Dear neighbors,
Minnesota’s long tradition of providing our children with an excellent education is a key driver of our economic prosperity.
Unfortunately, a bill was passed on the floor of the House last week that would weaken teacher licensing standards and allow underqualified teachers into Minnesota classrooms. To address teacher shortages in certain subject and geographic areas, there has been an effort to streamline licensure for teachers who come from out of state, and for teachers who are trained in non-traditional programs.
However, this bill (HF2) misses the mark. It would remove requirements for Minnesota teacher preparation standards for teachers from out of state – while still holding our own graduates to those higher standards. The bill would also allow districts and charter schools to hire so-called “community experts” without the current oversight of the Board of Teaching.
The most notable section of the bill alters the protocol for teacher layoffs. Current state law allows districts to negotiate their own procedures, and about 40% of districts do. If districts do not negotiate a local system, the fallback is to use order of seniority. The bill mandates using the teacher evaluation and development system that was just put into place this year.
The problems with this are numerous. Many districts have only begun using the new system this year, and some haven’t even started. The evaluation system is supposed to be a collaborative, peer mentoring system with a three year cycle. The enactment date for this section does not allow school districts to complete this cycle and evaluate how well it is working. There will be important issues to address, such as how teacher evaluations can be compared for teachers with different course assignments or in different buildings, especially since the evaluations must include student testing results as a substantial component. Enactment of this section at this time is premature, and much work needs to be done before it would be possible to mandate a fair system.
This bill is the GOP’s top education priority this session, and it does nothing to address our teacher shortages or to improve effectiveness of our current teachers. It simply make it easier fire teachers for no reason.
I opposed this bill and voted against it. It passed the House 70-63, on an almost strictly party line vote (one GOP member voted with DFLers in opposition). It is unlikely to become law.
We should be ensuring that Minnesota’s kids have access to a world-class education and that our teachers are the most effective at what they do. The weakening of standards and the teaching profession is no way to improve outcomes for our children.
Sincerely,
Erik Simonson
State Representative