What to expect in education legislation

by David Safier

A reader did a whole lot of work and sent me an 8 page Word document filled with education legislation being proposed this year. I'm going to cherry pick the items I find interesting, but I'm putting the entire document online so those of you who know more about this stuff than I do can find other items of interest.

Here are my top 8 in no particular order, including the first sponsor of each bill.

• H2061: TEACHER PERFORMANCE PAY; SPECIAL ASSESSMENT  (Rep. Tom Boone, R). No more teacher performance pay from the state. If school boards want to vote in their own to be paid for with property taxes, that's fine.
• H2077: SCHOOLS; PROFESSIONAL TEACHING STANDARDS BOARD (Rep. David Schapira, D). Moves authority to certify and regulate teachers and school administrators from the Board of Ed to "the newly created Professional Teaching Standards Board (PTSB), which consists of 17 members appointed to 4-year terms by the Governor. . . . authorizes the PTSB to establish replacement regulations by rule." I don't know what this will do exactly, but Schapira is a Dem and an ex teacher, so I'm hoping it's a positive move.
• H2182: SCHOOL PUPILS; LAWFUL STATUS; STATE AID (Rep. Carl Seel, R). If parents can't prove a child is lawfully in the U.S., the school can't include him/her in the "student count." Seel has a whole raft of ed bills with his name on them.
• H2200: SCHOOL FINANCE; AVERAGE DAILY ATTENDANCE  (Rep. Carl Seel, R). Repeals current statutes on determination of student count. Seel again. I assume that makes way for his "lawful status" bill above.
• S1097: SCHOOLS; DATA; NONCITIZEN STUDENTS (Sen. Russell Pearce, R).
  I don't have a summary on this one, but it sounds like a companion
  piece to Seel's bills: find out if you have any non-citizens in your
  school and report them.
• S1007: COMM COLLEGES; ADDITIONAL FUNDING SOURCES (Sen. Linda Gray, R). Let's Comm Colls sell naming rights of college buildings and allows them to enter "agreements with third parties for the research, development or marketing of products developed through community college district research."
• S1011: CONCEALED WEAPONS; FACULTY; SCHOOL GROUNDS (Sen. Jack Harper, R). Lets a college faculty member with a concealed carry permit carry "a deadly weapon onto school grounds." Bad as this is, lots of people are making it sound worse by saying incorrectly that the law lets students carry weapons as well. Nope. Only faculty.
• S1039: RESTRUCTURING; SCHOOL REPORT CARDS (Sen. John Huppenthal, R). This is the curious bill Craig wrote about, which takes just about everything but test scores out of schools' public Report Cards, including costs per student, class sizes and availability of social services. Hupp, or course, is running for Ed Supe.

If you want to know more, upload the complete list. If there's a doozy I've left out, let me know either in a comment or by emailing me at safier@schooltales.com