General Assembly Raised Bill No. 440
February Session, 2010 LCO No. 2113
*02113_______ED_*
Referred to Committee on Education
Introduced by:
(ED)
General Assembly
Raised Bill No. 440
February Session, 2010
LCO No. 2113
*02113_______ED_*
Referred to Committee on Education
Introduced by:
(ED)
AN ACT CONCERNING SCHOOL DISTRICTS AND TEACHER PERFORMANCE PROGRAMS.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
Section 1. Section 10-10a of the 2010 supplement to the general statutes is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof (Effective July 1, 2010):
(a) As used in this section:
(1) "Educator" means any certified professional employee below the rank of superintendent employed by a local or regional board of education for at least ninety days in a position requiring a certificate issued by the State Board of Education;
(2) "Educator preparation program" means a planned sequence of experiences provided by colleges and universities designed to qualify an individual for professional certification as an educator, including, but not limited to, an alternate route to certification program;
(3) "Effective teacher" means a certified teacher whose students achieve acceptable rates of student growth, as calculated by the data collected pursuant to subsection (c) of this section;
(4) "Highly effective teacher" means a certified teacher whose students achieve high rates of student growth, as calculated by the data collected pursuant to subsection (c) of this section;
(5) "Effective principal" means a certified principal whose students achieve acceptable rates of student growth, as calculated by the data collected pursuant to subsection (c) of this section;
(6) "Highly effective principal" means a principal whose students achieve high rates of student growth, as calculated by the data collected pursuant to subsection (c) of this section.
[(a)] (b) The Department of Education shall develop and implement a state-wide public school information system. The system shall be designed for the purpose of establishing a standardized electronic data collection and reporting protocol that will facilitate compliance with state and federal reporting requirements, improve school-to-school and district-to-district information exchanges, and maintain the confidentiality of individual student and staff data. The initial design shall focus on student information, provided the system shall be created to allow for future compatibility with financial, facility and staff data. The system shall provide for the tracking of the performance of individual students on each of the state-wide mastery examinations under section 10-14n in order to allow the department to compare the progress of the same cohort of students who take each examination and to better analyze school performance. The department shall assign a unique student identifier to each student prior to tracking the performance of a student in the public school information system.
(c) On or before July 1, 2012, the department shall, within available appropriations, expand the state-wide public school information system to perform the following functions:
(1) Link high school student performance data to postsecondary school performance data to provide information about public school student performance in post-secondary education;
(2) Connect the state-wide public school information system with the data systems of public and independent institutions of higher education in the state;
(3) Assign unique identifiers to all public school educators for purposes of monitoring student performance in preschool, elementary and secondary schools;
(4) Assign unique identifiers to each educator preparation program and attach such unique identifier to the unique identifier for a public school educator who has completed such educator preparation program; and
(5) Collect student transcript information, such as information regarding courses completed and grades received.
(d) Not later than July 1, 2013, and annually thereafter, the department shall make available the following information: (1) The percentage of educators who completed an educator preparation program and are employed by a local or regional board of education as teachers in the state, who (A) have been classified as effective teachers, and (B) have been classified as highly effective teachers; and (2) the percentage of educators who completed an educator preparation program and are employed by a local or regional board of education as principals in the state, who (A) have been classified as effective principals, and (B) have been classified as highly effective principals.
[(b)] (e) The system database of student information shall not be considered a public record for the purposes of section 1-210. Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the ability of a full-time permanent employee of a nonprofit organization that is exempt from taxation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, or any subsequent corresponding internal revenue code of the United States, as from time to time amended, and that is organized and operated for educational purposes, to obtain information in accordance with the provisions of subsection [(e)] (h) of this section.
[(c)] (f) All school districts shall participate in the system, provided the department provides for technical assistance and training of school staff in the use of the system.
[(d)] (g) Local and regional boards of education and preschool programs which receive state or federal funding shall participate, in a manner prescribed by the Commissioner of Education, in the state-wide public school information system described in subsection [(a)] (b) of this section. Participation for purposes of this subsection shall include, but not be limited to, reporting on (1) student experiences in preschool by program type and by numbers of months in each such program, and (2) the readiness of students entering kindergarten and student progress in kindergarten. Such reporting shall be done by October 1, 2007, and annually thereafter.
[(e)] (h) On and after August 1, 2009, upon receipt of a written request to access data maintained under this section by a full-time permanent employee of a nonprofit organization that is exempt from taxation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, or any subsequent corresponding internal revenue code of the United States, as from time to time amended, and that is organized and operated for educational purposes, the Department of Education shall provide such data to such requesting party not later than sixty days after such request, provided such requesting party shall be responsible for the reasonable cost of such request. The Department of Information Technology shall monitor the calculation of such fees charged for access to or copies of such records to ensure that such fees are reasonable and consistent with those charged by other state agencies. The Department of Education shall respond to written requests under this section in the order in which they are received.
This act shall take effect as follows and shall amend the following sections:
Section 1 July 1, 2010 10-10a
This act shall take effect as follows and shall amend the following sections:
Section 1
July 1, 2010
10-10a
Statement of Purpose:
To expand the state-wide public school information system to collect and analyze measures of student growth for purposes of monitoring teacher effectiveness.
[Proposed deletions are enclosed in brackets. Proposed additions are indicated by underline, except that when the entire text of a bill or resolution or a section of a bill or resolution is new, it is not underlined.]