The Principal and Teacher Effectiveness bill received a new name: Great Teachers and Leaders bill. This larger name reflects the size of the bill, with its 200+ amendments, so many that legislators had to huddle frequently to understand their own language.

Democrats in internecine fight on bill
The contentious bill has pitted Democrat against Democrat, mostly. The majority of Dems oppose the bill, but at least seven support SB10-191, providing a slim majority vote for the bill. Republicans, except for bill sponsor Rep. Carole Murray, R-Castle Rock, have stayed out of the mud slug, watching with delight as Democrats go after the bill and each other.

Over 200 amendments obscure bill content
The fight has played out through the amendment process. One amendment, L163, would change the nature of teacher evaluation, discriminating between those deemed highly satisfactory and those deemed unsatisfactory. Teachers who are highly effective will receive a scantier review than those deemed less than satisfactory.

Rep. Murray asserts that the amendment would allow principals to spend more time with problem teachers. Rep. Judy Solano, D-Adams County, believes the amendment subverts the annual evaluation of every teacher, and the amount of time and money it takes to implement the bill. The amendment was been pulled to clarify.
Similarly, an amendment to pp. 32-33 was withdrawn when Rep. Jean Labuda, D-Denver, reminded the bill sponsors that the two pages had already been eliminated from the bill.

Testing assessment at heart of contention
Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, brought amendment L180 to enable school districts to create incentives for teachers to work at schools with high poverty levels. Rep. Solano added her own views on assessments, and their "flatness" in determining student achievement. "The results of exams should never be used as a basis for important decisions related to student achievement," said Solano, citing the testing industry.

Levy argued strongly against bill's premises
Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, says that "teachers themselves do not believe they've been heard in the bill." "My children have had highly effective teachers and ineffective teachers. I have found that ineffective teachers could have been let go if the teacher's principal had taken steps. How are teachers supposed to achieve higher performance just as we're forcing larger class loads, or principals achieve higher performance when resources are stripped from schools?"

Amendment to gut bill failed
Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-Manitou Springs, brought L164, several pages of "a minor, little amendment" that would allow the Governor's Council to create the state's teacher evaluation system, gutting SB10-191, and putting the whole process back with the Governor's Council.
Rep. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora, was particularly annoyed at what she deems the lack of fiscal credibility in the bill. She asserts the bill cannot be implemented on $300,000. Each teacher assessment, she says, will take at least 16 hours to complete. That means either certain principal duties will need to be filled by someone else, or teacher evaluators will give up some of their instructional time to do teacher appraisal job. The amendment lost.

Student attendance amendment offered and pulled
Rep. Max Tyler, D-Lakewood, offered amendment L203 to give teachers a break related to student attendance. If students miss a minimum of 10 days a term, teachers would not be evaluated on that student's performance. Rep. Christine Scanlon, D-Summit County, at first supported the amendment, then withdrew her support, stating that too many minority kids lose out because of inadequate attendance. Rep. Tyler withdrew his amendment.

McCann offers vigorous defense of bill
Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver, supported the bill based on a visit with teachers and children in a low performing school in her district. "If I'm going to be held to high standards," said one student at Bruce Randolph School, "then teachers should be held to high standards too." Rep. McCann also talked about the Clayton Early Learning Center and its excellence in preparing children. Rep. Benefield noted that Clayton does have excellent results because of its one teacher to three children ratio.

Solano's addition to principal evaluation cut down
Rep. Solano brought forward an amendment to the principal evaluation portion of the bill. The amendment stated that 50 percent of principal evaluation should be derived from a leadership survey based on teacher opinion. The amendment failed.

Schafer questions bill's "assessment" theory
Rep. Sue Schafer, D-Lakewood, asserted that no research backs up the "theory" of the bill that aggressive teacher assessment leads to improved student performance. Rep. Merrifield said that the bill is a "measure and punish" bill. At 11:14 pm, with 46 minutes to spare, the bill came to a vote and passed.  

This post was published on May 12, 2010. Permalink »