A4PEP Legislative Scorecard 2022
Advocates for Public Education Policy (A4PEP) is a statewide coalition of individuals and grassroots organizations that promotes leaders and policies to ensure that public schools work for all, not just the well-connected.
A4PEP has as its core the belief that our society depends on a well-educated population, which is achieved by putting students’ and teachers’ needs first. A4PEP was created in response to what students, parents, and educators felt were the adverse effects of failed “education reform” policies overly based on corporate interests.
A4PEP’s assessment of the 2022 session of the State Legislature is that it made fairly good progress on improving public education policies.
These were A4PEP’s legislative priorities for 2022:
-
Rethinking accountability, assessment, and teacher evaluation
-
Adequate and equitable funding
-
Equal access and desegregation
-
Quality neighborhood schools
A4PEP’s key principles which form the basis for all of its advocacy are as follows:
-
A stable, fair, and accessible public education –
-
Sustainable public schools.
-
Integrated and inclusive neighborhood schools.
-
Culturally relevant, engaging, and comprehensive curricula.
-
Community-wide, targeted interventions for each child.
-
Transformative parent, family, and community engagement.
-
The opportunity to have skilled, passionate, caring educators –
-
Professionally licensed educators.
-
Educators with high expectations for every student.
-
Educators with cultural competence and deep knowledge of content, pedagogy, and child development.
-
Educators who are effectively prepared, mentored, supported, and retained.
-
An education system that is responsible to all students –
-
Accountability and transparency.
-
Public taxpayer dollars used only for public schools.
-
Community-driven, democratically elected school boards.
-
Multiple measures to gauge student, school, and district progress.
BILLS CONSIDERED FOR THE LEGISLATIVE SCORECARD
Here are the bills A4PEP considered for its analysis of the 2022 Legislature in each priority category, with a description of them and an explanation of A4PEP’s opinion on its impact on public education policy (✔ means the bill passed and X means it was lost):
Rethinking accountability, assessment, and teacher evaluation
X SB22-044 – Use of Student Growth in Educator Evaluations
A4PEP strongly supported this bill and is very disappointed that it did not pass. The bill would have stopped the use of students’ scores on standardized tests in the evaluations of educator effectiveness.
✔ SB22-069 – Learning Disruption Effect on Teacher Evaluation
A4PEP supported this bill strongly in its initial form, which would have prohibited the use of student test scores in educator evaluations for 2 consecutive years whenever there is a public emergency that disrupts the delivery of instruction. A4PEP is disappointed that the bill now applies the prohibition only to the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school years.
✔ SB22-070 – K-12 Licensed Personnel Performance Evaluations
A4PEP preferred the way that SB22-044 would have changed the educator evaluation system but is encouraged to see some changes made. The bill’s reduction from 50% to 30% of the percentage of scores on standardized tests that are used for teacher evaluations is an improvement. A4PEP welcomes the provisions that evaluations be based only on students who have attended the school all year and that no more than 10% be based on “collective measures” (a compilation of test scores in all grade levels and test subjects).
✔ SB22-137 – Transition Back to Standard K-12 Accountability
A4PEP found this bill to be helpful in the short-term but not for the long-term, because A4PEP believes the current system of K-12 accountability is seriously flawed. A4PEP is happy that the bill suspends schools’ and districts’ accreditation ratings until the 2023-2024 school year. However, the bill still requires a calculation of their level of attainment on set targets and returns to the current accountability rating system in 2023-2024.
Adequate and equitable funding
X SB22-039 – Funding for Educational Opportunities
A4PEP strongly opposed this bill, although it would have eliminated the so-called Budget Stabilization Factor in 2023-2024, because it would have created a voucher program.
✔ SB22-127 – Special Education Funding
A4PEP supported this bill because it will provide a substantial increase in funding for special education, an area that the state has greatly underfunded.
✔ HB22-1202 – At-Risk Student Measure for School Finance
A4PEP supported this bill, because adding additional criteria besides the number of students on Free- or Reduced-Price Lunch to determine at-risk funding will provide a more accurate assessment that will better target funding to students in need.
✔ HB22-1390 – Public School Finance