Learning Community report lacking

The Learning Community's first formal written report to the Nebraska Legislature offers little evidence of the new entity's effectiveness but a glimpse of internal friction.

The report creates a starting point for measuring the Learning Community's future effectiveness, according to Julie Brewer, chief operating officer of the education cooperative.

But the biggest news is not what's in the 2010 Baseline Evaluation Report but what was left out.

Some of the 11 member school districts did not submit enough personal student information and other data to satisfy the Learning Community Council. Some districts cited concerns about student privacy, while other districts were unclear what state law required them to provide.

That made a full analysis of the initial effects of open enrollment “impossible,” the report says.

The open enrollment plan, which started this year, allows children to apply to any school in the 11 districts in Douglas and Sarpy Counties, subject to school capacity and rules that promote socioeconomic diversity.

Millard Public Schools did not supply copies of completed open enrollment applications, which parents filled out in the spring.

Millard officials said federal privacy law and other concerns prevent them from sharing detailed student information. “It's a legal issue,” Millard spokeswoman Amy Friedman said.

Learning Community Chairman Rick Kolowski said some districts are “game playing” by not providing the information.

“Was somebody asleep at the wheel that they didn't understand why we were formed and what we were supposed to be getting?” Kolowski said.

The Legislature created the Learning Community in 2007 and charged it with reducing the achievement gap between whites and minorities and promoting socioeconomic diversity with a system of student transfers that provides free transportation to students who help achieve diversity targets.

By law, districts have to turn over certain information to the council, but the interpretation of what's required is still debated.

According to the report, the Learning Community also lacked information on normal student movement in and out of districts. Without it, the council could not determine if a school's change in socioeconomic diversity was caused by open enrollment or something else, such as an increase in affordable housing drawing low-income families to a district.

Council member Lorraine Chang said Millard's information is important because Millard is one of the biggest participants in open enrollment.

Duncan Young, an attorney for the Millard Public Schools, said the district has complied to the extent allowed by law.

The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act generally requires schools to obtain written permission from parents to release information on an individual student. It makes exceptions, however, for releasing information to other schools and to certain organizations conducting studies on behalf of a school.

Young said districts cannot release information to political subdivisions such as cities and counties, which is how state law classifies the Learning Community.

Another problem, Young said, is that open enrollment application forms contain each student's eligibility for free or reduced-price school meals, which is also subject to privacy laws.

Brewer said the council has altered next year's application form to include an advisory that parents who sign consent forms are consenting to the release of the information to the Learning Community.

Despite the report's gaps in data, Brewer said there was enough information to dispel a myth that student movement would be one way: from poor schools to more affluent ones. It actually was fairly evenly split, she said.

The data also debunk a prediction that some districts would resist accepting kids, she said. Only 4.35 percent of schools were unable to accept applicants because they were at capacity, the report says. Nearly 85 percent of schools accepted applicants who would increase their socioeconomic diversity.

The report offers no systematic evaluation of summer programs launched to help students in high poverty areas of north and South Omaha and Bellevue. However, grant recipients that ran the jump-start summer school, day camps and enrichment programs self-reported some success with the 1,300 disadvantaged kids served.

For example, Campfire USA, which served 539 students at Omaha's Gomez Heritage and Liberty Elementary Schools, tested incoming children on word recognition and math, then tested them again at the end of the program. At both schools, scores went up, Campfire reported.

Phoenix Academy Day School, a private school that provides intensive phonics instruction, reported “promising” results from the 32 children that the Learning Community paid it to instruct. Students averaged 5.25-month gains in reading, 6.6-month gains in reading comprehension and 3.25-month gains in spelling, the school reported.

Chang said the evaluation of summer programs fell short of the full review she wanted.

Brewer said the council has learned from the experience of the summer programs and will require more performance data from future grant recipients.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1077, joe.dejka@owh.com

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