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Teacher Evaluation Passes Out of Committee

A package of two bills, HB 5223 and HB 5224, passed out of the House Education committee this morning.   The Detroit News reports,

A House education committee gave quick approval Tuesday to a pair of bills that would create Michigan’s first statewide teacher evaluation system, putting concerns to rest — for the moment — that Michigan could lose $1 billion in federal funds.

Just before 9 a.m., the committee met and approved HB 5223 and HB 5224, designed to implement a new teacher evaluation system that for the first time would include student growth in rating a teacher’s performance.

The bills were voted out of committee to the House floor. No date has been set for them to be taken up by the full House.

The committee delayed its vote last week amid rumors by an education advocacy group that Michigan would lose its waiver to stricter provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act if lawmakers did not act on the bills that day.

State Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons, R-Alto, committee chairwoman, said she wasn’t “going to be bullied or pushed around” by an outside group.

I posted about the bullying last week. But if lawmakers are honest,  it is not just an “outside group” doing the bullying.  The federal government is also bullying and demanding states comply or potentially lose waivers and funding.

The Cato Institute reported that the Obama administration wants to make the Common Core, assessments, and performance permanent by attaching them to federal funding.

“The big story in the proposal is – or, at least, should be – that the president almost certainly wants to make the Core permanent by attaching annual federal funding to its use, and to performance on related tests. Just as the administration called for in its 2010 NCLB reauthorization proposal, POTUS wants to employ more than a one-time program, or temporary waivers, to impose “college and career-ready standards,” which–thanks to RTTT and waivers–is essentially synonymous with Common Core. In fact, President Obama proposes changing Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – of which NCLB is just the most recent reauthorization – to a program called “College- and Career-Ready Students,” with an annual appropriation of over $14 billion.”

Now that teacher evaluation is out of committee, parents and teachers must contact their lawmakers and tell them to vote no on HB 5223 and 5224.