Who’s behind the reform agenda?

Fmr. Gov. Jeb Bush
(photo courtesy ThinkProgress.org)

Over the last several years, House Democrats have championed legislation to reform our public schools. The status quo wasn't working and changes were necessary.

Two of the biggest reforms were passed a few years ago- HB 2776 and HB 2261. These measures redefined "basic education" and provided a road map for fully funding basic education by the year 2018. Full compliance with these two measures will get us back on the right track with keeping our promise to fully fund our public schools- an opinion reaffirmed by the state Supreme Court in the McCleary decision.

We also haven't been shy to enact additional reforms to other parts of public education when problems emerged that needed fixing. We enacted a new Teacher/Principal Evaluation Program that will ensure a great teacher is in front of every student in every school. We adopted Common Core Standards that will ensure our students are learning what they need to know so they can be successful in life after high school.

But despite adopting these sweeping reforms, some lawmakers are looking to take our public schools in another direction.

An article from the Washington Post today may shine a little more light on that new direction and where those directives are coming from.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

A nonprofit group released thousands of e-mails today and said they show how a foundation begun by Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and national education reform leader, is working with public officials in states to write education laws that could benefit some of its corporate funders.

A call to the foundation has not been returned.

The e-mails are between the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) and a group Bush set up called Chiefs for Change, whose members are current and former state education commissioners who support Bush's agenda of school reform, which includes school choice, online education, retention of third-graders who can't read and school accountability systems based on standardized tests. That includes evaluating teachers based on student test scores and grading schools A-F based on test scores.[...]

Washington state is not referenced in the Washington Post piece, although bills have been introduced in our Legislature that would hold back third-graders, make changes to our newly-reformed teacher/principal evaluation program, and give schools an A-F grade.

Here is the entire Washington Post piece.

Read this story in Spanish.

New teacher/principal evaluations rolling out statewide!

Back in 2010, the Legislature set out to mend Washington's broken teacher/principal evaluation system with a measure that is currently being piloted in several school districts around the state. Well, the initial reports have come in -- and by all accounts, the new system is working splendidly, though there is room for improvement.

This is where Senate Bill 5985 comes in. This session, the Legislature approved a measure to make improvements in this new evaluation system. In order to ensure that there's a great teacher in every classroom and a great principal in every school, some of the changes to the new evaluation system include:

• Implementation: The new evaluation system will be phased into school districts during the 2013-14 school year, and must be fully operational by the 2015-16 school year. Until then, the pilot schools will be continuing to report best practices in order to help with statewide implementation.

• Professional development: The new system seeks to invest and use the strengths of every individual teacher and principal. Senate Bill 5985 also ensures that each district will be equipped with the necessary tools and resources to implement the new evaluation system.

• Four-tier evaluation program: Unlike the old two-tier evaluation system, the new system includes four tiers: unsatisfactory, basic, proficient, and distinguished.

• Student-growth data: A substantial factor in the new system is the use of student-growth data in evaluating teachers and principals. However, safeguards are in place to ensure that the data is used objectively, fairly, and consistently in every district.

In building upon the expertise of our pilot schools, Senate Bill 5985 works with teachers and principals to give Washington kids the very best education possible. If we expect out kids to compete -- and win! -- against the world tomorrow, we'd better make sure they receive world-class schooling today.

To read this story in Spanish, please click here.