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ST. PAUL, Minn., March 5, 2015 – Education Minnesota President Denise Specht released the following statement Thursday regarding the planned floor vote on HF2, which would impose new layoff regulations on school districts while relaxing certain rules on teacher licensure.

“It’s ironic House leaders would call for a new Legislative Budget Office on Monday then, vote on Thursday for a bill that affects every school in the state without waiting to know the cost to local districts,” Specht said. “Why rush into this reckless vote before considering all the costs?”

Last week, the House received a fiscal note for HF2, which estimated the cost to state government at about $1 million over two years, primarily for the changes to teacher licensure rules. The analysis did not estimate the costs to school districts for adding the controversial, high-stakes performance ratings or categories in HF2. These ratings would be added to procedures for layoffs, which are technically called “Unrequested Leaves of Absence.” However, the note did say:

“Local costs could be significant. These would include costs associated with negotiating a new "Unrequested Leave of Absence" (ULA) plan, costs to districts to have adequate evaluation and effectiveness ratings, administrative costs for each district to satisfy requirements for the board to post the current ULA process, and costs to hire and retain a trained state panel of experts to hear appeals of teachers.”

Specht said, “Changing the personnel policies of hundreds of districts to incorporate performance ratings and then training evaluators and teachers to use the new systems will cost taxpayers money, not to mention litigation expenses due to the poor construction of the bill itself. For many districts, this will be an unfunded mandate piled on another unfunded mandate when the money for the Teacher Development and Evaluation law runs out this fiscal year.”

Specht noted the inconsistency of a bill that claims to improve teaching through better layoffs while simultaneously creating an enormous loophole in the state’s teacher licensure laws for so-called “community experts,” who are neither licensed nor covered by the state’s teacher evaluation law.

“The bill could force hundreds of school districts to rewrite their seven-month-old evaluation plans to include performance ratings because the authors believe pitting teachers against each other is better than encouraging them to work together for students. Then the same bill empowers administrators to hire more unlicensed ‘community experts’ who won’t be covered by those same performance ratings or evaluations,” Specht said. “Contradictions like that make you wonder if this bill has really been thought out.”

About Education Minnesota
Education Minnesota represents 70,000 professionals working together for excellence in education for all students. Education Minnesota’s members include teachers and education support professionals in Minnesota’s public school districts, faculty members at Minnesota’s community and technical colleges and University of Minnesota campuses in Duluth and Crookston, retired educators and student teachers. Education Minnesota is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and AFL-CIO