Lawmakers eye restoring A-F grades with expanded criteria
Indiana's dormant A-F school grading assessment program is on track for an overhaul with a new methodology to rate school performance.
House Bill 1498 cleared the full House by a 62-28 vote Tuesday and is headed to the Senate for consideration.
Indianapolis Republican state Rep. Robert Behning, who chairs the Education Committee, authored the bill that tasks the Department of Education and State Board of Education to develop a framework for the new accountability system. The bill repeals the previous methodology.
Education officials would be charged with developing the new grading benchmarks by the end of 2025 with grades assigned to public and state-accredited private schools in 2026. No grades will be given this year.
After Behning introduced the bill, State Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, cautioned the fallout letter grades create. In Gary, it led to an unsuccessful state takeover of Roosevelt High School, which has since been shuttered.
'There's a danger in labeling schools and it has an impact on the community,' he said.
Schools have not received letter grades since 2018 when the DOE moved from the ISTEP exam to a new accountability test called ILEARN. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted testing, and no grades were assigned.
Presently, the state's assessment system rates students in grades 3-8 based on academic performance and growth on ILEARN.
High school grades are based on SAT scores, graduation rates and college and career readiness.
State Secretary of Education Katie Jenner told the House Education Committee last week the state board would likely add IREAD literacy scores, student attendance and chronic absenteeism to the third grade assessment.
Schools in grades 4-8 would be evaluated on ILEARN proficiency in math and English, attendance data and advanced courses.
High schools in grades 9-12 would be graded on measures that dovetail with the state's new diploma standards just approved by the state board in December.
Local educators generally supported the bill.
'Personally, I do not have a problem with being held accountable for the job we're responsible for in educating our children,' said East Porter Superintendent Aaron Case.
Students in East Porter's small district have long been strong performers in past accountability measures.
'My concern, though, is the consistency of the grading system,' Case said. 'Often, these systems lack clear, stable metrics, making them a moving target. It's difficult to aim for a specific grade when the criteria can shift.'
Case said unfunded mandates often accompany accountability measures while the goalposts keep moving.
'Essentially, we're being asked to run a race with hurdles, but the hurdles keep changing height and we're not given the resources to clear them effectively,' he said.
River Forest Superintendent Kevin Trezak said students in wealthier communities typically always receive better grades than those in poor communities.
He said the A-F grading system has become less punitive over the years but results remain the same.
'Because of this, I have deep-rooted convictions that this, and similar systems across the country, are flawed,' he said.
Nonetheless, Trezak said schools aim for improvement and self-reflection to do what's best for students. 'We welcome accountability and want to gauge how we are doing and where we can make adjustments.'
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Associated Press
8 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Millennium Scholarship has helped nearly 200K Nevadans with college. Its future is cloudy.
Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine said 'dramatic adjustments' will need to be made next legislative session for the Millennium Scholarship to survive. The Nevada Governor Guinn Millennium Scholarship, named after Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn who signed it into law in 1999, has been funding Nevada college students for nearly three decades. More than 177,000 students to date have used the scholarship, which is based on test scores and GPAs and offers students $10,000. But the funding for the award — based on dwindling revenue from the sale of tobacco products — is becoming increasingly unstable as each year goes by. 'We either need to keep putting in new money (from the) general fund appropriations, or you need to decrease the amount of money the Millennium Scholarship costs,' Conine said. 'That's going to be a legislative decision.' According to Conine, the Millennium Scholarship wasn't looked at this legislative session because during the last session, $75 million from the general fund was allocated to maintain the scholarship for the next four years. Asked about the scholarship in the final weeks of the recently completed session, Ways and Means Committee Chair Daniele Monroe-Moreno (D-North Las Vegas) said, 'My focus, and I think everyone's focus, is getting out of this session, making sure we don't have a structural deficit.' However, by the time 2027 hits, the Millennium Scholarship will not have enough money to cover all eligible students. The $10,000 scholarships, split over a four-year period ranging from $960 to $1,200 per semester, are awarded each year to several thousand qualifying Nevada high school graduates who are attending an in-state college or university. Sen. Fabian Doñate (D-Las Vegas) is among those putting thought into how to fund the program — including floating the idea of opening it up to private contributions. 'Governor Guinn, while he was on the opposite political side of me, he had this vision that if kids stayed in school and they went through a good education that the state would take care of them as they're going through that journey,' Doñate said. 'That's something that all of us should be fighting for, right? Regardless of who we are, where we come from and what our political beliefs are.' History The scholarship was signed into law as an incentive for high-achieving students to stay in Nevada for college. A survey of parents taken shortly after the scholarship launched found that 70 percent were using the Millennium Scholarship to encourage their kids to do good in school to receive the scholarship. Funding comes from a master settlement agreement with the four largest tobacco companies to recover costs from treating smoking-related illnesses. In 1998, the attorneys general of 46 states signed the agreement, with 40 percent of Nevada's settlement allocated to fund the scholarship. The other 60 percent goes toward funding health care programs in the state. Since the settlement was signed, an additional 40 tobacco companies have joined the agreement, which also had a provision for nonparticipating tobacco manufacturers. They are required to deposit funds equivalent to 2 cents per cigarette sold in the state for the past year into an escrow account. Conine told The Nevada Independent that when it started, there was enough money to pay for all students who qualified for the scholarship. This isn't the case anymore. The money from the settlement agreement hasn't been enough to pay for the Millennium Scholarship since 2006. 'Since then, more people are going to college. Fewer people are smoking,' Conine said. According to the Nevada Tobacco Control Plan, Nevadans who smoke are down by 50 percent over the last 20 years. There are two additional sources of money helping fund the scholarship. The Millennium Scholarship has been receiving $7.6 million every year since 2006 from the Unclaimed Property Trust Fund. The other source is general fund appropriations authorized by the Legislature. During the last fiscal year, the Millennium Scholarship took in $24 million from multiple sources — $7.6 million from unclaimed property, $14 million from the tobacco revenue interest earnings, and $3 million generated by the Nevada State Treasurer's Office. However, the total cost of the Millennium Scholarship was about $37 million, leaving a $13 million deficit that needed to be filled by general fund revenues. Every year, the state sees similar situations play out. What's next for the Millennium Scholarship? According to Conine, there are too many people using the Millennium Scholarship for the money that is 'directly available to it.' According to Erik Jimenez, chief policy deputy at the Nevada State Treasurer's Office, 15,213 students became eligible for the scholarship in 2024 and 7,000 of those students are using the scholarship. The scholarship costs between $37 million to $39 million annually. Since the start of the program, the state has spent about $699 million with 74,860 degrees and certificates earned. Conine recognizes this is a 'significant' political issue that will be sorted out. If it's decided that the state should spend less on the Millennium Scholarship program, then fewer students will get it. Another solution could be to give each student less than $10,000. When the scholarship was signed into law, the $10,000 originally allocated covered more than the cost of tuition at UNLV and UNR for four years. 'The goal was to get the best and brightest to stay in the state,' Conine said. 'We had great students graduating from Nevada high schools and then going to college in other places.' This prompted Guinn and the Legislature to create the scholarship, incentivizing students to stay in Nevada if their tuition was covered. Despite its original intent, the Millennium Scholarship no longer covers all of a student's tuition. Undergraduate students at UNR pay roughly $23,000 to $29,000 yearly for tuition, fees, books, a meal plan and housing, and UNLV students pay about $25,000 to $28,000 yearly — meaning the scholarship only covers the equivalent of one semester of total costs. Ben Kieckhefer, who worked on Millennium Scholarship policy during his 12 years in the Legislature, said he wonders 'when the time is right to sort of reevaluate the program.' 'The purchasing power of the Millennium Scholarship has reduced significantly, obviously, since it was created when it funded 100 percent of tuition,' Kieckhefer said in an interview. 'And so I think the question we probably need to ask ourselves is whether we are accomplishing our mission with this scholarship still.' Costs per credit have quadrupled. In 2003, a credit to attend UNR and UNLV cost $79, meaning tuition without room and board was approximately $2,400 a year. It's projected in 2027 that a single credit will cost about $316 and students will pay approximately $9,480 yearly excluding room and board. 'What you don't want to do is incentivize people to go to school by paying a small portion of their tuition,' Kieckhefer said. 'Have them take out student loans and then not be successful because they gotta pay those loans back no matter what.' Kieckhefer said he did not have any specific ideas on how to sustainably fund the scholarship. Conine also concludes that since tuition is no longer being fully covered, a slightly less expensive college decision may not keep students in the state anymore. Stacy Miller, college and career coordinator at Las Vegas Academy, says she's been seeing a lot of students going out of state for college. 'For some of our students, it's not enough to keep them in state,' Miller told The Nevada Independent in an interview. 'Especially because some of the out of state schools or the private schools are going to give them much more monetary incentive to go to their schools.' Possible funding solutions Over the years, the Millennium Scholarship became slightly harder to receive. Students now need to have a 3.25 GPA coming out of high school, or they have to get a 1070 on the SAT or a 21 on the ACT. When the scholarship was first signed into law, students only needed a 3.0 GPA. 'If we had a magic wand, we would try to return the scholarship to its original purpose, focused on the best and brightest,' said Conine, who argues that would better retain students. 'It would get more money to a much smaller group of students.' However, Maggie Carlton, a former longtime lawmaker and member of the Nevada State Board of Education, disagrees with making the scholarship more difficult to earn because the 'best and brightest' will already be receiving scholarships from other universities. 'They're going to get two or three scholarships, and these other kids aren't going to get any,' Carlton said. 'Sometimes they don't do great in high school, but once they hit college, they hit their stride. They find a passion.' Doñate also disagrees with Conine's idea to raise eligibility standards to save the Millennium Scholarship. When Doñate was pursuing his master's degree, he went to the University of Maryland, where he learned of the Maryland Promise Scholarship and how that's been funded. 'The kids that grew up in the state, if they earned good grades … then we are going to do everything in our power to support those students … regardless of the … socioeconomic background that they're experiencing,' Doñate said. 'That's what the Maryland Promise Scholarship does. That's why Maryland ranks as one of the top states in education.' The Maryland Promise Scholarship is funded through private and public partnerships. Donors can either give their donation up front for the scholarship to use or put it in a bank account and let it generate more money for future generations. 'We should be doing that same model here,' Doñate said. 'We should allow private companies to be able to contribute directly to it, while also ensuring that we're also investing in ourselves.' Doñate also believes that cannabis taxes should have been used to help fund the Millennium Scholarship — but they're already designated to help K-12 schools. When Carlton was first advocating for the Millennium Scholarship to pass through the Legislature in 1999, she said she felt the scholarship should only be available to students entering the medical field. However, she said she's glad lawmakers made it a universal scholarship for any student to earn. 'Take the literary arts. Do a journalism class. Take history. Just become a more rounded person and just more educated,' Carlton said. 'Sometimes that's all they need … It isn't necessarily the degree that matters.' Changes Conine notes that if changes do come to the scholarship, they have to be intentional since families plan around receiving it and Nevadans shouldn't be surprised if changes arise. 'Like any other major program, you have to have a period of transition,' Conine said. 'If they know that in five years the Millennium Scholarship is only going to support this group of students, they can plan for it.' Doñate planned to introduce a bill this session that included making changes to the Millennium Scholarship, but decided to wait until the 2027 legislative session. The intent of his bill would have allowed students who aren't taking the required 12-15 credits to remain eligible for the scholarship. Currently, students could lose access to the scholarship funds if their course load drops below the required number of credits per semester. Doñate lost his scholarship because he had to work full time while finishing school, which meant he was only able to take nine to 10 credits per semester instead of 12 to 15. 'I lost eligibility, not because I wasn't graduating on time, not because I didn't have a good GPA, but because I did not meet the threshold of what they determined to be full time versus part time,' Doñate said. 'That was erroneous, and there are other students that fall into that situation, and I think it's a false promise from the state, where we tell them they have earned their spot because of good grades, and we want to keep them here, and then we kick them off the system.' Despite the funding issues, Doñate and Carlton believe the Millennium Scholarship should continue to be funded without making it harder to receive nor minimizing the amount students get. 'If we value it, and we really value education, and not just K through 12, and not just for some kids, but for all kids … then we find the money to fund it,' Carlton said. ___ This story was originally published by The Nevada Independent and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Buzz Feed
8 minutes ago
- Buzz Feed
5 Ways Republicans Are Defending Kicking People Off Medicaid
WASHINGTON — In their zeal to deliver a big win to President Donald Trump by passing his sweeping tax and spending bill, Republicans have been coming up with ridiculous ways to defend their plan to strip health care from an estimated 11 million low-income people. Experts don't matter. Prove you are worthy of health care. We're all going to die anyway. Somehow, these are actual arguments GOP lawmakers and officials have been making as they try to gloss over the pain their bill would impose on poor people and families while handing big tax breaks to mostly rich people. Here are five of the most absurd ways Republicans have tried to defend their so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which guts federal health and food assistance programs by nearly $1.3 trillion. We're all going to die anyway. It was her first town hall of the year, held at 7:30 in the morning at a rural area two hours away from Des Moines — possibly to keep national attention off the senator as much as possible. Yet Republican Sen. Joni Erst of Iowa last week still managed to step in it with a flippant remark to a woman concerned about Republican plans to cut Medicaid. 'People will die!' the woman shouted at the senator. 'Well, we all are going to die,' Ernst responded with a smirk. 'For heaven's sakes, folks.' The glib comment quickly went viral on social media and Democrats pounced on her words, featuring them on signs at press conferences around the U.S. Capitol this week as they blasted the GOP tax and spending bill. It even spurred Democratic state Rep. JD Scholten to announce his entry into the race to unseat Ernst, who faces reelection next year, and election handicappers to shift the race slightly toward Democrats. Ernst later doubled down by filming a sarcastic apology video from a cemetery. 'I'm very compassionate,' she told a swarm of reporters this week. Losing health care coverage is actually healthy. From the minute Republicans started drafting the legislation this year, they knew two things: They would limit eligibility for the childless adults without disabilities covered under the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion, saving hundreds of billions of dollars, and they would deny that the significant loss of coverage resulting from 'work requirements' — which would mostly kick people who have jobs off Medicaid by imposing new paperwork burdens on them — counted as a cut. In fact, as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) explained in February, losing health care coverage would spur people to improve themselves, and they'd be better off for it. 'Work is good for you. You find dignity in work. And the people that are not doing that, we're going to try to get their attention,' Johnson said. 'So everyone needs to take a deep sigh of relief and understand that we're not going to harm any Americans with this. What we're doing is the right thing by the people.' The Congressional Budget Office said this week the proposed work requirements — better understood as a limit on benefits for people who don't prove to their state government they've participated in 80 hours per month of qualifying 'community engagement' activities — would reduce Medicaid enrollment by 5.2 million and save $344 billion over a decade. Ultimately, 4.8 million fewer people would have insurance in 2034. This week, Johnson's office pointed to a new analysis by the conservative American Enterprise Institute finding that unemployed Medicaid recipients who would be affected by the law typically spend 4.2 hours per day watching TV and playing video games, compared with 2.7 hours per day of TV and video games for Medicaid recipients with jobs. For Republicans, unemployed gamers are about as deserving of government assistance as undocumented immigrants, who are also targeted in the legislation. 'The next time a Democrat makes false claims about 'Medicaid cuts,' just remember that what they're really saying is they want illegal aliens and able-bodied adults playing video games at home to continue stealing resources from those who need it,' Johnson's office said in a statement. In a major analysis of work requirements that have been tried in various federal programs, however, the CBO found in 2022 that booting unemployed people off Medicaid didn't boost their employment. The budget office pointed to what happened when the first Trump administration let Arkansas implement a Medicaid work requirement in 2018. 'There, many of the targeted adults lost their health insurance as a result of the work requirement,' the CBO said. 'Employment did not appear to increase, although the evidence is scant. Research indicates that many participants were unaware of the work requirement or found it too onerous to demonstrate compliance.' Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), lead author of the Republicans' Medicaid proposal, has said lawmakers learned from the Arkansas example and that the compliance paperwork in this case would be less onerous. Don't believe the experts. GOP lawmakers have sought to undermine the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan federal agency that analyzes the fiscal effects of legislation, after it estimated that the massive tax cut package will add $2.4 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years and eliminate health insurance for nearly 11 million people. Republicans have argued that these tax cuts will spur economic growth and eventually pay for themselves, something that studies have shown did not happen after they made similar arguments about their 2017 tax cut bill. They also have a very vocal critic to contend with in billionaire Elon Musk, their one-time ally who has savaged the bill as an 'abomination' for how it will balloon the deficit. Appearing Thursday on CNN, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) also dismissed the CBO's projections about the nearly 11 million people who stand to lose their health care coverage. 'Can you say for certain no one will lose their health insurance?' CNN anchor Pamela Brown asked Scott. 'You just can't look at those numbers at face value and say they're going to happen,' Scott responded. People will find jobs eventually. Republicans who are willing to at least acknowledge that cutting Medicaid will lead to people losing health insurance argue that they will instead be able to find a job and receive employer-sponsored health care. 'People are screaming and saying, 'Hey, it's kicking people off Medicaid.' It's not kicking people off Medicaid,' Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said in an interview with CNBC. 'It's transitioning from Medicaid to employer-provided health care. So, yes, we've got 10 million people that are not gonna be on Medicaid, but they then are gonna be on employer-provided health care.' That's an extremely optimistic prediction, especially since the GOP bill doesn't explicitly create any jobs itself. Even if those people who lose their Medicaid coverage are able to find a job at some point, not every employer offers health care, particularly for part-time roles. 'Few of those disenrolled from Medicaid because of the policy would have access to and enroll in employment-based coverage and none would be eligible for the premium tax credit,' CBO Director Phillip Swagel said in a letter to members of Congress on Wednesday. Prove you deserve care. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the former TV personality now running the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said people should have to 'prove that you matter' to get Medicaid coverage. During a Wednesday interview on Fox Business, Oz defended the bill's harsh, new work requirements for Medicaid. The bill requires states to deny coverage to people age 19 to 64 applying for Medicaid if they're not already working at least 80 hours a month. It also requires states to kick people off Medicaid if they can't prove they're meeting the work requirements. The Congressional Budget Office estimates these work requirements alone will result in 5.2 million people losing their health coverage. 'We're asking that able-bodied individuals who are able to go back to work at least try to get a job or volunteer or take care of a loved one who needs help or go back into school,' Oz said. 'Do something that shows you have agency over your future.' If people aren't doing those things, he said, they'll have to get a job and get health insurance there because they shouldn't be covered by Medicaid anymore. 'Go out there. Do entry-level jobs. Get into the workforce. Prove that you matter,' Oz said. 'Get agency into your own life.' In fact, under the GOP bill, most people are projected to lose Medicaid coverage due to red tape, with states not automatically exempting certain people from work requirements who should be exempted. At least 2 in 3 enrollees would be kicked off Medicaid despite working or qualifying for an exemption, like having a disability or going to school, per the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
USA Today
17 minutes ago
- USA Today
'Trump accounts' for babies? Why the White House is pushing cash for kids
'Trump accounts' for babies? Why the White House is pushing cash for kids The program for babies born during Trump's second term would involve a one-time $1,000 federal contribution into an index fund tied to the stock market - with some of the money available at age 18. Show Caption Hide Caption Who will benefit from President Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill'? The nations richest Americans will see benefits from the Trump administration's "Big, Beautiful Bill," while the poorest will be left behind. WASHINGTON — In his first term, President Donald Trump made waves when he put his name on stimulus checks the U.S. government sent to millions of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the Republican president is celebrating a provision tucked into the GOP tax bill that would create and affix his name onto investment accounts for babies, if the legislation that very narrowly passed the House makes it through the Senate and becomes law. The program for American children born during Trump's current term would involve a one-time contribution from the federal government of $1,000 per toddler into a mutual or index fund that is tied to the performance of the stock market. The legislation also allows for parents to make contributions of up to $5,000 in outside contributions annually during childhood - and the child could then access some of the money when they turn 18 for things like education, training or a first-time home purchase. The full balance would be available at age 30. From gym memberships to gun silencers, Trump's tax bill is full of surprises House Republicans changed the name of the program from "MAGA accounts" to "Trump accounts" before the bill's passage last month, offering the president a tangible benefit for working-class Americans that he can put his stamp on. The program also serves as a counter to Democratic arguments that the legislation that extends the GOP's 2017 tax cuts primarily helps the nation's wealthiest Americans. Trump is set to announce at a June 9 event that a handful of large corporations have further pledged to contribute to their employees' accounts. The term-limited Trump is set to leave office on Jan. 20, 2029, but he and the GOP could benefit politically from the creation of the program in the 2026 campaign. Midterm elections have historically been unkind to the sitting president's political party, and Republicans have been sprinting to get their tax cut bill through quick enough to improve their political fortunes. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the bill would "change the lives of working, middle class families across America" through tax cuts, increasing the child tax credit, "AND by creating this incredible new ''Trump Account' program, which will put the lives of young Americans on the right financial path!' White House pushes 'Trump accounts' as Senate debates tax cut bill The House overcame a myriad of obstacles, coming from pockets of lawmakers in the GOP and a unified opposition from Democrat, to pass the lower chamber in late May. It has since run into trouble in the Senate, where conservative Republicans have raised fresh concerns that the bill would balloon the national debt. They are also fighting over provisions dealing with Medicaid and the state and local tax deduction that were critical to the bill's passage in the House. Only three Republicans can defect for the bill to pass. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, has said he's a no, while senators such as Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, have pushed to get the pricetag down. Donald Trump Airport? Trump on the $500 bill? Republicans can't stop honoring ex-president Trump has been putting public and private pressure on lawmakers to vote for the bill. The White House last week touted support from police officers in a bid to bring attention to Trump's fulfillment of a campaign pledge in the legislation to eliminate taxes on overtime. This week, he's turning his attention to the investment fund for newborns in the legislation that would start as a pilot program. The benefit is backdated to begin on January 1, 2024 and end on January 1, 2029, just before the end of Trump's second term, though the White House hopes the program will be so popular that it is permanently extended. CEOs pledge to invest in 'Trump account' program The White House offered to sweeten the pot on June 9, when it said the CEOs of several large corporations would make billons of dollars in additional investments into accounts for the children of their employees. Dell Technologies, Salesforce, Uber and Goldman Sachs were among the companies the White House said would be participating. In a statement provided by the White House ahead of the event, Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies, said his company would "match dollar for dollar the government's seed investment into these accounts for all the children born to Dell team members." Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called Trump's plan "visionary—a seed fund for America's next generation" and said his company would contribute an unspecified amount to the accounts of its employees children.
