Legislative Update…

Evaluation Legislation Passes House
Senate Bill 103 remains on the House floor awaiting consideration. However, the respective Senate and House Education Chairs appear to be very close to agreement on a final version of the bill, and action may yet happen this month. MEMSPA is encouraged by latest dialogue between the two chambers, and we are supportive of making the final minor modifications necessary to advance a bill to the Governor’s desk that he can sign in short order to replace the 50% student growth and assessment threshold for teacher and administrator evaluations in current law.
At long last, we appear to be headed towards closure with respect to reforming teacher and administrator evaluations. Senate Bill 103, sponsored by Senate Committee Chair Phil Pavlov (R-St. Clair), passed the House yesterday by an overwhelming vote of 97-8. As Senator Pavlov has indicated he is comfortable with the bill as passed, Senate concurrence is likely.

The changes to the bill adopted on the House floor yesterday include funding for training in the evaluation tool utilized by the district and language establishing minimum requirements for the State Superintendent to issue or renew an advanced professional education certificate. Most importantly, the bill deletes the requirement in current law that 50% of teacher and administrator evaluations will be based on student growth and assessment data starting in the 2015-2016 school year in favor of a more gradual, phased in approach.

MEMSPA is supportive of the bill, and we look forward to a vote in the Senate to concur with the House changes and send the bill to Governor Snyder for his signature.

Early Literacy Legislation Passes House
After a marathon 8 hour session on Wednesday, House Republicans were unable to drum up sufficient support to pass Rep. Amanda Price’s (R-Park Twp.) early literacy legislation, House Bill 4822. HB 4822 had bipartisan support in the House Education Committee, but when the bill hit the floor, Democrats largely indicated opposition to the bill, meaning majority Republicans were forced to secure the bulk of the votes for passage of the bill from their side of the aisle.

After adoption of a number of amendments from Republican legislators addressing individual member concerns, the bill passed on Thursday by a vote of 57-48, with Republicans generally supporting and Democrats generally opposing. Six Republicans voted against the bill and three Democrats voted in favor.

The floor amendments included the following:

Retention, under the guise of “smart promotion”, is still included, but will not be effective for third graders until the 2019-2020 school year,
Inclusion of “systematic, explicit, multisensory, and sequential” language in the early intervention tool section to address concerns from dyslexia advocacy groups,
Inclusion of Hindi and Korean within the ELL section in addition to Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese,
A requirement for the MI Department of Education to complete grade 3 English Language Arts assessment scoring by June 1 of each year,
A change from “proficiency” to “competency” in a pupil’s portfolio of English language work samples in grade 3 that would allow the student a path to avoid retention, and
Clarification that a student with Section 504/disability plan cannot be held back from advancing with their peers due to reading proficiency, as is provided in Federal law.

The bill will now likely head to the Senate Education Committee for further consideration. Governor Snyder has not yet indicated whether he supports the bill as passed by the House, but in the past has generally indicated a hesitancy to support mandatory retention.

Critical Shortage Update
Legislation to address critical shortage, HB 4059, remains on the Senate floor awaiting action. With movement this week by the House of both early literacy and teacher evaluation legislation, the Senate is now more likely to act on HB 4059 in the coming weeks. We will continue to keep MEMSPA members updated and remain cautiously optimistic that will see resolution on critical shortage before the end of the year.