Teacher effectiveness—the number one in-school factor determining student learning—is critical to education reform. In January 2010 the Illinois State Legislature passed a significant education reform law tying educators’ evaluations to improvements in student achievement (the Performance Evaluation Reform Act). Last month the legislature passed Senate Bill 7, incorporating performance into personnel decisions to ensure the most effective teachers are placed and remain in the classroom. S.B. 7 represents a bipartisan legislative package negotiated by legislators, the State Board of Education, education reform groups, teachers’ unions, and school management. This is an encouraging example of unions collaborating with management to support changes in teacher tenure, dismissal, layoffs, and strikes.
Join the Center for American Progress for a conversation of the process and collaboration involved in creating this major education reform legislation with key stakeholders. Discussants will consider implications and applications for federal policy. We will launch the conversation with a case study of the evolution and enactment of S.B. 7 by Elliot Regenstein, and will also release a new publication by Saul Rubinstein and John McCarthy on how six public school systems instituted reforms through union-management collaboration.
Presenter:
Elliot Regenstein, Partner, EducationCounsel LLC
Featured stakeholders:
Senator Kimberly Lightford, Illinois State Legislature
Audrey Soglin, Executive Director, Illinois Education Association
Jonathan Furr, Partner, Holland & Knight LLP
Darren Reisberg, Deputy Superintendent & General Counsel, Illinois State Board of Education
Moderator:
John Luczak, Education Program Manager, the Joyce Foundation
Featured discussants:
Brad Jupp, Senior Program Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Education
Michele McLaughlin, Senior Education Policy Advisor, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
Moderator:
Cynthia G. Brown, Vice President for Education Policy, Center for American Progress