SB 19-247: Educator Performance Evaluation System Requirements (Prime Sponsors)

Under existing law, each licensed teacher receives a written evaluation, at least 50% of which must be based on student academic growth. Under the bill, 30% of the evaluation must be based on student academic growth and at least 20% on other measures determined by the school district board of education or the board of cooperative services to support student, educator, and system success. The bill creates a working group consisting of the commissioner of education, or his or her designee, several members appointed by the governor who represent teachers, administrators, parents, students, and education policy experts, and 6 legislators appointed by legislative leadership. The working group shall review the implementation of educator performance evaluation systems in Colorado and in other states and countries, identify best practices in performance evaluation, and make recommendations to the general assembly and the state board of education to improve the implementation and use of performance evaluations. The working group must complete its report by November 1, 2019, and submit it to the state board of education and the education committees of the general assembly. The department of education will post the report on the department's website. The working group is repealed, effective July 1, 2020. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)  

This bill was originally designed to support changes to evaluation system in order to reduce over-reliance on high stakes test for educator evaluations and shift the evaluation cycle to reduce red tape and paperwork while supporting more time for meaningful and actionable feedback.  CEA strongly supported this bill and worked with bill sponsors as well as variety of stakeholders to try and create meaningful updates to improve the educator evaluation system--THANK YOU to the SENATE and HOUSE prime sponsors for carrying this bill.

NOTE: CEA is scoring only the prime sponsors for introducing and pushing for these changes. The bill was "laid over" without any official votes to score legislators.