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Wednesday, February 8, 2012
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The state Attorney General's office weighed in, but the Maine House didn't follow its lead.
House members have voted to stick to an amendment to L.D. 1799 that would limit school districts' ability to use student achievement data in teacher and principal evaluations. The amendment, proposed by Sen. Justin Alfond and favored by the state teachers' union, empanels a five-member task force that would pre-approve a slate of evaluation models from which school districts could choose if they wanted to factor student testing data into staff evaluations.
Rep. Sawin Millett, R-Waterford, said constituents have called that measure "a poison pill amendment." Steve Bowen of the Maine Heritage Policy Center referred to the provision by the same name in his blog.
Another Senate vote remains before the bill goes to Gov. John Baldacci for his signature.
If the Senate sticks to its earlier votes (which took place before the Attorney General's office issued its opinion), the teachers' union will have succeeded in diluting the effect of legislation to strike down that legal barrier preventing the use of student achievement data in teacher and principal evaluations.
But it's unclear whether Maine will have struck down the legal barrier it needs to in order to apply for up to $75 million in Race to the Top funding and qualify for $59 million in federal economic recovery funds for education and $100 million other federal education funds.
When Maine sends its Race to the Top application into the federal government, the attorney general has to certify that the legal barrier has been struck down.
Archives
- Rewriting No Child Left Behind: What to expect
- Recurring themes, fresh outlook on education
- National pressure on Maine to allow charters
- The debate on administration, and the latest on the top administrator
- Private funding for "student-centered" learning
- Landing on the staff, not in the cabinet
- Education and the inauguration
- Home schooling, education jobs and Social Security: An education roundup
- A change in circumstances, and a change of heart
- Tonight, students challenge the candidates
- MEA's endorsement and Mitchell
- Worries of the administrative realm
- What's next for Maine students' Social Security numbers?
- Paying for performance, indirectly
- Beyond pay incentives
- Will there be evaluation momentum?
- Same SAT scores. Same questionable comparison?
- It had to be asked sooner or later
- Short of completely empty, and a chance to influence
- UPDATE: Fact-checking Paul LePage, and Common Core's tangled web
- How much and when?
- Zeroing in on "value added"
- Sierra Club: Maine has 3 "Cool Schools"
- Maine joining SSN ranks. Will parents go along?
- Some loose ends tied this week in Maine education
- Six in Maine go for i3
- A steeper cliff after EduJobs
- MEA and the favorable incumbents; updates to a data repository
- One federal pot out of reach, another in flux
- Ed Week: Maine's Race to the Top fate will be known tomorrow
- New graduation rates released, little gained so far
- An updated student-teacher ratio, and updated inconsistencies
- Reformist v. status quo, and a tempering force
- Could Race to the Top shrink?
- Midcoast project earns "pilot project" designation
- What the heck is Maine's student-teacher ratio?
- UPDATED: MEA announces it's Mitchell. Anyone surprised?
- On buy-in, below average
- Initial thoughts on a LePage v. Mitchell match-up
- Innovations that don't fit the national mold: Maine and Race to the Top
- Performance-based evaluations from the bottom up
- Choice phrasing in Race to the Top
- Breaking down buy-in
- For after-school programs, a risk apart from grant bungling
- Building buy-in: Maine at 68 for 215 and 14 for 55
- Choosing the evaluation panel's future
- Maine is in Race to the Top running
- Is MEA warming to Race to the Top?
- UPDATED: Will the budget referendum stay in place?
- Who knew? Department of Education stands in liberty's way
- Bold approaches beyond pilot-project phase
- Not down to 80, but getting closer
- Baldacci claiming credit where it's undue
- Not only plagiarism from Otten, but a lack of facts
- A tiff of irony, a question of purpose, and the administrators' absence
- Teacher evaluation catch-up and the would-be's on education
- A big week in Maine education
- 'Conversations' amid shadows
- A barrier comes down? A few more thoughts
- UPDATE: Sticking to the 'poison pill'
- UPDATE: Amended bill wouldn't do the trick
- UPDATE: More than Race to the Top hangs in the balance
- Hanging in the balance
- Evaluating teachers? Choose from one of the following
- Highlights from the data drop
- What do Delaware and Tennessee mean to Maine?
- 'A personal journey for next generation learners'
- Channeling consolidation's energy in Hancock County
- Innovating within existing infrastructure
- A model charter school law
- Preparing for another charter schools battle
- Will Maine stand a chance in Race to the Top?
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