The Senate Appropriations Committee has given Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes three days to figure out how to pay for and, if possible, mollify critics of his bill to redesign teacher evaluations.
On Thursday, the committee, chaired by Democratic Sen. Christine Kehoe of San Diego, will decide whether AB 5 moves forward with an as-yet imprecise price tag. Even critics who say the bill doesn’t go far enough – and they were out in force at the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Monday – acknowledge that the bill would bring clarity and add substance to the vague, largely irrelevant current law known as the Stull Act. But in a year in which Gov. Jerry Brown has vowed to veto legislation costing more money, AB 5 would establish an expensive new state mandate by imposing substantial additional requirements on school districts.
Fuentes, a Democrat from the San Fernando Valley, indicated Monday that he still needed to
Narrow win for middle class scholarship in Assembly - by Kathryn Baron
One Independent, one Republican, and one reluctant Democrat gave Assembly Speaker John Pérez the votes he needed to pass the most contentious piece of his Middle Class Scholarship Act. The Act is a two-bill package consisting of AB 1500 and AB 1501; the latter creates the program while the former establishes the funding source to pay for it. They both have to pass or the Scholarship Act fails...