Monday, May 14, 2012

Jane Cunningham's last stand

This week will be the last chance Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, has to push her anti-public education legislation before she leaves the Senate.

It doesn't appear she has any chance to get a bill passed eliminating teacher tenure and it looks like another pet project of hers, educational vouchers, is not going to happen this session, but a bill forbidding the use of seniority as a determining factor in teacher layoffs will be heard before her General Laws Committee today.

That could end up being a problem for the legislation since some of her fellow senators have not been thrilled with the way she has hijacked education bills for her committee, rather than put them in the Education Committee where they belong.

The following legislative update on the bill was issued over the weekend by Missouri NEA:

The Senate General Laws Committee will hear HCS/HB 1526 (Scott Dieckhaus) on May 14. The perfected HCS/HB 1526 damages the reduction in force (RIF) requirements by undermining respect for certification, experience and commitment to the district, while forcing districts to create an entirely new system to determine layoff priorities and leaving districts vulnerable to various legal challenges in implementing this new, untested mandate.  
The Association strongly opposes the bill.   
An extremist group known as Students First, centered in Sacramento, California, has hired numerous lobbyists in Missouri and is pushing the various changes in tenure and evaluation policy contained in the various versions of HB 1526 and in SB 806 (Jane Cunningham).  

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