Pub. 8 2018-2019 Issue 2

9 Legislature this year. Washington County Representative Lowry Snow is the House Education chair, and he’s carrying legislation allowing the Legislature to use estimated current year assessed valuations in calculating the LRF. As we have worked with our counterparts in the Fiscal Analysts Office, the State Board of Education and the school districts, we’ve emphasized that this is NOT simply a ploy to grab more money for charter schools. Rather, this issue is one of simple equity. Everyone, charter and district alike, wants their revenue streams to rely on current year data. We have looked at various estimates for how much additional money charter schools may receive by closing the two-year gap; it feels like closing the two-year gap will likely yield about $100/student. The bill has not yet been numbered, but we will share it with you as soon as it’s out; we expect that to be sometime the second week of the session. Another legislative priority this year will be Rep. Mike Winder’s HB 118, Incentives for statewide assessment per- formance. The Legislature appropriately wants to know how well LEAs are using the billions of dollars they spend each year. To that end, they rely on a statewide assessment of student performance. No assessment is perfect, and UAPCS would like to see an option for LEAs to select from one of several approved assessments. However, that option is at least one year away. In the meantime, it is important for the Legislature to make sure the current statewide assessment gives the clearest picture possible of how much students are learning. One barrier to a clearer picture is that students have no incentive to perform their best on that assessment. To overcome that barrier, Rep. Mike Winder’s HB 118 permits schools to use a student’s score on the statewide assessment to improve the student’s grade. HB 118 does not require schools to use these scores in student grading. HB 118 merely gives schools that option. UAPCS hopes that this option gives policy makers a better lens to understand howwell schools are spending the resources the Legislature provides. Even under HB 118, this statewide assessment will still give imperfect insights into school and student performance. And UAPCS will continue to work with policymakers to allow schools to choose from a menu of assessments, instead of relying on a single statewide assess- ment. For the time being, HB 118 improves our statewide accountability system. Washington County Representative Lowry Snow is the House Education chair, and he’s carrying legislation allowing the Legislature to use estimated current year assessed valuations in calculating the LRF.