SB 16-105 (Merrifield & Marble) Adjustments to Educator Performance Evaluation System
Summary
SB 16-105 would eliminate the requirement that 50 percent of a teacher’s or principal’s performance evaluation be determined by the academic growth of students, and allows academic growth to be no more than 20 percent of the evaluation. It also allows school districts to exempt from evaluation educators with an effective or highly effective rating for up to three years.
Position
The Children’s Campaign strongly opposes eliminating or reducing the 50 percent requirement for measures of academic growth in an educator’s evaluation. Classroom teaching is the number one in-school contributor to student achievement, and research suggests that using multiple measures to inform an educator’s evaluation rating, including measures of student achievement, is a better predictor of an effective teacher than other more traditional measures such as graduate degrees or number of years of teaching. The Children’s Campaign was a strong supporter of SB 10-191 and we continue to be committed to the implementation that is happening across Colorado. Leslie Colwell, our Vice President of K-12 Initiatives, testified in opposition to SB 16-105 in the Senate Education Committee on Thursday.
Current Status
This bill died in its first committee, Senate Education, on Thursday with a bipartisan vote of 6 – 3.
Previous Statuses
February 12, 2016
Scheduled to be heard by the Senate Education Committee on Thursday, Feb. 18 at 1:30 p.m. in SCR 356.
February 5, 2016
Introduced in the Senate and assigned to the Senate Education Committee.
