Evaluation of public employees is consuming the last few days of the 2010 General Assembly.  SB10-191 attempts to set performance evaluation criteria for public school teachers and principals, and HB10-1409 attempts to set performance evaluation criteria for state employees.

The mix and match of who's supporting which bills may confuse the general citizen.  The various combinations confirm Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous quote:  A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

SB10-191: Reform or attack

SB10-191 has received furious, and conflicting, input from teacher unions and education leaders.  Four governors support the bill, as well as former Denver Mayor Federico Pena.  These leaders believe the bill represents the first important reform to teacher tenure, or, in its clunkier form, non probationary employment status. 

Teachers see the bill as a blitzkrieg attack on the teaching community by pseudo education reformers who aren't addressing the key issues facing public education.

GOP supports 191, Dems split

Republican legislators support SB10-191 universally.  Now that the bill is in the House, the challenge for bill supporters will be to pick up enough Democrats to move the bill forward. 

Democrats split in the Senate, with seven Dem legislators supporting the bill and fourteen Dems opposing.  Apparently, some Democrats are barely speaking to each other because of the bill, affecting the status of other education legislation such as HB10-1430, a bill to change Colorado assessment tests from grades 8-10.

The theory of 191 is that annual teacher evaluation will improve teacher quality.  The bill also changes how teachers receive and retain non probationary, or tenured, status.  If a non probationary teacher receives two consecutive years of "ineffective" performance ratings, that teacher goes back to probationary status and must improve to keep the job.

Other key features are that a Governor's Council will determine highly effective, effective, and ineffective teaching criteria.  Fifty percent of teacher evaluation will be based on student test performance.  School districts will have some freedom to determine assessment tools. 

This new evaluation process will allow principals to identify who's doing the best teaching, or the worst.  No particular compensation is attached to either rating - only pride, apparently, and the expectation that the worst teachers will have to improve or leave.

HB10-1409: Compensation reform or irrelevance

HB10-1409 probably has no Republican support, even though it will also set up criteria for performance evaluation.  Democrats see the bill as a way to give state employees an incremental raise if they stay at one job over a period of time.  Today, employees have to change jobs to get a raise.

The bill requires the state department of personnel, with department executives, to create twelve levels within pay grades for annual increases.  The increases only come into play if the state experiences a five percent increase in Colorado personal income in an 18 month period, and the employee receives a satisfactory evaluation.

Rep. Mark Waller, R-El Paso, said the bill is a "tough one.  On the one hand we have excellent state employees who haven't been well compensated the last few years.  But changing the system won't help.  We don't have the money, we can't pay it out.  The bill won't do anything to change that at all."

Rep. Amy Stephens, R-El Paso, said that we have "wonderful working state employees," but her husband hasn't gotten a pay increase in three years, so this is a tough time to add more dollars to state salaries.

Rep. Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, bill sponsor, said that the legislature holds control over any appropriations for salary increases.  The bill, he says, allows the state to help employees such as state patrol officers get a raise even if they do not change positions.

GOP against more money for public employees

The bottom line is this:  Republicans and some Dems, for various reasons, want a new evaluation system for teachers, with no additional compensation.  Democrats want to give state employees, with satisfactory performance, additional money under certain circumstances.  Republicans are against that. 

If both bills pass, a lot of employee evaluation will happen, but only state employees will receive additional compensation under prescribed circumstances.  Public educators, on the other hand, are unlikely to get any more money for a long time. 

How the increase in the volume of teacher evaluation, along with state-determined performance criteria, along with no additional overall compensation, along with no dollars for professional development, along with no dollars for increased entry level salaries will improve overall teacher performance remains unclear.

This post was published on May 5, 2010. Permalink »