Gov. Scott Walker joined forces with state Superintendent Tony Evers this week, announcing they will lead a collaborative effort with other educators, policymakers and parents to develop a new statewide accountability system for education.

In a statement, Evers said it was made clear that the overall goal of the proposal and the people involved in it would be to create a “growth-based accountability system” that would aim to improve student educational performance.

In an email to The Badger Herald, Walker’s spokesperson Cullen Werwie said the program would focus on three main tasks.

According to Werwie, the first is called “Read to Lead” and focuses on improving literacy and reading performance for children as young as kindergarten age. He said the program would require the state Department of Public Instruction to improve the rigor of the licensure exam for new elementary school reading teachers and coaches by the 2013-14 academic year.

Werwie said it would also require all students to take an early childhood reading screener in kindergarten by the 2012-13 academic year, and create the “Governor’s Read to Lead Development Council” that will be given statutory authority to raise money to support reading initiatives statewide.

“From kindergarten through third grade, students spend the bulk of their time learning to read,” Werwie said in the email.  “But research shows that if a student is behind in fourth grade, they will almost never catch up. Once they are behind, students are much less likely to go to college and are much more likely to drop out.”

In a statement, Walker said the second focus of the project is educator effectiveness and said the goal is to create a framework for a teacher and principal evaluation system that would be based on multiple measures of student outcome and educator practice. He said creating a fair system for evaluating teachers and principals will allow educators to receive timely and constructive feedback.

According to Werwie, the final focus is school accountability. Werwie said in order to achieve this, the governor plans to rate all schools on multiple measures of student growth and proficiency in order to ensure current and prospective parents know how their child’s school is performing.

“We spent a significant amount of time last year engaged in design team processes to make important decisions about how to improve students’ reading scores, ensure every classroom has an effective teacher, and gauge school success by looking at both growth and attainment,” Senate Education Chairman Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, said in a statement. “This education package puts into law essential elements to help these initiatives succeed.”

Mary Bell, Wisconsin Education Association Council president, said the proposal would be a positive step for public schools.

Still, she said the state needs to provide more resources to ensure greater success.

“The proposed measurement systems are better than what exists today,” Bell said. “While this is a good first step, there are some areas not addressed in this waiver which we hope might be included in the final application, such as measuring the education programs schools offer students, and including courses in art and music.”