Senate education plan sent for debate

DES MOINES - Senate Democrats moved their education reform plan through the committee level Wednesday on a party-line vote after Republicans offered criticism, but no amendments, to the bill.

“We didn't have the time,” said Sen. Hamerlinck, R-Dixon, ranking member of the education committee. He said the Democrats pushed their plan through in three days, and he accused education committee chairman Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, of “wasting our time for eight weeks.”

Quirmbach said the bill is “a work in progress,” and he would be happy to consider any amendments from the Republicans when the plan gets to the Senate floor.

The Senate reform proposal was released Monday, moved through a subcommittee Tuesday and passed the education committee Wednesday to send it to the floor for debate. By contrast, the House plan was released in January, and House members held five subcommittee and two committee meetings before approving it Tuesday night. Gov. Terry Branstad's reform plan was outlined in October and released in January.

Unlike the House proposal, which amends portions of Branstad's plan, the Senate version scraps the governor's reform package entirely and replaces it with a significantly smaller bill.

The committee made some tweaks to the Senate plan Wednesday that fell along party lines, but it kept the major components intact. Among the provisions of the Senate plan are:

- A proposal that students could not get more than 50 percent of their coursework delivered over the Internet unless they get waivers from their home school districts and consent from their parents. That's a change from the earlier version of the bill that said “not more than 20 percent” for open-enrolled students.

- The commission of a study to see whether grade-point average requirements for prospective teachers need to be raised to 3.0, as proposed by Branstad.

- An annual review requirement for teachers, with two of those reviews by peer instead of supervisors. Current law requires a review every three years. The Branstad proposal requires annual supervisor reviews.

Phil Wise, a lobbyist with the Iowa Department of Education, told the committee that the Senate plan doesn't address student assessment and asked that senators include something in that regard before they vote on the full plan.

“We're making a start on what's going to be a long path in this chamber and the other one,” Quirmbach said. “There are going to be plenty of amendments and discussion and then we have to bring the two (bills) together.”