SB10-191: Senate Preliminarily OKs Teacher-Tenure Overhaul
Posted on 30 April 2010
By Todd Engdahl, EDUCATION NEWS COLORADO
The Senate Thursday gave preliminary approval to the Senate Bill 10-191, the educator effectiveness bill, after more than six hours of debate on a blizzard of amendments.
A focus of the debate was on whether the bill offers sufficient due-process protections to teachers who receive unsatisfactory evaluations and who would revert to probationary status because of consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations.
Critics of the bill also tried to amend its provisions requiring mutual consent of principals and teachers for placement in schools.
Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster and a former teacher and State Board of Education member, led the charge to tone the bill down, but her amendments were repeatedly rebuffed on voice and standing votes by the coalition of Democrats and Republicans who are backing the bill.
On major points, the measure passed little changed from the heavily amended version passed by the Senate Education Committee.
The bill is expected to be up for a final Senate vote Friday. If passed it will move next week to the House, where the due-process debate will be rekindled and some members may be more skeptical than their Senate colleagues. Still, supporters feel they have a reasonable chance of passage in the House.
The bill is a complex one – and it was made more complicated in places by Thursday’s amendments.
Sponsored by a bipartisan team of senators and representatives, the major provisions of the bill would create new teacher and principal evaluation systems and tie evaluations to gaining – and losing – non-probationary status.
The bill is similar to legislation being discussed in other states and is part of a national push for reforms in educator evaluations. Although some observers feel passing the bill could help Colorado’s bid for round two of Race to the Top, that aspect has played little role in legislative debates.
Under amendments added by Senate Education, the system wouldn’t fully go into effect until 2014-15, after a lengthy process of development by the Governor’s Educator Effectiveness Council, issuance of rules by the State Board of Education, legislative review and two years of development and testing.
(The council was created by a governor’s executive order in January and assigned to develop definitions of teacher and principal effectiveness, study other issues of educator effectiveness and make recommendations to the legislature. SB 10-191 basically retains that role for the council but adds specific policy guidelines for evaluation and tenure and creates larger roles for the state board and the legislature. The council has met twice and already is working on effectiveness definitions.)
The bill would require annual teacher and principal evaluations (more frequently than generally is done now)
The Senate Thursday gave preliminary approval to the Senate Bill 10-191, the educator effectiveness bill, after more than six hours of debate on a blizzard of amendments.
A focus of the debate was on whether the bill offers sufficient due-process protections to teachers who receive unsatisfactory evaluations and who would revert to probationary status because of consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations.
Critics of the bill also tried to amend its provisions requiring mutual consent of principals and teachers for placement in schools.
Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster and a former teacher and State Board of Education member, led the charge to tone the bill down, but her amendments were repeatedly rebuffed on voice and standing votes by the coalition of Democrats and Republicans who are backing the bill.
On major points, the measure passed little changed from the heavily amended version passed by the Senate Education Committee.
The bill is expected to be up for a final Senate vote Friday. If passed it will move next week to the House, where the due-process debate will be rekindled and some members may be more skeptical than their Senate colleagues. Still, supporters feel they have a reasonable chance of passage in the House.
The bill is a complex one – and it was made more complicated in places by Thursday’s amendments.
Sponsored by a bipartisan team of senators and representatives, the major provisions of the bill would create new teacher and principal evaluation systems and tie evaluations to gaining – and losing – non-probationary status.
The bill is similar to legislation being discussed in other states and is part of a national push for reforms in educator evaluations. Although some observers feel passing the bill could help Colorado’s bid for round two of Race to the Top, that aspect has played little role in legislative debates.
Under amendments added by Senate Education, the system wouldn’t fully go into effect until 2014-15, after a lengthy process of development by the Governor’s Educator Effectiveness Council, issuance of rules by the State Board of Education, legislative review and two years of development and testing.
(The council was created by a governor’s executive order in January and assigned to develop definitions of teacher and principal effectiveness, study other issues of educator effectiveness and make recommendations to the legislature. SB 10-191 basically retains that role for the council but adds specific policy guidelines for evaluation and tenure and creates larger roles for the state board and the legislature. The council has met twice and already is working on effectiveness definitions.)
The bill would require annual teacher and principal evaluations (more frequently than generally is done now)