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Editorial: Tourism vs. education
Op-Ed · February 12, 2015
The strong interconnectivity between school districts — especially high schools and colleges — and local control ought to decide when school starts each year, not state law, the governor nor tourism.
However, we see three possible outcomes to the debate over Gov. Terry Branstad’s push to reduce overlap between the Iowa State Fair and the start of school. A compromise may be the best one.
Branstad made clear in his letter to the Iowa Department of Education that he does not want families leaving the state fair because school is starting in their town.
He directed the IDOE to make it very difficult for schools to get early start waivers — permission to start before the week of Sept. 1 — that the IDOE has so freely given over the past 30 years.
The IDOE complied, and perhaps went beyond the governor’s directive, making it nearly impossible for schools to get the waiver with a strict interpretation of how schools must show “significant negative educational impact.”
School boards throughout the state balked at a new interpretation of a law already on the books for the past three decades. Yet they had little choice — either cave in and develop a school calendar assuming no early start, or try to develop strong arguments for why their district ought to receive the waiver.
Among the strongest arguments are how many high school students — including West Branch — take college-level courses. About two-third of West Branch seniors and about a third of juniors enroll in these classes.
Whether these courses are taken at the high school or at the nearby community college, these courses start when colleges decide they will start because colleges and universities do not have to comply with the Sept. 1 rule. In some cases, high school students sit side-by-side with college students on the college campus and are expected to attend class no differently than their college counterparts.
As things stand now, Kirkwood Community College and the University of Iowa plan to begin Aug. 24, while West Branch and other area schools may not be allowed to start until Aug. 31. West Branch wants to start Aug. 17. The Iowa State Fair ends Aug. 23.
We probably need to stop for a moment and address one side issue. By looking at the dates above, you will notice that Kirkwood and Iowa start school the day after the Iowa State Fair, so why doesn’t the IDOE allow K-12 schools to start Aug. 24? The way the law is written does not give the IDOE authority to negotiate a middle ground. They can either enforce the Sept. 1 rule or give schools freedom to decide when the school year begins.
These college-level courses are not simply more challenging, they allow high school students to earn college credit and effectively give them a jump start on their college career.
By getting several classes out of the way before high school graduation, they can cut down the time it takes to get to their college graduation even before taking out their first college loan. Some students are shortening their college career by a year or more, saving them thousands of dollars in principal and interest.
Another strong argument is that there is more going on between neighboring schools now than when the Sept. 1 rule was passed in the 1980s. Sports teams have been playing other schools for decades before, but now the fine arts have become more competitive, with show choirs, marching bands and jazz bands traveling from West Branch to competitions as much as two hours away.
West Branch in just the past few years also has seen the rise of robotics competitions, at both the middle school and high school level. This is driven by a nationwide trend in science, technology, engineering and math that even Gov. Branstad hails as essential to a 21st Century education.
Because of these competitions, it would be very difficult for a single school district to start significantly earlier than neighboring schools in the same competitions.
When the IDOE finally got around to issuing their guidelines for early start waivers, the five-page document first included what they would NOT accept from schools, a list which almost mirrored what schools across the state listed among their arguments.
Are we cynical to think that the IDOE waited to see what schools would say so they could nix everyone’s chances at an early start?
In the list of what they would accept was measurable data showing a significant negative educational impact — not just any data, but data specific to your school. The problem? That data does not exist. How could it? A school would need to follow the Sept. 1 rule for a few years just to get some measurements, and that has not started yet.
The IDOE’s perspective is that school’s arguments are really about convenience. Yes, college-level classes begin before Sept. 1, but that doesn’t mean high school students can’t enroll and start attending. Same thing with sports: practices, and even games, can start before school starts. If West Branch begins the school year Aug. 31, that will be three days after the first scheduled football game.
Our first reaction was: Who will be responsible for getting these high school students, some of whom do not have access to a car, to their college classes? The IDOE? The school? But West Branch Superintendent Kevin Hatfield says we should not get distracted by the bigger issue: This is a question of local control versus state control.
He’s right. The state ought to be concerned with schools providing quality education, helping schools financially, holding schools accountable, and even setting minimum requirements. Why does it matter at the state level when school starts?
Among the things the state contends is that schools cannot come up with an educationally significant reason to start the year early. Hatfield again has a good response: Give us an educationally significant reason we should wait until Sept. 1.
Schools succeeded in getting the state legislature involved, and bills are being presented to find a way to get around the problem. Either lawmakers repeal the Sept. 1 rule, set an earlier date for the Iowa State Fair or amend the law so that schools can start after the state fair ends.
The first and second suggestions would likely get Branstad’s veto. The third is distasteful because it puts the state fair above education, but it would provide a possible compromise.
We hope the legislature can work out at least a compromise, though we hope that, eventually, school districts can regain the local control that had only been an illusion for the past 30 years.
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