Call to Order and Roll Call
The fourth meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Education was held on Monday, September 8, 2014, at 12:00 PM, in the Sedley-Stewart Auditorium at Lee County High School in Beattyville, Kentucky. Senator Mike Wilson, Co-Chair, called the meeting to order, and the secretary called the roll.
Present were:
Members: Senator Mike Wilson, Co-Chair; Representative Derrick Graham, Co-Chair; Senators Jared Carpenter, David P. Givens, Jimmy Higdon, Alice Forgy Kerr, Reginald Thomas, and Johnny Ray Turner; Representatives John Carney, Hubert Collins, C.B. Embry Jr., Kelly Flood, Richard Heath, Joni L. Jenkins, James Kay, Mary Lou Marzian, Donna Mayfield, Reginald Meeks, Rick G. Nelson, Ruth Ann Palumbo, Marie Rader, Jody Richards, Tom Riner, Rita Smart, Wilson Stone, Addia Wuchner, and Jill York.
Legislative Guests: President Robert Stivers and Representative Arnold Simpson.
Guests: Patrick Jennings, Microsoft.
LRC Staff: Jo Carole Ellis, Ben Boggs, Joshua Collins, and Lisa W. Moore.
Approval of the August 11, 2014, Minutes
Representative Graham moved to approve the minutes, and Senator Kerr seconded the motion. The motion carried by voice vote.
Overview of Lee County School District and the Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) Program
Dr. James Evans, Jr., Superintendent, Lee County School District, welcomed the committee and acknowledged members of the audience who helped support the district through local and state education partnerships. Lee County has a declining population in 2013 of 7,706, which has decreased from 7,887 in 2010. Isolated by lack of major roads, Lee County has minimal industrial or business employment opportunities. The median household income for Lee County in 2011 is $24,770, with 44.5 percent of children living in poverty. The unemployment rate for 2011 is 12.4 percent. Only 50.9 percent of the population over 25 is a high school graduate. About 6.3 percent has a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Dr. Evans said the school district consists of two elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. The Lee County Technology Center, located adjacent to Lee County High School, serves Lee, Owsley, and Wolfe County Schools and is an integral part of the school system. Committee members had received a tour of the area technology center prior to the meeting.
Dr. Evans said the Lee County School District is the largest employer in the county. He said 100 percent of Lee County students receive free meals. Lee County Schools has a declining enrollment due to many people leaving the county to secure employment. Enrollment has decreased from 1,133 in 2011 to 1,054 in 2013-14, resulting in a decrease in Support Education Excellence in Kentucky (SEEK) funding and a reduction in staff. Lee County School’s employs 76 full-time certified staff and 78 full-time classified staff. One percent of the students are minorities.
Dr. Evans discussed the partnership between Owsley, Lee, and Wolfe counties. Responding to a question from Representative Carney regarding dual credit opportunities, Dr. Evans said Title II monies have paid to certify five teachers.
Responding to Representative Heath, Dr. Evans said he supports allowing Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship (KEES) money to help fund dual credit courses.
Dr. Evans said the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative (KVEC), a consortium of 18 rural districts, is one of five applicants that will receive a total of approximately $120 million in the second round of the Race to the Top-District (RTT-D) competition. This grant will support locally developed plans to personalize and improve student learning, directly increase student achievement and educator effectiveness, close achievement gaps, and prepare every student for success in college and careers. The grant will also help teachers tailor their approach to meet their students’ needs, allow them to collaborate in new ways, and provide students with resources that enable them to access a world-class education no matter where they are located.
Responding to Representative Graham about the district’s participation on the dual credit task force, Dr. Evans said Lee County would be presenting its dual credit program at the next task force meeting. The district is joining other best practice sites from across Kentucky to provide examples of the high-performing dual credit programs in the state.
Mr. William Owen, Chair, Lee County Board of Education, said Lee County Schools have always been at the forefront in innovative programs and practices. The district is being recognized as a proficient high progressing school district. Lee County Schools have been involved with Reading Recovery, Reach to Achieve, and Singapore Math. Lee County is piloting the Gates Integration Grant work and the teacher, principal, and superintendent Professional Growth Evaluation System.
Mr. Owen said Lee County has collaborated with other districts for distance learning opportunities, with area colleges for dual credit courses and new teacher and aspiring leaders mentoring, and with Microsoft through the Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) project. He said credit recovery is provided as needed for Lee County High School (LCHS) students to help student success. Schools are involved in such programs as WIN Learn and various reading and math interventions. The GEAR UP program with Berea College has been a valuable asset to the district’s staff and students. Academic coaches are provided to schools whenever financially possible. Lee County is working to vertically and horizontally align the K-12 curriculum in the common core standards, and has adopted the new dropout age of 18 believing that it is in the best interests of the students and the community.
Mr. Owen thanked President Stivers for his diligence in creating the partnership with AT&T and for expanding internet access for all rural counties. He said Lee County students were able to travel to the state of Washington to tour Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and their offices in Seattle, and meet the engineers that work there. He would like to see the TEALS program in other districts but is thankful it is in Lee County.
Mr. Owen said Senator Mitch McConnell visited Lee County High School and received a demonstration of the TEALS program. Senator McConnell supports partnering with AT&T to address the internet and decent bandwidth needed to support the county. Lee County is the only remaining Kentucky county not structurally prepared for internet connection. Funding and private sector and university support are other areas needed to provide the resources to support and sustain an expansion of TEALS.
Mark Murray, Principal, Lee County High School, said TEALS is a grassroots program that recruits, trains, mentors, and electronically places current high tech professionals around the country who are passionate about computer science education into high school classes as volunteer teachers in a team teaching model where the school district is unable to provide high quality computer science (CS) programs on its own.
Mr. Murray said Lee County High School has partnered with Microsoft to teach computer science skills to students. The TEALS program uses instructors from Microsoft to teach students introductory and Advanced Placement (AP) Science classes remotely, and to meet with the students electronically from time to time in person. The goal, however, is to eventually allow local teachers to take over those classes. He said Ms. Joy Neace plans to take the class entirely in two years. Other high schools in Madison, Jessamine, and Adair counties are piloting the program this academic year along with three other Kentucky area technology centers.
Mr. Murray said the TEALS program has created a world of opportunities for LCHS’s students. He cited the example of one particular student, Jeremy Moore, who is featured in Microsoft’s latest YouthSpark Stars. Jeremy had never been an Honor Roll student and lacked a general interest in school. The TEALS program changed his attitude toward learning and provided a future for him in the computer industry. Dr. Evans said the program is giving students access to a curriculum the school could not otherwise offer that will prepare them for the workforce. The school district does not have the teaching staff to offer this kind of course or training to its students. The goal this year is for students to earn between 700 and 800 college credit hours, and they are on target to reach 730 credit hours. Students not only experience improved test scores but also grow socially.
Mr. Murray said that, while the school has had some success as a distance learning pilot, there are still challenges. Real success will be the sustainability of this program with CS as a curriculum offering to include Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science as well as Introduction to Computer Science.
The TEALS program is an excellent opportunity for students to discover if CS is a field they would be interested in studying in college. Many students do not understand what CS offers without hands-on programming experience.
Mr. Murray said the TEALS program can provide opportunities to local students that can lead to internships with Microsoft and careers in the CS field. Projects like TEALS can help build a sustainable local economy so people do not have to leave eastern Kentucky to find jobs.
Senator Wilson said he is encouraged that the LCHS students are asking to be challenged at a higher level. The TEALS program has raised the bar for learning in the student population.
Responding to a question from Representative Carney regarding the cost savings of the dual credit hours earned by students, Mr. Murray said it is a significant savings. Representative Carney agreed and wants the community to realize the value and cost savings of the program.
Marian Ross, a parent, said the TEALS program changed her son’s life and that he recently placed fifth in the state for a computer project he and a fellow classmate submitted. They won first place in a regional competition. She said her son having access to teachers in Seattle and Washington was instrumental in his learning. She described how these classes required him to think about what he was developing and how things work, but said the internet service remains a big challenge. There is no community location open late enough to provide internet service to him because of his after-school activities during the day and the home internet quota is filled within three days.
The committee members received demonstrations of the TEALS program from four LCHS students and spoke with them.
Responding to a question from Representative Carney regarding if the students will reside in Beattyville after graduation, most said they planned to attend college but would like to come back if job opportunities were available. The students plan to major in CS or a related field in college and hope future students have the opportunity to participate in the TEALS program. One student said he would like to open his own business in Lee County.
Responding to Representative Richards’ question regarding student access to a computer at home, two said they owned laptops and could work from home. One parent upgraded a student’s laptop after his participation in the TEALS program.
Responding to a question from Representative Stone, Dr. John Jannone, Microsoft, said students are receiving the same curriculum as freshmen enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. Most students are enrolled in AP dual credit classes that substitute for CS classes in college.
Responding to Senator Wilson, the students said they had designed a website for the Future Business Leaders of America. Representative Carney suggested students design a website for the Lee County TEALS program to share with other school districts.
Responding to Senator Givens regarding the skills students need to be successful in computer programming, the students said trial and error, research, and math skills are essential to computer programming. CS uses many mathematical concepts.
Senator Kerr said the best way to learn is by teaching. Responding to her question, the students said they mentor younger students in the CS program. Dr. Jonnone said he was a data scientist and taught the children remotely from New York.
Representative Carney said the internet connection needs to be improved. He would like to see the issue revisited and solved.
Responding to Representative Heath regarding other school districts participating in TEALS, Dr. Evans said LCHS partnered with Owsley County. TEALS could be replicated if time and money barriers were removed. Better outreach to rural areas is needed.
Responding to Representative Graham’s question about fees associated with participating in TEALS for free and reduced lunch students, Dr. Evans said the board of education will pay for the AP course and test for any student who wants to participate.
Responding to a question from Senator Wilson regarding computer programming replacing four years of high school math credits, Dr. Evans said the CS curriculum could be a replacement for the required math credits. There is discussion to allow it to replace the foreign language requirement.
Kevin Wang, Microsoft, said the United States is facing a shortage of CS graduates. Every year, 80,000 positions requiring a CS degree go unfilled by domestic talent, and the figure is estimated to rise to 1,000,000 unfilled positions by 2020. This will cost the United States economy $500 billion over the next decade. The positions are vital to economic competitiveness and national defense.
Mr. Wang said jobs in the CS field begin at $60,000, and only one percent of college graduates are obtaining CS degrees. By 2018, there will be 1.5 million CS-related jobs available, of which college graduates will be prepared to fill 29 percent. The unemployment rate for those in the CS field is less than one percent. About 60 percent of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) jobs are computer related. There are fewer CS college majors than ten years ago, and thus the graduates cannot meet the demand for these jobs.
Mr. Wang said research shows that students’ positive exposure to CS in high school correlates to majoring in CS in college. Unfortunately, only one out of ten schools in the United States offer such programming classes. American high schools fail to offer CS because there are not enough qualified CS teachers to meet the demand. He noted in 2012, only 24,782 out of more than 14 million United States students took the AP CS test, which represents less than 0.7 percent of all AP tests taken. TEALS addresses this problem by bringing CS courses into high schools across the nation as a service to schools, students, and teachers. Microsoft would like to implement TEALS statewide, but schools and administrators must be supportive and prepared.
In response to a request from Representative Carney, Mr. Wang said he would provide a copy of his presentation that included the statistics about CS jobs and the economy.
Responding to a question about the cost of the program, Dr. Evans said volunteers are paid a modest stipend. There is no cost associated with paying Microsoft for the TEALS program. The school provides the teachers and students and Microsoft provides the training. Microsoft paid for the trip the students took to Seattle to tour the Facebook, Google, and Microsoft offices.
Representative Smart said she appreciates allowing the students to receive math credits for computer programming courses.
Senator Wilson said it is vital to pass a telecommunications bill such as the one introduced in the 2014 Regular Session of the General Assembly because it would allow broadband expansion.
With no further business before the committee, the meeting adjourned at 2:00 PM.