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By Elaine Gantz Berman and Jerry Wartgow

A multitude of complex and often counterproductive laws, rules and policies, which increase a fear of litigation, are undercutting education in Colorado. That’s the troubling message from a recent focus group study commissioned by Common Good Colorado, a nonpartisan organization working to restore common sense to Colorado law.

The report, The New Three R’s: Rules, Regulations and More Rules, prepared by an independent professional focus group firm, presents the results of 12 focus groups composed of teachers and administrators from rural, suburban and urban districts across Colorado. Its findings include the following alarming facts:

More than half of the teachers said they had been threatened with a lawsuit.

Almost two-thirds of teachers and administrators said they experience a high to moderate degree of legal fear almost daily.

More than three-quarters of the participants rated the extent of legal and regulatory burdens, on a scale of 1 to 10, as 5 or higher; and half rated their burden as 7 or higher.

Nearly three-quarters of the participants reported spending 20 percent or more of their time on activities mandated by some rule or law that doesn’t make sense to them.

While the educators had no argument with the original intent and purpose of many of the laws and policies, they were distressed by the cumulative burden and compliance nightmare that occurs at the school level. They were particularly frustrated by paperwork without perceived purpose, a lawsuit culture that has changed the way they teach and how students learn, and by laws and rules that they do not believe serve the best interests of their students.

For example, focus group participants advised that disciplining chronically disruptive students becomes a lesson in paperwork compliance due to the regulations required to implement such laws as the Habitually Disruptive Rule, the State Truancy Law, the Schools of Choice Law, the Zero Tolerance Policy, and the Reasonable Physical Intervention Clause in Colorado’s Anti-Violence Code. One teacher reported: “The amount of paperwork our central office requires for a severe disciplinary action has doubled in eight years.”

Paperwork and compliance has a place in our school systems, but we have crossed a line of what is reasonable. A state or federal law affects almost every aspect of the school day. Teachers and principals are nervous about being sued when they carry out basic tasks like assigning a grade, issuing consequences for misbehavior, evaluating a teacher, breaking up a fight or being alone in a classroom with a student.

Beyond the negative effect on morale that results from regulations that seem counterproductive to educators, there is an equally troubling result of overregulation in the schools: The time required to comply with the multitude of laws cascading down upon our schools reduces the amount and quality of student engagement, jeopardizing meaningful teaching and learning. If we want the best education possible for our children, this situation must be rectified.

As veterans of successful and unsuccessful attempts to improve student achievement, we agree with the focus group participants that rules, regulations and more rules are the elephants in the room with respect to school reform. We must carefully assess the impact of current laws, rules and policies on teaching and learning. We must ensure that policies handed down from above help, rather than hinder, efforts to provide a sound education for our students. And, most important, we must not pass laws that preclude the exercise of common sense in their implementation.

Therefore, it is imperative that our elected officials, as they consider proposed bills for the 2008 legislative session, use common sense by not passing bills that will further burden our already overstressed education system with counterproductive compliance requirements.

Elaine Gantz Berman is a member of the Colorado State Board of Education and past president of the Denver School Board. Jerry Wartgow is a former superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

READER COMMENTS

Past president of the Denver School Board....yep that about says it all. Just what I need, the former president of a failing school system board telling the state legislators what to enact........it's obviously Halloween because that's very scary.

Do these authors really think this issue is unique to education? Consider getting married, discuss it with a family law attorney, and you won't be getting married without intiating a series of very expensive mitigation efforts to counter laws that should never even be applied to marriage. Disgusting!

Aren't you the folks whose decisions are now being "reformed?"

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