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ON THE TABLE THIS SESSION

WHERE WE'RE AT

Gov. Terry Branstad's signing of the 2013 Education Reform Act this summer took a lot of policy issues out of the Capitol and shifted them to the Department of Education, which has to carry the policy out.
New Department of Education Director Brad Buck is responsible for making sure local school districts understand and abide by the many changes in state statute.
There also are five active citizen committees meeting that made or will make recommendations to the Legislature on some of the act's more controversial components - such as setting up a uniform statewide testing standard for students and evaluation processes for teachers.
In the Statehouse, lawmakers are expected to consider another anti-bullying bill coming from the governor's office and the Board of Regents has indicated it can freeze tuition for another year if it gets at least a 4 percent increase in state dollars.

The citizen committees have reports due at different times, but none - with one caveat - later than the Council on Educator Development, which has a Nov. 15, 2016, deadline for its recommendations to the Legislature. The caveat is the Commission on Educator Leadership and Compensation, which is set to issue annual reports.
Expect an anti-bullying bill to come out early from the governor's office, but where it will move from there - last year's version was never called for a vote in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives - is anybody's guess.
Funding for the state's public universities can go down to the wire, but with a tuition freeze on the table, it's likely the governor and the legislative leaders will give some signal if that's doable earlier in the process.

PROSPECTS FOR PROGRESS

How the Legislature reacts to the earliest recommendations from the citizen committees - two separate task force reports and the annual report from the Commission on Educator Leadership and Compensation were due in December - could set the tone for later recommendations from the group.
Branstad has held two statewide anti-bullying summits in a row and has no legislative accomplishment to show for it. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, has said he's willing to work with the governor on the anti-bullying legislation but notes no one in the Republican caucus has seen the bill yet.
A tuition freeze at the state universities in a state with a hefty general fund surplus would seem like a no-brainer in an election year, but there are a lot of competing interests for that surplus and it's too early to say where tuition freeze falls on that list.

KEY PLAYERS

Curated by Mike Wiser, Gazette/Lee Des Moines Bureau; Michael Chevy Castranova, Jim Riley/The Gazette