During this session of the legislature, Rep. Mark Anderson (R-LD18) sponsored HB2382, a bill that would remove the limits on fees charged to teachers for their certification/recertification tests. Currently, for tests administered by the state, those fees are capped at around $25; however, because of previous legislation, private companies can and do charge whatever they want to charge for the tests they administer.
Frequently, the fees charged by private companies extend into the hundred of dollars, so in essence, the low-tax mavens of the Republican Party were wholeheartedly supporting a massive tax increase on teachers. They were able to sell it to themselves by calling it a 'fee' instead of a 'tax'; well, that and the fact that it was targeted at public employees and not their corporate base.
Rep. Anderson defended the bill by saying that it wasn't his (of course, he was the only sponsor). He stated that the bill was brought to him state Board of Education. Apparently the Board of Ed didn't like the idea that the most of the costs of the state-mandated tests would be borne by the state; specifically the Board of Ed. It was so unfair that they wanted someone else to pick up the tab.
Scanning about for a likely patsy, they immediately focused on the teachers themselves. They were the one group that had no choice about the tests - they have to take them to obtain and keep their jobs.
If Rep. Anderson was telling the truth about this, he was just fronting this abomination for Tom Horne and the Board of Ed. [For you non-AZ types, Tom Horne is the State Superintendant of Public Instruction.]
Note the use of the past tense - this 'terrible'* bill was killed twice in the House. On March 13, it failed on a vote of 26 - 31; it was reconsidered on March 15, and promptly failed 21 - 38.
That should have been the end of it; not only did it go down to defeat in the House twice before reaching the Senate, the second margin of defeat was significantly larger than the first.
However, like bad sushi, it's come up again.
The K-12 Budget Reconciliation Act for the Senate budget proposal, SB1094 (don't bother with the original text; check the Senate strike-everything amendment under 'adopted amendments') contains the following language (small, red, italicized print was actually struck through in the source; blue text denotes proposed revisions. I haven't figured out how to do strike through text in a Blogger post.) -
3. Administration and evaluation of the examination on the Constitutions of the United States and Arizona, not less than six dollars and not more than twelve dollars for regularly scheduled administrations and not less than twelve dollars and not more than
twenty dollars for administrations other than regularly scheduled administrations. Fees for the examination on the Constitutions of the United States and Arizona shall not exceed the fees assessed by the test publisher.
4. Administration and evaluation of the reading, grammar and mathematics proficiency examination for applicants for teaching certificates, not less than ten dollars and not more than twenty dollars. Fees for the proficiency examination shall not exceed the fees assessed by the test publisher.
During the bright light of day and legislative scrutiny, this terrible (oops - there's that word again. :) ) bill stunk like week-old fish; so much so that it failed twice. Sneaking it into the budget and hoping that no one notices it doesn't give it the aroma of spring lilacs in bloom.
If you're a teacher, or just know one, call or email your legislators and let them know that you believe this language should be removed from the budget act. Do it soon.
Senate roster with contact info here; House roster here.
During the coming week, I'll try to take a look at all of the budget reconciliation bills to see if there are more instances of this kind of chicanery.
"If"?? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
* - This is the bill that Rep. David Schapira called "terrible" while it was under reconsideration on March 15; he was promptly admonished by House Speaker Pro Tem Bob Robson for using an offensively strong term to describe the bill. Wonder what Rep. Robson thinks of the word 'abomination'??
Note - I chronicled the initial defeat of HB2382 during the post about my March 13th visit to the state lege with Bob Mings.
Later!
1 comment:
Thank you. As an educator, I appreciate that there are folks out there that understand what teachers have to put up with. Certification rules and regulations have changed dramatically over the pst couple of years. Due to NCLB and AZ dept of Ed, teachers must now take subject area tests in order to kep jobs that they have successfully done for years.
I wish we had a common sense test for all legislators, as well has test related to the specific committees that the legislators serve on. Maybe then we could weed out the morons from the east valley
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