School Corner: Evansville School Dist. Sage Grant Participation in Doubt

( Because of inflexibility of the Sage Grant Program, at the Evansville School Board meeting on Monday, Supr. Carvin indicated that it may not be cost effective to continue participation. Below is an bill that is proposing to make the program more flexible. The Observer)

DEBI TOWNS
STATE REPRESENTATIVE
STATE CAPITOL
P.O. Box 8 9 5 3 • MADISON, WISCONSIN 53708-8953
(608) 266- 965 0 • ( 8 8 8 ) 534-0043 • FAX (608) 282-3643
Contact:
Debi Towns
(888) 534-0043
February 14, 2006 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TOWNS: SAGE PROGRAM NEEDS TO BE BOTH FLEXIBLE
AND ACCOUNTABLE
MADISON – A program that reduces school class sizes in the early grades not only
needs to be more user-friendly for schools, but the state needs to do a better job of measuring its
effect on children.
That’s why State Representative Debi Towns is pushing legislation to improve the
Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) program in the remaining weeks of the
legislative session.
Rep. Towns, R-Janesville, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, has
introduced two pieces of legislation that make revisions to the program first implemented during
the 1996-97 school year.
"The concept behind the SAGE program is great. We just need to make it a more userfriendly
tool that schools can afford to offer,” Towns said.
School districts currently sign five-year contracts with the Department of Public
Instruction to reduce class sizes down to 15 pupils in kindergarten through third grade in
exchange for $2,000 in state aid for each low-income pupil enrolled in kindergarten through
fourth grade.
Prompted by calls from school district administrators and school boards, Senate Bill 68
(which Towns co-authored) would leave participation in second and third grades optional. State
aid that would have gone to fund the second and third grade programs would be returned to the
state’s general fund and used to fund special education.
Without this choice, a number of school districts have indicated they would consider
dropping out of SAGE.
“When I worked for the Brodhead School District, we didn’t have enough rooms to
participate in SAGE for all four grades, so we couldn’t participate at all,” said Towns, a former
school business manager. “With some greater local control more children will benefit.”
Senate Bill 68 has passed both houses of the Legislature, and now awaits action by
Governor Doyle, who vetoed similar language out of last year’s state budget bill.
More than 62 schools dropped SAGE between 1998 and 2005 either because of fiscal
constraints or lack of classroom space, but the Department of Public Instruction can’t say why
because it doesn’t record that information.
“This is the kind of information that legislators are looking for,” Towns said.
Current law does direct the DPI to arrange for an annual study of the SAGE program and
it spends $250,000 for that purpose. So while the state funds this study, it does not give specifics
on what the evaluation should include, nor does it provide the information to the Legislature.
“When determining whether or not to increase the amount we spend on the SAGE
program, this vague and ill-defined directive has not been helpful in answering the questions that
policymakers have about it,” said Towns, who has introduced Assembly Bill 937 as a remedy.
AB 937 was approved by the Joint Committee on Finance on Feb. 14.
“It is my hope the full Legislature will approve this SAGE accountability proposal in the
next few weeks,” Towns said.
AB 937 calls for a longitudinal study of a random sampling of students evenly split from
SAGE classrooms and larger classrooms. Individual students will be followed through the
remainder of their school years and their scores on state assessments will be collected in the
third, fourth, eighth and tenth grades. Whether or not they graduate would also be tracked.
“The DPI is free to expand upon what they study and how they study it,” Towns said.
“This bill just outlines some of the information that decision makers look for.”
“We want to make sure our investment in the SAGE program is legitimate. To do that,
we need solid evidence garnered from consistent and meaningful data,” Towns said. “That way,
legislators know that further investments in the program are warranted.”
“In addition to approving the accountability bill, I also hope the governor will take the
requests for flexibility by school leaders under serious consideration before he acts on Senate
Bill 68,” Towns added.
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