are not even written yet. On a timeline from 2010-2015, socialists will actually write the curriculum who "don't believe as we do" leading to a "change of doctrine." He finished by repeating that it was "disturbing" that the State School Board agreed to a core that has not been written yet and will be written by socialists.

At this juncture in my notes, I wrote "Long pause...." It was obvious that Stephenson knew the standards existed as he gathered himself in the silence and then completely ignored what Buttars had just said, instead changing the subject to the Education Budget Subcommittee Meeting. Stephenson may be unethical, but he's not stupid. Buttars is embarrassing. He presumes to lecture others while ignorantly passing on false information he gets from untrustworthy sources. He would flunk a high school sophomore writing assignment for presenting such faulty information, let alone an introductory college course.

Stephenson's enabling was further in display during the following interview with State Superintendent, Larry Shumway. Stephenson brought up Buttars' socialism claim about the common core to get Shumway's perspective, but he had to lie about what Buttars really said. It was actually a pretty funny conversation. Once again, my transcription is not perfect, but it's close.

Stephenson: Senator Buttars claims socialism is pervading the state public education system. Of course it's a socialist system.

Shumway's immediate interjection: "Public system."

Stephenson: Ahum. Well. What he meant is that the federal standards being pushed, the common core, is being developed by socialists. We asked him and he said the current math and literature standards are not socialist, only better. But he is concerned that future versions, for example social studies, will be.

Why did he have to make up words and ideas that Buttars never said? In my notes, I added "Covers for Buttars." Buttars did not say the core was better, and he never said anything about being concerned with the future social studies curriculum. He actually asserted that the existing standards had not been written yet. Even Stephenson was embarrassed to repeat his claims.

Superintendent Shumway also answered Stephenson's questions about some supposedly missing data that Buttars talked about with some fancy tap shoeing around a delicate insinuation that Buttars and his staff had not read existing reports containing those answers. "I was surprised that legislative staff and members of the committee were not aware of the reports..." repeated about three times.

It is very, very frustrating as an educator to be accused by someone so unwilling to educate himself.

Three final notes related to other content during the second hour of the Red Meat Radio show last Saturday.

1. Hughes and Stephenson made the point that "civility" is getting too PC and being used as a club to suppress views you don't agree with. I totally agree. (Though it comes from both sides. Conservative commentators and groups jump all over every little word of Democrats too.) They discussed a letter from the State School Boards Association to the legislature critical of Stephenson's comments about school boards which apparently compared his language somehow to the Rep. Giffords shooting. That connection is dumb and counter-productive. Now don't get me wrong, Stephenson's comments, which were repeated twice in the course of the hour, about local school boards being stupid and being led around by the nose by the superintendent, are ideologically idiotic. He means they don't believe in vouchers and think that school teachers should be replaced by computers, therefore they must not be as "bright" as him.

However, it is better to hear the criticism and know his position than suppress his ideas in the name of civility. The lack of trust he engenders by revealing his own thoughts should be the real consequence of such language. My post here could certainly be considered "uncivil" because of my harsh criticism of Buttars and Stephenson, but I feel my assertions are based on evidence and that it is important that the public really know these legislators as they make decisions and evaluate what they hear from them.

2. Superintendent Shumway is much better suited for his job than I would be. I am sometimes frustrated with Shumway for being too accommodating and uncritical of the blatant falsehoods some legislators perpetuate about education, but I can see he is needed. He, Hughes, and Stephenson had a lovefest of how much they trust each other's motivations, while all I could think was that I emphatically do not trust Stephenson's motivations. However, criticizing them openly wouldn't accomplish anything, and his diplomacy may hopefully at least moderate some of the extreme bills that will pass regardless of what Shumway or the State Board say. I was proud of Shumway for making the point that the hostile attitudes and mistrust of "some of the committee," (e.g. Buttars) were unfounded and actually hampered their work.

3. In the last minute, Stephenson proudly listed some of his pending bills to stick it to education. He mentioned the school grading bill, his teacher tenure bill, and a new bill about school accountability that I hadn't yet heard about. I'm assuming it's the unnumbered bill named "Public School Accountability" in his bill list. Stephenson said the bill would involve "dissolving" the 5 lowest public schools each year. The state would do an RFP for private management and the parents would vote on it. There were a couple other details I missed with my kids talking to me. This is another backdoor voucher scheme, and Stephenson and his association have financial ties with companies that would profit from this bill. He is determined to arrive at his goal of dismantling the public school system piece by piece, making a tidy profit as he goes.

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Legislative Session 2011 begins....but it's not just about immigration! Will public education be harmed while no one is paying attention?

2011-01-23T23:23:00.011-07:00

The illegal immigration debate is important. The state budget is important. But what will affect your children the most over the next couple decades? Won't the state of our public schools have a more lasting influence on the children of Utah? I am a parent and have as vested an interest in these schools as anyone, but it's also about the investment in helping the other hundreds of thousands of kids in the state. I believe the Utah public education system is a fundamental base to our society, as well as our economy.

The debate on illegal immigration policy in Utah will generate a lot of sparks and media attention this year, nationally as well as locally. With public attention diverted, and the difficult budget as cover, there are serious proposals to damage public ed. and divert public funds in the name of "reform." Basic funding is at a quiet crisis level risking the accreditation (i.e. whether colleges will accept their credits) of every high school in the state, but legislators currently DO NOT plan on funding almost 15,000 new students entering the system next school year (and that is net after accounting for seniors leaving) after not funding the 13,000 new students that entered this year. On top of that, many have pet projects favored by anti-public ed. groups to slice away even more of that money. Then when public schools struggle with the impacts of huge classes and little resources, those legislators will claim the worsening results justify further defunding the public system in favor of their connected donors poised to profit from the changes.

A large number of influential legislators--the ones who control the money--hold views on public education far outside the mainstream of the Utah public. Three examples just in the last week:

1. House Rep John Dougall explains in the comment section of this blog post about partisan school board elections that he thinks local school boards are uninformed, his new reading of the state constitution means that the state legislature isn't responsible for funding education, and that he thinks the entire public school system should be replaced by the free market.

2. Senator Howard Stephenson -- professional lobbyist, member of every possible education committee, and the sponsor of 15 education related bills in 2011 (no one else has more than 2...correct me if I miscounted) -- spoke to students at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. I learned this from Stephenson himself on Twitter (SenatorHowardS):

Had an awesome time speaking with students at the Hinckley Institute about Utah's public education system. #utpol 1:34 PM Jan 20th via TweetDeck

Also on Twitter, someone with the Utah House Democrats (utahhousedems) tweeted some highlights of Stephenson's remarks, including:

# Sen. Stephenson says difference between old Soviet farmers & Ut teachers is teachers care about their turnips--farmers don't. #utpol #utleg 12:46 PM Jan 20th via TweetDeck

# Republic Sen. Howard Stephenson calls state education planning "Soviet style" @ Hinckley Institute. What's his solution? #utpol #utleg 12:43 PM Jan 20th via TweetDeck

Stephenson has repeatedly made this comparison--public education is the same as Soviet-style communism. It's purposefully inaccurate and not representative of Utah.

3. Senator Chris Buttars, the new chair of the Public Education Appropriations Sub Committee, spoke at the Eagle Forum convention about his beliefs that Utah's schools are literally pushing a "socialist agenda" to destroy the country. "This is an entire program to bring America down and I want to tell you right now it's well entrenched in Utah."

This Deseret News article hits the nail on the head. It details how the the micro-managing legislature yanks public education back and forth every year, often in conflicting directions. They passed 42 bills about education last year. Forty-two! Stephenson admits he thinks he knows best and will run even more:

"We watched and realized that there are some things in education that simply have to change and be addressed," Stephenson said. "We feel we have to push the envelope now because there is so little action going on in certain areas."

Stephenson is in the process of writing bills about online high school programs, math initiatives, public school curriculum, charter schools, teacher tenure and more.

"Push the envelope" means radically alter or damage public schools in favor of his pet proposals that are largely unsupported by the public which supports our schools. Rep. Jim Nielsen speaks out in the article too, stating what anyone following public education policy debate in Utah can easily attest to:

Rep. Jim Nielson, R-Bountiful, believes the legislature's role in education reform should be "relatively limited," as that is mainly the responsibility of the state school board and local school boards.

"I think we can do things to indicate what our priorities are and build financial incentives to reward schools that meet certain objectives, but I wouldn't go beyond that," Nielson said. "In my opinion, the legislature has overreached its authority during much of my lifetime."

Amen Representative Nielson! The legislature fights for local control...except when they disagree with you.

I can't go over the details of every bad education proposal in this post. Here's the link to the list of all the 2011 education bill, although most of them still are not available to the public to read less than 9 hours before the opening of the legislative session.

I have already commented on some of these issues in the past week. I will write more about many/most of these proposals later. They include:

Vouchers by a different name. Yes, seriously. They will only apply to online private schools (at first) and any legislator you question about it will wince and try to explain these are better approved private schools, but it redirects the state WPU per student funding to private organizations.

Hypocritically taking away local districts' ability to fund and tax, but increasing the state sales tax which is controlled by...the state legislature.

Senator Buttars' proposal in response to the secret socialism to amend the Utah State Constitution to take away the State School Board's authority over schools and curriculum and give it to...you guessed it, the state legislature.

Two bills aimed at converting traditional public schools to charter schools.

Increasing "socialism" by hypocritically taking away arbitrary "full measures" of locally voted district funds and giving them to charter schools in addition to the state funds they already get, but with no way for those local school boards to account for or recoup the money except by raising taxes...unless that power is taken away as mentioned above, leaving local districts defunded. (Which I suspect is the plan of some.) And if that bill doesn't pass and a district does raise taxes to make up for the charter subsidy, Howard Stephenson will then criticize the increase as waste through his Taxpayers Association bullhorn while touting how much more "efficient" charter schools are. (Stephenson is actually sponsoring the bill and apparently doesn't worry about hypocrisy or irony) The euphemism for this removal of local control is "backpack funding" as used by Parents For Choice in Education. Sen. Liljenquist's "Student Based Funding" may involve the same concept.

"Grading" public schools based on test scores by assigning one letter grade to explain every aspect of a school's performance. I have a lot of interesting information on this to post this week. They are following New York's utterly failed grading system rather than Florida's semi-supportive model, despite touting Florida's recent educational successes as only due to its school grading. (Which is also untrue.) This will apparently motivate those lazy teachers to teach better.

Removing due process requirements to get rid of provisional teachers. There basically aren't any already, so this bill puzzled me. (Plus, I can't read it yet.) But there will also be a bill to put longtime teachers back on provisional status based on their test scores. I think there is actually some merit in this concept by itself, but combined with the other bill, it appears that it's a disguised two-step method to instantly fire teachers without due process. Tough schools already have a much tougher time hiring good teachers. Who would work at a school in South Salt Lake with 90%+ low income and minority kids under this proposal?

A bill using "surplus" energy taxes to create curriculum promoting Utah's coal and oil industries.

5 more curriculum bills, 4 of them sponsored by Howard Stephenson. They involve Civics education, Engineering education, Honors Math Programs, and two ominous, unrevealed bills vaguely title "Curriculum in the Public Schools" and "School Curriculum Amendments." Once again, although the federal government is an over-reaching tyrant when it usurps local control via unfunded mandates, the state legislature and specifically Senator Stephenson who is proposing all these bills are virtuous defenders of good when they act as a political school board and usurp local control via unfunded mandates. Does the hypocrisy even bother them anymore?

So please, whoever you are, whatever your political leanings, pay attention to education this session!!!! It runs from Jan. 24 through March 10. You can click on this calendar each day for the schedule of committee meetings (the majority of time is spent in committees the first couple weeks) and general House and Senate floor time. When a committee or the floor is live, there will be little icons next to the lines on the calendar. You can click on them and listen live to committee meetings and actually watch live video of floor debate. The first education related meeting is the Senate Education Committee (chaired by Howard Stephenson) at 3:15 pm today, Monday, January 24. Listen for half an hour. Hearing the legislators' words and tone from their own mouths can help you cut through spin from various sides and begin to form opinions on who actually represents your interests.

Pay attention. Get involved. Contact your state representative or senator. Defend public education as a crucial part of our community and not as a fund to be drawn down and replaced by educational programs based on ideology and campaign donations.

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Fight the socialists with Spam

2011-01-21T00:43:00.003-07:00

I posted a couple of strongly worded articles Monday night (actually early Tuesday morning, Jan 18.)

Willful ignorance and fear about public education PART 1: The Common Core

Willful ignorance and fear about public education PART 2: Senator Buttars' constitutional amendment to give the legislature control over curriculum

Much of what I said was prompted by what I see as purposely misleading comments about public education at the Eagle Forum Convention last week. Some of those involved were also people who have accused Alpine District and BYU of pushing a socialist agenda, including Oak Norton.

Oak Norton very civilly responded to my post in the comments Tuesday morning (in part 2) and a couple other commenters supported his views that morning as well.

My blog email address is listed in the sidebar and I have infrequent communications with other bloggers/commenters. I don't use the address much, so I also don't get much spam.

I mention this because at 11:37 am, Tuesday, Jan 18, I received a confirmation of my blog email address' new registration on a gay dating website. This was closely followed by a registration confirmation for a website selling some sort of "make money at home" products. When I discovered this Tuesday evening, I opened the spam file and found I had already received over a dozen other offers. At least 2 of them mentioned my new registrations for their services or free offers.

Spam happens, and I always get more spam when I post more often. So for comparison, Gmail filtered 13 spam messages into my spam file from Dec. 21, 2010 through Jan. 17, 2011, with two blog posts during that time. From 11:30 on Jan. 18 through now, about 2 1/2 days and 4 blog posts later (counting the two posts early on the 18th), Gmail has filtered 46 messages into my spam file, including many thanking me for my registration, plus 5 additional messages from the gay dating site and the money at home site that got through the filter.

Let me be clear, I don't think Oak Norton had anything to do with this or that he would. But checking my website statistics, he must have forwarded my post to some friends, mailing list, etc. because I got a bunch of visits--many from northern Utah County--just to the second post all that morning and through the day after his posting.

So I guess my point is to ask the one person on the mailing list who hated my ignorant and/or socialist comments, can you see the irony in your retaliation against the supposed immoral, humanist agenda?

And the site traffic leads me to a further point that I think too many of the Eagle Forum/ASD conspiracy crowd are too reliant on their echo chamber sources of information. (e.g. Eagle Forum, Edwatch, Republican Party, etc.) The Common Core standards were specifically accused of being a further push of the humanist agenda at the Eagle Forum Convention, but less than 1/4 of the site traffic to the Part 2 website where I debated with Oak also looked at the Part 1 post about the Common Core. Hearing and thinking about opposing points of view is critical to teaching students and good thinking in general.

Two different viewpoints on the Republican proposal to make school board elections partisan...plus mine of course

2011-01-20T23:19:00.004-07:00

Currently, local school board elections are non-partisan and open to any eligible resident of the school board's boundaries to run for office.

The current system of electing members to the Utah State Board of Education is broken. It's not even strictly an "elected" position. A "nominating committee" of appointed individuals and legislatively mandated to be half-composed of "industry interests" (i.e. lobbyists. And no, I'm not kidding.) screens potential candidates in any state school board district where more than three candidates file to run for office. They meet and then eliminate any candidates they want based on whatever criteria they want, provided they leave at least three. The governor then selects two of the three (or more) candidates from those chosen by the nominating committee, or two of three from a district where exactly three people filed. Those two candidates are then the only people allowed to appear on the ballot. There is no independent mechanism for a candidate to run for this public office. Someone could run as a write-in, and even then you have to "file" as a write-in candidate which makes no sense to me, but that person would have no chance at actually being elected except in some set of very, very peculiar circumstances. The public can only vote for two candidates pre-screened by an appointed committee and the governor.

The process makes no sense, and Governor Herbert, to his credit, has said the confusing process should be reformed. (Though he also didn't endorse a plain old election...) The obvious and fair solution in my opinion is to make the state school board races just like any other non-partisan race. Interested and eligible citizens run for office, and the people vote. There will be a bill run this session to do just that, change the state school board elections to a normal election. Certain Republican legislators plan on amending the bill on the floor to change the state school board election, and possibly even local school board elections, to partisan elections like those for the legislature. This exact same process happened in 2009, with the partisan amendment failing on the House floor while the "normal" election bill passed. However, five unsurprising state senators voted the bill down in committee. (Bramble, Dayton, Hillyard, Jenkins, Stephenson)

I mentioned my opposition to partisan school board elections in a recent post addressing Senator Buttars' proposal to amend the Utah State Constitution to give the legislature control over curriculum. Oak Norton and I discussed various points in the comments, and he linked to his post on why the state needs partisan school board elections.

Tom Gregory, the former State School Board member from my district, also chimed in on the proposal today, voicing his strong opposition to a partisan school board election. Among his reasons, he mentioned his conversations with state school board members from the few states that feature partisan school board elections.

So my bias is obvious. Here are two more sets. I think seeing the reasoning and contrast of both positions is valuable and will be useful to those evaluating the proposal.

We SHOULD make school board elections partisan -- Oak Norton

We SHOULD NOT make school board elections partisan -- Tom Gregory

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Virtual Vouchers -- Howard Stephenson and PCE put lipstick on the "innovative" future pig

2011-01-19T22:16:00.004-07:00

I don't have time to go into this as much as it deserves. Howard Stephenson is convinced computers are they magic key to cheap education. Along with most bills, the text is not yet available 5 days before the start of the session. Looking at the pending bills dealing with education, I am assuming that the specific bill is the one titled "Online High School Program." He basically wants to run a free market voucher plan -- institutions "compete" for students and then receive the public funds...including private companies in year 2 of the plan. Here's the Trib article with comments from Stephenson, including:

“We ought to be willing to have our institutions, our schools, compete along with everybody else for students interest in obtaining high school credit,” Stephenson said. “Online has the capacity to individualize instruction in ways that a traditional classroom does not. We can see that many students who are currently falling between the cracks and failing in school actually thrive in an online environment.”

Diverting public funds to private institutions under the myth that they will virtuously provide better education IS vouchers. But not using the term and initially limiting it to online education avoids the public outcry. Within 3 years, Stephenson would laud the success of the voucher program nobody knew we had and uses it as "evidence" that a comprehensive voucher program should be passed as well.

There are a lot of good things about online education to fill niches and supplement instruction. There is no evidence it can replace large amounts of classroom education for children. The unique benefits of working with other students and insights gained through discussion of different viewpoints cannot be replicated online and the medium best lends itself to concrete, sequential courses such as math and science.

Claiming we can declare the online software sufficient with a couple of tests is uninformed. Ask any teacher of any subject about how much depth and breadth of their curriculum is captured by any standardized test. Declaring a student "educated" after some online assessments falls far beneath most people's conceptions of education that are not based on how much of a tax cut Howard Stephenson can achieve for his anonymous, big business clients.

Plus, we have multiple and recent examples of Senator Stephenson directing public technology funds to useless technology gimmicks and campaign donors, along with changing existing laws to literally allow conflicts of interest in public charter schools.

In that last link about charter school conflicts, I wrote on March 14, 2010:

Who thinks Senator Stephenson knows at least one person by name who just happens to be a legislator or GOP donor and will immediately profit from this bill? Maybe even someone who contributes secretly to the Utah Taxpayer's Association?

I don't know how this was not talked about more, but my suspicion was confirmed within 8 months. This Tribune article on Nov. 12, 2010 details how Howard Headlee, the powerful lobbyist president of the Utah Banker's Association and also the Board Chair for two schools under American Preparatory Academy, pays almost $1000 per student of public funds to his sister's charter management company.

Hiding vouchers under a different name and allowing conflicts of interest with public funds...once again, Howard Stephenson makes non-subtle efforts to show his disdain for public education.

The populace of Utah has already made it clear that they do not support routing public school funds to private companies. I do not trust Senator Stephenson and other legislators to best direct those funds for student benefit if the bill were to pass. Contact your legislator and ask them to vote against the virtual vouchers proposal.

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Willful ignorance and fear about public education PART 2: Senator Buttars' constitutional amendment to give the legislature control over curriculum

2011-01-18T00:48:00.006-07:00

Senator Chris Buttars literally believes that public education in Utah has been subverted to promote socialism/communism/anything not in agreement with the political views of Oak Norton. His solution is to make a subtle change in the state constitution. Buttars' SJR 1, proposed amendment to the Utah State Constitution. More after the quotes from the news report on his part at the Eagle Forum convention in Salt Lake City.

http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-buttars-vs-school-boards,0,2924086.story?track=rss

"We're in big trouble in our public education system. I didn't realize how much until a month ago when I was asked to chair public education appropriations," said Buttars. "We met and when we got done we were all so terrified we couldn't believe it. This was right under our nose."

Buttars' positition as the chair of the Public Education Committee means he has the power to make this plan a reality.

"Socialists have found that the best way to change a country is not by a revolution," said parent and Eagle Forum panelist Susie Schnell. "Teach children the concepts at a very young age so by the time they're ready to vote they'll vote for the right candidates. Hence, Democratic Socialism."

Panelist Oak Norton refers to Kleon Skousen's 1961 book The Naked Communist.

"In that book he lists 45 goals of the Communists," said Norton. "One of them is to get control of the schools. Soften the curriculum. Put the party line in textbooks."

These party lines, Norton says, are things like global warming, gay rights, and teaching students to question absolutes.

"By accepting that, there's no God because he deals in absolutes," said Buttars. "This is an entire program to bring America down and I want to tell you right now it's well entrenched in Utah."

Schnell and Norton have been on a crusade for over a year, claiming that the Alpine School District in Utah County and BYU are secretly promoting socialism. The viewpoint and the evidence it is based on is stupid. There is no other way to put it.

I think Norton can make legitimate complaints about whether the school board listens like any government body, but the political and religious backing for the socialism charges is stupid and offensive.

Politically, they told the school board that Cleon Skousen's The 5,000 Year Leap and The Making of America would be acceptable curriculum materials. Skousen was not a true historian and his books are political views poorly supported by history rather than history. (I have read both of those books--well parts of the huge Making of America-- and actually agree with many of Skousen's larger points, but he is not a credible person to me on many levels and I disagree with his pseudo-scholarly method of trying to assign credibility to his views. Using his other book as evidence of the "Communist plot" is not compelling evidence.) I would be the angry parent at the school board meeting if a public school were basing curriculum off of Skousen. It is ironic that the people claiming the schools are pushing political viewpoints are the ones actually attempting to get the schools to teach their political views.

Religiously, teaching students that academically they have must have evidence to back up their claims or to fully evaluate both sides of an issue is not teaching them there is no God. Stuff like this only perpetuates a stereotype of Utah County voters not being critical thinkers. Teaching students the current scientific view of evolution is only beneficial to them, even though that socialist BYU Department of Science supports that teaching. Cleon Skousen has also published more false Mormon doctrine that I am aware of than the BYU School of Education. That doesn't mean supporters of his political views also subscribe to his doctrinal mishaps any more than agreeing with John Goodlad that good public education is crucial to our democracy and Republic means BYU and Alpine District endorse every other view Goodlad has ever held.

I've held off from publishing my strong views on the issue, but now they've convinced the head of the Senate Public Education Appropriations committee of their foolishness. Now all of the schools of the state stand accused of secret socialism. It reminds me of when Senator Dayton claimed the International Baccalaureate program was an "anti-American" U.N. plot based on information from the Eagle Forum and Cherilyn Bacon Eagar (Not a coincidence that Eagar is quoted in the 2nd Alpine District link above claiming the whole curriculum is "leftist"). Both of these non-issues are falsehoods based on political ideology and fear rather than fact.

The Utah State Constitution was written so that the State Board of Education has "general control and supervision" of public education, including curriculum, and NOT the political legislature. Based on anecdotal stories from Norton, Schnell, and I'm sure others, Buttars wants to give all that power to the state legislature, which hates big government intrusion except when they are the ones hypocritically intruding. It's SJR 1, a proposal to add only four words to the state constitution. The best way to get a quick explanation is to watch the two minute video at the top of the post.

Another proposal, not numbered and made public yet so I can link it, is the repeated suggestion to make the State School Board a partisan election with the goal of getting candidates elected only after being vetted by the state Republican convention.

Do I perfectly trust any elected official or body, including the state or local school board? No. Do I trust school boards elected in non-partisan, local elections 1000% over the often willfully misinformed and politically vindictive state legislature? Emphatic yes.

Go online and read the state core curriculum, helpfully divided by subject and grade level. Notice the lack of coded socialism. Then contact your state legislator and speak out against both of these proposals. Contact your local school board about an issue you care about and attend a meeting. Enjoy local, non-partisan government and make any earnest proposal to improve it. Do some research and please don't run to the state legislature to override any local decision you disagree with.

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Willful ignorance and fear about public education PART 1: The Common Core

2011-01-18T00:32:00.003-07:00

I had first planned this post because of a comment on the Utah Moms Care blog last week. This blog has regularly posted rational, succinct (much, much more succinct than I ever manage) information about education issues along with its other material. The post on Jan. 13 dealt with misperceptions of the new “Common Core” math and English curriculum being adopted by Utah and 30 or 40 other states. I can actually understand the mistaken impression that this is some federally mandated curriculum—it’s not—and Karen of Utah Moms Care simply explains what the core is and isn’t, notably providing links to support her explanations. She supports the core in relatively mild language.

Now, I think there are very understandable reasons to be more hesitant about the common core than Karen. It’s claimed they are more rigorous in English than Utah’s current standards and about the same as math. (This rating was by the Fordham Institute, a politically conservative, education policy advocacy group that supports school testing, vouchers, etc. So I take their ratings more skeptically than most, but it can’t be claimed the rating was biased by “liberal teachers unions” or something like that.) I have read large parts of the middle grade core for both and think the claims are overblown.

There are some excellent lesson plans and supporting material for the English side, and it raises the bar on how high of a “lexile score” (one way of measuring reading comprehension) is expected in each grade, but the actual changes in what is taught are not drastic. I think it will be a positive, but not extremely noticeable change. It remains to be seen if the higher lexile expectations are a good stretch or an unrealistic overreach.

The math core drives me crazy. It supposedly isn’t any more rigorous than the current core, but it requires huge changes for students and work for teachers for no real benefit. Some concepts will be required to be taught a grade earlier in elementary school. I think this is minor, but the benefits are highly debatable. The big thing to me is that it changes later math courses from algebra, algebra II, geometry, etc. to Math 8, Math 9, Math 10, etc. with elements from all of those courses integrated in a new order. I personally disagree with the comments of the school board member in this article describing the changes. I think breaking down the content of the traditional math courses into smaller pieces and mixing them will more confusing for students both as they learn from week to week, and in terms of defining what they have learned. “I learned Math 8 which is a mix of some algebra and geometry” is not a clear achievement. I know many students have very different experiences with algebra and geometry, often understanding one group of concepts better than the other. I did. They will receive less immediate repetition in the skills, and remediation will be doubly as hard as new teachers or schools try to figure out the specifics of what a student doesn’t understand. I would rather my kids take the traditional classes. I think there will be some justifiable major pushback from teachers, parents, and students as the planning continues for this.

So well and good. I have some concerns about the new curriculum based on their academic impact. But the negative commenter on the Utah Moms Care blog was bizarrely unconcerned with any of the issues I raised.

Anonymous said...
With all due respect, I believe you are off base with your understanding of common core standards. States will not be able to opt out of these standards. Standards must be adhered to 100%--no addition to curriculum or deletion. Students are taught to a standard vs standards being taught to students.

You, as a state, will have NO voice to any curriculum you find objectionable. The 10th Amendment gives the authority to EACH state to set educational policy for THAT state. Utah is giving up that right to educate her children.

How can you sign on to standards WHEN THEY HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN DEVELOPED? You don't even know what you have signed onto! Would you pay for a kitchen remodeling before you had the plans? Of course not! You would be throwing your money into a black hole! You would be irresponsible for giving money and control to a contractor with no plan; so are legislatures that are making these educational decisions without due diligence.

Why are you supporting signing onto to standards that are unknown and the people or organizations (who knows?) are determining what your children are learning! Again, with all due respect, this is foolish.

You may not want to use this comment. So be it. You must learn more about common core standards. They are deadly to students. They will not help educational progress.
January 13, 2011 6:35 PM

I almost imitated the commenter by starting “”With all due respect,” but I cannot honestly say I respect the reasoning of this comment.

1. The two initial paragraphs about the state being unable to opt out or modify the curriculum are purposefully ignorant. And yes, I know I said earlier I can understand thinking this a “federal curriculum.” I meant that I can understand that mistake on first hearing the name “Common Core” and hearing that other states have adopted these standards. But the post provided links explaining that the core is voluntary, the commenter knows that no organization, even the federal government, has any authority to impose a mandatory curriculum on the state of Utah, and the crazy, inflammatory language is dead wrong about an easily verifiable claim. It reeks of mindlessly passing along a fearful email warning from the Eagle Forum, which is ironic since the commenter chides the blog and state for not researching on their own .

2A. The second false claim is even more blatantly incorrect and the commenter contradicts him/herself. The person uses capital letter shouting to claim the standards are “unknown” and haven’t even been developed yet. But the commenter concludes that the original blogger should learn more because the standards “are deadly to students” and “will not help educational progress.” How can you make that claim about supposedly non-existent standards??

2B. The original post included a link to the completely developed Common Core standards in the last paragraph. A bright red link in a 3-sentence paragraph at the end of a 500 word article. “You must learn more about common core standards” indeed.

3. In my opinion, this provincial, conspiracy theory, “public education is evil” mindset is harmful to the state and nation and is used for misleading political gain by many conservative politicians.

At the time, I attributed the comment some general anti-public ed. and common core sentiments expressed at the Eagle Forum convention last week. The Tribune gave us a stub saying some people were against the Common Core and public schools' “anti-family” agenda and quoted Senator Chris Buttars “We’re in big trouble in our public education system.” (I don't mean that as a cheap shot against the Trib. It's not like the Eagle Forum convention is major news. And notice that all of the above links about the Common Core are to the Trib. The Trib has always covered education more extensively, but The Deseret News doesn't even try since they fired half of their staff last year.) From the text and pictures in the article, Buttars was apparently getting much of his information from Susan Schnell and Oak Norton of “BYU and the Alpine District are secret socialists” fame, which was again ironic because of his quote a couple days earlier regarding the Common Core: “We’re dropping Utah’s moral and ethical standards in favor of a more national [set], and I don’t like it,” said Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan. He also said he was concerned that the new standards contain “code words for socialism.”

We’re apparently dropping our “moral and ethical” Utah standards tainted by BYU’s secret socialism to adopt national standards with “code words for socialism.”

I was originally going to make a joke about “critical thinking” and “research” apparently being these code words, but that is apparently too close to the truth. On to part 2.

HB 199, School Bus Advertisements -- Justifiable Desperate Measures

2011-01-05T23:02:00.004-07:00

Jim Bird is running HB 199, a bill that would allow school districts to sell advertisements on the side of school buses. There has been some relatively calm worry about inappropriate advertising by the Eagle Forum, some hyperbole (whore out our children??) along with the good point that this is nothing more than a very, very small band-aid for our painful education budgets, and some rational discussion without taking a very strong stance.

I can see the concerns, but to me, the positive impact, especially on transportation budgets (here are two of the weirder stories among many resulting from bus routes being cut), outweighs the vague worries of negative influences. Our school runs Channel 1 News every day with commercials included. I strangely find myself agreeing with the take of a Daily Herald editorial about the many commercial influences already in schools, not even mentioning the silly companies we associate ourselves with for fundraising sales -- chocolates, gift wrap, magazines, and a plethora of discount cards. That is until the last sentence of the editorial containing yet another swipe at public schools which equates school bus advertising with "innovation in school funding."

I am OK with this bill because over 13,000 new students got sent to school this year without being funded. Governor Herbert "hopes" to fund the over 32,000 additional students projected over the next two years while the legislature is rumbling about funding only a portion of those incoming students ("Not funding incoming students" is a politically smoother way to phrase things than saying "We plan to cut the public education budget"). Various schools are in danger of losing their accredited status because too many teachers have student loads of more than 180 students while I am teaching classes of 36 to 38 students without enough room for that many desks and a total load of over 250 students. I would venture to say that excluding special education teachers, every full-time teacher in an Alpine District high school or junior high is teaching more than 180 students. It's just not every school's year to be accredited so we haven't been caught yet.

It is acceptable to me to sell the space on the side of buses because we are desperate, not because cutting education funding and then allowing districts to beg for scraps is "innovative."

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Wimmer’s Tuition Tax Credits = Vouchers = Dutch Sandwich for rich

2011-01-04T22:16:00.004-07:00

Of course meaning that the vast majority of taxpayers get the “other” sandwich…

This was appropriately the Dilbert cartoon in the paper the day I first read about Rep. Wimmer’s renamed voucher scheme. He’s backed off now so he can reduce the ammo against him in a run for congress, but I think his rationale was funny.

Wimmer apparently tweeted that it would be “cruel and indefensible” to oppose his scheme because it was going to help children. (The Daily Herald used the same reasoning in their predictable editorial in support of his proposal. It would be fun to count how many times this legislative session Wimmer or the Herald condemn “bleeding heart liberals” using the same rationale to argue for something they oppose.) Then Wimmer backed off on running the bill because “it would be negligent for me to move forward with an idea I came up with myself…” when others have great ideas too, so he’s instead starting an online discussion group.

So it was cruel and indefensible to not help the children two days ago, but now it would be negligent to run this wonderful idea I supposedly just cooked up in my basement. Wimmer’s hyperbole seems to be a habit, and we all know Mr. Big Idea was just going to run a boiler-plate, tuition tax credit plan he got forwarded to him from The Eagle Forum or The Heartland Institute.

Bottom line:
1. Tuition tax credits, depending on how the law is written, could possibly take even more money out of the public system than a voucher. If rich donors give $10,000 to pay tuition for rich friends’ children and get a credit for that, that’s $10,000 taken straight out of education. The state constitution dictates that all income tax goes directly to education and the taxes paid on that $10,000 would have been considerably less than $10,000, so the donor gets 20 times more public education funding removed from his/her bill than they would have paid on the money they donated. (5% flat tax of $10,000 = $500…Donor saves 20 times that, all straight from income tax, and the $500 dollars they would have paid gets saved too.) If there were a cap on the credit, many/most donors would only pay to that limit, and the fact the donor gets a credit 20 times larger than the taxes they would have paid on that money holds true whatever the amount.

2. Carl Wimmer is a blowhard.

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Why do we allow Howard Stephenson to drive Utah's education agenda?

2010-09-06T22:19:00.006-06:00

Here are the current bills being prepared for the 2011 Utah state legislative session on the topic of education:

http://le.utah.gov/asp/billsintro/SubResults.asp?Listbox4=00790

10 of 19 bills are from Senator Stephenson. (These numbers will change as we get closer to the session. The 10 of 19 is as of Sep. 6, 2010.)

A quick look at the bills reveals:

2 curriculum bills,
2 charter school bills--one specifically about financing, probably taking district property taxes again,
Converting public schools to charter schools,
School "restructuring,"
Public School Accountability,
Public School Teacher Tenure Modifications,
Funding of Online Learning,
Engineering Education in Elementary and Secondary Schools

So basically, make more public school mandates--"engineering education," "accountability," messing with teacher tenure, and both curriculum bills (Is Howard Stephenson going to jump on his buddy, Oak Norton's bandwagon and demand we teach Cleon Skousen as "real" history? Oak told Howard during the March 13th Red Meat Radio broadcast that his group gave copies of The 5,000 Year Leap to the Alpine School Board as examples of appropriate curriculum material.)--while giving more of the limited pie of public education funding to charter schools and online programs that will not be subject to those same requirements. Plus dictating "restructuring" and possible conversions to charter schools.

Howard Stephenson thinks public education is socialism (Very end of post). He runs public education bills to benefit specific companies, hypocritically overriding local control and increasing the costs of public education when it's one of his pet projects. He constantly misrepresents his bills and abuses the legislative process in order to pass controversial provisions with little or no scrutiny: 2008 (plus an ongoing $190,000 annual expenditure of education funds just to spite an employee of the State Office of Education who ran against Greg Hughes at the county Republican convention. Seriously.), 2009, 2010. He is unabashedly conflicted as a paid corporate lobbyist--he is the only legislator whose entire livelihood depends on the issues he supports and how he votes on those issues. Combining his last two issues--he literally ran a bill in 2010 authorizing conflicts of interest for charter school board members as a sneaky provision in a larger charter school bill.

Senator Stephenson is on all public education interim and Senate committees in the state of Utah and is literally the sponsor of half of the education bills for 2011. I believe all claims by the legislature that their ethical safeguards are sufficient can never be taken seriously while this well-paid corporate shill is allowed to not just hold public office, but be one of the leading policy makers in the legislature. I also believe Howard Stephenson would be voted out of office in a heartbeat if the public paid attention, but unfortunately they don't and he'll probably be voted in for 4 more years of self-interest come November.

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Parents for Choice in Education hosts luncheon for "education stakeholders"...except for anyone who works at a school

2010-08-23T22:04:00.007-06:00

PCE has been sending out email for the last month recruiting a crowd for a luncheon with Jeb Bush and Governor Herbert about public school accountability and Bush's "school grade" project in Florida. They have included a lot of lines like:

As Stakeholders in education, it is imperative that you participate in the discussion on how Utah can and will overcome our unique educational challenges and emerge as a strong leader in a 21st century global economy.

The luncheon would at least be interesting. Whenever Howard Stephenson is full-heartedly behind an education measure, I cast a very cynical eye on the proposal, but I would like to hear how the school grades are measured and who decided on that measurement.

Unfortunately, the luncheon was planned on August 24th, right smack in the middle of the first week of school. Granite, Canyons, and Davis Districts all started classes today; Provo and Nebo Districts start tomorrow (the 24th); and Alpine, Salt Lake, and Jordan Districts all start in the 2 days after that. That means school staff members--teachers, administration, and support staff--are already required to be working at school, often welcoming incoming secondary students a day early.

When PCE talks about inviting stakeholders, they actually mean those ideologically in line with their thinking. (Especially rich ideologues. There are sponsorships available in the emails: Event $5000 Banner $2500 Table $1000.) Teachers and public school employees are regarded as the "enemy" to actually be avoided in education policy debates. It goes along with the rhetoric from many in the legislature. I tuned in to the first hour of Red Meat Radio last Saturday, and Judi Clark from PCE was co-hosting the show with Greg Hughes. I didn't write this down word for word, but Hughes opened up the show saying something close to "We're the good guys. The ones on our side, on the parents side." Then he contrasted his show and PCE to the evil UEA, supposedly not on the parents' side.

The ultra rightwing folks in the legislature and PCE must know teachers in their neighborhoods--the normal people with families and children who far outnumber the legislature's families in their personal stake in the quality of the school system--yet to hear them talk, the union is a bunch of selfish, childless atheists who "control" education and hate students. And I think they actually believe their own false created image which is repeated back to them in their policy echo chambers. They don't comprehend that the general public trusts teachers much more than politicians, but the political apathy of society in general lets them get away with their destructive attitudes.

So to sum, I think you can still attend the luncheon with Jeb Bush tomorrow at the SLC Marriott for 20 bucks if you don't want to pony up the 1000 dollars to be a table sponsor. Check it out, evaluate the information presented, notice who is attending, and listen to the language and underlying assumptions and disdain for teachers and public education in general. These people don't represent us.

Harassment of ethics petition gatherers in Utah County and an old story from Washington County about Dave Clark abusing authority

2010-08-06T23:09:00.007-06:00

An elderly couple from Salt Lake County has been working hard to gather signatures for the Utahns for Ethical Government initiative petition since last year. They worked many hours personally and helped organize others in their Senate District, achieving the necessary number of signatures in that district some time ago. In all that time and after speaking to hundreds of people, they had some polite disagreements, but no bad experiences with anyone.

This afternoon, they volunteered to drive to Utah County to help in the last county where the initiative needs enough signatures to qualify. The couple knocked on doors in northern Utah County very successfully for a few hours. The wife was discussing the initiative in Pleasant Grove with a man on the sidewalk who had a pen in his hand to sign the petition. Another man pulled up in his car, rolled down his window, and began loudly yelling to not sign the petition. The woman gathering signatures didn't catch everything he said, but the man was apparently repeating the unique Utah County Republican Party lie that the initiative restricts local Mormon leaders such as bishops and Relief Society presidents from serving in the legislature. The woman had not ever heard this argument in Salt Lake County and tried to tell both men it wasn't true. The man about to sign quietly told the woman that he didn't want to anger his neighbor and walked away without signing. The woman started down the street to knock on more doors, but the man in the car followed her, continuing to yell arguments about the initiative, and calling her "evil." The woman rejoined her husband and they were both shaken by the man in the car continuing to harass them. He didn't stop until they finally got in their car and drove away.

I think the incident speaks for itself.

Another interesting incident happened in Washington County back on April 15th when Utahns for Ethical Government volunteers were turning in signatures in an attempt to qualify in time for this year's ballot. Remember, the legislature had also recently passed the openly biased SB 275, allowing them to track down signature signers for an extra month and pressure them to remove their names from the petition. Carmen Snow walked into the Washington County Clerk's office that afternoon with a stack of petition booklets. Speaker of the House, Dave Clark, was behind the counter at the County Clerk's office as the employees accepted the submission of the petition booklets, just waiting to get hold of those names and start tracking them down. As I recall, the temporary injunction barring the names of the signers from being released was issued that afternoon, but UEG still does not know if Dave Clark got copies of those names before word reached Washington County.

The legislators want to us to believe they never abuse their power, but why was this non-county employee in the work space at the county office? Does anyone believe that "ordinary" citizens are allowed behind the counter at government offices when it is convenient to them?

I heard both of these stories secondhand from others who had spoken directly with the people involved.

Local educational software company gets statewide contract AFTER making $12,000 in campaign donations in 2009

2010-08-05T12:43:00.005-06:00

There was a nice article on KSL a few weeks ago about Imagine Learning software helping non-English speaking students learn the language. It's not a rigorous piece with one school's personnel and a company representative giving a glowing review of the program. But notice the small paragraph near the bottom:

Utah lawmakers funded a statewide license for this program, so any Utah school can address this growing need without hurting its budget.

Now I am not commenting on the effectiveness of this program. I have no experience with it and hope it is truly awesome. I often work with students learning English and any effective tool would be great.

However, I am concerned with the process. Why did this software company get a "statewide license?" This generally means any school in the state can sign up for the program and the state budget will cover the individual licenses, so basically a no-limit contract. How much is each individual student license? How many schools with how many eligible students have signed up? When was this passed? If it was in the 2010 session, I didn't hear anything about it and I followed the education budget debates closely. There have been crushing debates for two years in a row as the recession has killed public education budgets. The cuts have gotten deeper, class sizes are going up while other services are getting axed, and the projections for next year are for even more cuts. Legislators, schools, and the public debated about which "pet projects" and programs to fund and which to get rid of. Music, art, busses, science programs, merit pay plans, pension cuts, etc. have all been part of the debate.

I think that debate is legitimate and necessary in the rough economic climate. I just wonder if Imagine Learning was part of that debate or just slipped in somewhere. I have searched the three base education funding bills from the 2010 session, SB 2, HB 1, and HB 4, and I can find no mention of funding for Imagine Learning or English language software.

Making the matter even more murky are the large campaign contributions made in 2009 by Imagine Learning to key legislative leaders, especially conservative leaders. The August financial disclosure for 2009 showed donations to Senate President Michael Waddoups and Merlynn Newbold, education base budget sponsor and common co-sponsor of Howard Stephenson's bills. Imagine Learning's year-end financial disclosure for 2009 revealed donations to heavyweights: Greg Hughes of the House Education committee, Ron Bigelow--Chair of the Executive Appropriations Committee, $1,000 to Howard Stephenson--member of the Senate Education Committee and 2 interim education committees (and influential lobbyist), and $5,000 to Gary Herbert.

At the very, very least, this creates the perception of "Pay to Play." Make donations to the right people--maybe conservative lawmakers who usually oppose funding to education programs they are not personally sponsoring--and get a lucrative, statewide contract. That perception is real whether Imagine Learning is a wonderful program or a sham.

The donations are large and uncommon in the industry. I scanned the entire list of corporations that filed state financial disclosures for 2009 and didn't see any other company selling educational material--correct me if I'm wrong. (And for fun, go through the list and look at the donations from your favorite or least favorite company. The nearly $300,000 spent by Energy Solutions on both parties in 2008 and 2009 is especially impressive. All these corporations are spending tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars because of their civic mindedness, not because they expect anything from the legislators. Right ethics reform opponents?)

Really, does anyone think Red Meat Radio Howard Stephenson would support funding a statewide, educational software contract in a terrible budget year if these donations were not made? The bright minds at Imagine Learning spent $12,000 in profits without expecting influence and return on investment? It's a happy coincidence that the last educational software program to heavily lobby the legislature also got a large contract directly from Howard Stephenson in 2008?

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Answer to previous post: Very blatantly. The committee illegally voted in secret to avoid scrutiny of the lockstep lobbyist block voting

2010-05-19T23:41:00.011-06:00

Once again, I manage to be shocked at how openly political insiders and lobbyists hold the public in contempt.

Here is a link to the official page at the state website of the State Board Of Education Nominating And Recruiting Committee. (Link to separate post listing information as currently posted, for use when the committee or law change in the future.)

These twelve people get to vote and eliminate candidates from the ballot in the non-partisan races for the State Board of Education. In all other cases in the state, political parties may hold caucuses and conventions to winnow down official nominees from their private organizations, but any citizen is free to run for office independently. No other public political office that I know of is forbidden to members of the public unless approved by a screening committee--a screening committee by statute made up of 50% industry interests that submit names to be appointed by the governor. What if the Orem City mayor appointed a committee that questioned citizens of the city and only allowed those approved by the committee to run in the non-partisan races for city council? How many seconds until that process would be abused?

So the entire process assumes that the governor can appoint 12 people that can better decide on elected officials than the public. Today, an incumbent was eliminated and Kim Burningham--the former board chair and anti-voucher champion--managed to continue in the process "because he tied with two other hopefuls for getting the third-most committee votes for the District 5 seat." I want to see the votes to confirm my contention that these nominated lobbyists--who regularly support, seek support from, and intermingle with the Republican leadership--are voting en masse based on ideology.

But the nominating committee, a public body paid per diem for their duties, openly tried to shield itself from public accountability during its vote on Wednesday--it gave itself permission to vote secretly. A lawyer from the governor's office informed the committee that they had to put their names on the ballots, so they did that, but wouldn't show the public or the press who voted for who. Stan Lockhart, Micron lobbyist, husband of Republican House Whip Becky Lockhart, and the head of the state Republican Party when the voucher law was passed in 2007, is somehow supposed to represent the good of the voting public and is the person who suggested the secret ballot. I have underlined many of the weak justifications for a secret vote in the two articles below.

A quick run-down of the six "industry representatives":

Stan Lockhart -- Micron lobbyist and Republican partisan as outlined above
Tom Bingham -- President of the Utah Mining Association (I suspect most of this list has ties to the Utah Taxpayer's Association, but I know Kennecott is a high-paying client of Howard Stephenson's.)
Leland Hogan -- President of the Utah Farm Bureau
Chris Sloan -- 2009 President of the Utah Association of Realtors, the single most influential lobbying group in the state, current Chair of The Tooele County Republican Party
Richard Thorn -- The President of the Associated General Contractors of Utah
Jan Wells -- "Representing public utilities." I couldn't figure out who she was among several Jan Wells involved in Utah politics.

Do you see a pattern here? The "organizations representing each of the respective sectors" nominate their presidents/spokesmen/lobbyists and the governor appoints them. Past and present officials of the Republican Party are disproportionately represented. Does anyone not directly involved with these organizations feel these committee members adequately represent the public's interest in the governance of the public school system? I personally do not feel any teacher can represent me in terms of choosing who is qualified to receive my vote.

Natalie commented on my previous post that she believes Governor Herbert will be more thoughtful than governor Huntsman was narrowing the 3 candidates in each district (apparently 5 in Kim Burningham's district) down to 2 to appear on the ballot in November. I actually agree with her and was happy to read in the Trib article below that the governor supports changing the system. I urge Governor Herbert to give the public the chance to vote on Kim Burningham's retention on the State Board of Education and to speak out forcefully in support of primary elections for all candidates who wish to run. The committee could continue its candidate recruiting role as long as it's done in some sort of objective fashion, although I don't know that I see the need.

Here are the Deseret News and Tribune articles about what happened yesterday. I have underlined some of the text to emphasize it. My comments will be italicized in brackets.
The Deseret News article:

Governor's education commission opts for secret vote
Published: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 9:11 p.m. MDT

SALT LAKE CITY — Controversy is not a new thing for the governor's commission tasked with choosing candidates for the State Board of Education, and Wednesday night was no different when the committee opted for a secret ballot in the selection process.

The 12-person committee interviewed 29 candidates Monday with the names planned to be announced at 4 p.m. Wednesday. However, after almost an hour of debate, the commission decided to choose their nominations via secret ballot — an act which several commission members spoke out against, arguing that transparency is important in narrowing down the candidate pool. The State Board approves curriculum and policy for all the students and school districts statewide.

The commission is to choose a minimum of three candidates per district to forward to the governor who then whittles it down to two names for the November 2010 ballot. Districts in which there are three or fewer candidates are generally automatically forwarded to the governor.

The secret ballot procedure was the idea of Stan Lockhart, a commission member representing the technology field. Lockhart, who chaired the commission in 2004, said he was simply following previous procedure which abides by state law.

"It follows the law, and it follows precedent of what this committee has done in the past," Lockhart said.
[Lockhart claims this public body has voted secretly in the past. I only have direct knowledge of 2008. The voting was done publicly, at least at the meeting, and then put online by the Accountability Blog with commentary. I have not been able to find an official online record of those votes or past years. Can anyone help us out? Were past commission votes also done secretly? If they were public, are there any accessible records of those votes?]

Committee co-chairwoman Gayleen Gandy, a member of the Granite School Board, spoke against doing a secret ballot, saying it flies in the face of how political bodies should do business. "We are a public body," Gandy said. "We should be responsible for our votes."

Commission member Leland Hogan said he wanted a secret ballot so the public and news media couldn't ask about the members' choices.

Hogan said the commission needs to "keep integrity in the system. If you do not have a secret ballot, you won't be able to get anybody to serve on this committee again."

Without the secret ballot, Hogan said, commission members' choices "will be publicized — and that's not what this is all about. It's about giving names to the governor which will make the school system in Utah better."
[I as a person have failings...but how do you respect a comment like this? Seriously. I don't believe Hogan, the president of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation, would be OK with his city council making secret votes "just to make the city better." Or how about an appointed public lands commission making land use decisions affecting grazing via secret ballot "just to make the the land use system in Utah better?" This is blatant hypocrisy Mr. Hogan.]

The commission members debated the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act, some disputing that the commission constitutes a public body. The commission then voted to do a secret ballot and went into a closed session for an hour to discuss the candidates.

The commission then opened the meeting and proceeded with the secret ballot, writing their choices on pieces of paper to be tallied by the commission secretary.

Utah media attorney Jeff Hunt told the Desert News Wednesday night the law is clear that under the Utah Open Meetings Act, "secret voting is not allowed." Hunt added that the governor's commission is definitely considered a public body and "clearly covered under the Open Meetings Act."

Cheryl Phipps, State PTA Legislative vice president, who served two terms on the commission in previous years, said she believes the commission itself is "ridiculous." The voters need to be choosing who should be on the November ballot, she said. "Why don't we trust the voters?" Phipps said.

e-mail: astewart@desnews.com

TWITTER: AKStewDesNews

State Board of Education nominees

The governor’s commission nominated the following candidates Wednesday:

District 2 (Weber County area) Keith Buswell, Richard Favero, Monty Hardy

District 3 (Utah County area): Craig Coleman (incumbent), Burtis Bills, Clark Turner

District 5 (Davis County area): Nicole Toomey Davis, Diane Smith Cales, and tied, Ruland Gill, Lawrence Wright and Kim Burningham (incumbent)

District 6 (Northwest Salt Lake County area) Hank Bertoch, John Hohlbauch and Michael Jensen, (incumbent);

District 9 (Southwest Salt Lake County area): Joel Coleman, Milton Witt, Daniel Isham

District 10 (Murray area) Laurel Brown (incumbent);

District 14 (Eastern Utah): Dixie Allen (incumbent), Johny Thayne, Michael Miles

District 15 (Southern Utah) Tom Jett, Debra Roberts (incumbent) and Paul Terry.

© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

And the Tribune article:

Committee ousts state school board incumbent

By Lisa Schencker

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 05/19/2010 09:20:11 PM MDT

A governor-appointed committee ousted a state school board incumbent Wednesday evening, and the group did it by secret ballot.

The 12-member committee voted by secret ballot not to forward Denis Morrill's name to the governor for consideration to appear on the November ballot for a District 9 seat. Morrill, an attorney and businessman who has served on the board for 10 years, said Wednesday evening he wasn't surprised he lost his seat given the process.

"Those are basically charter school people on that committee, and they don't like me," Morrill said, explaining that he has been critical of charter schools in the past because he doesn't believe the state can "afford two school systems." "Experience isn't what they want. What they want is someone they can control."

He called the process by which state board candidates have to run for office "absolutely absurd from start to finish."

It's a process many say takes choice out of the public's hands, while others say it's the best way to get qualified people into office. Every two years when roughly half the state board seats open, the governor appoints a 12-member committee representing various education and business/industry interests to help recruit and narrow the field of candidates. The committee must choose at least three candidates for each seat to forward to the governor, who then chooses two candidates for each seat to appear on the ballot.

And this time, the group decided early in the meeting Wednesday to vote by secret ballot. But John Pearce, general counsel for the governor, later conveyed to them that they would have to write their names on the ballots. The Utah Open and Public Meetings Act requires minutes of open meetings contain, "a record, by individual member, of each vote taken by the public body," and the committee is required to vote in public.

The committee, however, refused to show those records of who voted for whom to The Salt Lake Tribune on Wednesday evening. Christine Kearl, the governor's education director, said members of the public will have to make formal open records request to see that information. Utah law indicates that, "Written minutes that have been prepared in a form awaiting only formal approval by the public body are a public record" and that "Written minutes shall be available to the public within a reasonable time after the end of the meeting."

The committee voted 9-2, by secret ballot, to vote for candidates by secret ballot. One member of the committee didn't vote on the issue.

Stan Lockhart, a committee member and former chairman of the Utah GOP, said he wanted the ballots to be secret because that's the way the committee had voted in the past. Committee co-chair and realtor Chris Sloan said he also believed that was the best way to go.

"That part of the process is something that goes back to the founding of our country" Sloan said. "The ability for someone to be able to express their vote unfettered is sacred."
[The comparison is ridiculous. Public officals--whether elected or appointed--being accountable to the public goes back to the founding of our country. Comparing those votes to our individual votes in the ballot booth is misleading. If public officials could vote in secret, that would take away the sacred ability of citizens to vote on their representation.]

"Some of us know some of the individuals in contention," Sloan added. "Our ability to either make or continue friendships and relationships shouldn't be a part of this thing."
[You volunteered or accepted your organization's and the governor's nomination to this undemocratic committee. The public's right to transparently see your influence on the candidate selection outweighs your desire to not feel uncomfortable. I believe you would raise hell if an appointed body dominated by Democrats tried to make their votes secret.]

Committee co-chair and Granite School Board vice president Gayleen Gandy, however, vehemently objected to the secret ballot.

"I believe we ought to be responsible for the names we put forward, and I believe that ought to be open and public," Gandy said.

Jeff Hunt, a Salt Lake First Amendment and media lawyer, said the Open and Public Meetings Act is pretty clear in prohibiting secret ballots.

"There still needs to be some accountability to the public, whether you're elected or not, if you're selected for a public body and doing the public's business," Hunt said. And Hunt said he doesn't see why the records of who voted for whom were not released publicly Wednesday night.

"I don't see any purpose in making the public or reporters wait five days to respond to a GRAMA [an open records request] to get information they should have been able to get just watching the open meeting and seeing people vote openly," he said.

Kim Burningham, a state board incumbent, called the secret balloting "ridiculous." The committee voted Wednesday to forward Burningham's name on to the governor because he tied with two other hopefuls for getting the third-most committee votes for the District 5 seat.

But Burningham said the whole process needs to change.

"I just think it all boils down to do you really want a highly charged political process to make the decision of who the public gets to vote on or should the public decide themselves? Clearly, the public should decide themselves," Burningham said.

During the process two years ago, the committee ousted two incumbents, including the then-state board chair.

Gov. Gary Herbert also would like to see the process changed, Kearl said.

Proponents of the process, however, say it's a way to make sure qualified people serve on the state board despite what can be a low-profile race. Before the mid-1990s, state board members were elected directly. But that, some say, led to even less interest in races than now and the election of unqualified board members.

Burningham called it "most unfortunate for an extremely competent, experienced member of the school board to be eliminated."

Morrill was beat by three other hopefuls, including two charter school founding board members and a young school custodian who wondered during a recent interview if districts could look at legal documentation of students as a way to reduce class sizes.

Gandy said she voted to forward all incumbents to the governor because she feels they should be held accountable by their constituents, not the committee. Sloan, however, said he voted not to advance Morrill because during the committee interviews Monday, "he touched on a lot of issues important to me but without the depth that gave me the confidence to support him."

Sloan said he didn't give preference to incumbents, instead voting only for those candidates he thought most fit.
[Most fit for what?? And decided by who?]

Five other incumbents including Dixie Allen, Craig Coleman, Michael Jensen, Laurel Brown and Debra Roberts will have their names forwarded on to the governor, either because they earned committee votes or because no more than two people filed to run against them.

How blatantly will the State Board of Education Nominating Committee thumb its nose at the public? Or will Kim Burningham get his today?

2010-05-19T06:46:00.003-06:00

I don't have time for much. Utah Mom's Care had an excellent post on this a few days ago. The results of Monday's meeting and vote will be announced this afternoon.

Basically, Republican leadership can't keep it's theories straight on their opinions of Utah voters. In the case of the state school board, they're too stupid to vote unless there is an R(epublican) or D(emocrat) next to the name of a candidate, so we have to appoint a committee literally half made up of lobbyists (all the industry "rep's" are lobbyists appointed by the governor--people like Stan Lockhart, Micron lobbyist and head of the state GOP when they passed vouchers) to remove "unworthy" candidates from the ballot. In the case of vouchers, the public rejected them almost 2-1 because they were misinformed by evil teachers.

But when the ethics reform initiative didn't get enough signatures, that was because Utah voters are so smart and approved of the legislature's already passed reform. I think as the Utah Mom's Care post said--voter apathy enables this ridiculous, easily abused system. And in the last days of the ethics petition drive, there were still more people than not that had not heard of the initiative.

Here's an opinion piece by two Republican activists spelling out how the public is too dumb to vote without party affiliation, and the Tribune Editorial rightly stating that this system actually takes advantage of voter apathy for political gain rather than doing anything to make the final election between the chosen candidates more informed.

Sara Brate at the Accountability blog covered this bad process two years ago. Most revealingly, she put the candidate vote totals in an excel sheet for all to see. Notice that industry voter block that pushed the agenda. There were two incumbents pushed out by the vote of 6 people and shenanigans in my state school board district.

So Kim Burningham effectively represented the overwhelming majority of both Utahns and his district in the anti-voucher battle, infuriating Republican leadership. He fought hard on the ethics initiative, once again battling for things large majorities of Utahns want, but legislative and political party leadership abhor. Will he be taken off the ballot by 6 lobbyists? If so, I predict a short period of outrage from observers, and then no consequences. If only 2 legislators got taken out after the voucher debacle, and the bill to change this process couldn't get traction the last 2 years, nothing will happen now.

Utah County Convention coming, mail and now packets of paper pouring in -- HB 150 is unconstitutional and overreaching

2010-04-21T23:32:00.006-06:00

The county convention is Saturday and the county wide races are being hotly contended. I haven't had as much time to research as I would wish, so I am still working on what to do with assessor, auditor, etc., but I've got a pretty good feel of where I'm going with the two county commissioner spots and county sheriff. I tend to cast a favorable eye toward challengers, favoring term limits and non-career politicians, but I am leaning toward 2 of 3 incumbents in those races. The challengers are either less qualified or too arrogant and partisan for me to vote for.

I have received lots of email and postcards--5 or 6 color cards just today--and then tonight, a whole packet of papers delivered to my house with a collection of articles about the Brad Daw vs. Calvin Harper race for House representative. There were copies of 12 newspaper articles/blog posts criticizing Daw's HB 150. These were hand-annotated and highlighted in red marker. Impressive effort if all the county delegates are receiving this.

I heartily agree with the criticism of HB 150. Court review of forced searches is crucial. Rep. Daw keeps pulling out "The fed's have been doing this for 20 years and always had it upheld in court" defense, but that seems kind of hypocritical for a member of the Patrick Henry Caucus. I have not heard Rep. Daw or any attorney general give one instance of a child safety case being jeopardized by having to get a judge's approval before obtaining internet information. If the process is too slow, work on improving the process to obtain a warrant--don't bypass it. The very legitimate "slippery slope" argument in this case is augmented by Rep. Daw's original version of HB 150 allowing administrative subpoenas for any "criminal activity" using a computer. The bill was amended on Feb. 23rd or 25th to apply "only" to felony charges. It failed a House floor vote. The bill was substituted Feb. 26th to now allow government lawyers to obtain internet information without a warrant in the cases of child kidnapping and "an offense of stalking under Section 76-5-106.5." (Line 71 of the substitute bill at the link above) It now passed another floor vote and later a Senate floor vote, but interestingly, it split the Patrick Henry Caucus.

Also, if it is up to just a city, county, or state attorney's discretion, what happens when the stalking ordinance referenced in the law is applied politically? Mark Shurtleff may be the most egregiously political government lawyer, but administrative subpoenas are ripe for abuse because of politics or personalities at all levels they are permitted. Can you imagine if Lohra Miller (Salt Lake County district attorney) and that other guy in her office that have been publicly suing and attacking each other in the press for a couple years could get the other's internet information via an administrative subpoena obtained at their discretion? The particular stalking ordinance given administrative subpoena power was recently beefed up to give prosecutors extremely wide latitude in what constitutes stalking. Read some excerpts from Section 76-5-106.5 of Utah Code. The person could be charged if they violate the following conditions:

(b) "Course of conduct" means two or more acts directed at or toward a specific person, including: (i) acts in which the actor follows, monitors, observes, photographs, surveils, threatens, or communicates to or about a person, or interferes with a person's property:

(F) uses a computer, the Internet, text messaging, or any other electronic means to commit an act that is a part of the course of conduct.

And this broad standard, communicating "about a person" on the Internet in a manner that would cause them "emotional distress" [(2)(b) in code], can now be used to get the internet information, including credit card information, of any internet poster a politically motivated government attorney deems to cause his/her buddies distress...without a judicially reviewed warrant." That's wrong.

There was only one item in the anti-Daw packet about something besides HB 150. It was a copy of the executive summary of Daw's 2007 HB 141 and a paper comparing it to "Obamacare" because it mandated catastrophic health insurance coverage. This was pretty dumb in my opinion. I do not support health insurance mandates, but much of the partisan opposition to them blithely ignores that they were a Republican idea to try and protect the market in the face of government mandates. I don't support Bob Bennett either , but his acknowledging the huge financial problems in healthcare and fiddling with possible solutions in his bill are not the reasons I won't vote for him (unless he ends up facing Cherilyn Eagar in a primary). So in this instance, one could ding Rep. Daw and many on the right for opposing ideas based on who proposed them rather than their merits, but this guilt by association doesn't fly with me. I've got other, more legitimate reasons to vote against Brad Daw.

I'll probably post again about these county races before Saturday, and possibly some more Daw/Harper comparisons if anyone is interested. (Well, very possibly if no one is interested too.) =)

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The UEG's attempt to keep the initiative signers anonymous reveals the true injustice of SB 275, the extended time period for opponents

2010-04-15T01:00:00.004-06:00

The Utahns for Ethical Government organization and its lawyers are trying to prevent initiative opponents from learning the names of those who signed and then badgering them to remove their names. I agree that it will be inconvenient for some of them (The Utah County Republican Party plans to distribute flyers claiming the initiative is anti-LDS.), but I think the names should be public. Otherwise, it won't be possible to verify that true signatures were gathered. I know I wouldn't want to have to just trust the county clerk. I'll even agree with Howard Stephenson that the initiative backers are worried they won't reach the high numerical thresholds for signatures. (I predict that both the ethics and Fair Boundaries initiatives will fall just short in paper signatures and the battle will move to the certification of e-signatures. Even that may end up being a moot point due to the requirement to get 10% of the voters in 26 of the 29 State Senate Districts. The petitions could hit the 95,000 total required with the online signatures, but be a little behind in too many of the specific districts.)

However, I also agree with one small aspect of Carl Wimmer's blast at the end of the Tribune article:

Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, co-sponsored the bill that streamlined signature removal. On Wednesday he had harsh criticism for the initiative backers and their lawsuit.

"This is Chicago-style politics at its worst," Wimmer said, "and precisely what you can expect from an organization that is trying to usurp the rights of the voters and the republican form of government in our state."

"The public should have a right to know who is attempting to change law," Wimmer said. "There's no difference between who signed a petition and how a legislator voted."

I think it is revealing that Rep. Wimmer thinks citizen initiatives "usurp the rights" of voters, but that's not my main point. It's Wimmer's last comment, that the signers' signatures are like legislators' votes. This comparison probably doesn't hold 100% true, but in this case, it represents the public's right, protected by the State Constitution Article VI, to initiate legislation.

Rep. Wimmer continually argued this bill was making things more fair and more just for signature removals. I agree that allowing easier removal not requiring a notary was fair, but allowing initiative opponents to access the names of signers and target them for one extra month was a transparent "power grab," to use the language of opponents, grabbing power from the people by eliminating months of work by taking a few names off a petition in one Senate District. It is hypocritical and unfair, and I honestly don't believe that Rep. Wimmer truly believes his own words from the House presentation.

The House Floor debate is kind of long, but sadly interesting. Here's the link. You have to scroll down halfway through Part 1 to SB0275S02 and you can either listen or watch the debate. I watched the video on RealPlayer. You have to first fast forward through a 40 second procedural deal first. Then the video resets to the 42 minute floor debate and vote. In his bill introduction, Rep. Wimmer talks about removing the notary requirement, but conveniently does not mention the extended month for opponents to remove signatures with no ability for proponents to add signatures, nor the fact that this bill differs from 95%+ bills and takes effect immediately. He also said the initiative signature gatherers are likely deceiving people and not giving them all the information. This claim was repeated by Rep's Gibson, Morley, and Hughes.

All of the debate is revealing, but at about 9:20 Rep. King proposes an amendment moving deadlines for both signing and removing names to April 15th. Rep. Wimmer really tries to stretch the truth in his rebuttal, claiming the rights of those who sign late in the process are taken away, and so it's fair to have the month of time just for removals. Rep. McIff, who ended up voting for the bill, makes the best comments starting at the 13:00 minute mark. Listen--it's only 2 minutes. He explains indisputably why this bill unbalances the rights of initiative proponents in favor of initiative opponents. (He doesn't mention that initiative opponents will almost always be incumbent legislators.) In my opinion, his points put to shame Wimmer's silly arguments. The vote on the amendment takes place at about 17:00. It failed by a 34 to 38 margin. (The final vote was 50-24 in favor of the bill, showing that a number of Representatives thought removing the notary requirements was a good idea while opposing the extra month of time.) This is voting material for me as my Rep. voted against the amendment and for the bill.

One final high(low)light: Rep. Kerry Gibson gives a long, rambling series of questions and a speech at 19:00. California is baaaad. Any initiative will turn us into California. California...Booooo...Blah, blah. He attacks the same strawman as Wimmer, focusing on deceptive signature gatherers and how his wife might illegally sign his name to a petition. Rep. Gibson also states that he opposes any citizen initiatives. I think this says out loud what many legislators are thinking. At 24 minutes, he justifies the extra month by comparing the signatures to committee hearings or bill co-signers rather than votes. I didn't know him as more than a name before--this makes me glad he's leaving the legislature, but possibly sorry for Weber County if he wins his County Commissioner race.

I think Rep. Gibson's comparison is wrong. The signatures gathered are the public's right to put a law on the public ballot, exactly like the legislators' right to vote to put their version of an ethics commission on the ballot this November. The extra time extended in SB 275 is the equivalent of allowing opponents of that commission or of bills passed on the last day of the session to persuade/inform/manipulate/bully for one month after the session ends, and any bill that loses support retroactively doesn't pass. It's unfair. It's bad process. It's wrong. Legislators would never allow such an affront to their prerogative. But despite Wimmer's admission that the state constitution is right and we do get to "vote" via signature to put measures on the ballot, the legislature doesn't actually respect the voice of the citizens or the "plain language" of the State Constitution giving us equal legislative power to place bills on the ballot.

Two reasons to sign the ethics initiative on the last day, April 15th

2010-04-14T23:47:00.005-06:00

Two reasons:

1. In current Utah law and practice, lobbyists can be legislators.

This really shocks 90% of people I talk to along with the fact that a senator representing Utah Valley is currently both a lobbyist and a state senator. As they ask for more info, I tell them that Howard Stephenson is one of the most influential policy makers in our state, and his "taxpayers association" is really a 4-employee lobbying firm with a secret list of business clients. Stephenson's sole basis for employment is his effectiveness in achieving legislation favorable to his clients. If he votes the "wrong" way or does not push bills his clients favor, he will be fired. This is not the normal and inherent bias of a citizen legislature, but basically a man paid for his votes. Worse, since the Utah Taxpayers Association's clients are secret, you never know on a given bill whether Stephenson is being employed to vote a certain way. He cannot be objective or risk his livelihood. How can it be interpreted any differently? Recent reform bills did nothing about this practice.

2. The latest ethics reform bills passed by the legislature will not only fail to stop the vast majority of the lobbyist money coming in, but new loopholes would allow half of it to go unreported if spending spending patterns remain similar.

Bernick's analysis in the Deseret News of lobbyist gifts and meals this year reveals the distinct lack of reform.

"Despite Utah legislators' claim that they took large steps in lobbyist gift-giving reforms this year, a Deseret News analysis of new lobbyist disclosure reports finds that a new reform bill they passed would ban just $1,100 of the $71,700 spent on lawmakers so far this year...

However, the newspaper also found if the lobbyist gift-ban restrictions found in a citizen initiative petition were in effect, 99 percent of the gifts given to legislators in January, February and March of this year would not have been allowed."

The purposeful loopholes in the law just passed are even worse:

Meals costing more than $10 must come with the accepting lawmaker's name attached, unless large groups of legislators are invited. If the whole Legislature, the House or Senate, a legislative committee or a party caucus are all invited to the meal, then that expense is exempted, no matter how many actually attend. In fact, the all-invited expense will no longer even be reported by the giving lobbyist, as is the case under the old lobbyist law. Gone from the public record will be how much was spent by this or that special interest group hosting a meal for an identifiable number of legislators, no matter what that expense may be.

In the first three months of this year, $35,168 — nearly half of all gift-giving that was reported, the newspaper found — went for meals where all members or some caucuses were invited, an amount that won't be seen in future lobbyist reports.

In addition, in the 29-member Senate, the president can authorize lobbyist-paid-for trips and expenses for a senator of either political party, and that lobbyist expense won't be reported, either, under the new law. The speaker of the House also may give such a trip exemption for any representative, but by internal House rule (which was not adopted by the Senate), the speaker must disclose that expenditure and the representative who took it in a timely manner.

Bernick explains that gift giving is down 20% from last year's 1st quarter, but I have difficulty praising the legislature for accepting "only" $71,000 of gifts in a three month period rather than $89,000.

The legislators can take offense and (falsely) call the proposed restrictions and independent commission a "power grab" all they want, but that doesn't change these numbers. The state legislature wants us to believe that the vaunted free market they value so much is spending tens of thousands of dollars in just a 3 month period to accomplish nothing; these firms and special interests are so blind to their own interest that they just throw this money away without making a profit on the expenditure; and Howard Stephenson has been employed for the last few decades to not influence the incorruptible legislature. Think about that premise and either find a last minute petition to sign, or go online and sign electronically as that battle rev's up. Here are the links to the Utahns for Ethical Government initiative and also the Fair Boundaries initiative.

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Revealing conversation while gathering initiative signatures

2010-04-06T10:09:00.003-06:00

One afternoon, I was gathering signatures for both the Utahns for Ethical Government initiative and the Fair Boundaries initiative. I ran into two professionally dressed people wearing real estate nametags. I explained the Fair Boundaries petition to polite interest and nods, and then I started explaining the ethics petition.

"If this were to pass, next year state legislators could not take any gifts from lobbyists, period. Including meals."

One of their eyes lit up and the person said "I'll sign that" while grabbing a pen. I continued to explain that it would prevent a person from being a lobbyist while serving in the legislature and that one of our state senators representing Utah Valley is a lobbyist. They nodded and grinned. But as the person started to print their name, they paused.

"Wait. Maybe we shouldn't. Don't we do this?"

"Lobby? Yes. The realtors' associations are the biggest lobbyists in the state."

They discussed if anyone would be mad they signed the petition. I told them that they should be aware that Taylor Oldroyd is strongly opposed to the initiative and in fact had mixed his Republican Party interests with his County Realtor Association position and gotten signature gatherers kicked out from in front of the Home Expo. I also explained SB 275 and the GOP plan to call people after the fact and convince them they should remove their names from the petition because it is anti-Mormon.

"So yes. If this gets enough signatures to get on the ballot, you probably will get a call from Taylor Oldroyd."

"Listen. These are both good. But we're both new in the profession."

"Yea. We can't afford to get on the wrong side of Taylor right now."

I told them it was sad, but I understood that they didn't want to risk their livelihoods. I explained the rest of the leadership arguments about supposed loss of free speech, invasion of privacy, and their twisting to pull the anti-Mormon stuff out of the bill, and why I thought they were good provisions that improved the political process. They both said they agreed, but didn't want to antagonize Oldroyd. I thanked them and sent them home with information to give to others they knew.

I spoke with some other realtors I knew about the incident, and they laughed. They explained that Taylor is not even a realtor, but merely their hired gun to lobby and administrate.

(I hope some of you comment, but I may not respond for a couple days. It's not you; it's me. I'll respond when I can in a few days.)

Utahns for Ethical Government and Fair Boundaries initiatives -- Utah County SOS

2010-03-31T23:45:00.007-06:00

This post is short (for me). Please read my request for help at the end.

I support both the Utahns for Ethical Government and Fair Boundaries initiatives. The deadline for signatures for both is April 15th. I also support the citizen initiative process. Local politicians talk the "We the people" talk when dealing with the federal government, but become downright defensive when confronted with that same reality on the state level--that their authority is derived completely from the people they represent.

Article I, Section 2 of the Utah State Constitution.

All political power is inherent in the people;

Article VI, Section 1 of the Utah State Constitution.

(1) The Legislative power of the State shall be vested in:
(a) a Senate and House of Representatives which shall be designated the Legislature of the State of Utah; and
(b) the people of the State of Utah as provided in Subsection (2).
(2) (a) (i) The legal voters of the State of Utah, in the numbers, under the conditions, in the manner, and within the time provided by statute, may:
(A) initiate any desired legislation and cause it to be submitted to the people for adoption upon a majority vote of those voting on the legislation, as provided by statute;

State legislators constantly use a false example to make their cause seem just. "California is bad! If we make laws by initiative, we will end up liberal and bankrupt like California! Honest!"

It is faulty, ego-driven logic to argue that passing any citizen initiative will turn Utah into California, yet I have seen this argument both in print and in person from legislators. It's silly, shallow electioneering just like sticking a picture of Ted Kennedy or Barack Obama in a commercial about a political opponent and shouting "Ooga booga!" The legislators should represent us to the best of their ability, not protect their power and act like their wisdom is irreplaceable.

The legislature has exercised their procedural authority to make getting the citizens' voice on the ballot via initiative almost impossible. The signatures of 10% of all Utah voters must be gathered, including 10% out of the individual State Senate Districts. Only widespread active advocacy can succeed.

So here's my point tonight. The head folks at both Utahns for Ethical Government and Fair Boundaries are necessarily putting on a confident face. With only 2 weeks left until the April 15th deadline (which the legislature arbitrarily moved from June until April in retaliation after the citizens voted down the voucher bill...SB 54 sponsored by a Democratic senator and Republican Kevin Garn in the House), I think the threat of not gathering enough signatures is greater than the threat of initiative opponents knowing which districts to target--they'll know after April 15th anyway.

The difficulty does not lie in the message or the bill itself--it lies in apathy. Most voters have still not heard of either initiative. Not enough of those supportive of the concepts of the initiatives have signed them or volunteered to gather more signatures. I can speak from personal knowledge that the signature totals for both petitions in the Utah County Senate Districts are not going to pass unless more people volunteer to get one packet worth of 20 signatures immediately.

That's my plea. Get a signature packet from either or better yet, both of the initiative organizations, and get 20 signatures in the next week. There are contact people on both websites who can get you signature packets.

Here are the contact links for Utahns for Ethical Government and Fair Boundaries.

We need fast, low-hanging fruit from every neighborhood in the Senate Districts of Senator Madsen, Stephenson, Valentine, Dayton, Bramble, and Hinkins. There are a lot of people supportive of putting ethics reform and fair political redistricting on the ballot that just need to be asked. If you are politically interested enough to be reading this blog, then you know 10-20 people among your family, friends, and neighbors that would sign the petitions. The active volunteers have already gotten the signatures of their neighbors and are doing the tough stuff door-to-door or standing outside public places. That is rewarding and effective (In my experience, 75-80% of those who will listen to explanations of the initiatives sign.), but slow. 50 people gathering 20 signatures each from their circle of friends is what is needed.

Utah County residents, please just make one phone call to the contact person for the initiatives. Spend a couple hours in the next two weeks and gather 20 signatures. Determine whether inspiration or guilt is more effective in your particular case, and consider me sending you whichever is required. I think both are merited for these causes to improve our state government.

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CEU affiliating with USU, UVSC becomes UVU, and the lack of community colleges in Utah's Higher Education system

2010-03-29T23:17:00.005-06:00

I'm very, very frustrated that Governor Herbert signed SB 275 into law, but I'll get back to the ethics initiative tomorrow. I just want to write a quick post because of a Tribune editorial dealing with higher education in Utah. This editorial just about catches what I have been feeling since UVSC became UVU a couple years ago. There are pros and cons about increasing the number of universities in the state, but I feel the negative aspects are often ignored.

Utah Valley really did need a university more focused on locals than BYU, but it also needs a community college. University status means increased prestige (everyone around here was and is very excited by the upgrade), increased local opportunities for postgraduate degrees, and the expansion of other professional degree programs. However, it inevitably cuts out some students and the community college focus and brings greater costs as more is offered and more professors are required to teach more diverse and specialized courses. UVU currently has a high number of adjunct professors and graduate students teaching classes and teaches a high number of remedial courses. Tuition for those classes and all classes is going up and there is and will continue to be friction between the old community college mission and the new university mission. Not because either is wrong, but because it's hard to provide both at the same institution.

As the Tribune editorial said, Salt Lake Community College fills an important niche. And "niche" is probably the wrong word when SLCC has the highest enrollment in the state with all of its campuses. I personally know many local students who could benefit from a lower cost alternative to UVU completely focused on teaching.

I support UVU. I think the demand for university level education was there and it fulfills a huge need. What we really need is another community college in Utah Valley to complement UVU. I think such an institution would both attract many students not enrolled in college classes and siphon off some of UVU's huge numbers to a 2-year program more appropriate for their level--which would only help UVU in my opinion, in terms of growth costs and mission. And that's where I have no solutions, only wishful thinking. Where would we possibly scrape up the money to found a new state college when our current higher ed. and K-12 systems are stretched to the breaking point? I just don't know. But I seriously think that is what is needed to meet our community's needs right now, let alone the needs associated with the huge projected population growth in the county in the following decades.

Comments? Suggestions? Creative funding solutions?

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The Utah County Republican Party made $22,000 of anti-healthcare money, but will use it to fight the ethics reform initiative

2010-03-25T23:06:00.003-06:00

The Daily Herald reports that the Utah County GOP made more than $22,000 in donations Tuesday night at the local precinct caucuses. There were record numbers of attendees at most precincts (3-4 times the 2008 total in my precinct), and many were attending their first caucus to express their displeasure at the Washington establishment and the passing of the comprehensive Democrat healthcare bill. Utah County Republican Chair,Taylor Oldroyd, affirmed the same reasoning in the article above:

"It's frustration with what's going on in Washington," Oldroyd said. "The health care debate -- perfect timing for the Republican Party."

That passion was readily channeled into record donations. Unfortunately, if any of those new caucus goers pay attention to what their money will be used for, they will find that a large chunk of that money will not be used on anything remotely related to national healthcare, combatting the Democratic Party, or even Bob Bennett's Senate race. Instead, it will be used to promote and print distortions and untruths about the ethics initiative and those gathering signatures to place it on the ballot. The county and state parties have announced that they will expend resources both to persuade petition signers to remove their names (Ironically, their plan is to use fabricated and misinterpreted "secret" effects of the proposal in order to accuse the signature gathers of deceiving those who signed the petition.) and to campaign against the measure if it makes it onto the ballot in November.

So the party leadership and incumbent legislators will channel the enthusiasm and grassroots energy of these new political participants to protect the position of incumbents, to protect their uncapped source of "no strings attached," multi-thousand dollar donations from lobbyists and special interest groups, and to allow Howard Stephenson to continue to earn his living by advancing his clients' causes in the legislature. National politics makes everyone cynical because everyone hears about it. State and county politics make everyone cynical who is paying attention.

Please go read up on the Utahns for Ethical Government voter initiative. Then use the contact information on the site to sign a physical petition and make a difference.

Utah County GOP ethics purity pledge and false info about the LDS church distributed at caucus meetings

2010-03-24T23:29:00.002-06:00

The Tribune reported on the plan of the Utah County Republican Party to require their candidates to sign a form stating whether they had signed the Utahns for Ethical Government voter initiative seeking to put an extensive ethics reform law on the ballot in November. I called it weird in my other headline, but I actually am coming to expect stuff like this from leadership and incumbents protecting their turf. The whole opposition campaign is being approached dishonestly. I hope some brave soul or two will be brave enough to fill out the form and proudly own at the county convention that they signed the ethics initiative as well as the Fair Boundaries initiative. In the article, I underlined the responses of the Republican Party Chairs from Davis and Weber Counties where they explain the initiative is not “against the Republican Party” or a litmus test in their conventions as signatures were even being gather at the caucus meetings.

The Utah County Republican Party anti-ethics offensive extended to distributing a misleading flyer to every single caucus attendee in the valley. It contained similar charges and the web address to this site full of misrepresentations and outright lies about the effects of the ethics initiative, but the caucus flyer was significantly toned down in terms of language. The first false charge, that local leaders of the LDS church will be prevented from running for political office, was couched in the caucus flyer in terms of “some even say it reaches so far as to limit LDS leaders from serving.” The website comes right out and claims the initiative will prevent LDS leaders from running for office. No local LDS leaders such as bishops, stake presidencies, Relief Society presidents, etc. have anything to do with controlling the supposed paid lobbyists employed by the LDS church. Various legislators were offended at times this session when others “misinterpreted” or twisted the words or provisions of their bills to mean things other than what was intended. The incumbent protection crew is now trying to twist the definitions of the initiative to claim horrible collateral damage to freedom and justice. (I will post more in a few days about other false claims made by the website.) It is ironic that they are using untruthful techniques to undermine a bill that they claim will lead to “Those who purposefully make fictitious or groundless complaints…”

The anti-Mormon claim is an intentional ramping up of the GOP’s strategy to persuade people to remove their names from the initiative. They hit the caucus attendees—many of whom were first time attendees this year who knew nothing about the current initiatives or history of ethics reform battles in the legislature—with an opening salvo. If the initiative gathers enough signatures by April 15th, the county and state GOP will be contacting those who signed, especially registered Republicans, and telling them they were tricked by those dishonest volunteer signature gatherers who didn’t tell them that this was an anti-Mormon attempt to allow liberals to take over the legislature. They will use the time granted by the unequal bill, SB 275, allowing them to run a signature removal campaign for one extra month after the required signatures are due to the county clerks.

The Utah legislative leadership and some Republican Party leadership are using dishonest arguments to derail a citizen initiative on ethics. In the last two years, they moved the signature gathering deadline from June 1st to April 15th claiming the clerks were overburdened, then showed that to be a false rationale by giving citizen initiative opponents (naturally the establishment since citizen initiatives are attempting to bypass the legislature) an extra month to try and convince initiative signers to have their signature removed. But, please… please… think of the poor clerks. Read the bills, read the legislature’s claims, read the websites of the initiatives themselves, and I think you will see the sad irony as the legislature proves its need for outside action through its own campaign to resist far-reaching ethics reform.

Tribune article on weird Utah County Republican plan to screen out candidates who support the ethics initiative

2010-03-24T22:13:00.005-06:00

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http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14752201

Utah County GOP wants candidates to declare stand on ethics initiative
Politics » Initiative official says, 'Ethics reform is a nonpartisan issue.'

By Cathy McKitrick

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 03/24/2010 08:17:44 PM MDT

Utah County Republican leaders will ask each of their party candidates next week to fill out a form disclosing whether they signed petitions for a pending ethics reform initiative in what some view as an odd type of pre-election screening.

The expansive initiative, sponsored by Utahns for Ethical Government, served as the goad for lawmakers to pass several bills in the recent 45-day session, including legislation to form the state's first independent ethics commission.

But GOP legislators and the state Republican Party criticize the initiative as over-reaching and poorly drafted.

"We've already decided that as a party we oppose the [UEG] initiative," said Utah County GOP Chairman Taylor Oldroyd. "So we're asking candidates to declare one way or the other."

The candidate form also asks candidates to pledge to support only Republicans running for office and, if elected, to maintain the highest standards of honesty, morality and integrity.

After a question about which, if any, parts of the party platform the hopeful disagrees with, the form inquires whether the candidate is a supporter of the ethics initiative.

The information will be tabulated in time for the county's April 24 convention, where delegates will cast votes to thin races with multiple contenders.

"There's a few that have a different opinion and that's fine," Oldroyd said. "We just feel the voters and delegates need to know."

So what if a candidate skips the declaration?

"There is no punishment for not signing, but delegates and voters may not view this favorably," Oldroyd said in an e-mail to The Salt Lake Tribune .

Dixie Huefner, UEG's communication director, puzzled over Utah County GOP's new requirement.

"It seems to be inconsistent with Republican values of freedom, choice and liberty," Huefner said. "I don't understand the narrowness of their view since ethics reform is a nonpartisan issue."

In Davis County -- as heavily Republican as Utah County -- candidates will not have to divulge their support or opposition to the ethics initiative.

"We just require that they register as a Republican," said Davis County GOP Chairwoman Shirley Bouwhuis.

"The initiative hasn't even come up here," Bouwhuis added. "Unless it's something against the Republican Party, we believe in freedom of choice."

Weber County Republicans also make no such inquiry of candidates.

"Absolutely not," said Weber GOP Chairman Matt Bell, noting that someone was gathering initiative signatures at his crowded caucus meeting Tuesday night.

"That's Utah County," Bell said. "They can do whatever they want."

cmckitrick@sltrib.com

Ethics legislation versus initiative

The citizens' initiative would create an independent ethics commission that holds an open hearing on any non-frivolous complaint. The Legislature's new panel conducts the entire screening process behind closed doors.

The initiative allows any three individuals to file an ethics complaint against a lawmaker. The new law allows two residents to lodge a complaint, but at least one must have firsthand knowledge of the alleged violation.

The initiative contains campaign caps. Utah is now one of four states lacking such limits.

Utah County GOP pushing for new speaker?

2010-03-17T15:43:00.008-06:00

If you haven't seen the debate raging about the ridiculous standing ovation for Kevin Garn orchestrated by Dave Clark, here are some refreshers:

Standard Examiner

Daily Herald

And Holly on the Hill, whom I usually feel just repeats the party line, really hit the nail on the head in some great posts about Dave Clark and the legislature as a whole.
Here, here, and here.

As always, politics quickly resume after crisis. Brad Dee has already made it know he wants to be majority leader, but that's not the biggest political prize up for grabs. Dave Clark really screwed up with the "We want you back" and floating the idea for a couple days of Garn continuing in office. I think his being forced out as Speaker of the House is a real possibility when the House caucus huddles tonight and assigns blame.

Revealing quotes from this last link:

“I’m talking to folks afterward. They didn’t know [that she was underage]. They didn’t know they were naked, that he was married,” Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, said of information learned later about Garn’s history. “When the Speaker stands up, you know, you stand up. That’s habit. Then it’s ‘What are we doing?’ ”

He said allowing the admission with a room full of people was manipulative.

“I feel like we were used as a prop to lend credence to the admission,” Dougall said.

I agree they were used as a prop, but that culture of unswerving support and good ol' boy network is why we need ethics reform--not necessarily this one instance of Garn's misdeeds.

“People need to understand the culture. We clap a lot,” said Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo, who is also unhappy about the confession on the floor but was among the first to stand and applaud.

“You’ve got two minutes to process the information,” he said. “It shouldn’t have been done on the floor. I think everyone is in agreement with that. We were put in an awkward situation. What were we supposed to do?”

How about show some of that same supposed spine you trumpeted in your "principled" crusade against the federal government Mr. Founding-Member-of-the-Patrick-Henry-Caucus? You'll attack nationally, but you will support a fellow state leader to the death, until your own conservative blogger, Holly Richardson, slaps you in the face and makes you realize this may affect your secure Republican position.

To quote the conclusion of my last post detailing the lack of principled governance about a specific bill:

I think this perspective helps better understand Dave Clark's comments about wanting Kevin Garn "back with us" and the standing ovation he received. Too many legislators instinctively and instantly rally to their own little club and defend it against all outsiders. Sign the voter initiatives for Fair Boundaries and ethics reform and take a larger step toward limiting conflicts of interest and money in our state legislature.

I sense in Holly's post and the Daily Herald editorial a push for some Utah County leadership and the Utah County legislators are being vocal about Clark embarrassing them and the legislature as a whole. Is the campaign on for a Utah County speaker?

Greg Hughes and Rebecca Lockhart were the most common Speaker Pro Tem's I saw during the session, but Hughes is more damaged than most by the Garn confession because he was one of the first teary huggers on the House floor. Brad Dee and Lockhart are the next two in line in House GOP leadership. Will Dee keep his claim staked on House Majority Leader, or eye the bigger prize? The Utah County contingent appear to be making a push for Lockhart or Dougall for speaker.

Think about that, and then go sign the ethics initiative petition.

SB 188, Howard Stephenson sneaks provision into charter school bill specifically allowing conflicts of interest

2010-03-14T23:15:00.006-06:00

At the end of my budget post last week, I mentioned that I generally have no beef with charter schools, but that I have problems with legislators using them for financial gain. Howard Stephenson sponsored a bill that could possibly reap direct financial benefits for sitting legislators and other influential GOP insiders on charter school boards. The most ethical full-time lobbyist on the hill--so ethical that he can earn his substantial living by being paid to advocate for laws that benefit his secret clients--yet NOT have any important conflicts of interest as a legislator, pushed this bill which dealt with another substantial policy issue, removing the cap on charter school enrollment.

SB 188. The frustrating part is that those in charge of acting as gatekeepers were asleep at the wheel. The executive summary of the bill mentions on Line 20 that it "modifies conflict of interest provisions applicable to charter school officers."

Click on the link above and then listen to the file, Senate Education Committee 2/24, of the Senate Education Committee hearing for the bill. The relevant sections are about 17-18 minutes long, but the relevant part to this post is only about a minute and 5 seconds long, from 4:00 minutes into the audio to 5:05. Senator Stephenson has a staff lady basically read the executive summary and explain it to the committee, and she explains the basics of allowing conflicts of interest in that minute. Following this, the State Superintendent of Public Schools, Larry Shumway, (whom I generally like and applaud for his ability to work with legislators), some State Charter School Board members, and the legislators get sidetracked off onto a minor issue: whether the new non-voting member of the State School Board should be called a delegate instead of a non-voting member. They chew on this over and over and never even talk about the principal issue of the bill, whether the enrollment cap should be lifted, let alone the conflict of interest provisions or committee to review charter school loan requests. I have reservations about lifting the cap purely because of funding considerations, but charter schools are serving a lot of children well.

Next, you can click on the link to the floor debate in the Senate (scroll down to near the bottom of Part 2 and look for SB 188). It's 12 minutes long with another minute for voting. I watched the video; I'm assuming the audio is the same length. Once again, Senator Stephenson gives the short explanation of the conflict of interest provision from 1:35 to 1:57. The Senate debates about the "non-voting delegate" amendment for the majority of the time and the bill passes without one question being asked about the other provisions. Does no Senator see any problem with this?! Now I can understand that possibly this was dealt with extensively in interim, but I know all of the legislators who talk so much about poorly informed people signing voting initiatives did not read this bill. I don't think Senator Stephenson was even very familiar with it in committee. They just trust each other because they are all so trustworthy and stuff. I blogged about this last year as well.

Now to the floor debate in the House (The SB 188 video is about halfway through Part 2). At first I was happy with Representative Lockhart's presentation. She first moves a technical amendment. From about 1:30 to 2:30, she gives a much better summary of SB 188. She focuses on the change in the charter school enrollment cap and lists some other provisions. However, she curiously omits both the conflict of interest change and and the new non-voting member of the State School Board that the first two debates fixated upon. Representatives Allen and Cosgrove at least ask some questions about other sections of the bill. Small little bravo as it is also obvious they are not familiar with the bill and haven't read it. No one else asks a question. At about 6:30, Speaker of the House, Dave Clark, says there are no other questions and turns the bill over to Rep. Lockhart for final summation. At this point, when debate has been cut off, she mentions those last two items she omitted from her initial explanation. At 6:35, she brings up the new position on the State School Board. From 7:00 to 7:17 she "explains" the conflict of interest provisions. Here's my rough transcription:

"And then there's also at the end of the bill some issues having to do with members of charter school boards and potential conflicts of interest and how they deal with those conflicts of interest as it relates to their individual schools."

Whether on purpose or not, this is a dishonest description. The relevant part of the bill is on lines 270-282. The original text of that section of law read:

A charter school officer or a relative of a charter school officer may not have a financial interest in a contract or other transaction involving a charter school in which the charter school officer serves as a charter school officer.

There was NO potential for conflicts of interest. The new bill text reads as follows (The underlined parts represent the additions or changes being made to the current law.):

270 (3) (a) [A] Except as provided in Subsections (3)(b) and (3)(c), a charter school officer
271 or a relative of a charter school officer may not have a financial interest in a contract or other
272 transaction involving a charter school in which the charter school officer serves as a charter
273 school officer.
274 (b) If a charter school's governing board considers entering into a contract or executing
275 a transaction in which a charter school officer or a relative of a charter school officer has a
276
financial interest, the charter school officer shall:
277 (i) disclose the financial interest, in writing, to the other charter school officers;
278 (ii) submit the contract or transaction decision to the charter school's governing board
279 for the approval, by majority vote, of the charter school's governing board;
280 (iii) abstain from voting on the issue; and
281 (iv) be absent from any meeting when the contract or transaction is being considered
282 and determined.

The bill doesn't "deal" with potential conflicts of interest; it puts them into code!! The board members of a charter school used to not be able to make money off of the school, and now they can. OK, they can't be part of the meetings to decide. But did any legislator think about what it would be like to work closely in a policy group (like the legislature or a charter school board--management being respectively the executive branch and the school administration) with someone who provides a service, omit them from a meeting on purchasing that service, and then have to tell them at the next meeting that their company did not provide as good a service as a competitor? They didn't think there would be any undue pressure there? They honestly thought this was a section of code that needed changing to better serve the charter school students of Utah? Or did they even know about it?

Following this non-explanation, Speaker Clark immediately opened the unanimous voting in favor of the bill.

Did no one in the House even read the executive summary?! Even if Rep. Lockhart didn't bring it up until it was too late to comment on it, was no one curious about the conflict of interest section? Couldn't that provision have been easily amended out, leaving the actual meat of the bill? Let's place unprovable bets on what percentage of the legislators in both houses had read the bill at this point. I would feel confident saying under 10%.

The Trib's education reporter, Lisa Schencker, who does a sporadic job of in-depth coverage as opposed to the other papers who only cover controversial school legislation, covered the story both in committee and after final passage. She reported the main point about the removal of the charter school enrollment cap, but just got a quote from Stephenson the first time, repeated it the second time, and didn't dig any deeper.

I'd love to hear any justification for allowing conflicts of interest at public charter schools. I'm serious. Is there some wonderful service out there currently not being provided to the charter school students that some charter school board member will now provide? Is this wonderful service worth allowing someone's close colleagues to vote on whether he/she personally profits from their position of influence at a charter school? Who thinks Senator Stephenson knows at least one person by name who just happens to be a legislator or GOP donor and will immediately profit from this bill? Maybe even someone who contributes secretly to the Utah Taxpayer's Association?

1. So, please be angry at the end result of a tiny section of this bill expressly permitting conflicts of interest in charter school board expenditures.

2. Please be angry at the lack of review given this bill through a committee hearing and three separate floor hearings. There were a total of two questions asked not about the member/delegate semantics debate. This criticism does not just include legislators, but education representatives, including Superintendent Shumway.

3. And really think about the broader issue this one example represents of how the legislature works. A registered corporate lobbyist with secret clients sits as a Senator in our state legislature. He has frequently misrepresented his bills in committee and floor presentations (Example 2009, Example 2008) and abused legislative process (Example 2010) in order to push his pro-corporate, anti-school, money-making agenda.

This same Senator passed a bill, SB 275, allowing voter initiative proponents--almost exclusively establishment Republicans who oppose sharing power--to have an extra month to go door-to-door claiming that "deceptive signature-gathering practices" result in "lemon laws." He and the rest of the legislative leadership claim that no one is reading the initiative due to "half-truths and misrepresentations" and they don't know about the secret, horrible provisions that are unfair to the virtuous legislators.

Think about this post and think about their position. Be angry that the legislators reflexively trust each other and excuse their repeated lack of proper review of laws (Self-admitted example from 2007--this link is to a really long post full of great examples and quotes, relating both to bad legislative decisions and their attack on voter initiatives and referendums. It's worth the read.) while constantly insulting the public who are easily fooled by "hucksters."

I think this perspective helps better understand Dave Clark's comments about wanting Kevin Garn "back with us" and the standing ovation he received. Too many legislators instinctively and instantly rally to their own little club and defend it against all outsiders. Sign the voter initiatives for Fair Boundaries and ethics reform and take a larger step toward limiting conflicts of interest and money in our state legislature.

Junk Mail

2010-03-14T22:17:00.002-06:00

OK, an easy post to get me going. I received a call from that national group giving the anti-Bennett push poll a couple weeks ago. It was fun and easy. The peon phone survey person seemed surprised that I was not supporting Bennett and already knew when and where my caucus meeting will be. I thought about telling them despite my agreement with the general premise of the poll, I thought the wording was biased and dumb...but figured it wouldn't make a difference anyway.

Then I got a glossy, 2-sided, color ad from Energy Solutions telling me that if I only listened to their science, I would support blended nuclear waste, international waste, and DU coming into my state. They also are regulated by lots of organizations they claim and are not determined to ignore Governor Herbert by bringing in that diverted DU in a few months.

Then just yesterday, I got THREE exciting pieces of political waste. First, a glossy color card from Bennett all about he alone has held off the onslaught of Obama's socialized medicine. Very noble. And a great, but very amusing photo of some doctor from Draper with a manic grin. I think he will get ribbing from his neighbors for that photo.

Second, a big glossy poster from Mike Lee with flags, the capital dome, kids at a playground, kid holding flag and mom's hand, and Mike's big mug. His big mailer had one other feature which I appreciated, but sadly think will be wasted on the masses. It had tons and tons of text. I've heard him speak in person and admit that I didn't read all of it, but I actually appreciate it. I want documentation of what a politician believes or promises. I'm sick of soundbites. But, the sad part is that my first thought upon unfolding the mailer was that no one was going to read all this. Oh well.

And finally, ANOTHER letter from Bennett. In this non-color, regular letter, I learned that all the cool mayors are voting for Bennett and I should too. Oooooh, Tom Dolan is supporting Bennett. I better change my attitude.

I'm hoping for at least two a day in the next ten days leading up to caucus meetings. I should get a scanner.

Budget debate resolves...Bravo Gary Herbert and Ron Bigelow! Carl Wimmer tries reverse psychology...

2010-03-12T01:36:00.007-07:00

The budget battle over Howard Stephenson's mini-omnibus policy insert at the last second finally resolved late Thursday night. Charter school funding is still a difficult issue to which I don't have the answers, and good legislative process is important to me whether I agree with a bill or not.

One thing I am pleasantly surprised but also confused by is the increase of WPU back up to current levels...along with the explanation that the state is still not funding growth. There's something I'm not quite getting. The original plan was for the WPU to go down about $90. Each new or continuing student would receive the same funding, but a lesser amount than last year to reflect the higher numbers caused by growth. If each student next year is funded $2577 via WPU, then districts will receive increased funding for each new student...or in other words, the growth in student numbers will be funded. Lisa Schenker reported above that "Districts will absorb that lack of funds in other areas." The principal state funding mechanism to the districts is the WPU. I don't understand which state expenditures the districts can cut millions of dollars from without impacting WPU.

Bravo to Gary Herbert and Ron Bigelow, as well as most of the House, for their firm roles in preventing any last minute strong-arming by the legislators who were valuing their pet project over transparency and rational policy discussion. Rep. Bigelow gave us the "telling it like it is" quote of the debate: "If there is any bill in this session that has subverted, bypassed and held our process to be the worst process, it is this bill."

Howard Stephenson cleverly, but falsely framed the debate in two ways in order to spin things his way. First, I explained in my last post why his "phantom student" argument, a new tactic this year, is a fundamental lie in dealing with locally assessed property tax. The district does not have significant marginal costs when adding or losing an individual student; property tax funds are not distributed per student. Stephenson repeated this meme several times.

Second, Stephenson claimed that there is money going to districts when students leave for a charter school that would otherwise go into WPU (the main state funding mechanism), and that's why it's important to shift some of the local money. Unless Senator Stephenson is talking about some obscure pot of money somewhere that only he knows about, that just isn't true. State funds are distributed per student via the WPU. For each student, the district gets the designated amount of money. Local property tax is voted on by the residents of a specific geographical area and then spent on overall programs which benefit large numbers of students at once. At no point does it follow around individual students; at no point are there "phantom students" as students move in and out of the district; and at no point can these locally approved funds be diverted into the statewide fund for WPU allotments. So what is Senator Stephenson talking about?

The bill bounced back and forth several times as the Senate would not agree to have the charter school funding changes deleted from the bill. To listen to the first debate Thursday morning when the House substituted the bill and took out the charter funding change, click here. (This is a list of the debates on all the bills that morning. The easiest way to find this debate is to scroll down to the Part 2 subheading, and then count 9 links above it to the SB0002S01 debate.) You can listen to or watch the conversation--I think watching often makes it easier to understand who is talking. Here are the highlights to pay attention to and the time in the debate they happen:

2:42
Rep. Bigelow gives an excellent 4-5 minute summation of the procedural and policy concerns with the original bill while proposing the substitute bill. He also explains the inherent difficulties of applying local funds to charter schools and how the substitute bill reflects the work of the education subcommittees.

9:00
Rep. Craig Frank declares his willingness to take care of pet charter school funding via bad process. "This year is the time" regardless of whether my colleague purposely prevented the proposal from being vetted.

14:40
The weirdest comment of the debate. Rep. Carl Wimmer stood and disagreed on the substitute based on "process." He wasn't necessarily voting because of the content of the bill, but the "process." He then claimed that Stephenson's original 16-hour-old bill has been vetted, but the "changes" in the substitute dating back to the education subcommittee's recommendations had not been. Therefore, black is white, up is down, and he voted against the substitute bill.

15:08-15:30
This is the money quote from above by Ron Bigelow. He acknowledged Wimmer's outspoken concern for process and then declared "If there is any bill in this session that has subverted, bypassed and held our process to be the worst process, it is this bill."

The motion to substitute passed a few minutes later by a count of something close to 50 yeas to 20 nay votes. The substituted bill then passed 71-4.

After Gary Herbert personally aided a compromise which took out the "monkey wrench" of the surprise charter funding, a final substitute bill was agreed upon and passed Thursday night by both houses. I didn't have time to fully comprehend the different changes in this substitute bill, but it appeared to be very reasonable upon first inspection.

Education Budget

2010-03-10T22:42:00.004-07:00

If someone had asked me a couple months ago what I thought the chances were that I wouldn't blog about this year's legislative session until the 2nd to last day, I would have replied "About the same as the Jazz signing a guy named Sundiata AND a guy named Othyus this year..." Oh well. As always, I hope to blog about some stuff that I saw, but we'll see. I have some things to do, and I realized today that I fell in the same trap as David. It's hard to be both a consistent blogger and balanced otherwise, but once I fall off the wagon, sitting down and composing a thought or argument that I'm happy with becomes more daunting. Then it just becomes easier to follow the session and occasionally stew about it, rather than really buckle down and compose my thoughts.

I was fairly happy with the education budget. Before I criticize him, even Howard Stephenson stepped up early in the session. In this video (which you now can't access unless you're willing to pay well-to-do Republican lobbyist/shill, LaVarr Webb, even more money. I'm not, but I bet a lot of blog regulars are still subscribed to UPD.), he explained to a policy group that a proposed 5% cut on top of not funding growth was actually going to be an 8% cut. And he was even willing to publicly disagree with his red meat buddy, Greg Hughes, when he fought for preserving as much as possible the base WPU budget that hires teachers to keep class size down. I agree with his stated position that the programs are peripheral to this.

Public Education will not receive funding for the approximately 11,000 new students entering the system next year, which depending on which article you read, ends up being a 3 to 4% cut in funding as the new students are absorbed into the existing budget. Then last week, the Senate Republican Caucus decided public ed. needed to share more of the pain and proposed a further 1% cut. It looks like Stephenson's view prevailed, and the programs mentioned in the KCPW article were the principal ones on the chopping block as the budget debate continued. Finally, it appeared that a compromise was reached between the House, Senate, and Governor Herbert to cut only $10 million, or about 1/2 a percent from the budget. I frankly think this is reasonable given the circumstances and was happy with the result. As much as I believe cuts in school nurse funds or having no new library books will hurt next year, I think they are very much preferable to further increasing our class sizes which are already going to increase next year.

That hard fought compromise was upset again when Stephenson slipped in a last minute rider to the budget bill, SB 2--a defeated concept from 2 years ago year, making districts pay more for the education of charter schools students within their boundaries.

Now this is where I really have problems with Stephenson, independent of the concept of the charter school funding shift which I also strongly disagree with. He himself has sponsored anti-federal resolutions this year and decried the lack of transparency in decisions made by Congress. I happen to agree that the backroom meetings, earmarks, and constant vote-buying in Washington are wrong. But Stephenson turns around and proposes a HUGE change in charter school funding that he knows is controversial, and he does it on the second to last day of the session by attaching the change as a parasite to a budget compromise bill arrived at after extensive negotiation. This however, is becoming a standard tactic for Stephenson and charter school funding. The original attempt to shift charter school funding to districts was part of Stephenson's SB 2 in 2008, the omnibus bill, which also was first debated on the 2nd to last day of the session. I guess that makes this year's SB 2 the "minibus bill", smaller and just as ugly. This planned attack was no last minute priority that popped up. Stephenson could have run a charter funding bill and put this through the process just like anything else, but he purposely waited until the last minute to try and ramrod it through. It is dishonest and hypocritical. I have pointed out Stephenson's and other legislators' hypocrisy on this score in the past--they hate hardball tactics and procedural games when someone else does it, but the end justifies the means when it comes to their own pet proposals. Margaret Dayton, an even more strident critic of government interference, also tried to slip her defeated SB 77 into the bill as an amendment. Just because it's allowed doesn't mean it's ethical Senators!

As to Senator Stephenson's rationale for the charter funding changes, I believe he is very disingenuous with his phantom student explanation on the Senate Site. State funds are distributed from state income tax revenues to districts on a per student basis called the WPU. Lose a student, lose the allotment of WPU. Those funds are already given to each charter school and are not the subject of this change and Stephenson knows it. Local property taxes, in contrast, apply only to the residents of a specific school district and are implemented after a vote by those residents in a general election. They are collected to fund specific building projects or as a certain percentage to fund local schools, and make up a chunk of each district's funding over and beyond WPU. Local education property taxes are not collected by nor distributed via the specific number of students. They pay for the general program of classrooms and teachers, and a specific allotment is not saved or spent when a student leaves or enrolls in the district. You can use a blunt fraction to say that there is so much more money per student when a student leaves to a charter school, but claiming that "we are funding phantom students" or that this is some huge "bonus" when a student leaves is willfully deceitful. It is not the same formula as money coming in from the state.

Since the charter boards are not made of publicly elected officials and do not represent geographic areas that could hold a vote, they do not have the power to assess these local taxes. The difference in how much local property tax is coming in is the center of the debate between Canyons and Jordan Districts and one of the fundamental difficulties with funding charter schools. The state has eased that burden for charter schools in the past by sending Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILT funds), to help them have more to spend beyond WPU.

So the true wording of Stephenson's analogy should be "We authorized charter schools as individual districts within a district, but without publicly elected officials or natural constituencies. Their lack of ability to raise local funds has demonstrated the deficiency of state funding when trying to run even a pared down school lacking common facilities such as gymnasiums, auditoriums, or grounds to play soccer. We want to allow these non-elected bodies to access funds the voters approved at the ballot box for their local public school districts. We fabricated "phantom students" in order to justify this "phantom funding" to schools without accountability to our locally elected school board." (To be clear, I have no problem with charter schools themselves. I just hate that the legislature sets public ed. districts and public charter schools against each other and worry about funding problems. Well, I also have problems with the attitudes of some legislators who profit from charter schools. More on that in another post.)

Does this seem right? Couple steals $4.3 million from schools--Wife ends up with one felony conviction, husband gets one MISDEMEANOR

2009-10-05T23:44:00.004-06:00

The complexities of law are definitely not my area of expertise, but to me, a recent settlement seems to fall somewhat short of justice being served. John and Susan Ross, in a premeditated and devious scheme, purposely took advantage of their positions and lax safeguards on spending approvals, laundering approximately $4.3 million through a fake company over 5 years, besides committing serious copyright fraud. That money came from federal Title I funds, funds meant to help the poorest, most disadvantaged students.

John Ross was convicted of one misdemeanor charge "because "he was not employed in the same capacity" as his wife and has serious health concerns." He seems just as cognizant and culpable as his wife, an employee of the district who directed Title I funds, who was convicted of one felony Money Laundering charge. Prosecutors will recommend she serve 27 months in prison of a possible 10 years for the charge. John also worked for the district and was in on the scheme from the beginning, besides previously working as the Title I specialist at the State Office of Education, which surely aided the couple's plan greatly in terms of knowledge of the system and how to fool it. John also admitted that "In addition to placing fraudulent copyrights on books, [he] made payments to printers and picked up and delivered the books, according to his signed plea agreement."

The two of them plead guilty to 2 of a total 47 charges originally filed against them and will pay back "$786,000 in cash, as well as homes in Layton, South Weber and Mountain Green, and at least two cars." What does that total? 1.5 million dollars maybe if the houses are more than $200,000 each? An earlier article reveals the cars will not garner extravagant revenue.

This lady stole $100 from the Utah Highway Patrol last year. She plead guilty to one felony which was reduced to a misdemeanor, got 30 days of home confinement, was required to do 150 community service hours, paid a fine of 5 and 1/2 times what she stole, and further reimbursed the court for the cost of the criminal investigation.

The Rosses stole 43,000 times more money from a more vulnerable group while abusing the public trust in their positions of leadership, and will pay back less than half of what they stole, let alone the cost of a 3 year investigation and plea bargain process. I also don't see any home confinement time for John Ross for a more serious misdemeanor charge or any community service for either of them.

It seems they were eventually caught red-handed. Is there a problem with the evidence? Does the cost of a trial--after literally years of state lawyers' time being spent on plea negotiations--not justify throwing the book at them? I just don't get this one.

I have more to say on the ethics initiative, but it's more involved and I haven't had the time yet.

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Another technology integration issue: Howard Stephenson waxes wrathful and wastes tax payer dollars on “textbook reviews” that he doesn’t understand

2009-10-02T01:26:00.003-06:00

Robert Gehrke broke this story almost a year ago and I’ve been meaning to comment ever since. I posted a bunch of articles on the subject separately. I highly recommend you read them all, but especially the first one listed: the Nov. 29, 2008 article by Robert Gehrke titled “Did Utah Senator’s Advocacy Go Too Far?”

The quotes listed are all from that same Gehrke article. The article triggered a 2-hour radio response from Senator Stephenson titled, "Stupid in Utah: How the Utah State Office of Education hurts kids and teachers."

Howard Stephenson and a legislative committee chose certain private companies in 2003 to support by awarding them state contracts and funds. Olene Walker vetoed the bill because it was inappropriate for the legislature to favor certain vendors, a position which Stephenson later agreed was correct when interviewed by Gehrke last year.

One of those favored companies was “ProCert Labs, which is seeking to review Utah's textbooks, pinpointing where concepts in the state's core curriculum are taught to help instructors teach the required lessons. The work could be worth millions.” Their funding got vetoed in 2003, but in 2007 Stephenson supported a bill mandating that private “textbook reviews.” I listened to the Red Meat Radio show on 12-06-08 when Stephenson defended his actions and interviewed the owner of ProCert, Paul Hoffman. Hoffman and Stephenson talked about how hard it was to know what was in a textbook, how time-consuming for teachers to figure it out, and how inefficient and pointless the current teacher review process was compared to the “21st Century” methods of ProCert using computers. Using my professional judgment, I will call BS on those claims. It boggles my mind how far Stephenson will go to waste money on anything deemed “21st Century” in education, even if he obviously has zero idea about the reality of the situation. In this particular case, a large amount of money is being directed to private companies to add repetitive detail to a process that can be done by willing teachers in one day for the cost of a substitute.

The state core curriculum standards are mandated topics to be taught in certain subjects each year. There is some educationese in parts of the text, but most people can easily understand the statements of what is to be taught. The current textbook vetting process on the state level is merely an initial screening to ensure that the textbooks cover the core curriculum and to give a brief impression of usability. The books that do not cover the required concepts will not be approved for districts to purchase; the others will be placed on an approved list along with the small blurb written by the reviewing teachers. The teachers who participate in secondary textbook reviews are volunteers who go to the State Office for a day to peruse stacks of new books from their subject. The only compensation they receive is lunch, and the state office pays the districts for their substitutes. The actual purchasing decisions will be made at the school and district level by educators who will examine the books regardless of who makes that initial review.

Reviewing the textbooks to see if they cover the Utah State Core is easy. Here is the state core for Algebra. A layman using the table of contents and index of an algebra textbook and flipping through the chapters could determine whether those state core standards (irrational numbers, Pythagorean Theorem, linear equations, formulas, graphing, etc.) were covered. A teacher familiar with the core and the subject matter can do it that much more easily and in a relatively short period of time. Just determining what is covered in a textbook is not rocket science and does not require expensive computers.

Here are the state core standards for geometry, biology, and 9th grade English. Look through them at the ordered list of standards and objectives. Would it be that hard to determine if a Biology book merely covers ecosystems, matter, organisms, cells, organs, genes, DNA, evolution, biological classification, etc.? I believe most readers of this blog could make that determination in 30 minutes or less. I know that actual Biology teachers can easily do it. An English text just has to teach Reading skills, Writing skills, and Inquiry skills, meaning research and logical thinking. The stories, plays, poems, lesson plans, etc. it uses to teach those skills are not mandated.

ProCert just wants to take a lot of time and money to break down the book page by page and tell you exactly what percentage of the book was spent on organisms, what percent on cells, etc. In a perfectly funded world, I would at least be curious about that data, but in our Utah schools struggling for funds, does that data measurable improve student learning as compared to teachers reviewing the books now? The answer is no.

There are stylistic, presentation, and quality differences between books that neither the quick teacher review or ProCert’s page counting and classifying address. Fotunately, it doesn’t matter. When a school decides to buy new Biology books (which given our strapped funds is NOT a common occurrence anyway), the teachers and administrators involved are going to look at the textbooks they consider. No one looks at the initial screening reviews, points a finger at the approved list, and justselects a book. The approved list saves them some time from looking at books that obviously are not adequate to Utah standards, but the teachers involved are going to evaluate the format, examples, graphics, lessons, etc. regardless of a good review. Having a more detailed review of what percent of pages are devoted to each topic according to ProCert isn’t going to hasten this process or really provide much meaningful information. No one will say, “Oh look. Company X is selling books with 2% more pages devoted to informational text than Company Y. Let’s buy sight unseen.’ It could point you to a company if there were drastic differences in coverage (which there generally won’t be between major publishers), but decisions on the actual quality of those pages devoted to geometric proofs, ecosystems, or short stories will be made by those purchasing the books.

ProCert is not qualified to evaluate the quality of material in a given textbook and does not pretend to provide that service. Paying them thousands of scarce education dollars for an initial screening is inefficient and wasteful. Howard Stephenson has obviously not taken the time to familiarize himself with how textbooks are actually chosen in schools and districts, and is thus “throwing money” at a gimmick that someone successfully pitched him. I listened to his words on the radio that morning, and he displayed zero knowledge of textbook purchasing procedures and just agreed with everything ProCert’s president claimed in his free sales pitch on the show. As quoted in the article, “Stephenson dismisses those in-house screenings as "schlock reviews" that are practically useless for teachers.” Where did he get that information? I’d bet from ProCert. His reliance on outside sources and distrust of educators fosters mutual distrust from our side. He holds the hoops and plays the music while we jump through them. (And why was Stephenson that personally and minutely involved? He claims that ProCert was not a Utah Taxpayer’s Association member [a claim we have no way of verifying since it’s a secret list], and Paul Hoffman debunked Gehrke’s assertion that Hoffman was related to lobbyist, Ruland Gill. Even with that denial, Rolly still claimed that Gill was related and involved in lobbying the USOE. I have trouble believing there was not some ulterior connection somewhere that got Stephenson invested in this “textbook review” idea. The “Welfare for Waterford” bill was supported by a prominent, ex-legislator and lobbyist, Cap Ferry. What was the ProCert connection? )

I am unsure to what extent ProCert or some other outside company is reviewing textbooks currently. The Gehrke article mentions that the law requiring outside review passed in 2007, that the bidding process got tangled in controversy, that the legislature subsequently amended the law in the 2008 session (I don’t know what that amendment did), and that as of Nov. 29 last year, the contract had not been awarded. I can say that the traditional textbook review/screening process was still going on at the State Office of Education last year. I can also confirm that the two employees Stephenson wanted fired were in fact either reassigned or fired before Gehrke’s article was even written. The textbook department had new directors still adjusting to their responsibilities in Fall 2008. They had only been in their positions for a few months and were reluctant to discuss what had happened to their predecessors, although they implied that the former directors were still employed at the state office somewhere.

The point is that technology does not always make a process more effective or cost-efficient. Mindlessly turning education over to the huge educational material industry will not ensure quality. (Think about the college textbook racket for a point of reference. These “educational” companies do not always have the best interest of students in mind.) Legislators need to work with actual educators to find technologies that truly improve learning for the students and not just take as gospel the claims of every slick-talking salesman out there.

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Collection of articles about ProCert and Howard Stephenson's drive to favor them with state education contracts

2009-10-02T00:38:00.004-06:00

All underlining of sections of the articles was done by me.

1. The initial article bringing the issue to light. Excellent interviews and historical context. Top notch reporting by Robert Gehrke.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11102649
Did Utah senator's advocacy go too far?
Textbook case: Stephenson leaned on educators on behalf of an Orem company.

By Robert Gehrke

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 11/29/2008 10:08:40 PM MST

It was past midnight and Sen. Howard Stephenson was livid.

Hammering out an early-morning e-mail to Utah education officials, the Draper Republican lashed out at "subversives" in the department for their shabby treatment of ProCert Labs, an Orem-based company whose services Stephenson had been advocating for years.

In a series of heated e-mails and phone calls, Stephenson, who heads the committee that sets the public education budget, threatened to withhold support from the Utah Office of Education, suggested it be downsized and have work outsourced and that the malcontents mistreating ProCert could be fired.

"This persistent, long-term and ongoing defiance on the part of [the two employees] is unacceptable and, in my opinion, is justification for termination of employment," Stephenson wrote.

The e-mail, and other angry phone calls and missives from Stephenson on ProCert's behalf, stunned state Superintendent Patti Harrington.

"When it gets to be a strained relationship around one vendor and irate e-mails around one vendor, that does get problematic, and it feels like we're being bullied," Harrington said. "I don't think that's an appropriate type of pressure to be put on a state agency."

But it was just one example of several since 2007 in which Stephenson had waded into the minutiae of contracts and vendors at the state education office, attempting to shape education programs created by the Legislature and the lucrative contracts
to implement them.

"I'm just trying to get the 21st-century tools into the hands of our teachers and I don't care who gets the bid," said Stephenson, who also is president of the Utah Taxpayers Association and a registered lobbyist. "When you're as committed to saving money, precious taxpayer resources, as I am, that's why I want to make sure we get the best bang for the buck."

He said his watchdogging stopped education officials from diverting $30 million meant for technology improvements into salaries and pushed stubborn bureaucrats into adopting new technology and upgrading Utah's lagging rate of computers in classrooms.

Records show that, on several occasions in the past two years Stephenson made detailed recommendations and suggested specific changes to criteria for picking companies to receive state funds, including revisions to a program to provide laptop computers to preschoolers.

That degree of legislative involvement is rare. Typically, lawmakers set policy, allocate funds and then let the executive branch award contracts. Occasionally legislators have called with input, but none, aside from Stephenson, has put any complaints or recommendations in writing.

Harrington said Stephenson is the "singular example" of a legislator who has weighed in with the education office and, as the senator who controls the education budget, his wishes are hard to ignore.

That type of interaction "is exactly what everyone doesn't want to have happen," said Steven Schooner, a George Washington University law professor who specializes in government contracting.

"It could be the people doing the purchasing were incompetent," Schooner said. "But if your Legislature is getting involved in individual procurements, the system isn't going to work in the long run."

Last summer, the Legislature's general counsel gave GOP lawmakers a primer on the propriety of intervening in government-contract issues, a response to Stephenson's actions and other factors.

The Legislature's ethics rules state that members "shall not exercise any undue influence on any governmental entity," but Stephenson maintains he's crossing no such lines.

"It's my job, as chairman of the committee," he said, "that the will of the Legislature is carried out when we do pass laws and make appropriations for these things."

Stephenson said he has no financial stake in any of the companies involved in the contracting issues. They have not contributed to his campaigns nor do they belong to the Utah Taxpayers Association. His only motivation, he said, is a passion to ensure teachers get the tools they need.

Harrington said she respects Stephenson's vision and drive for using technology in classrooms, and they frequently see eye to eye.

At the same time, her department no longer provides advance copies of "requests for proposals" to legislators, rules have been adopted to insulate the contracting process, and she now makes the final determination on high-profile contracts to protect her staff from political pressure.

Stephenson said he suspects educators may be criticizing him now because in tough budget times he has resisted their effort to ax many reforms he championed, such as performance pay for teachers and laptops for preschoolers.

"Collectively, these things I've been pushing have a toll on the state office and there is a desire to neutralize me as chairman of education appropriations, and I think this reaction is an attempt to do that," he said, adding that he won't stop pushing the office for reforms.

The most striking example of Stephenson's activism involved ProCert Labs, which is seeking to review Utah's textbooks, pinpointing where concepts in the state's core curriculum are taught to help instructors teach the required lessons. The work could be worth millions.

ProCert President Paul Hoffmann, who is the son-in-law of prominent lobbyist Ruland Gill, said the company has clashed with some education officials for years for reasons he doesn't understand, but suspects the bureaucrats might feel threatened by privatization.

In 2003, a legislative committee, which included Stephenson, took the unusual step of writing specifications for innovative education programs, then awarded handpicked vendors, including ProCert, money to bid for the programs. But when the Legislature tried to fund the ProCert contract the next year, then-Gov. Olene Walker vetoed the project.

Walker said she felt having lawmakers award contracts to specific vendors was inappropriate.

"The Legislature has the right to make policy and set divisions of power, but it's the executive branch's job to implement them," Walker said last week, "and I felt quite strongly about that separation of powers."

At the time, Stephenson accused Walker in his taxpayer-association newsletter of caving to the teachers union. "In hindsight," he now says, "after reflecting on it, she probably did the right thing."

Harrington has been no fan of private "curriculum alignment." She says the panel of educators that has screened textbooks for more than eight decades has done it well.

Stephenson dismisses those in-house screenings as "schlock reviews" that are practically useless for teachers.

In 2007, Stephenson helped pass a bill requiring private textbook reviews, leaving it to state education officials to pick qualified reviewers. But when he felt ProCert was being treated unfairly by the state office, he made his displeasure known.

"I've had it!" Stephenson wrote in an e-mail. "It is obvious that [the program directors] are subversives who will stop at nothing to prevent the effective alignment of the texts to the core. … Perhaps downsizing USOE or outsourcing is the answer."

In another e-mail from his Senate account, he said, "I've never seen anything more outrageous in my 15 years in the Legislature."

Harrington replied that the office had "reached out to ProCert beyond what we have to others," and if Stephenson wanted to give ProCert the contract, "then we do have a problem that will need a broader remedy."

Stephenson says his e-mails were "advocacy for fairness." After a bidding process that dragged on for months, the Legislature amended the law last March and the contract has yet to be awarded.

gehrke@sltrib.com

2. A Tribune editorial a couple days later, criticizing Stephenson for his inherent conflict of interest as an industry lobbyist and violating the separation of powers between the branches of government.

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11114659
Throwing weight
Senator should stick to legislating

Tribune Editorial
Updated: 12/01/2008 09:41:58 PM MST

Thanks to Utah's open-records law, we know that Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, who does questionable double duty as both a legislator and a lobbyist, inappropriately lambasted the State Office of Education for failing to hand a contract to a company that Stephenson likes.

Stephenson ignored the boundaries that constitutionally separate the branches of government and has, far too often, tried to bully education officials into applying laws and rules in ways that suit his purposes. It seems the good senator needs a lesson in how the separation of powers is supposed to work.

Here's a primer: The legislative branch's job is to appropriate funds and make the laws that broadly dictate how the Office of Education should run public schools for all Utah's children. A necessary line is drawn between legislating and the management of day-to-day functions of the various state bureaucracies.

In specific terms, a legislator isn't in charge of deciding what companies get contracts to provide the services that schools need in order to function. But Stephenson seems to believe otherwise, and he's not shy about wielding his funding power to get what he wants.

Stephenson, who chairs the Senate committee that holds the education pursestrings, stepped over the line when he angrily threatened in e-mails and phone calls to cut funding to the education office, get some of its work outsourced and have employees who defied his orders fired.

The senator should get a better grip on what's in his job description. If he needs help with that, he might very well check out the text of the Utah Constitution, the part, Article 5, titled "Distribution of Powers."

Stephenson says his meddling on behalf of ProCert, a textbook-review company, is necessary watchdogging to make sure taxpayers get "the best bang for the buck." But there's a difference between oversight and micromanaging.

Stephenson is no education expert, though he obviously sees himself as one. Instead, he is president of the Utah Taxpayers Association and a registered legislative lobbyist for that nonprofit group funded by businesses. As both lawmaker and lobbyist, he can argue for the policies he favors both on and off the floor of the Senate. That should keep him busy enough, without trying to do others' jobs, too.

In his questionable dual role, he is on shaky ethical ground and not in a good position to be flouting the Utah Constitution's express division of powers by throwing his senatorial weight around where it doesn't belong.

3. Tribune article detailing Stephenson's use of his Red Meat Radio show to attck the State Office of Education..."Stupid in Utah."

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11162878
Lawmaker rips office of education
'Stupid in Utah' » Stephenson claims Tribune article spurred his rant on radio show.

By Lisa Schencker

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 12/07/2008 07:58:27 PM MST

Tension between state education leaders and lawmakers over the years has been no secret.

Saturday morning, however, it noisily burst into public earshot with a two-hour radio show hosted by Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, titled, "Stupid in Utah: How the Utah State Office of Education hurts kids and teachers." Stephenson heads the legislative committee that shapes the state education budget.

"I thought the title for his show was beyond the pale," said State Superintendent Patti Harrington after hearing the show Saturday. "I was disappointed in that from Sen. Stephenson."

For two hours, Stephenson mostly slammed the state office for "subversiveness," dishonesty and for, he said, in some cases, resisting implementing state law.

He said an article that ran in The Salt Lake Tribune last week spurred him to air his complaints during his regular Saturday morning K-TALK AM 630 radio show, "Inside Utah Politics." That article revealed that Stephenson had pressured state education leaders with threatening e-mails regarding the process of selecting vendors vying for state education contracts.

"I have worked behind the scenes to try and get improvement there," Stephenson said. "But in defending myself against the Tribune attacks, I have to tell you why I was so involved in the State Office of Education."

He maintains that without his involvement, money allocated by lawmakers, in several cases, might not have been used for what lawmakers intended. For example, he said $30 million meant for classroom technology would have instead paid for support staff had he not examined the office's guidelines for the money, which were changed at the last minute by office employees. Harrington said she took "corrective action" toward those employees when she learned of the issue.

In another case, Stephenson said he became involved after he believed the state office showed bias against one company, ProCert Labs, which sought to gain state approval as a vendor aligning textbooks to curriculum.

Stephenson said Saturday he suspected the office was biased against ProCert because the company helped bring Saxon Math, a system that teaches math partly through drills and repetition, to Utah.

Harrington said Saturday she has only good things to say about Saxon Math and no bias against ProCert, which she said Saturday was "an excellent vendor."

Despite the public attack on education officials Saturday both Stephenson and Harrington said they don't think continuing to work together on state education issues in the future will be a problem.

Stephenson said the tension between him and education leaders will not guide his decisions during the upcoming legislative session.

"I don't punish those who speak against me, and I don't reward those who speak for me," Stephenson said in a phone interview after the show. "The policies we make during this coming session will not be affected by negative things said last Sunday." He also acknowledged during his show that most public education employees are dedicated and hard-working.

Harrington said she still worries about the pressure Stephenson puts on the state office regarding contracts and vendors, but she respects him as an overall education leader.

"I frankly believe you can disagree agreeably and still have a relationship that builds upon collaboration," Harrington said.

Stephenson said he hopes all the talk improves lawmakers' relationships with education leaders.

"Hopefully, it will be a healthier working relationship because we'll be open, honest and frank with each other," Stephenson said.

lschencker @sltrib.com

4. kcpw's recap of the radio blast and Stephenson saying he thinks the USOE is trying to "subvert the Legislature's intent." If they want one of his wasteful "reforms" cut, they are "out of control" and hurting Utah's children.

http://kcpw.org/blog/local-news/2008-12-09/sen-stephenson-slams-office-of-education/

Sen. Stephenson Slams Office of Education

12.09.2008 by KCPW

(KCPW News) Senator Howard Stephenson has taken his beef with the State Office of Education public. He featured the USOE on his weekly talk show, Inside Utah Politics: Red Meat Radio. Stephenson says the public should know the state office is "out of control."

"The public generally doesn't know what's happening with that 500 plus bureaucracy that basically has general governance of education in Utah," Stephenson says. "And they needed to know the kinds of things that were happening there that hurt children and hurt teachers, that make it harder for teachers to do their job and make it harder for children to do better in school."

Stephenson's discontent with the office of education stems from a six-year-old debate about whether a private company should be paid to determine whether school districts are using textbooks aligned to the state curriculum. But more recently, Stephenson takes issue with the state's education leaders for wanting to cut three education reform programs passed last year: pay for performance, differentiated pay for math and science teachers and a computer-based preschool program. He says the office is trying to subvert the Legislature's intent.

"The state office and the state school board has shown its hostility toward many of the things that the Legislature has enacted, especially those things that are market driven, those things that give pay for performance, those things that satisfy teacher shortages," Stephenson says. "And the state board of education has officially said it wants those things cut."

Despite the tension, Stephenson says he doesn't hold grudges and will continue to work with the Office of Education. State Superintendent of Public Education Patti Harrington declined to comment on this story, but previously called the radio show "beyond the pale."

5. Letter to the editor from ProCert President, Paul Hoffman.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_11176627

Stephenson wronged

Public Forum Letter
Updated: 12/09/2008 10:08:26 AM MST

In his story about Sen. Howard Stephenson and ProCert Labs, reporter Robert Gehrke wrote that I am "prominent lobbyist" Ruland Gill's son-in-law. I am not ("Did Utah senator's advocacy go too far?", Tribune, Nov. 30). He also implied that Stephenson supported textbook alignment based on my relationship with Gill. Wrong again.

Utah teachers deserve to know which sections of the thick, nationally published textbooks apply to Utah's curriculum without having to spend countless hours sorting through the textbooks themselves. That curriculum is the basis for student testing and grading teacher effectiveness.

What the Tribune story missed is that ProCert's detailed review would have identified on the Internet what textbook sections would be used in the testing of school children. It would allow parents access to information about what their children are learning.

Utah teachers go above and beyond to compensate for the lack of modern tools to help them. Sen. Stephenson is working diligently to bring useful modern education tools to them. I applaud him for holding the Utah State Office of Education accountable and making sure that taxpayer money is well spent.

Paul Hoffmann
President, ProCert Labs

Cedar Hills

6. Paul Rolly weighs in. He repeats Gehrke's initial claim that Hoffman is related to Rulon Gill which was stringly refuted by Hoffman. He adds that Rulon Gill was frequently involved in lobbying for the ProCert bill. Why? Rolly also details other instances of the legislature selcting individual companies for special treatment.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_11231527

Contracting with Utah? Helps to know a legislator

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 12/14/2008 08:46:13 AM MST

Since The Salt Lake Tribune published a story Nov. 30 that detailed Sen. Howard Stephenson's outrage at state education officials for not issuing a contract to a private company Stephenson favored, the Draper Republican has been on a public rampage.

He railed against the State Office of Education on the Saturday morning radio program the Republican legislative caucus sponsors and Stephenson co-hosts, and the Republican Senate site on the Internet has urged readers to listen to Stephenson's rants or read them on that site.

But the senator's aggressive advocacy for ProCert labs getting the nod over any other potential bidder is nothing new for Stephenson, R-Draper, or other members of the Legislature who have tried to use their power to benefit one particular company.

Stephenson, as outlined in the Nov. 30 story, wrote a series of heated e-mails and made phone calls threatening the budget of the Utah Office of Education and suggesting education staffers not cooperating with the ProCert agenda be fired.

ProCert employs a system of evaluating Utah's textbooks, pinpointing where concepts in the state's core curriculum are found to help instructors teach the required lessons.

The initial legislation that singled out ProCert for the contract was vetoed by then Gov. Olene Walker, who said it was inappropriate for legislators to award contracts to specific contractors.

Subsequent legislation included procurement requirements favorable to ProCert's program, but ProCert officials have complained that public education officials have not been cooperative.

The contract is yet to be awarded.

Stephenson has said he has no financial interest in ProCert, but one of the company's executives is Scott Hoffmann, the son-in-law of lobbyist Ruland Gill, who is on the board of the Utah Taxpayers Association, which employs Stephenson as its president. Education officials said Gill approached them several times on Pro-Cert's behalf in 2007.

Meanwhile, Stephenson got involved in the bidding process for a pilot program the Legislature approved to provide educational software for preschoolers. The request for proposals was tailored to a program developed by Waterford Schools, whose lobbyist is Republican insider Cap Ferry.

Other custom-fit programs approved by the Legislature favoring one vendor include:

» A database for posting student test scores was the subject of intense scrutiny by some legislators, including Stephenson, in which a company named Digital Bridge was invited several times to make presentations. The RFP was subject to several challenges with Digital Bridge allegedly receiving unusually favorable treatment by lawmakers.

» Stephenson and former Rep. Jim Ferrin pushed a bill in 2006 to prevent local municipalities from refusing to issue building permits for schools in their cities. The bill paved the way for those who wanted to build charter schools in residential neighborhoods. Ferrin, former Rep. Glenn Way and Rep. Mike Morley were in the business of financing and constructing buildings for charter schools.

» Rep. Becky Lockhart sponsored a bill to study the feasibility of privatizing the state's mental hospital in Provo after she and several other lawmakers were invited to Florida to tour a private mental facility there. Her bill would have had the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee review proposals for the project rather than the State Purchasing Office, which normally handles contract proposals.

» Rep. Greg Hughes sponsored a bill last year allowing the state to contract with a private company to evaluate sex offenders to determine the likelihood of them reoffending. When Sen. John Greiner amended the bill in the Senate because of concerns it was written for just one specific company, an angry Hughes aggressively confronted Greiner.

The amendment was taken out and the bill passed in its original form. But, because of a mistake, the bill was filed with the amended language. So far, because of that glitch, the program has not been implemented.

7. Rolly details the fears of education officials during the 2009 session that Stephenson's SB 64 was aimed at attacking their employees for disagreeing with him.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11880484

Beware the wrath of Stephenson

By Paul Rolly

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 03/10/2009 03:50:38 PM MDT

Sen. Howard Stephenson, known for his tempter tantrums when state agencies don't give contracts to his favorite vendors, has a bill this year that would allow the Administrative Rules Review Committee to examine how the agencies spend money appropriated to them.

If an agency does not obey the intent of the Legislature, according to Stephenson's SB64, it will be reported to the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee.

The bill has passed the Senate and has been pending in the House since Thursday. Word is that some House members, as well as the governor's office, are concerned about the potential intimidation factors in the bill.

If an agency doesn't find a favored company to be the best fit for a contract that the Legislature funds, for example, will it be punished financially for its impudence?

Stephenson, R-Draper, who is co-chair of the Administrative Rules Review Committee, was scheduled to meet with the State School Board last Friday to explain the bill, since the Office of Education has most often borne the brunt of his wrath. But he didn't show.

Stephenson has gone apoplectic in the past when his favorite bidder, ProCert, was not awarded the contract for textbook review; when his designated vendor did not get the nod for a pilot gifted and talented program; and when the State Procurement Office didn't steer the bidding process the way he wanted on a student database system.

8. The House never did vote on SB 64.

.

Part 4 of Utah County ethics hearing: Q & A, contention, the discussions afterward, and some initial thoughts

2009-10-01T03:26:00.006-06:00

Guy whose name I didn’t catch – Prefaces comment saying either Karl Snow or John Valentine can answer the question. We have current per diem for legislative work. When did lobbyist gifts enter the picture and become allowed? (Neither Snow nor Valentine really answered the question which is actually kind of interesting. Was there ever a rule against accepting gifts from special interests? Bribery has existed as long as the union—the position of paid lobbyist is fairly new…40-50 yrs maybe? Was permission ever expressly granted for legislators to accept gifts, or was it always assumed they could accept whatever they wanted for their “sacrifice” and restrictions are the new trend?) (Also, the crowd in back got restless here and there was a lot going on in the room, so I think I missed some of what Snow said.) Karl Snow - Lobbyists have a special interest interest. They are not just “being kind” when they throw around all that money. (Here the shrill lady mentioned in the last post bellows piercingly, ”Hold the mike closer!” when she should have yelled at her friends in the back to shut up.) They expect a return on that investment. I’d like to invite the legislators to reply as well. (Rumble, rumble from the talking crowd at the back. They got extra mad whenever gifts came up.)

Ned Hill asks Senator Valentine to come up, but it is not 100% clear what is going on for a moment because all the questions until now have been from the cards and regular crowd members and the legislative bunch in back are talking. As Valentine comes forward, John Talcott rudely shouts,”Who are you?” Ned Hill replies with Senator’s name and position. Talcott grumbles about special treatment. John Valentine – (Valentine’s whole little speech and tone were condescending and thus extremely unconvincing. The “pity the poor legislator” tact comes off hollow.) This is to punish legislators. Before we can regulate this, we have to determine what is a gift. This initiative says refreshments of negligible value are allowed (described earlier as carrot sticks by Janet Jensen), so then meals are OK. (What?! This kind of BS lawyer-speak logical leap is frustrating. Claiming to not know the difference between brownies at the back table of a conference and Reagan Signs specifically taking you and your wife out for $90+ meals makes us dislike and not trust you Senator. Can’t you see that?) If meals are not a gift, then I have never accepted a gift. (This statement was met with disbelief and I think someone in the crowd guffawed.) We're on trial. If these same laws were applied to school districts and cities, there would be a huge uproar. ( A burst of clapping came from the legislator buddies in back as Valentine finished his speech. And again, what is Valentine talking about? Seriously. He thinks the public would have an uproar if state school members and city council members were banned from accepting campaign donations from corporations and unions, banned from working as a registered lobbyist simultaneously while “serving” as an elected official, banned from using their campaign money for personal use, or required to state a reason for amending the campaign financial disclosures after the election is over? PLEASE pass that law as long as you apply it to state legislators as well. Please try and talk to someone who is not a political insider about what makes them trust or distrust their government. Talk about clueless from a man who has $187,000 in mostly special interest donations stockpiled for a run for governor.)

Karl Snow quickly took the microphone for a final rebuttal, which was quite elegant and I have butchered horribly in my summary – John, the legislature has allowed themselves to be put on trial…because of their actions. (Much of the seated crowd applauded that statement loudly for the first time in response to the legislative crony applause a moment before.)

Ned Hill - I'm on corporate boards. We must detail all conflicts and be very clear about them. We are asking them to live the standards of most boards of directors.

Brad Agle – (The Trib coverage of the hearing focused on his remarks) I moved here 2 months ago from Pennsylvania where I was a Professor of Ethics. Now I’ve joined the faculty at BYU. The legislature is on trial because they must be accountable. They must be accountable to the people. Pennsylvania needs ethics reform too. (This brought forced laughter from the initiative advocates seated in front. Once again, whatever situation in Pennsylvania Agle was referring to, the laughter is not persuasive of your point.) The initiative creating a code of conduct implies there is not one currently? Is there a code of conduct? Janet Jensen – There are some disclosure requirements, but the deadlines are often late and the reporting confusing. We are one of only 6 states with no code of conduct. One of the others is Illinois, like under Governor Blagojevitch.

Janet Jensen - I’ve had to fill out a 50 pg. disclosure for jobs listing work, credit card, property, debt, what your spouse owns, etc. This applies for congress members, stocks and bonds they own. Their staffs must do it too. This initiative is mild as ethics and disclosure go.

Ned Hill - Many politicians are doing a great job and this will not impact them. It draws bright lines and boundaries.

Jim Greer - Once the commission recommendation is made, is there any law that the legislature has to follow the recommendations? Janet Jensen – We hope this will go a long way by making the decision public. Public scrutiny and accountability will encourage the legislature to do something with the recommendations and not ignore them. There is no law requiring them to follow the recommendations.

Angryish lady – I read the initiative. She turns to the crowd and asks “How many in here have read it?” About half of those seated raised their hands. "Oh." (It was obvious that she was expecting the number to be low so she could rail on her point about the bad details that overreach that no one reads. Many opposing the initiative made that point and I’ve read it a couple times. They will be using that argument extensively apparently.) This initiative is not good. There are inconsistencies. It gives a small group of people power. Speaking of the qualifications—you can't have current elected office, be party people, be a candidate, etc. Some of people on the initiative panel are running for office. They don't meet their own qualifications. (There was shouting from the crowd here that no, there were no candidates on the initiative team. The lady responded there was one lady in Davis District. No again, from either the crowd or presenters. One of the legislators yelled out that Cheryl Petersen ran as a Democrat which seemed to be the truth of the matter. Lots of comments come from the crowd at this point, telling the legislative group to be quiet. People for and against the initiative yelled out comments. I wrote down “accusations,” but I can’t remember who accused who of what.)

I missed here if someone asked a question or if Jensen was responding to something said by the legislators in back. Janet Jensen- Nothing is made a crime. The commission just finds the facts. (From the back, a female snorted “A felony.” A recommendation for felony criminal charges is one of the possible outcomes of the commission hearings.) “I'll get to that,” Jensen replied. Due process in our US Constitution only applies to life interest or property. Courts have held that no person has property interest in elected office. (Unfortunately, that’s not exactly true when a legislator can accept unlimited campaign donations from parties with legislation before the body, and then cash out that campaign fund as income at his/her discretion.) Legislators can't sue over loss of office. So the same due process rules do not apply. Public office is just a privilege. Courts around the nation, including Utah, have ruled this. (This was another of Jensen’s vague pronouncements where citing some specific precedents would have been much more credible.) There is no right to due process for a violation of ethics rules. None. The initiative writers, however, bent over backwards to give due process twice. There is the commission hearing w/ a lawyer paid for by the state. The legislators cannot be represented by legislative staff lawyers because they are conflicted. Because the legislators are their boss and can hire or fire them. (Not fire them as a client, but fire them from their “firm,” in this case the state.) The accused legislator can get a lawyer, subpoena evidence and witnesses, provide witnesses, etc. The ethics commission then issues findings and refers them to the legislature. The legislature can do what it wants with the recommendations. This is another opportunity for due process. It's not a conviction of crime, so the burden of proof is much lower. We are so proud that the state is run like a business; this is like business. Once prima facie evidence is provided, the legislator must provide their own proof of their innocence. (I saw this comparison written somewhere else, but I cannot remember where. It said this investigative process is common in business because the rule-breaker often is the only one with access to the necessary evidence, thus making it virtually impossible to prove any indiscretions by normal means. I’d be interested in the knowledge of anyone with experience on corporate boards. Do investigations and charges of breaking company policies or ethics really work the way the initiative proponents assert?)

Karl Snow - Due process is to face your accuser, call witnesses, etc. All of that is provided. The five initiative signers as back-up are there to motivate the leaders to agree on names. The legislature will do it. The legislature can and will change this law once it passes. They will tweak it how they want. They will have to. For instance, we will die. (Correcting Jensen’s earlier mistake that the replacement of those 5 signers is in the bill.)

Man in the back on window ledge yells out - Do you have term limits or is your role indefinite? Karl Snow prevaricates a little – No. The legislature will change that.
Bramble shouts out—Don't you and 12 others have the lifetime right to intervene? (This is when Bramble was shouted down by Talcott and others about the process, saying that he had to follow the rules.) Ned Hill – You can fill out a card if you would like. Bramble – “I want an honest answer!” (More angry crowd resistance to Bramble quiets him.)

College student who was a legislative intern - Do you have cost concerns about commission establishing own rules? (I may not have written that down completely right…) Janet Jensen replied pompously - “Absolutely no concerns.” We are the legislative branch in this case, and we can establish a commission w/ power to make its own rules. Our legislative power is sacrosanct. The legislature can make its own rules too.

little old lady named Mary - How can I get signatures? Have any of these ideas been used by any of the other 40 states who have more ethics rules than Utah? Janet Jensen – It is very similar to many, many other states’ commissions. (I was really frustrated with this answer. If you’re presenting in favor of a large proposal you claim is the result of extensive study, come prepared knowing which specific parts are similar to which other states. Or if you’ve created something original because of the unique local concerns in Utah, then be honest about it. Don’t leave us in the dark making suppositions.)

Another older lady started out very nicely- I respectfully disagree w/ Janet. This bill is overkill. I'm nervous to talk up here. (This statement garnered sympathetic noises from the crowd, but was almost immediately drowned out by the loud lady in the back yelling for her to speak up.) She reads from pgs. 15 and 16 of the initiative text, explaining that the legislature cannot participate in the quiet investigative period. They have no right to intervene. It’s not fair. I exhort all here to read the bill like I did.

(Janet Jensen’s next comment came out oily again, but I think it was a fair thought—I think the legislative opposition is purposely confusing the quiet informal investigative period and the full commission hearings as well.) Janet Jensen - I think it's confusing. In mid-step as she walks down the aisle, the lady who asked the question yells with rage “I can read!” Jensen – Well, don't mess with the mom of a lawyer. (This got a few chuckles, went over my head, and did not assuage the lady at all.) The time when the legislator cannot formally participate is only during the quiet period. Then they have all rights. Complainants cannot participate in an ethics hearing at ALL currently. They can’t even be in the room or present documentation of their charge. The current hearings give the charge virtually no chance without the research and perspective of the complainants. After the full hearing of the commission, and then possibly a full hearing by the legislature, this is maybe more due process than anyone would want. Her concern is about one little part of the process. The lady was standing at the back of the room and her face contorted with cranky rage as she then shouted “No! It’s about the whole initiative!” (Ignoring the fact that her comment had been about one small part of the process. This whole exchange was weird and kind of comical. This very nice, grandmotherly looking lady started her comment out so sweetly and nervously, showed more emotion at the end as she railed on the initiative’s unfairness, and then seriously channeled a stereotypical cranky yard lady when she shouted out during Jensen’s reply. She was in the hallway afterward being interviewed by the BYU camera girl who filmed the debate. Who knows where that can be viewed?)

D. Lynn Sorenson – I didn't know that being the mom of an attorney carried weight. I am too. (She worded that better than I am conveying and garnered laughs after the last speaker.) I thank the committee for forming and working on this initiative. To Craig Dennis – What about other commissions? You seem to have experience on other political or corporate commissions. Please point to a state where the ethics commission is working well. For those that think this seems too new, ore seems scary or weird, please give us an example.

Craig Dennis – I am not prepared; I didn't do research. Janet, can you help? Janet - I can't think of any right off the top of my head. Ummmm…Colorado hs a good commission. Washington has one. [She sounded very unprepared here] If you want info, go look at NCSL website for research. There is a bundle of info if you want to get into this. (Lame non-answer. Just say you don’t know.)

Margaret Stolk – I have concerns. How much money be paid to lawyers for each complaint filed by any three people? Can the accuser be from New York? Can the charge be frivolous? What are the salaries of the 20 commissioners? (Crowd yells about there being only 5 commissioners. After a moment, she continues.) In my humble opinion, this will start an unaccountable 4th branch of government unaccountable to the Attorney General, courts, or anyone else.

Janet Jensen – The commissioners don't make money. [I roll my eyes as she says this. The legislator crowd in back yells “They get per diem!”] They don’t get money. They get what legislators make per diem for meetings, etc. [The legislators yell “Then legislators make no money!”] I think the 472,000 dollars is a bargain compared to overall state expenditures. This commission is part of the legislative branch because of the state constitution. It’s part of the legislative branch recommending discipline or censure. Judges and judicial review do not apply to sanctions of the legislative branch to itself. Our first thought was that no one should get attorney fees. Last year, a legislator retained an expensive lawyer for a hearing under the current process, then lobbyists and special interests donated money to pay for his (Greg Hughes’) attorney fees. We don't want that. So we bend over backwards for good process and give them money for a lawyer. (There was something about Jensen claiming you can retain a good lawyer for $80-$90 an hour, but I didn’t get it down specifically enough.) The complainants do not get money to pay lawyers. (The “persuasive” legislative laughter burst from the back at this.) Tell your legislators to amend and change that if you want. (People in back yell out that attorney fees run $200 or more an hour. That this is not necessary. The lawyer fund is open and can run whatever a legislator decides to pay. It will bankrupt the government…This was a long, loud stretch.)
Karl Snow - Frivolous charges are deposed of in quiet period before lawyers get involved. (The loud lady in back yells “Speak closer to the mic!” again.)

Erika - When does the right to the paid attorney kick in? (I didn’t write down if this reply was Jensen or Snow) The executive director and staff vet the claim. There are no lawyer fees at this point. The legislator can participate informally, so can the complainants. If the executive director finds there is a basis in law or fact, he/she then refers the matter to the entire commission. At that point, the accused legislator can spend provided money on a lawyer. (Another older gentleman who had yelled out a lot, exited the room here.)

Adrielle Harrion - Any effort to push ethical standards high is good. (Again loud laughter from the back.] This initiative may push the legislators to better their ethical rules. (A loud incredulous gasp from behind me. Needless to say, the vaudevillian antics were wearing thin. Especially since this lady was not speaking in favor of the initiative.) I have read the bill and have many concerns however. Karl Snow said the selection of the 20 commissioner candidates will not fall to him and the other 4 signatories. I don't think that's true. Some of the legislative leadership may be aligned w/ signatories, and may hold out. This is a real problem with the provision that commissioner selection could fall to the 5 signatories. It could lead to unethical unwillingness to approve good people by some legislative leadership.

Ned Hill -They don't serve themselves, just appoint others to candidate pool.

Karl Snow - This is the hard part. The legislature can change this. We want to encourage agreement between the 4 legislative leaders. I don't think it is that difficult. (I didn’t note this well, but Snow repeated several times here that the legislature will have to tweak and change some of these procedures if the initiative passes. I appreciate his honesty, but it does make the supporters seem underprepared. At the same time, Snow explained that this was a difficult question of how to motivate compliance and agreement by the legislative leaders in selecting candidates for the commission. If the legislature could just not select anyone and hold up the process, what good would it do?) We are spending too much time on this rather than the main point of the bill.

Ned Hill – They don’t want the process to be stalled. They want to hurry to an agreement on names. They don't serve on the commission themselves.

Jane Lawson – I’d like to thank the commission. Maybe I'm naive, but who would file a complaint if they have to pay their own lawyer fees? Is this a loophole on who will be able to complain—only rich? Janet Jensen - In the first drafts, everyone got attorney fees (As well as a version where no one got attorney fees that she mentioned above. It makes me worry about which versions went out for review by scholars/lawyers), but we were worried about paying for lawyers for all those who might complain…for whackjobs. I hope that citizens care enough about corruption, bribery, aggrandizement, to complain. It is scary. The cost will disincentivize some from complaining. They will have to think long and hard. It’s good thing if people will think long and hard. We did the best we could to make this fair.

Michael - Thanks those who drafted this. Ethics is important. However, even though he is masters student still learning, reading the language reveals this challenges ability o citizens to have control. The language is derogatory and gives too much power to the commission. Snow said this wouldn't create power. Be careful, this is giving another group power. I still consider this a draft. It needs to be edited. Look at the power given. The intentions are good, but this is a malicious direction. Is there a way to address these issues without forming a separate commission? (The legislators clapped loudly at his speech).

Janet Jensen - Wow. We had a committee of the best and brightest lawyers who put in 100's of hours doing drafting and research; it has been vetted by scholars and deans of law schools. The initiative can be confusing because it is written in the language of law and that's confusing to non-lawyers. (That was a dumb comment. I think Jensen couldn’t take the criticism at this point and was just being stuck-up. Though I agreed with her next comment.) The legislature could have passed meaningful ethics laws for 100 years and they haven’t done anything. (Lorie Fowlke, who I usually consider fairly rational and well-spoken for a Utah County legislator yells out “That is not true!”) My notes are garbled here, but Jensen finishes with something to the effect of “Draft a better initiative if you want.” (The legislative crowd in back was grumbling and talking all through this last part.)

Ned Hill stood and said they would only take one more question. Legislative crowd yelled that the meeting went until nine. Hill said that library staff had informed them they had to be out of the room by nine. (This really isn’t enough time given the crowd and involvement. The last name is drawn from the pile and it is…Claralyn Hill. Ned’s wife, Democratic candidate for House last year, and center of the controversy where legislators demanded a private apology of Claralyn before Ned would be considered as president of UVU. Hmmmm… He seemed surprised, but who knows.)

Claralyn Hill – (Given the very recent history I just described, of the legislators taking her campaign stance in favor of ethics reform so personally that they demanded apologies months after the fact, she may not have been the best person to articulate her message.) Legislators, don't take this personally. This is not a personal dig. The legislators are taking this personally. It is the right thing to do. It is a trend in corporations. (The incredulous laughter from the back returns.) When you say legislators cannot be drafted into corporate boards, does that include non-profits? And how will you know if the reason they are selected is just because they are a member of the legislature?

Janet Jensen - Yes, this applies to non-profits as well. Holding the position cannot make money for self. It applies only to boards that pay, whether for profit or non-profit company. (My notes here were disjointed again. I need to reread that portion of the initiative).

The hearing ended and people exited or sat around in circles and talked.

The legislators that I saw during the hearing were Senators Curt Bramble and John Valentine, and House Representatives Lorie Fowlke, Craig Frank, Becky Lockhart, and Chris Herrod. I also saw Stan Lockhart, former head of the state Republican Party, and Taylor Oldroyd, new chairman of the Utah County Republican Party. I saw Brad Daw afterwards. Don Jarvis told some that every Utah County legislator was there…I just didn’t see/recognize them all myself.

I tried to walk around and listen a little to conversations. I talked to a couple people. Chris Herrod had a big smile on his face and was schmoozing the lady named Mary who had asked how she could help gather signatures and about other states’ commissions. He told her and her friend that he’d have to quit the legislature if this initiative passed and so would lots of others. It would set up 2 classes of legislators—the teachers and the other employees. (As far as I know, this was the first time I had heard teachers brought up all night.) The teachers run conflict of interest bills all the time. They just passed 2 or 3 extra days of special ed. teacher prep time in the summer. (I want to return to this in another post. The true feelings of the legislators in conversation. Just think of the corporate subsidy of your choice and then the bill he just mentioned.)

I got the feeling the legislative opposition is going to focus on the commission as evil, unconstitutional power grab. This has been borne out in commentary so far and by the pressure on Lt. Governor, Greg Bell, not to certify the petitions on constitutional grounds. The legislators were mad the meeting ended early and wanted more open forum and debate. I actually agree with that, although I’ll post later on the hypocrisy inherent in that.

I mentioned in a previous post the woman I overheard laughing about the rude lady who passed out the opposition flyers while pretending Don Jarvis gave her permission. This same woman told a couple other people that they needed a plan because “We lost vouchers the last time.” This really got me thinking. Why did she even bring that up? My increased political involvement goes back to vouchers. The ethics hearings last year were about charges of impropriety during the voucher campaign. The election cycles prior to the passing of the voucher bill were textbook illustrations of outside moneyed influence picking off anti-voucher Republicans with tacit agreement from legislative leaders who were also receiving this outside money funneled through Parents for Choice in Education. Rep. Herrod and Sen. Hillyard’s flyers specifically bring teachers into the debate as conflicted whiners trying to unfairly stain the name of just legislators. I think they really see teachers like they see Democrats, one-sided enemies. They have no understanding I think of the motivations of most teachers, the diverse viewpoints among Utah teachers, and how someone like me who holds a basically Republican macro-view of government, can now name specific anti-teacher statements, actions, and bills that make me distrust many of the leading Republican legislators in the state. Anyway, more of that in further posts.

As I walked out, a library security guard turned off many of the lights encouraging the groups to disperse. Curt Bramble and I think Becky Lockhart were with a group in the hall, and I heard someone lividly say something like “And they tell us not to take it personally?!”

I think I truly saw some of the legislators’ perceptions tonight, and they’re living in a perceptual box. They surround themselves with rigid partisans and try to laugh off those who disagree with them as disaffected political losers or evil liberals. I really think most of them don’t get it. They’re convinced that everyone else is seeing things wrong and the problems are just a “perception problem” of the public caused by scheming Democrats aided by the liberal media. They don’t get that politically involved people in the state quickly discover unethical, power-hoarding incidents involving the legislature, and only the relentlessly partisan among those involved people think it’s OK. Independent leaning people on all sides are angry, and the legislators’ “poor me, stop picking on us” routine is not convincing. It comes off as hypocritical rather than righteously indignant, and rank and file Republicans strongly support the intent and purpose of the initiative. The voucher debate involved a lot of technical back and forth, but the reason they were overturned was a large public belief that they were hand-outs to the wealthy that damaged public schools. The technicalities and attempted liberal labeling (czars) will not convince people that the idea of reigning in ethical and financial corruption is bad if this initiative makes it on to the ballot.

I can understand that many of them feel personally accused of lack of integrity, but the argument that “The politicians everywhere else have problems, but not in Utah…just trust us,” is a thin and shabby excuse not to enact regulations to prevent payoffs and increase public transparency.

Part 3 of Utah County ethics initiative hearing: mostly commentary on shouters out and some questions and answers

2009-09-28T07:11:00.007-06:00

I’ll start off giving a little bit more of Craig Dennis’ remarks. I was tired and probably didn’t do them justice. As usual, my inserted comments will be in parentheses.

Craig Dennis: Washington and California are even worse at incumbent protection. California has some legislative districts almost as big as congressional districts. (Really?) Our state has very low voter turn out (among lowest 5 state in the nation) and low public engagement. Addressing ethics will raise voter participation. Should the legislature accept gifts or use campaign funds after they leave office? That is inappropriate.

On a business board, we have training and address conflicts. The public demands ethics. Take part. Take this bold step after endless delays.

During Mr. Dennis’ remarks, a lady from the back yelled “Please speak louder!” This was a repeated occurrence for the rest of the night. Now, in one sense this is a perfectly reasonable request. There were 20-30 people standing at the back of the room, including most or all of the Utah County legislators, and the doors were open to the hallway. On the other hand, I could hear everything fine seated from my seat near the back of the room and we were in a conference room on the 3rd floor of the Provo Library with little or no foot traffic out in the hall. The microphone seemed to be working fine. I think the main reason that the crowd in back, and this semi-shrill woman standing near the door in particular, had to keep yelling for the speakers to be louder is because they were the main source of distracting noise in the room. The people standing in back were almost 100% friends and family of the legislators (As I mentioned, the majority of the legislators and those who came with them arrived after the meeting had already begun.), and they were buzzing back and forth arguing points under their breath and talking the entire night. The low roar got worse as Ms. Jensen finished up her presentation and into Mr. Dennis’ remarks, and they quit even trying to be polite during the Question and Answer session. That particular woman, and some others, yelled out for people to speak more loudly every few minutes all during the 2nd hour of the meeting, but would not shut up themselves. I think any person attending that is not part of that group would confirm my account of the noise and interruptions coming from the back.

And while I’m on the topic, the legislative friend group had one other extremely annoying “public meeting strategy." The first time I wrote down when it happened was during the second answer in the Q&A session, but I took specific note of it because it wasn’t the first time it had happened. When the presenters, usually Janet Jensen or Karl Snow, would make a point that the legislators disagreed with, the little group in the back would loudly guffaw, nudge each other, and look around at each other for confirmation of how ridiculous the argument was. You could hear Senator Bramble specifically more than once, but it was widespread in the back. They seemed to think that this was an excellent persuasive tool to convince those in the room that ethics reform was unnecessary. In reality, I think it demonstrated to any seated in the room the arrogance of many in the legislative coterie and their inability to see anything from another point of view.

The Question and Answer Session:

Ned Hill explained that those in the audience had to write their name, county of residence, title, and question on 3 by 5 cards that were passed out in order to speak. He said that gathering the names, county, and title of everyone was a requirement of the Lt. Governor’s office for the public meetings. We were supposed to hand the cards to Don Jarvis who was in the aisle, who then passed them to Ned Hill. Mr. Hill then shuffled the cards and would pick one randomly from the stack in his hands, giving that person 2 minutes to comment or question. At first, the questions were short; as the session went on, people started using more of their 2 minutes trying to convince the crowd of their view, asking a question at the end of their speech. I think Mr. Hill did a good job of randomly choosing—both sides were represented and there was a stretch where 4 or 5 opponents of the initiative in a row were called to speak. (Of course, his wife was called as the last question before the meeting adjourned. I 85% believe that was random.)

Here, I will also note that while Senator Bramble indeed yelled out questions more than once, he was singled out a bit unfairly in the Paul Rolly column last week. There had been one out-of-turn question from the audience during Ms. Jensen’s presentation while she was fiddling with the Powerpoint, and others yelled out questions besides Bramble. The incident Rolly recounts when Bramble was shouted down was the 2nd or 3rd question Bramble had yelled out, but immediately before, another guy seated in the window alcove a few feet from Bramble had yelled out a question and gotten a response. I do, however, think it is fair to ding Bramble for hypocrisy, having watched his debate with RaDene Hatfield last fall. There was one moment in their debate when Bramble made a statement about something the legislature had done well. I can’t remember what it was—something like they had budgeted well—but some true statement of accomplishment. RaDene Hatfield quietly burst out “That’s true,” and nodded. Maybe it wasn’t the perfect behavior while your opponent is speaking, but it was an innocuous statement and it was obvious Hatfield had no intention to expound further. Bramble, however, stopped mid-sentence, glared at Hatfield, and brusquely asked something like “Can I finish? Do you want my time?” He had an icy look and was obviously affronted. The comment was nothing and if Bramble had just continued speaking, no one would have recalled it 30 seconds later. So Bramble has a double-standard. It’s OK to purposely yell out if he disagrees with the content of a meeting, but an insignificant aside while he is speaking is a cause of great offense.

Back to Rolly, it was also obvious that he got his info from only one source. While unquestionably the majority of the interruptions came from the standing crowd in back, there was a fair amount of shouting out by both sides at the questions and answers. Many times, someone would stumble over a fact, both questioners and Janet Jensen while answering—stating the wrong number of people, mixing up the pool of commission candidates and the actual commissioners, leaving out facts about the pay, etc. The mistakes were mostly innocent I believe, but the opposing side in the room would shout out corrections as the person spoke. I was glad the clarifications were made on both sides—they were often things I was thinking too—but it was half rude, half just disorderly. It should be mentioned that the loudest loudmouth of those in favor of the initiative was semi-public figure, John Talcott. I had only ever seen his name online, where he is a very opinionated and brash and recently resorted to insulting the appearance of someone he disagreed with. (He was actually seated only one or two rows in front of that particular blogger, and I hoped they wouldn’t see each other. I didn’t notice any interaction.) He was wearing the nametag we were given and loudly yelled out several times. He would correct people, rudely shouted out when Senator Valentine approached the front of the room by invitation of Ned Hill, and was the loudest voice shouting at Bramble that he had to wait his turn like everybody else. He was not the only one, but he was the loudest, even though he frequently yelled out himself.

On to the questions. I caught many of the names of those who asked questions and will include them. I apologize in advance to anyone whose name I misspelled. I missed other names, and will probably leave off a few names of questioners whom I criticize. I want everyone to get a true picture of the tone of the meeting and questions, but I don’t think every individual signed up for the by-name criticism an elected official receives. (And the questions will necessarily be imperfectly summarized. As I know from experience, it is tough to ask a clear, coherent question in a large public setting, and many of the questioners stumbled, restated, etc. as they asked their questions. I tried to summarize it accurately and think I did a mostly good job.)

Jon Morris from Pleasant Grove – How do you think taking the campaign funds left over at the end of a campaign benefits candidates or increases the number of people wanting to run for office? If they lose the money, what incentive will they have to return and be involved and run again? Janet Jensen – They only forfeit that money after 5 yrs. They can run again anytime within the next 5 years and use the money. Who does the money go to if it’s taken? To the school fund or to the charity of the candidate’s choice.

Blair Bateman – The ethics commission is chosen from 20 names. Who chooses the 20 names and how are the 5 commissioners chosen from those 20? Janet Jensen – The 20 people must be legal citizens, live in utah, be at least 25 years old, demonstrate leadership and service, be capable of neutral decisions even if a member of a party, and cannot have been a lobbyist, politician, or party officer within the last 5 yrs. The 4 leaders of the legislature, the head Republican and Democrat of both the House and the Senate, must choose 20 names unanimously. (This is one of the spots where a speaker messed up and corrections were shouted out. Jensen had trouble naming who those 4 people were and was corrected by people in the crowd. It was disorderly, but helpful because she was being unclear. Many of these corrections didn’t have the rancorous tone some of the other shouted comments did.) The 5 names for the commission are drawn at random from the pool of 20 names agreed on by the legislative leaders. This is an incentive to get good people. Since the legislators can't insure their "toady" will be picked, they will choose honest, trustworthy people. If the legislative leadership cannot agree on candidates, the pool of 20 will be chosen by the 5 people helping organize this initiative called "czars" on that handout you received. (The legislative crowd in back laughed loudly at that.)

Bramble shouted out here “Who are the czars?” Janet Jensen stumbled over the names, but Karl Snow and others helped her out. They are Chase Peterson, Karl Snow, Cassia Dippo, Jordan Tanner, former Republican Utah House Representative, and Carol Petersen, former chief clerk of the Utah House. Some people in back said “They’re the ringleaders of this thing.”

Someone yelled out “What if they die?’ Janet Jensen answered that "Of course there is a replacement mechanism.” I had read the bill and wrote down that I thought that wasn’t true. It isn’t and Karl Snow corrected that statement later in the meeting.

OK, I’m sorry, but I’ve had less time then I thought I would. I will have to extend this once again to another post. The majority of the questions and answers are yet to come.

.

A collection of a few articles about the inadvertent gift ban passed by the legislature..."Accidental ethics reform is better than none"

2009-09-25T03:03:00.007-06:00

The newspaper sites keep articles up for various lengths of time. I didn't save the text on some and they are gone. But I have the original links. I have other articles I saved and will paste in here. All underlining was added by me.

First - Articles discussing the original intent of the two ethics bills passed in the 2009 legislative session.

This empty link was a Standard Examiner editorial that I saved under the title "Standard Examiner editorial: Gift ban is a joke HB 246, Brad Dee defends "transparency", but didn't copy the text.
http://www.standard.net/live/opinion/editorials/170430

My bad. It is gone, but it looks like it was a good one. (I tracked it down on Weber County Forum as well, but the link there is dead too.)

I did save the excellent Tribune editorial though:

Meal ticket
Lobbyists keep lawmakers well-fed

Tribune Editorial
Updated: 04/15/2009 05:37:20 PM MDT

So far this year, state lawmakers have gobbled up $92,000 worth of meals, tickets, trinkets and other gifts from legislative lobbyists.

While golf courses and stadiums and concert halls are popular places to woo legislators -- lobbyists like to reserve big blocks of time to better ingratiate themselves with elected officials -- the most popular path to a lawmaker's heart runs through the stomach.

And, despite what has been hailed as reform, the kitchen won't be closing any time soon. It's safe to say that lawmakers' appetite for free food during the 2009 session far exceeded their appetite for meaty ethics reform.

Legislative leaders made big promises before convening, including -- gulp -- a gift ban bill.

House Speaker Dave Clark said he would back a proposal that would allow only nominal gifts worth $5 to $10, and meals offered at an event or proffered to the entire Legislature. But it appears that Clark and his compadres bit off more than they could chew.

Instead, lawmakers approved Senate Bill 156, which should have been titled the "Small Potatoes Act." It bans absolutely nothing, but does change the reporting requirements to make lobbyists reveal the recipients of tickets to all recreational and artistic events plus meals that cost $25 or more. Previously, the reporting threshold for meals was $50.

Theoretically, that would result in names being attached to a lot more gifts. (Of the $92,000 worth accepted so far this year, the recipients were only disclosed for $5,213 of the spending.) But more likely, lawmakers will alter their diets.

By lowering the reporting threshold for meals, lawmakers who don't have the stomach for owning up to these trysts have consigned themselves to moderately priced restaurants. No more linen tablecloths, silver spoons and crystal glasses. We expect there will be considerably more chicken and a lot less lobster bought by lobbyists starting next month.

SB156 sponsor Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, said his bill will add more transparency to the process, but defended the practice of lobbyists paying the tab.

"If someone wants to go and have a dinner with a lobbyist, that's fine," Dee said. We agree. But they should go Dutch. And if lawmakers don't want to pay their own way, and they still feel it's essential to hear what the lobbyists have to say, then why not meet at the office?

Holding a public office should entitle lawmakers to a salary and the right to represent the people who elected them. And nothing more. The Legislature needs to enact an absolute gift ban.

So the original intent was just to report gifts over $25, banning nothing. It looks like Brad Dee was the go-to quote for both editorials.

Second - Articles addressing the legislature's "Oops moment," or the fact that SB 156 actually contained language banning legislators from accepting any gifts worth more than $50.

The quotes in these articles are terribly revealing. You see both Republican and Democratic legislators publicly saying that they think the gift ban should be repealed. Ethics reform is strictly to be promised, never delivered. The D-News articles and KSL story are still up at the links; I'm pasting in the Tribune article and Standard Examiner editorial. Enjoy.

August 14, 2009 - http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705323605/Legislative-gifts-ban-over-50-stand.html

August 19, 2009 - http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705324477/No-gifts-over-50-to-lawmakers.html

August 20, 2009 - http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=7607037

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13172665

Lobbyists' gifts of primo tickets now taboo for lawmakers
Freebie limits » Some lawmakers surprised by $50 limit on entertainment

By Cathy Mckitrick

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 08/20/2009 08:24:39 PM MDT

Some state lawmakers, surprised by the reach of a newly enacted lobbyist gift ban, already are giving reasons why the statute needs to be revised.

SB156, which overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate last March, limited lobbyist gifts and meals to those valued at $50 or less. That bans many Jazz tickets, pricey golf rounds and trips.

Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack, in an interview with The Tribune this week, didn't say anything about repealing the gift ban. But he did tout the merits of addressing lobbyist gifts with disclosure rather than outright prohibitions.

"I personally am a believer in full disclosure. I think that's the way to go," Killpack said. "Once you get into a lot of the ban issues, it complicates things."

While many lawmakers in the Democratic minority support gift bans, at least one hopes to roll back the new law.

"It took me by surprise," said Sen. Brent Goodfellow, D-West Valley City. "I think it should change back to how it was."

Goodfellow, who served for years in the House before moving to the Senate, has in the past been one of the biggest recipients of premium court-side Jazz seats.

Some legislators have said the change was inadvertent, even accidental, and slipped through unnoticed by many. That's because the ban was enacted by a change in the definition what constituted a gift to include tickets to sporting, recreational and cultural events.

Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, who sponsored SB156 in the House, said the $50 gift cap -- including events -- was no secret.

"As legislators, we have to come to grips with that," Dee said. "I'm OK with us buying our own tickets and I can pay for my own golf."

The new law mandates disclosure of gifts over $10, a step that Dee believes should be taken even further.

"If there's a lobbyist who buys something for me, including a gift or ticket, it ought to be disclosed in any amount," Dee said. "Until we reach that point, I'm not sure if we're ever going to get it."

House Speaker David Clark said he would be fine with a limit lower than $50, but he believes his colleagues are honest.

"I don't think it's an integrity issue for the Legislature," Clark added. "It's a perception issue on the part of the public."

One lawmaker called the whole discussion "ridiculous," because ethics and gift-giving are personal matters.

"We're sitting here with mountains of problems -- immigration and unemployment -- and we're spending hours on ethics," said Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan. He was one of just two senators to vote against SB156.

"I said this is wrong, you're opening a Pandora's box and they're going to come after you for more," Buttars said of ethical reforms. "We're in a real mess now."

The debate rages for a reason, said Kirk Jowers, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics.

"There will always be a great deal of tension with ethics reforms because it is the unique situation where individuals are forced to regulate themselves," Jowers said.

"While the public sees no disadvantage in pushing for ever-more stringent controls, lawmakers feel every miniscule restraint."

cmckitrick@sltrib.com
--

Freebies

The Utah Legislature has debated lobbyist gifts for years, along the way killing any number of attempts to outlaw them.

For the most part, lawmakers have handled the issue by requiring disclosure of freebies over a certain dollar value. But year in and year out most gifts have been reported without identifying the beneficiary.

Under a new provision that some say was accidental and others insist was deliberate, gifts valued at more than $50 are banned.

August 25, 2009 - http://www.standard.net/live/opinion/editorials/181266/

Tuesday, August 25, 2009
OUR VIEW: A 'giant step' for ethics

Utah legislators may have thought they were taking a "baby step" forward with Senate Bill 156, legislation that was intended as a gift disclosure bill.

However, the bill, sponsored last year by State Sen. Greg Bell -- who will soon become Utah's new lieutenant governor -- contained wording that prohibited legislators from accepting "gifts" that are valued at more than $50.

We're pleased as punch that SB156 is law and we're more than happy to offer Utah legislators our congratulations for finally passing a gifts ethics bill that has more than baby teeth.

The gift ban should still be absolute but this is a great, "giant step" forward.

It effectively ends the disgusting practice of lawmakers accepting high-priced tickets to sporting events from lobbyists or meals from same at upper-tier restaurants. And they can forget about a round of golf at many courses. However, we know of a lot of low-budget golf courses. If lobbyists and lawmakers need a list, we'll provide one.

There's always bowling too. It's not too expensive at the alley and a game goes well with nachos and cheese and a soft drink.

Frankly, we've always been of the opinion that if lawmakers want to attend a Jazz game, or another sporting event, they should do what their constituents do -- pay for it.

There are still cheap-seat Utah Jazz and University of Utah hoops tickets that lawmakers can mooch from lobbyists, but they better be careful about how many refreshments they scarf; refreshments can be pricey at those venues.

Besides the gift ban, SB156 states that any sports ticket purchased by a lobbyist must include in a report the legislator for whom it was bought. Meals and beverages over $25 and other gifts over $10 also must list the lawmakers' names.

Our strong support for ethics is not an inference that lawmakers are dishonest. Rather it is the expectation that those who are honored to represent us behave in the highest ethical standard. No lawmaker should receive any gift or meal or ticket, etc. that the least of his constituents could not receive. If that mantra was followed, public opinion for elected officials would rise.

One more thing: We wouldn't put it past the Legislature to attempt to "correct" SB156 to restore the gifts legislators unwittingly lost. If that effort is made, shout in protest, readers, and then shout louder.

Part 2 of Utah County ethics initiative hearing: a little Karl Snow, a lot of Janet Jensen, and a dash of Craig Dennis

2009-09-25T02:30:00.002-06:00

Back for more ethics reform rehash...

First, I want to add a note to my last post. I am glad the rude woman passed out literature opposing the initiative. I had already been contemplating whether to ask the lady in front of me who already had a copy if I could see hers. I think we all need the most information possible and I have constitutional concerns about the bill, though I am still processing much of what I heard last night and haven’t had time to do any research. I just strongly disagree with her interrupting a presentation blatantly and rudely. She could easily have passed out the information at the door after the meeting. Or if she felt it was important that those attending have those arguments during the meeting as the various points were discussed, she should have planned ahead and been there early enough to pass out the papers to the citizens as they arrived at the meeting. I stood at the check-in table for a few moments looking for all the information available and would have snatched up those bullet points. Disagreeing strongly with something and running late aren’t excuses to behave like a jerk.

Here’s the last bit of Karl Snow’s presentation, with some commentary in parentheses and links thrown in by me:

One man had $300,000+ of campaign money in a bank account. He donated liberally to other Republicans and became Speaker of the House for 2 terms. (This was Greg Curtis and Snow did not mention his name, or the fact that he was a brash, combative man, worked during and after holding office to use his influence to make sweetheart deals for his clients, and became a lucrative lobbyist for the tobacco industry among others as soon as he left office, causing even the entrenched GOP enough embarrassment to pass a 1-yr moratorium for departing legislators to work as lobbyists.)

There were over 30 ethics bills introduced, few made it out of committee, and those that passed had very little effect. (The only significant reform was unintentional.)

Is the current system working? The Standard Examiner, the Tribune, and the Deseret News have editorialized in favor of the initiative. That’s 3 major papers. He also mentioned KSL editorializing in favor of the initiative. (But failed to mention the editorial in favor with lukewarm caveats from the Daily Herald, which considering the rightwing tone of that editorial page ever since Obama's candidacy gathered steam last year, is the equivalent of a banner ad in favor of reform anywhere else.

We're widely acknowledged as one of the best managed states. Why should we not also be recognized as one of the most ethical?

Karl Snow then introduced the next presenter, and the person who answered most of the questions about the initiative text and legality as the meeting went on, Janet Jensen . She had a list of qualifications: law school, medical lawyer, some other stuff.

Janet Jensen’s remarks: She helped write the initiative. She said they sent the draft to constitutional law scholars at other universities and law schools to check if the law would pass constitutional muster. (She repeated this point several times during the meeting and included “deans of law schools” later, but never mentioned exactly which draft or which parts of this wide-ranging proposal the drafting group supposedly sent. She also never mentioned any of the actual people or schools they consulted. I’m left wondering if the entire proposal as it currently stands received wide approval.)

Democracy is hard work. The members of Utahns for Ethical Government all volunteer, no one has been paid a dime.

We support elected representatives doing their duty, but when unresponsive, the people act. We have seen that sadly the legislators respond more to people who give them money than ordinary citizens.

The legislature has raised the concern that the state will be overwhelmed by initiatives. (or “run by initiatives like California.” That is a quote from Senator Bramble at a citizen meeting a year ago speaking of just the voucher referendum and high bars for referendums and initiatives.) The concern is overblown.
Oregon has had 349 voter initiatives in its history.
Califonia 331
Utah has had only 20 voter initiatives in the history of the state.
(I’m assuming these numbers reference state-wide referendums, but I don’t know. County or municipal initiatives could be included in those numbers.)

Article 1, Section 1 of Utah State Constitution establishes 2 sources of legislative power—the legislature and with equal power, the people. ( I don’t know if I wrote that wrong or Jensen quoted it wrong--wouldn’t surprise me either way--, but I think she mixed up 2 separate relevant articles. Article 1, Section 2 of the Utah State Constitution refers to all political power being inherent in the people, and Article 6, Section 1 says what she explained, that legislative power is also specifically designated to the “people of the state of Utah” so that “the legal voters of the state of Utah” may “initiate any desired legislation” and pass it by a majority vote, as provided by statute—i.e. the signature requirements and deadlines imposed by the legislature.) This is fascinating to me. Initiatives and referendums are specifically designated in the state constitution.

You can read the whole initiative at www.utahethics.org
It has three basic parts:
Independent Ethics Commission
Legislative Code of Conduct, enforced by legislature
Outlines procedures to implement above

It is a non-partisan, neutral ethics commission. There will be 5 individuals in staggered terms on the commission. (Missed stuff here.) They are not paid. (I wrote in my notes here [per diem, not count?] I had read the bill and knew they receive the per diem. This came up later and showed some lack of preparation by Jensen and hypocrisy by legislators yelling from the back.)

(This is another part where I thought Jensen was fuzzy on specifics.) Jensen was addressing the concerns that any 3 people can bring charges to the ethics commission against a legislator.

What I heard was that under current statute--any one person may launch a criminal complaint against a legislator. Under the new process of complaint if the initiative were to pass, any 3 people could complain to the ethics commission, paying their own legal costs. (I didn’t get this. Currently, only 3 other members of the House or Senate can bring ethics charges to the current ethics committees. I suppose anyone can accuse a legislator of a crime, but that will be the same regardless of whether the initiative passes next year or not. I think she’s comparing apples to oranges. Right now only other legislators can bring ethics complaints to the committee; under the new law, any three people would be able to bring ethics charges to the commission. Anyone can file a criminal complaint against a legislator now; anyone will still be able to file a criminal complaint then. It seems this point is a very weak justification if any.)
The legislator complained of gets his/her legal fees paid. The commission merely makes a recommendation to the legislature. They can do what they want with the recommendation, even ignore it completely.

There will be mandatory ethics training. I am surprised at how many legislators don’t understand when they have a conflict of interest. (This is where Jensen inserted some snide jabs. This sarcastic side was often funny to me since I agreed with the jokes about campaign money, but it also came out in some rougher remarks during the back-and-forths in the Q&A session later. The angry remarks often made Jensen appear less sympathetic and sometimes condescending. My relative thought she just cracked a little under the hostile scrutiny and attention from the legislative buddies in the back as evidenced by her sarcasm increasing toward the end of the session after several opposing questions.) They don't understand ethics. They don’t always understand the law since they are not lawyers. They just don't understand. I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.

There will be no more personal use of campaign money allowed. Legislators will not be able to contribute to other campaigns w/ their own campaign funds. They cannot be lobbyists while serving or for 2 years after serving in office. There will be a complete gift ban, except for neglible refreshments at public events.

A legislator can ask for a written opinion or interpretation from the commission on a certain issue. This is commonly done in congress and other federal areas—these “safe harbor” letters make the congressman immune from prosecution if pursuing a course permitted by the commission via this letter. .

Legislators cannot threaten courts—we had a very public case of this recently—or interfere with them or members of state government. The legislature cannot accept donations from corporate, union, or non-profit organizations. Corporations have never been able to donate to federal campaigns. If money remaining in a legislator’s campaign account is not spent in 5 yrs, the money will revert to the school fund or to a non-profit charity of the legislator’s choice. The legislators must disclose conflicts of interest in much more detail than currently allowed. The disclosures will be available to public. File contributions w/ Lt. governor’s office. Legislators cannot be on corporate boards where they were hired just because of their position. (Many of these last points were explained more fully, but this is the gist.)

She then clicked through her powerpoint, repeating most of these points since she had forgotten to click on the applicable slides while speaking.

A guy sitting down asked a question while she fiddled with the powerpoint and she answered. This was before the formal, structured Q&A later. The man asked for clarification of when any ethics charges become public. The Executive Director of the commission vets initial complaints along with staff. This is not public. They don’t do discovery, research, subpoena, anything like that. It is informal inquiry to those involved and the accused is an informal participant. If the Executive Director finds that the charge has any basis, the charge goes before the full commission and is made public. The commission can subpoena documents and witnesses. The legislator is a full participant and can defend his/herself with lawyer of their choice. Cross examination and facing the accusers are part of this process. The hearing(s) of the commission where all this takes place is public. The deliberations of the 5 commissioners to make a decision are not public. However, when they decide, they must release written findings and recommendations which are public. They send these findings and recommendations to the legislature. The legislature can choose to hold their own hearings, debate, to investigate, reject, adopt, modify, etc. They can do whatever they want with the recommendation—it does not legally bind the legislature to a course of action. All these deliberations would be public too. (Though I don’t think that last assertion is correct. I believe the legislature could continue to hold closed hearings like the ethics hearings last year if they chose. The initiative would not bind them to open meetings like the commission would be.)

Craig Dennis, former publisher of Daily Herald, served on numerous editorial boards, member of Provo Rotary Club, on Board of Directors of United Way of Utah County, registered Republican, upstanding, forthright individual, etc. blah blah, then briefly endorsed the initiative. I think he was mainly there for name recognition and endorsement purposes.

Craig Dennis' remarks severely summarized: “Do the right thing and sign the petition.”

That’s all for tonight. I'm tired. I blame any typos on the legislature. I’ll get to the Q&A session which got contentious in a post this weekend.

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