The Wisconsin Legislature is hastening to amend an educational statute that could put the state in competitive standing for receiving more than $4 billion in federal education funding.
The law in question prohibits the use of students’ test scores from the Wisconsin Knowledge Concepts Exam when conducting a teacher evaluation, according to John Johnson, director of Education Information Services for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Wisconsin is one of three states with this type of ban, the others being Nevada and California.
The Race to the Top Fund is a federal grant program that was introduced by President Barack Obama earlier this summer. It’s goal is to improve the country’s education system and make the U.S. more comparable to other countries.
Johnson said Wisconsin has a great opportunity to advance its educational programs with this funding.
“As we look to improve education in Wisconsin across the grades and higher education, Race to the Top provides opportunities to improve many educational institutions,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the specific details of the proposal and the application itself are not yet available, but are expected to be released in the fall.
Christina Brey, spokes-person for the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said WEAC is supportive of a move that would allow funding a technical change in the law, but she added the group wants to make sure the legislation is fair and comprehensive.
Brey also said WEAC wants to see multiple measures used to evaluate teachers.
“We’ve fought against measuring students with just one test score, and the same reasoning applies with teachers,” Brey said. “Some things can’t be measured with a test.”
Rebekah Sweeney, spokesperson for Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan, D-Janesville, said the speaker is very interested in making the state competitive for the funding because many schools are in desperate need of the aid.
Mike Mikalsen, spokes-person for Rep. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, said Nass has pushed to eliminate the ban for years, adding Assembly Republicans have already drafted a bill to amend this law.
“It’s frustrating be-cause Republicans have introduced proposals be-fore, but the Democrats chose to do another bill instead of just picking up our bill,” Mikalsen said.
According to Mikalsen, Assembly Republicans are interested to see test scores and teacher evaluations directly tied together to determine teachers’ salaries and whether or not they should keep their jobs.
“Teachers like to take credit for when students have good grades and test scores, but when test scores are bad, they blame parents and other people besides themselves,” Mikalsen said.
