Legislative PAGE Legislative Summary:
2016 Best in Recent Memory for Education By Margaret Ciccarelli, PAGE Director of Legislative Services
T
he 2016 Georgia legislative session was the best in recent history for public schools. Election-year politics, increasingly effective advocacy by school supporters and a strengthening economy contributed to bipartisan support for Georgia students and educators under the Gold Dome. Below is a summary of education-related legislation that passed during the 2016 Georgia General Assembly.
TESTING AND EVALUATION REFORM
In the wake of U.S. Congressional passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, state policymakers moved to approve critical student testing and educator evaluation reform, Senate Bill 364, sponsored by Senate Education and Youth Committee Chair Lindsey Tippins (R-Marietta). The legislation reduces the number of student-mandated tests from 32 to 24 by eliminating Georgia Milestones testing in science and social studies in grades 3, 4, 6 and 7. SB 364 requires local school districts to administer, subject to state funding, math and reading formative assessments in grades 1 and 2, and it requires state-mandated assessments to be verified for reliability and validity by a nationally recognized, research based, third-party evaluator. Current law requires that students be enrolled in their teacher’s class for 65 percent of the term in order for their test scores to count toward their teacher’s evaluation. SB 364 increases this requirement substantially, mandating that students must attend an educator’s class for 90 percent of the term in order for their test scores to count toward their teacher’s evaluation. SB 364 also strongly encourages schools to push the testing administration window to the end of the term.
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SB 364 de-emphasizes the testing component of teacher and leader performance evaluations by reducing this component from 50 to 30 percent for teacher evaluations and from 70 to 40 percent for principal and assistant principal evaluations. Professional growth will comprise 20 percent of teacher evaluations and that growth will be measured by progress toward or attainment of professional growth goals within the school year or across multiple school years. Teacher professional growth goals may include measurements based on multiple student growth indicators, evaluations and observations, standards of practice and other measures. The remaining 50 percent of teacher evaluations will continue to be comprised of classroom observation. In the case of school leader performance assessments, school climate will count toward 10 percent of the evaluation and a combination of achievement gap closure. Beat the Odds and College and Career Readiness Performance Index data will count toward 20 percent of the evaluation. Observation of principals and assistant principals will comprise the remaining 30 percent of an annual evaluation. SB 364 makes clear that all educators will be evaluated on their own merits and that neither local school districts, nor the state, will enforce performance evaluation quotas. The legislation extends the five-day deadline by which the results of observations and evaluations must be made available to educators being evaluated to 10 days. SB 364 also allows school districts to develop tiered observation systems and to conduct observations of veteran, high-performing educators less frequently if the districts so choose.
2017 EDUCATION BUDGET
The fiscal year 2017 state budget contains formulaic increases for both student enrollment and educator training and experience. It also contains $300 million intended to minimize the ongoing austerity reduction to Georgia’s Quality Basic Education (QBE) funding formula. The FY17 partial austerity restoration leaves approximately $166 million in ongoing austerity cuts, and local school districts will receive their share of the $300 million based on student enrollment. Policymakers said during the legislative session that they intend for local districts to use the partial austerity restoration to end educator furloughs and increase educator pay by 3 percent. However, because the funding was not an enhancement to the state teacher salary schedule, individual districts will have the legal authority to use the funding flexibly based on local district priorities. Most local districts will end employee furloughs and many will pass along some pay raises to educators, though not all districts can afford to end all remaining furlough days and initiate a 3 percent pay raise. The FY17 budget also contains statefunded teacher liability insurance. The cost of this item is not included in the budget, and budgetary language indicates only that the state will “utilize existing funds for the Educators Professional Liability Insurance Program.” The state provided state-funded teacher liability insurance in the past, but no claims were ever filed under the previous program so it was phased out. In large part, no claim was filed because the legal issues most frequently encountered by educators relate to employment disputes with their local school districts and certification problems with the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. May/June 2016
