The good news is that the 2010-11 budget, which goes into effect July 1, probably won’t need further major cuts beyond a $75 million adjustment by Gov. Bill Ritter in order to keep the state’s reserve at legal levels.

Natalie Mullis, legislative chief economist, briefed lawmakers June 21 on state quarterly revenue forecasts.

Ritter said Monday afternoon that he hopes K-12 funding and higher education can be spared from the $75 million trim, but said, “Nothing is off the table.”

The governor said, “I’m very hopeful” schools can be spared further cuts but added, “Where K-12 education becomes vulnerable again is if Medicaid is not extended.”

To help ease state budget woes, the federal government has been picking up a larger share of Medicaid costs than normal, but that ends in December. A proposal to extend the higher payments is facing tough going in Congress, particularly in the Senate. If the program isn’t extended, Colorado would have to scramble to come up with $245 million or make cuts to cover that amount.

“We’re watching the Medicaid situation closely over the summer,” Ritter said, adding he hopes things will become clearer before Congress’ August recess.

Ritter also said, “It’s our hope we don’t have to do anything to impact higher education again.” The $75 million is about 1 percent of the state’s general fund. Ritter promised a package of recommendations in August.

The bad news is that the 2011 legislature may need to make about $1 billion in cuts to the 2011-12 budget, depending on future levels of federal support for Medicaid; on inflation; on growth in the numbers of prison inmates, sick people, school kids and college students; and on how lawmakers decide to replace one-time sources of money that were used to balance the 2010-11 budget, such as federal stimulus funds.

“We have a pretty tough budget year ahead of us,” said Natalie Mullis, the legislature’s chief economist.

“It looks like we will another rough year in 2011-12,” agreed Lisa Esgar, deputy director of the executive branch’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting.

Because state support for K-12 schools and higher education spending consumes nearly 40 percent of total state spending and more than half of the tax-supported general fund, any cuts are expected to fall heavily on education.

Some legislative leaders previously estimated that K-12 and higher ed could see cuts of $300 million each in 2011-12.

The two revenue forecasts released Monday offer no detailed hints of what education cuts might look like – it’s much too early in the game for that.

Here’s the overview of the budget situation:

2009-10: The state will end the year on June 30 in the black, but the reserve will be $51.7 million less than the required $132.6 million. (The OSPB estimates the reserve shortfall at $74.5 million.) The shortfall doesn’t have to be covered before the end of the year and can be rolled into 2010-11.

2010-11: Sufficient revenues are expected to cover the spending approved by the 2010 legislature, but again the reserve will fall short of required levels. Legislative Council staff estimate about $37 million will be needed to return the reserve to an acceptable level. (OSPB projects a higher number.)

2011-12: In addition to another $61.4 million reserve shortfall, lawmakers will have to replace (or cut) $617 million in one-time funds and cover (or ignore) an estimated $300 million in caseload increases. That makes up the $1 billion.

Some observers think the shortfall could be larger noting, for instance, that school districts’ local revenue likely will decline for 2011-12, putting pressure on the state to cover the difference.

The $1 billion figure didn’t come as a major shock. “This wound up not surprising us a great deal,” Ritter said. Informal estimates in that ballpark were circulating during the closing days of the 2010 session, which adjourned May 12.

But, Monday’s release of the formal quarterly revenue forecasts by legislative staff and OSPB mark a key point in the 2011-12 budget process and begin to focus the issue for legislators.

Gov. Bill Ritter discussed the state budget situation during a news conference June 21.

Executive branch departments already are refining their 2011-12 requests, another set of forecasts will be issued in late September and Ritter has to submit his 2011-12 budget to the Joint Budget Committee by Nov. 1. The panel will hold budget hearings in November and December, and another set of forecasts in late December will update the situation just before the 2011 session convenes.

The national recession began affecting state government in 2009-10 budget year, which is about to end. Lawmakers last spring had to make significant mid-year adjustments in spending, including a $130 million cut in K-12 support. Creation of a balanced 2010-11 budget required significant cuts and revenue shifts.

Overall, there have been $3.5 billion in state budget cuts and adjustment over three fiscal years, Ritter noted.

Total program spending for K-12 schools was about $5.4 billion in 2008-09 and was supposed to rise to nearly $5.7 billion this year, before the midyear adjustments trimmed it back to just under $5.6 billion.

Using a narrow interpretation of the Amendment 23 school-funding formula, the legislature approved about $5.4 billion in total program funding for 2010-11. Full A23 funding would have been about $5.8 billion. The 2010 school finance law recommends the same $5.4 billion figure for 2011-12, although that can be changed by the 2011 legislature.

(Total program funding is the amount of state aid and local revenues used for basic classroom and administrative operations. It doesn’t include additional state aid for such things as transportation and special programs, some federal programs and district revenues from bond issues.)

School districts have responded with layoffs, wage freezes and other cuts of a magnitude Colorado schools haven’t seen in years. (See the One-Stop Budget Cuts Info Center for details.)

Spending at state colleges and universities was maintained at just under $2 billion for 2010-11 – but only with the help of significant federal stimulus support and 9 percent tuition increases for resident undergraduate students. Higher ed is seen as particularly vulnerable to cuts in 2011-12. Senate Bill 10-003, the major flexibility legislation passed last spring, requires colleges to prepare reports on how they would handle a 50 percent cut in state support. Those are due next autumn.

Both forecasts found some some signs of economic hope.

“Both Colorado and the national economy are embarking on a very delicate recovery,” said Kate Watkins, a legislative economist, during the morning JBC meeting where the forecasts were unveiled.

“While the economy is recovering, it is very slow,” Ritter said. “We do believe the economy will recover” in time for the 2012-13 budget year – long after Ritter has left office.

(Both forecasts provide a wealth of information about tax revenues and  the economy of the state and its regions. See below for links to the full forecasts.)

Do your homework

• Legislative Council June revenue forecast
• OSPB forecast
• Archive of Education News Colorado stories about budget issues

State Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, facing camera, hugged Gov. Bill Ritter after Ritter signed S.B. 191 into law. State Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, is left and House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, and Rep. Christine Scanlan, D-Dillon, are right.

Before Gov. Bill Ritter on Thursday signed into law a dramatic overhaul of Colorado’s long-standing teacher evaluation system, he reached out to the many educators who fought to kill it.

Leaders of the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’  union, which lobbied against Senate Bill 191 with rallies and radio ads, did not attend the crowded signing ceremony in the west foyer of the Capitol.

“From the time I began running for office, the Colorado Education Association has been supportive of our efforts and a … partner in reform,” Ritter said. “I understand that they considered Senate Bill 191 a bridge too far.

“But I think the teachers and principals who work in our classrooms every day are going to understand we are going to provide them greater tools for success … And over time we’re going to get to the place where we’re working together toward that goal.”

CEA President Beverly Ingle released a statement after the signing that pledged the 40,000-member union is “committed to doing everything we can to make sure the law is implemented correctly.”

“We are pleased that some of the changes we suggested to the bill were included but we still have a number of concerns,” Ingle said. “We will do what’s right for the teachers and the students of Colorado.”

Brenda Smith, president of the smaller union in Colorado, the American Federation of Teachers, testified in support of the bill and was there for Thursday’s signing.

Johnston, center, leans on a member of Project VOYCE, Voices Of Youth Changing Education, which supported the bill, and chats with Spence before Thursday's bill signing.

Smith issued a statement saying AFT Colorado “worked in collaboration with the bill’s sponsors to improve the  measure so that teacher evaluation systems will be good for kids and fair to teachers.”

“Some so-called reformers want to dictate change from the outside – an approach that almost always fails,” Smith said. “Then you have change agents who say: Let’s work together and figure things out … that’s what happened with this legislation in Colorado.”

State Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, the bill’s primary author, singled out Ritter, state education Commissioner Dwight Jones and Christine Scanlan, the bill’s Democratic House sponsor, for thanks. Scanlan successfully navigated the schism in her party over education reform to secure enough votes to pass the bill while Jones was an early and public advocate.

Johnston said he woke one morning to a phone ”exploding” with text messages about Jones’ surprise endorsement of the bill in the Denver Post. That letter prompted the CEA to withhold support of the state’s Race to the Top grant application.

“It would have been very easy for you to stay out of this bill,” Johnston told Jones.

Education Commissioner Dwight Jones talks about the work ahead in implementing a new educator evaluation system at Thursday's signing ceremony.

As for Ritter, Johnston said meeting the governor helped convince him to leave his principal’s job for political office.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it,” the freshman lawmaker said. ”It wasn’t until we met that … I think we both believe this really was a noble and honest calling where good people try to get good things done.”

Despite the celebratory air, the hugs and congratulations, several speakers said much of the work lies ahead. Today, members of the Governor’s Council for Educator Effectiveness, charged with defining teacher and principal effectiveness, will meet for the first time since the bill passed.

And Johnston went straight from the signing ceremony to O’Connell Middle School in Lakewood, where he met with about 25 teachers curious about what the new law means for them. See EdNews’ blog about the meeting.

He said before he left that he sees S.B. 191 as the first step in a two-part process: Part 1 is restoring the public’s confidence in education. Part 2 is asking that public to better support schools through a funding increase expected on the state ballot in 2011.

“The work we are about to begin will enable Colorado to lead in this national movement” of education reform, Jones said. “What is required in this bill is hard work. But this is the right work.”

Hear Gov. Bill Ritter reach out to the Colorado Education Association before signing S.B. 191:

Hear Sen. Mike Johnston talk about his hopes for the new educator effectiveness law:

Four key issues – educator effectiveness, pension reform, school spending and tuition policy – dominated the education debate during the 2010 session of the Colorado legislature.

Pensions and school finance were decided relatively early in the session; educator effectiveness and higher education financial policy weren’t resolved until the closing hours.

Senate Bill 10-191, the educator evaluation and tenure bill, took center stage in the session’s final month, and it has the potential to be the most far-reaching measure passed this year. But, its impact will be much less immediate than that of legislation in the other three areas. (See this separate article for a detailed explanation of SB 10-191.)

School finance

The first piece of 2010 school finance legislation (Senate Bill 10-065) reduced school funding right out of the gate. Introduced Jan. 14 and signed into law two weeks later, the measure took back $130 million in state aid that school districts had hoped to receive in the current school year.

Later in the session, the 2010-11 school finance act (House Bill 10-1369) and the main state budget bill (House bill 10-1376) set total state and local funding at about $5.4 billion for the budget year that starts July 1. That compares to a little less than $5.6 billion this year and is about the same as 2008-09 funding.

This year marks the first time that the legislature didn’t apply the full Amendment 23 formula to school spending, an historic change. It’s estimated full 2010-11 funding would have been about $5.8 billion.

Pensions

Reform of the state pension system, the Public Employees’ Retirement Association, was a key education issue because the system includes large numbers of education employees and retirees. The measure is designed to return PERA to solvency in 30 years. Senate Bill 10-001 was signed less than six weeks after it was introduced, just in time to wipe out a scheduled 3.5 percent annual benefit increase for retirees that would have kicked in March 1.

Future annual increases basically are limited to 2 percent. A class-action challenge to the law is pending in Denver District Court.

Tuition and financial flexibility

Senate Bill 10-003, the higher education financial flexibility legislation, was introduced Jan. 13 but didn’t become a live issue until April 30, when a significantly revised version had its first committee hearing.

In the meantime, the measure had gained a tuition provision that allows state colleges and universities to raise undergraduate resident tuition up to 9 percent a year for five years, starting in 2011-12. (That’s on top of the 9 percent allowed by the legislature for the upcoming 2010-11 school year.)

College boards can seek permission from the Colorado Commission on Higher Education for larger increases and have to submit detailed financial plans with their requests.

The bill also puts into law a higher ed master planning process started earlier by executive order. That plan is to be ready for consideration by the 2011 legislature. The measure also gives institutions more flexibility in use of financial aid and in their financial and administrative processes.

Beyond the big four issues, education measures passed during the 2010 session were a mixture of cleanup bills, pilot programs and hopes for the future.

About 100 education-related bills and resolutions were introduced. The Senate accounted for almost half of those, even though it has only 35 of the legislature’s 100 members.

Here’s a look at some of those measures:

Bureaucratic but interesting

• HB 1013 – A cleanup bill mostly of note for the fact that it pushes back some Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids deadlines, chiefly the Dec. 15 deadline for the State Board of Education to adopt a new state testing system. That requirement doesn’t kick in until doing so is “fiscally practicable.”
• HB 1036 – Creates a three-year period for school districts to post a variety of budget and financial information on their websites. This was interesting for its political undertones. Republicans, starting in 2009, tried to make government fiscal transparency a signature issue. Democrats and schools board make the issue of school district their own with this bill.
• HB 1183 – This bill allows pilot-program studies of alternative ways to finance schools, perhaps planting the sees for future reform.
• SB 205 – A just-in-case bill that allows districts to ask voters for bond issues whose proceeds could be used for operational costs. That’s a backup plan in case Amendment 61, the proposed restriction on government debt, passes in November. That amendment would shut down a state treasurer’s loan program that some school districts use like a line of credit.
• SB 8 – Another hope-for-the-future bill, this authorizes a study of the average daily membership method of calculating school enrollment. Currently enrollment, a key factor in district funding, is calculated based on actual attendance during a brief period every October.

Charter schools

• HB 1345 – Creates a procedure under which the commissioner of education can supervise charter schools in emergency situations, such as financial crises.
• HB 1412 – Establishes a commission of experts from various fields that will study and recommend operational standards for charter school and best practices for school board when authorizing charters.
• SB 111 – Allows charters authorized by the state Charter School Institute to contract for services with boards of cooperative education services and authorizes a study of designating institute schools as local education agencies.
• SB 161 – Allows any charter school to apply for various kinds of federal and other grants through the institute.

Early childhood

A 2009 summer legislative study group suggested several bills, some of which died because funding couldn’t be identified. Others passed but are dependent on finding non-state funding.

• HB 1026 – Creates an incentive grant program for quality early childhood programs – but the effort is entirely dependent on “gifts, grants and donations.”
• HB 1028 – Sets up a system for creating a streamlined application process for families seeking educational, health, nutrition and other programs that serve young, at-risk children.
• HB 1030 – Creates a scholarship program for people seeking associate degrees in early childhood education. But, it’s also solely dependent on “gifts, grants and donations.”

Healthy kids

• HB 1131 – Establishes a grant program for agencies that involve kids in outdoor activities. This was a push by Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien. It also relies on “gifts, etc.”
• SB 81 – Creates a task force intended to promote greater use of healthy, local food products by schools.

Troubled kids

• SB 54 – Requires minimum education services for juveniles being held in adult jails. The measure was substantially watered down because of cost concerns.
• HB 1274 – Requires notice to schools when students return after time in treatment facilities. This bill has been in the works for two sessions and only passed after extensive negotiations among a variety of interest groups.

Higher education

A variety of bills passed this year are intended to bolster state financial aid resources, ease student movement between colleges and provide greater opportunities to students in some parts of the state.

• HB 1208 – Accelerates the process for designating community college classes that are transferrable to four-year schools.
• HB 1383 – Shifts about $30 million from a CollegeInvest scholarship fund into general state funding for need-based scholarships.
• HB 1428 – Takes at least $15 million from sale of a CollegeInvest loan portfolio into scholarships.
• SB 64 – Makes it easier for resident students to establish eligibility for College Opportunity Fund stipends by just checking a box on college applications.
• SB 79 – Allows expansion of some master’s degree programs at Mesa State College.
• SB 88 – Permits community college students to declare the equivalent of majors in some fields of study.
• SB 101 – Allows Colorado Mountain College to offer a limited selection of bachelor’s degrees.
• SB 108 – Allows private and propriety colleges to have their courses reviewed for inclusion in the state program of common core course.
• SB 202 – Lets adults open CollegeInvest savings plans to help pay for job-retraining programs. Also allows employers to contribute to employee accounts and take a tax deduction.

Didn’t make the cut

About a third of all education bills were killed. Most died in committee, some at the request of sponsors because of lack of support, lack of funding or overlap with other measures.

Others died in committee because they were Republican bills that had no chance in a Democratic legislature – measures that proposed barring felons from school employment, imposing new safety drills, high school exit exams, fiddling with Amendment 23, tax credits for private school tuition and a religious bill of rights for schools.

Only a handful measures lost on the floor, including HB 1271, which proposed contributions limits in school board campaigns, and SCR 2 and HCR 1002, the identical proposed constitutional amendments to free education-related taxes from TABOR restrictions.

Rep. Judy Solano’s annual CSAP cutback bill, HB 1430, died on the session’s last day when both houses refused to back down from their respective versions.

Here’s a quick rundown of some other bills that didn’t make it or were drastically amended.

• HB 1015 – Proposed pilot alternative funding program for small districts
• HB 1147 – Helmet requirement for kids on non-motorized vehicles (amended down to a safety education program)
• HB 1206 – Voting power for student members of the CSU board
• HB 1253 – Changes in gifted and talented programs
• HB 1406 – Green construction requirements for new school buildings
• HCR 1007 – Proposed constitutional amendment to divert some lottery revenues to education in tight budget years
• SB 5 – Funding to ensure continuity of services from preschool to kindergarten
• SB 17 – Creation of a pilot program to study weighted student funding
• SB 107 – Requiring state approval for high schools to use Indian mascots
• SB 131 – Financial incentives for school districts to provide full-day kindergarten
• SB 210 – Pilot program to provide cash or prizes to at-risk kids for reading books
• SB 215 – Expansion of video lottery terminals to fund college scholarships
• SCR 4 – Keno-for-colleges, a proposed constitutional amendment to do the same thing as SB 215

A very routine measure to clarify state law on school buses, HB 1232, did pass. But, there was an entertaining floor fight one Friday morning in March when Senate President Brandon Shaffer, D-Boulder, attempted to expand the bill to include a mandate for shoulder belts on new buses. His idea was buried with 29 no votes.

One measure that shrunk a lot between introduction and passage was HB 1273, Rep. Mike Merrifield’s arts education proposal. The Colorado Springs Democrat, a retired music teacher, is leaving the legislature because of term limits, and the bill was seen as his swan song.

What started out as a requirement measure ended up as an encouragement to schools districts to include the arts in curricula and an instruction to the State Board of Education to include the arts in upcoming graduation guidelines for school districts.

What’s next

Gov. Bill Ritter has a little under a month to sign or veto bills. He’s already signed many education bills passed earlier in the session, and there aren’t any remaining bills seen as obvious veto targets.

(Normal Education News Colorado style for bills is to use their full numbers, as in Senate Bill 10-001. To save eyestrain in the lower portion of this article we’ve used the shortened version – SB 1.)

See the Education Bill Tracker for links to bill texts.

The educator effectiveness bill caused excitement, fear and much confusion as it moved through the legislature in a little more than a month. About 200 amendments were drafted for the bill, although many of those were not added or even proposed. (Amendments are numbered sequentially as they are drafted, regardless of whether they’re used later.)

The bill sets some core requirements and uses for educator evaluations, but it leaves definitions of educator effectiveness and the details of the new system to the appointed State Council for Educator Effectiveness and to the elected State Board of Education.

The legislature will have review power over the board’s proposed rules and over a future appeals process for teachers who lose non-probationary status.

And, the law won’t be fully implemented until the 2014-15 school year.

Core requirements

• Evaluations are to “provide a basis for making decisions in the areas of hiring, compensation, promotion, assignment, professional development, earning and retaining non-probationary status, dismissal, and nonrenewal of contract.”
• Educator effectiveness is to be determined by use of “fair, transparent, timely, rigorous and valid methods.”
• Evaluations will be done at least once a year.
• Performance standards shall include at least three levels, highly effective, effective and ineffective.
• At least 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation must be based on the academic growth of students.
• At least 50 percent of a principal’s evaluation is to be determined by the academic growth of students in a school and the effectiveness of the school’s teachers.
• Expectations of student growth can take into consideration such factors as student mobility and numbers of special education and high-risk students.
• Educators will be given “meaningful” opportunities to improve effectiveness and provided means to share effective practices with other educators.
• Probationary teachers must have three consecutive years of demonstrated effectiveness to gain non-probationary status.
• Non-probationary teachers who receive two consecutive years of unsatisfactory evaluations return to probation.
• A teacher may be placed in a school only with the consent of the principal and the advice of at least two teachers who work at that school.
• Effective non-probationary teachers who aren’t placed in a school will go into a priority hiring pool.
• Non-probationary teachers who lose their jobs because of staff reductions will be given lists of all available jobs in their districts.
• A non-probationary teacher who doesn’t find another job within 12 months or two hiring cycles will be placed on unpaid leave.
• School districts and their unions can apply for waiver of these mutual consent provisions.
• Teacher effectiveness, then seniority, will be considered when layoffs are made.

Additional details

• Non-probationary teachers who receive ineffective evaluations may appeal those either through existing collective bargain agreements or to the superintendent or a designee. If there’s no contract, a teacher may request review by a mutually chosen third party, whose decision on whether the evaluation was arbitrary or capricious will be binding.
• Teachers must receive written evaluations two weeks before the end of the school year.
  Principals and administrators have to maintain written records of evaluations.
• Teachers evaluated as unsatisfactory must receive written notice and will receive remediation plans and professional development opportunities.
• The state board will review local evaluation systems and will consider local conditions such as size, demographics and location of districts.
• The current system of achieving non-probationary status will remain in force through the 2012-13 school year.
• Effective non-probationary teachers who move to a new district can carry that status with them.

Timelines

• March 1, 2011 – Council makes recommendations on the definitions of teacher and principal effectiveness, different levels of effectiveness, permitted differentiation of evaluations, testing and implementation of new evaluation systems, parent involvement and on costs of the new system.
• Sept. 1, 2011 – State board adopts rules to implement the new system.
• Nov. 11, 2011 – Deadline for the Colorado Department of Education to make available to districts a resource bank of assessments, processes, tools and policies that can be used to develop evaluation systems.
• Feb. 15, 2012 – Deadline for legislators to review the state board’s rules. The legislature may veto individual rules.
• May 1, 2012 – Deadline for the state board to submit revised versions of any vetoed rules.
• 2011-12 school year – Department works with school districts to develop evaluation systems.
• 2012-13 – New evaluation system will be tested.
• January 2013 – Council makes recommendations on permanent evaluation appeals processes directly to the legislature.
• 2013-14 – New system rolled out statewide.
• Aug. 1, 2014 – Districts shall adopt incentive systems that encourage effective teachers in high-performing schools to move to low-performing ones.
• 2014-15 – Final implementation to be done in this school year.

The players

• State Council for Educator Effectiveness – It has 15 appointed members and is part of the governor’s office. Membership includes two executive branch officials, four teachers, one superintendent and two administrators, one charter school representative, one parent, one student or recent graduate and one education policy expert. (The council already has started work under terms of the executive order that created it originally.)
• The council is allowed to create task forces, which can include non-members, and is to make its recommendations by consensus vote.
• State Board of Education – Board members are elected from the state’s seven congressional districts. It currently has four Republicans and three Democrats, although there has been little or no partisan divide in the last couple of years. Three seats, two held by Republicans and one by a Democrat, are up the election his year.
• Governor’s Office – Gov. Bill Ritter, who started the ball rolling with an executive order creating the original effectiveness council, isn’t running for re-election. Democrat John Hickenlooper and Republican Scott McInnis are considered the leading candidates to replace him.
• Legislature – Democrats current hold majorities in both houses. All 65 House seats and 19 of 35 Senate seats are on the ballot this year.

Costs

• $237,869 in 2010-11 and $242,587 in 2011-12 to pay for three CDE staff members. If federal funds aren’t obtained, an existing CDE contingency fund will be tapped. If that doesn’t have enough money, the State Education Fund may be used.
• A May 11 legislative staff analysis concluded: “There is no immediate fiscal impact to districts; however, the bill will certainly require that districts begin to modify their evaluation process, and devote additional time and resources to teacher and implementation in FY 2014-15.”
• The law also creates a Great Teachers and Leaders Fund, which can accept federal grants and outside donations, to help pay for implementation. The department is allowed to stop work on implementation if funding is insufficient.

- Text of the bill (Capitalized text denotes new law. Note the explanation about what shading and underlining mean in order to track where amendments were made.)

Gov. Bill Ritter talked about the 2010 legislative session during a May 13, 2010, news conference.

“Other states are looking at this,” Ritter said at a post-session news conference. “States around the country ultimately will go the direction we took with SB 191.”

The governor said the bill was “such a significant reform that built on a lot of other things we’ve done.” He called it the “capstone” of “major education reforms” enacted during the last four legislative sessions, including the 2008 Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids.

Asked about the fact that all the reforms have long implementation schedules, Ritter said, “I don’t think we’re going to lose steam.” (He isn’t running for a second term.)

“This is a difficult conversation, but at the end of the day you can’t back off on education to reform. … “Our national ability to compete is at risk.”

Asked about the potential for residual bad feelings between the Colorado Education Association and reform-minded Democrats, Ritter said, “I’m hopeful things will be repaired, but it will take time.”

He also cautioned that “we have to be careful” not to magnify the importance of tensions during two or three days when the bill was being debated in the House.

“The bill is a much better bill … than it was at the start,” Ritter said, noting the extensive amendments made in both the Senate and house.

“The CEA got to neutral. That was very helpful.”

But, Ritter didn’t seem overly concerned about the SB 10-191 battle. “You have to make difficult decisions.”

He also said there were reasons for late introduction of the bill, something that was criticized by some opponents.

“We began with an executive order. Part of that was determined by Race to the Top,” he said. He was referring to his January decision to create the Council on Educator Effectiveness just before the state filed its first (and ultimately unsuccessful) bid for R2T funds.

He said Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, introduced the bill late in the session (on April 12, a month before the session’s end) because “they wanted to see what happened in Race to the Top.”

And, Ritter said, the timing strategy for the 2010 session was to get Public Employees’ Retirement Association and energy legislation finished first. “Teacher tenure … came after those other big things, and that frankly helped with the other issues.”

The governor said he also was satisfied with the higher education flexibility legislation, Senate Bill 10-003. He called it “a decision point about what use we make of the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.” The bill gives CCHE the power over the next five years to decide whether colleges and universities can raise tuition higher than 9 percent.

The bill had adequate “sideboards” to protect students said Ritter, who long has been an advocate for college affordability.

“This was a great session,” Ritter said. “We accomplished everything we set out to accomplish. … I’m very proud.”

The Colorado legislature ended its 2010 regular session early Wednesday evening with the usual mix of chaos, frivolity, backslapping and hurried meetings, and with the usual dead bills.

There are always a few measures that die on the last day of the session because of House-Senate differences. Last year higher education flexibility legislation died on the last day; this year it was House Bill 10-1430, the CSAP bill.

What many thought in January would be a measure designed to clarify and expand on the testing changes mandated by the 2008 Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids turned out to be something quite different when introduced in the House on April 29.

The version by Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton, proposed to phase out high school CSAP tests starting next year and replace them college-and-workforce readiness assessments. The bill also would have shifted the responsibility for writing tests from the state to school districts. Some legislators, agencies and interest groups privately felt Solano had sidestepped them to continue her years-long anti-CSAP crusade.

The House passed her bill overwhelmingly. The Senate Education Committee returned the bill to its original pre-introduction version, and senators passed that 21-14 and sent it back to the House on the session’s last afternoon Wednesday.

Solano and the House requested a conference committee; the Senate declined. So, late in the day, Solano called on the House to stick to its version. That killed the bill.

Debate on CAP4K delay bill takes lively turn

The Senate voted 22-13 final approval for a little-discussed bill that pushes back some CAP4K deadlines, but there still was some lively debate on House Bill 10-1013 Wednesday afternoon.

On preliminary consideration Tuesday Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, slipped on an amendment that requires a certain district budget report be posted on district websites. (The original purpose of the bill was to clean up various school finance details in state law.)

That budget report, which goes by the name of CDE-18, has been a minor point of contention because the only organization that reportedly uses it is the Colorado Education Association. School districts and the Colorado Department of Education wanted to eliminate it; conservative Republicans have used the issue as an excuse for a little union bashing.

After a fight, the CDE-18 report was eliminated in another bill.

Sen. Keith King, R-Colorado Springs, on Friday objected to Romer’s maneuver. But, his attempt to extract CDE-18 from the bill was defeated by Democrats, some of whom voted against the CEA on the much bigger issue of educator effectiveness.

The most important part of the bill, the CAP4K delays, have been little noticed or discussed. The bill slips the upcoming Dec. 15 for adoption of a new state testing system “until financially practicable.”

Scholarship bill passes

Both houses Wednesday also approved House Bill 10-1428, which will transfer $15 million from the pending sale of a CollegeInvest loan portfolio to state financial aid for college students.

News of the pending sale broke late in the legislative session and offered lawmakers a rare chunk of unclaimed money to plug into higher education.

Romer on Tuesday night tried to tap $5 million for teacher professional development – seen as a sop to the CEA – but the Senate turned that idea down.

There was a brief flap Wednesday over minor House-Senate differences, but House sponsor Rep. Karen Middleton, D-Aurora, and the House backed down to avoid the measure experiencing the same fate as the CSAP bill.

In other action

Two low-profile but important charter school bills are headed to the governor after the House accepted Senate amendments and re-passed House Bills 10-1345 and 1412 Wednesday morning. The first would create a method for the state to intervene with charter schools in emergencies; the second creates a commission that will develop and recommend operational standards for both charter schools and for authorizers. HB 10-1345 was re-passed 62-3, and the HB 10-1412 vote was 64-1.

The House also already has accepted Senate amendments and voted 65-0 the re-pass House Bill 10-1274, the two-years-in-the-making measure that requires notification of schools when students are to return from treatment centers.

Use the Education Bill Tracker for links to bill texts, status information and a listing of all the education bills that were killed this year.

A few hours earlier the House voted 36-29 for the measure.

SB 10-191 cosponsors Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, (left) and Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centenntial, talked about the importance of the bill before the final Senate vote May 12, 2010.

In the Senate 13 of the body’s 21 Democrats voted yes. The original April 29 Senate vote was 21-14. Eight Democrats and the House’s one independent joined 27 Republicans in supporting the measure in that chamber. (List of Democrats who voted yes.)

Another education measure, House Concurrent Resolution 10-1002, failed on the House floor Wednesday. It’s the proposed constitutional amendment to allow the legislature to raise taxes for education without voter approval. It needed 44 votes, but the roll call was 35-30. (A companion measure, SCR 10-002, also died when the legislature adjourned Wednesday.)

Final passage of SB 10-191  makes 2010 the third year in which the legislature has passed major education legislation.

In 2008 lawmakers passed the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids, which set out a multi-year program of changing the state and local content standards, tests, high school graduation requirements and college entrance standards.

Last year the legislature approved the educator identifier bill and a measure that revamps the state system for accrediting districts and schools and for improving the most struggling schools.

All those reforms, especially CAP4K and SB 10-191, have long implementation times and uncertainties about how much they ultimately will cost to implement.

Senate supporters praise bill

Senators spoke for about 45 minutes on the bill before taking their final vote.

Sen. Michael Johnston, D-Denver, the driving force behind the measure, evoked the Tuskegee Airmen’s service in World War II as an event that changed views of race and said, “That’s the moment where we stand now in education.” Saying children must no longer be judged by the disadvantages they bring to school, “What matters to us is that every child gets across the finish line.

“We will absolutely measure our success by how many of those children get across the finish line. … We as adults will hold ourselves accountable.”

Sen. Nancy Spence, R-Centennial and Johnston’s Senate co-sponsor, said, “This bill is a game changer.”

Here’s a sampling of comment from other supporters:

• “This is truly an historic moment [but] the obligation for us is now to come through with the funding mechanisms that are needed.” – Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver
• “As the bill has gone through it has improved significantly.” – Sen. Suzanne Williams, D-Aurora, a former teacher who swung from opposition to support.
• “I think it is moving in the right direction.” – Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins and Senate Education Committee chair who previously opposed the bill. He also warned of funding challenges and called for greater parent and student accountability.
• “This has been a truly agonizing process.” – Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, a major force behind Senate amendments who vehemently said the state and its citizens now must step up to adequately fund schools.

The lone voice of opposition was Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, who has doggedly led the fight against the bill in the Senate.

“In my opinion the amendments made in the House don’t fix the fundamental problems” in the bill, including cost and expanded testing. She called changes to the bill “lipstick on a pig.”

Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, didn’t speak during previous debates, but he struck a nuanced note Wednesday. “The change in this bill is not as dramatic as it proponents hope nor as cataclysmic as its opponents fear. It is a moderate bill.”

The debate in the House

There was no debate on the House floor Wednesday on the educator effectiveness bill, but there was plenty of it Tuesday evening when it passed its big test on a preliminary vote.

Representatives huddled May 11, 2010, during a break in formal debate on SB 10-191.

That standing vote on SB 10-191 came at about 11:15 p.m., after hours of emotional debate and just 45 minutes before a midnight deadline for the decision.

Johnston, said, “I’m very pleased. … All of the core components of the bill are intact. I think Colorado took a courageous step in the right direction.” Johnston watched the latter part of the debate from the House gallery.

Bev Ingle, president of the Colorado Education Association, was somber after the vote, saying her group would have to evaluate the amendments before deciding its position on the bill. CEA has been the leading opponent of the measure. Ingle did say she was disappointed with the way the push for the bill was handled. “It didn’t have to be a power play.”

In a nuanced statement issued by CEA Wednesday, Ingle sounded resigned, writing, “This bill has been much improved” and going on to recount the union’s opposition to the bill and the reasons why.

She continued, “CEA will offer its assistance to the [Educator Effectiveness Council] and help it successfully complete its many charges. And we will also examine the bill and the various education processes it impacts. We will do everything we can to make this work for our teachers and our students.”

The bill passed on a standing House vote Tuesday.

Well more than a dozen amendments were proposed and debated, with most of the sponsors’ changes passed and opponents’ amendments defeated. Lengthy speeches and lots of questions from opponents propelled the debate for five and a half hours.

The key amendment proposed by sponsors raises the possibility of binding arbitration for teachers who lose tenure because of unsatisfactory evaluations but basically delays that decision until the 2013 legislative session.

A key defeat for opponents came just before 10 p.m. when the House turned back an amendment by Rep. Mike Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, that basically would have gutted the bill. Six or seven Democrats and the House one independent stood with Republicans to defeat the amendment.

The House had a midnight deadline to pass the bill on preliminary consideration because legislative rules require a final vote be held no sooner than the next calendar day. And, Wednesday is the last day of the 2010 session.

The debate started at about 6:45 p.m. – following more than an hour and a half of Democratic members orating at length on House Concurrent Resolution 10-1002, the proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the legislature to raise taxes for education spending without a citizen vote. Because such a resolution requires a two-thirds majority in each house to get on the ballot, it’s not expected to pass.

But, supporters of HCR 10-1002 used it to highlight their concerns about the troubled state of education funding in Colorado. And, the lengthy speeches were seen as a delaying tactic by opponents who at that point still considered trying to run out the clock. No Republicans spoke on HCR 10-1002. And, no GOP members except Rep. Carole Murray, D-Castle Rock and a co-prime sponsor, spoke on SB 10-191.

The split between Democrats on SB 10-191 was personified by Rep. Karen Middleton (left) and Rep. Nancy Todd. Both represent Aurora districts.

The debate was between Democrats.

The main opposition speakers were Democratic Reps. Merrifield, Nancy Todd of Aurora, Judy Solano of Brighton and Debbie Benefield of Arvada, the core of the traditionalist group on the House Education Committee. All but Benefield are retired teachers; she’s a longtime parent activist in Jefferson County.

They were assisted by Rep. Sarah Gagliardi, D-Arvada, a nurse who generally doesn’t have a high profile on education issues. Gagliardi seemed to have the assignment of asking sponsors to explain the meaning of proposed amendments in detail.

The speeches by Merrifield, Todd, Solano and Benefield alternated between emotional pleas and sharp attacks laced with sarcasm. They repeatedly quoted from letters and e-mails written by teachers opposed to the bill.

“This is not a teacher effectiveness bill. This is a measure-and-punish bill,” Merrifield said during his last of several turns at the podium.

Several other Democrats rose to speak against the bill at length.

But, Rep. Karen Middleton, D-Aurora and a former member of the State Board of Education, defended the bill and voted for it. At one point she rose to chide Rep. Max Tyler, D-Golden, who used an ill-considered analogy about a baker and maggoty flour to talk about teachers who have to deal with difficult students.

A chastened Tyler apologized for his remarks and withdrew an amendment he’d proposed.

Rep. Beth McCann, a Democratic lawyer whose district covers a wide swath of northeast Denver, spoke the most eloquently in support of the bill.

She agreed with critics concerned about the potential costs of the bill and the financial pressures facing schools. “We have to get real in this state and support public education with our money.”

But, McCann said, the bill may provide needed impetus for improved educator effectiveness, and, “These kids can’t wait.”

Co-prime sponsor Rep. Christine Scanlan, D-Dillon, and Murray kept their cool at the microphone under criticism of the bill, briefly explaining amendments and successfully urging defeat of hostile ones.

Negotiations went on for hours

Scanlan spent much of her afternoon out of the House chamber, working on amendments, conferring with House Speaker Terrance Carroll, D-Denver (and a bill supporter), and talking to lobbyists, Johnston and other legislative leaders.

Cluster of lobbyists grouped and regrouped in the House lobby and along the second-floor brass rails, conferring on proposed amendments and talking on their cell phones. Department of Education officials and more lobbyists watched the debate from the gallery.

An emotional Rep. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora, repeated her fears about SB 10-191 at the end of the long May 11 debate.

An emotional Todd returned to the microphone alone after the voting was done and as the House was about to adjourn.

The bill is “not a message of hope and encouragement for teachers. … I am so sad at the divisiveness this bill has caused in our state and legislature. … I do want you to hear my heart, because my heart is speaking for 40,000 teachers in the state of Colorado,” she said.

Interestingly enough, little of the discussion focused on the long timelines and multiple decision points that were amended into the bill by the Senate.

The existing Governor’s Council on Educator Effectiveness will develop definitions of teacher and principal effectiveness and is assigned with developing many other details of evaluation systems, cost and educator improvement. After the council is done, the State Board of Education will issue regulations, which will be subject to review by the legislature.

There will be testing of evaluation systems after that, with the full program not going into effect statewide for five years.

The amendment offered by the sponsors and added on the floor Tuesday directs the council to develop proposals for use of binding arbitration in the cases of teachers who lose non-probationary status because of unsatisfactory evaluations. The council will make its recommendations directly to the legislature, not to the state board.

CEA lobbyists said that amendment was important to them, but the union remains opposed to the bill pending review. But, the amendment is of concern to some school district interests.

However, the arbitration amendment was seen as the factor that ended the possibility of an attempted “filibuster” and allowed the debate and vote to go forward.

Measure sparked intense debate

The bill has generated an emotional, complex and sometimes over-simplified debate over how to measure teacher quality, whether standardized tests are an accurate measure, cuts in school funding, the wisdom of taking action this year, lack of parental involvement in schools, the political clout of the CEA and how teachers are treated in society.

Many opponents of the bill feel double-crossed by the measure because it would expand on and change the work of the council, a group created by executive order in January after agreement by a wide variety of education interests, including the CEA. The council was supposed to develop definitions of principal and teacher effectiveness and make recommendations to the legislature and State Board of Education by the fall of 2011.

The bill would give the council additional duties and put its functions into state law. A key feature of both the executive order and the bill is the requirement that 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation be based on student academic growth over time. The bill also applies that standard to principals. And, the bill specifies that growth will be measured by a variety of assessments, not just the annual CSAP.

The bill also requires mutual consent between a principal and a teacher for placement in a school, although a House committee amendment requires a principal consult with other teachers in a school. The bill also make satisfactory evaluations a factor in layoffs, and for the first time would require non-probationary teachers to return to probation after two unsatisfactory evaluations.

That, and cost, have been a major sticking point for CEA and led to amendments that would give teachers some appeal rights in cases of unsatisfactory evaluations.

While CEA and a large corps of Democratic legislators have led the charge against the bill, it’s been endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers-Colorado, the Colorado associations of school boards and school executives, the Colorado Children’s Campaign, the state board, education Commissioner Dwight Jones, Ritter and his three immediate predecessors and numerous business, education and community groups.

Some supporters hope passage of the bill will improve Colorado’s chance in the second-round Race to the Top competition, but the sponsors have been downplaying the importance of that.

Democrats who voted yes

Senate

Democrats who voted for the bill on final passage Wednesday were Bob Bacon of Fort Collins, Joyce Foster of Denver, Dan Gibbs of Silverthorne, Rollie Heath of Boulder, Mary Hodge of Brighton, Mike Johnston of Denver, Majority Leader John Morse of Colorado springs, Linda Newell of Denver, Chris Romer of Denver, President Brandon Shaffer of Boulder, Pat Steadman of Denver, Abel Tapia of Pueblo and Suzanne Williams of Aurora.

Bacon, Morse, Shaffer, Steadman, Tapia and Williams voted no when the Senate first passed the bill on April 29.

House

The Democratic representatives who voted yes were co-prime sponsor Christine Scanlan of Dillon, Karen Middleton of Aurora and Joe Rice of Littleton, plus Denver representatives Lois Court, Mark Ferrandino, Jeanne Labuda, Beth McCann and House Speaker Terrance Carroll. Independent Kathleen Curry of Gunnison, a former Democrat, also voted yes.

Ferrandino and Rep. Jim Riesberg, D-Greeley, provided the votes needed to get the bill out of the House Appropriations Committee on a 7-6 vote last Friday. Riesberg voted no on the bill Wednesday.

Do your homework

• Bill as initially passed by Senate
• House Education Committee amendments
• House Appropriation Committee amendments
• House floor amendments (start on page 1794)

Teacher effectiveness

After an emotional and sometimes angry hearing, the House Appropriations Committee voted 7-6 to pass Senate Bill 10-191, the controversial educator evaluation and tenure bill, to the House floor for preliminary consideration.

But, House Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, announced late in the afternoon that the would be heard on the floor Tuesday to give it sufficient time for debate and because amendments still were being drafted. (The House also had a social function Monday evening – the annual “Hummers” show in which members of the minority party spoof the majority.)

That means the House couldn’t take a final vote until Wednesday, the last day of the session, if the bill passes preliminary consideration on Tuesday. House-Senate differences also would have to be resolved on the last day.

Democratic appropriations members Mark Ferrandino of Denver and Jim Riesberg of Greeley joined the committee’s five Republicans to pass the bill out of committee. SB 10-191 passed the House Education Committee last Thursday on an equally slim 7-6 margin.

Ferrandino, the son of two school teachers who recounted his personal story of being a special education student, choked up and began to cry as he said he was going to vote for the bill. “I’ve spent a lot of time looking at this bill. … This is a difficult bill for me.”

Appropriations Chair Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, was scathing in his criticism of both the Colorado Department of Education and of some business backers of the bill.

He accused CDE of changing its story about its financial condition, claiming earlier in the year that its budget was severely stressed yet now saying it can fund the initial costs of SB 10-191 from a department contingency fund if federal grants don’t come through.

“You tricked me,” Pommer said to Associate Commissioner Rich Wenning. Pommer noted that he’s leaving the House because of term limits, but “I think a top-to-bottom look at your funding would be appropriate.”

Pommer also had harsh words for business groups that support the bill, pointedly noting that some of them opposed elimination of tax exemptions Pommer sponsored earlier in the session. “When I looked at the list of supporters in the paper it turned my stomach,” Pommer said.

Democratic Reps. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst of Boulder, Sal Pace of Pueblo and Joel Judd of Denver also had harsh things to say about the bill.

Wenning and sponsors Rep. Christine Scanlan, D-Dillion, and Carole Murrary, R-Castle Rock, remained composed under the criticism during the 35-minute hearing.

CSAP bill gets a whole new look

The Senate Senate Education Committee Monday gutted House Bill 10-1430, the measure that would have eliminated high school CSAP tests starting in the 9th grade next school year and also would have made writing tests a district, not a state responsibility.

The panel voted 6-2 for the new version, proposed by Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, to replace the version proposed by Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton, and passed by the full House 47-16 last Thursday.

The new version reportedly is close to the provisions agreed to by several interest groups last March before Solano redid it. The Department of Education strongly opposed Solano’s proposals, saying they would be costly and would disrupt the department’s data system.

The Senate version basically expands on the plan for replacing the CSAPs that’s already contained in the 2008 Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids. It stresses that schools need to use formative and interim tests in addition to the annual “summative” tests. The bill sets July 1, 2013, deadline for ending the current CSAP system but gives the State Board of Education flexiblilty in meeting the testing-adoption deadline originally contained in CAP4K.

Tuition and flexibility bill passes easily

The House voted 56-8 for final pasage of Senate Bill 10-003, the bill that creates a five-year program under which state colleges and universities can raise tuition up to 9 percent a year and apply to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education for larger hikes.

The bill also gives colleges greater control over allocation of state financial aid and exemption from some state financial and purchasing rules. (See this story for details on the bill’s provisions.)

There are some minor House-Senate differences that need to be resolved, but this bill is basically done. The bill passed the House 34-1.

Romer loses two

Senate Bill 10-210, the recently introduced bill that would have allowed a pilot rewards-for-reading program funded by the Read-to-Achieve program, failed on a 5-8 vote Monday in the House Education Committee. The panel then postponed it indefinitely.

The Senate State Affairs Committee voted 5-0 to lay over Senate Concurrent Resolution 10-004 – until July 4, long after the legislative session ends. This was the proposed keno-for-colleges constitutional amendment.

Both were pushed by Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver. Romer also unsuccessfully proposed Senate Bill 10-215, a different, non-constitutional proposal to expand gambling to fund college scholarships. That was killed in Senate Ed on May 5.

Romer argued that the 2010 legislature needed to do something about looming higher ed financial shortfalls in the 2011-12 school year, ahead of the seating of a new governor and legislature in January 2011.

For the record

Here’s a rundown of what lawmakers did Monday on other education-related measures:

• House Bill 10-1274 – Notification of schools when students return from residential treatment, 35-0 final Senate passage.
• House Bill 10-1131 – Creation of Kids Outdoors grant program, passed Senate 24-11
• Senate Bill 10-064 – Simplification of college stipend application, Senate preliminary approval
• Senate Bill 10-202 – Creation of CollegeInvest job-training accounts and allowing tax deductable employer matches – House preliminary approval
• Senate Bill 10-161 – Charter school collaboratives, House preliminary approval

Use the Education Bill Tracker for links to bill texts and state information.

Democratic Reps. Christine Scanlan of Dillon (a prime sponsor) and Karen Middleton of Aurora voted for Senate Bill 10-191, along with all five committee Republicans.

The early hours of the House Education Committee's May 6 hearing on Senate Bill 10-191 played to a packed house at the Capitol.

Voting no were Democratic Reps. Debbie Benefield of Arvada, Cherilyn Peniston of Westminster, Judy Solano of Brighton, Sue Schafer of Wheat Ridge, Nancy Todd of Aurora and chair Mike Merrifield of Colorado Springs.

Some of them, particularly Solano and Todd, had sometimes-harsh comments about the bill, the process of drafting it, standardized testing and about the whole course of Colorado education reform in recent years. All are former teachers except Benefield, a longtime parent activist.

“I can’t support a bill that I think is an insult to my profession,” said Merrifield, a retired music teacher serving his last session in the legislature.

“This bill has nothing to do with improving the effectiveness of teachers,” said Solano. “This bill scapegoats teachers for all the inadequacies of public education.”

Scanlan, a former Summit County school board member, defended the proposal in her closing remarks. “I believe it’s what we need to do. I believe it will make the difference we’re seeking for our kids. I believe it’s the start of a new era.”

Key amendments added by the committee included:

• Teacher effectiveness, then seniority, will be considered when layoffs are made.
• Non-probationary teachers with good evaluations can carry their non-probationary status to other districts, although that won’t necessarily affect pay.
• Teachers as well as the principal will participate in the mutual consent process for teacher placement that the bill would mandate.
• A strengthened appeals process for teachers who receive ineffective evaluations.
• Costs for the initial steps of implementing the law will be covered by a Department of Education contingency fund, if federal funding, such as Race to the Top money, isn’t available.

The bill requires that 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation be based on student academic growth, measured by multiple assessment. Merrifield proposed an amendment proposes a figure on one-third but then withdrew the idea, saying he’ll likely propose it during floor debate.

The committee decision came at the end of an 11-hour meeting, 10 hours of which were devoted to testimony, debate and – at times – high emotion on SB 10-191.

Both sides mustered teachers and parents to speak for their sides, some telling personal stories. Administrators and business leaders supported the bill. There even was testimony from people who weren’t there.

Merrifield read a letter from education scholar and author Diane Ravitch, who wrote, “Colorado can’t fire its way to better teachers.”

Laurie Hirschfeld Zeller, president of A+ Denver, read a letter from former Denver Mayor Fedrico Peña, who had testified passionately at the Senate Education Committee hearing on the bill.

“I’m so sorry Federico wasn’t here because I was armed and ready for him,” Merrifield said.

The last witness, Associate Commissioner Rich Wenning of the Colorado Department of Education, took the brunt of sharp comments from committee critics but cooly defended the bill.

“We are dealing with a major systemic reform. … It’s really comparable to the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids. … Statutes catalyze change.”

The bill must go to the House Appropriations Committee before it can go to the floor. It’s expected to be heard in committee Monday and, if passed, on the floor shortly thereafter. Lawmakers have a Wednesday adjournment deadline.

While the bill has broad support among education reform groups, business leaders, the state Board of Education, Commissioner Dwight Jones and Gov. Bill Ritter, the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is strongly opposed.

The American Federation of Teachers-Colorado, which represents Douglas County teachers, came out in support of the bill this week. Its witnesses led off the marathon testimony session that started at 1:30 Thursday afternoon. Testimony from dozens of witnesses lasted more than eight hours.

Interest groups on both sides have lobbied this issue heavily with e-mails and personal contact with lawmakers. The CEA is a traditional contributor to Democratic legislative candidates, giving it a certain amount of clout. The union has been running radio ads, and groups supporting the bill ran a full-page ad in a Denver newspaper Thursday morning.

Both sides also have carefully selected their witnesses for the hearings in the House and Senate education committees. (Many of the witnesses at Thursday’s House hearing were repeaters from the earlier hearing before the Senate Education Committee.)

Sponsored by a bipartisan team of senators and representatives, the major provisions of the bill would create new teacher and principal evaluation systems and tie evaluations to gaining – and losing – non-probationary status.

The bill is similar to legislation being discussed in other states and is part of a national push for reforms in educator evaluations. Some observers feel passing the bill could help Colorado’s bid for round two of Race to the Top.

If passed, the system wouldn’t fully go into effect until 2014-15, after a lengthy process of development by the already-existing Governor’s Council on Educator Effectiveness, issuance of rules by the State Board of Education, legislative review and two years of development and testing.

(The council was created by a governor’s executive order in January and assigned to develop definitions of teacher and principal effectiveness, study other issues of educator effectiveness and make recommendations to the legislature. SB 10-191 basically retains that role for the council but adds specific policy guidelines for evaluation and tenure and creates larger roles for the state board and the legislature. The council has met twice and already is working on effectiveness definitions.)

The bill would require annual teacher and principal evaluations (more frequently than generally is done now) and tying 50 percent of the evaluations to student academic growth. The state Department of Education would assist school districts in developing a variety of student assessments in addition the annual statewide CSAP tests. (The CSAPS, scheduled to be replaced in a few years, don’t cover all grades or all subjects, requiring additional kinds of tests if all teachers are to be evaluated based partly on student growth.)

The bill also would require that tenure be earned after three consecutive years of effectiveness as determined by evaluations. Tenured teachers could be returned to probation if they didn’t have good evaluations for two years. (This part of the bill is particularly worrisome to CEA, which feels it would take away due-process rights for non-probationary teachers and expose them to removal by administrators who unfairly use bad evaluations.)

The bill also would require the mutual consent for placement of teachers in specific schools and establishes procedures for handling teachers who aren’t placed. It also specifies that evaluations can be considered when layoffs are made, in addition to seniority. (CEA doesn’t like this part of the bill either.)

A Senate amendment would create an appeal right for non-probationary teachers who receive unsatisfactory evaluations, although the bill’s sponsors intend that detailed appeal procedures would be left up to district-union contract negotiations.

The bill also includes external factors that could be considered in evaluations, such as student mobility, the percentage of at-risk students in a school and numbers of special education students.

Once state standards for evaluation are in place, local school districts would be required to “meet or exceed” those standards in their evaluation systems.

The bill estimates about $240,000 in administrative costs for each of the next two years.

CEA has expressed a strong preference for a different process for changing the current system. Once definitions of effectiveness are created, then a new evaluation system should be set up and tested. Only after that, the CEA believes, should the decision be made about how to use the evaluation system in probation, school placement and layoff decisions.

The union also has raised concerns about the potential costs of effective and fair new evaluation systems, both for the state and for school districts.

• Text of the bill as passed by the Senate but before House Ed amendments

• Texts of amendments adopted by House Ed

And, colleges could ask the Colorado Commission on Higher Education for permission to impose larger hikes.

The House Education Committee Thursday took 15 minutes to discuss and vote 12-0 for SB 10-003, a key piece of higher education legislation this year.

The bill also would give colleges greater freedom in allocation of financial aid and in managing their financial affairs.

Legislators and higher education leaders argue that the bill is needed to help institutions weather the continued financial challenges facing the state system, challenges that state government currently has little spare money to cushion.

But, state higher education chief Rico Munn told the committee Thursday, “This by no means fixes the issues that face higher education.”

Rep. Karen Middleton, D-Aurora and a prime sponsor, said, “I am fully committed to seeing us find a sustainable source of funding for P-20 education. I believe the will of the Colorado voters will allow us to do that … probably next year.”

Middleton said the legislature has “no choice” but to pass SB 10-003 in the current fiscal environment.

There was a non-substantive but somewhat wordy discussion on the floor Friday. The House easily turned down a proposed amendment by Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, to abolish the system of College Opportunity Fund stipends and return to direct state funding of colleges.

The best quote of the discussion came from Rep. Cheri Gerou, R-Evergreen, who praised Middleton and Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, for helping corral competing higher ed interests behind the bill. “It’s like trying tro play whack-a-mole to keep everybody happy on this. … What I think we’re going to see is a renaissance in higher education in Colorado.”

The measure had passed the House 34-1 on Wednesday.

Here’s a rundown of the bill’s major provisions:

• Starting in the 2011-12 school year, college boards would have the power to set tuition rates as they chose, but increases above 9 percent for resident undergraduates would have to be approved by CCHE.

• To get CCHE approval, a school would have to provide a multi-year financial and accountability plan detailing the amount of the increase, how access and affordability would be maintained for low- and middle-income students, details on how the school is implementing flexibility in fiscal rules and how the school is ensuring levels of services and academic quality.

(These two provisions pretty much mirror the Ritter administration position as developed by the CCHE and the Higher Education Strategic Planning Steering Committee.)

• No later than next Nov. 10, colleges would have to give the CCHE and the Joint Budget Committee plans for how they would handle a possible 50 percent cut in state support in 2011-12.

• The CCHE would continue to determine the overall amount of state financial aid each institution receives, but individual colleges would have more flexibility to allocate that aid among their students. The state auditor would review access and affordability during its biennial reviews of state colleges and universities. (Supporters of the bill argue that recent increases in federal financial aid cover low-income students but that colleges need more flexibility to provide aid to middle-income students.)

• Colleges and universities would be allowed to set their own financial rules, be exempt from state central purchasing requirements, manage their own debts and contracts, receive additional freedom to manage construction projects and real estate transactions and greater flexibility in rehiring retired employees than is allowed in state government overall. (College presidents have been pushing for these financial flexibility provisions for more than a year, although they repeatedly stress that such flexibility alone won’t solve all of the system’s financial challenges.)

• The higher education strategic plan now being developed by an appointed committee and four advisory panels would have to be submitted by next Dec. 15.

• CU and CSU would be given greater flexibility to enroll more foreign students (who generally are full-pay students). The original bill gave the Colorado School of Mines total freedom to set tuition. An amendment added in the Senate puts Mines under the overall tuition plan but would give it full flexibility after that.

Higher education funding, which unlike some other state programs isn’t protected by any requirements of the state constitution or federal law, has taken major funding hits during both recessions in the last decade.

Total higher education revenue for this school year, last year and for 2010-11 is stable at just under $2 billion a year. For next year the state is providing just under $600 million. College and university budgets have been maintained only with federal stimulus money (which runs out after 2010-11) and tuition increases.

Some legislative leaders have warned that state budget challenges in 2011-12 could force a $300 million cut in aid to higher ed.