Education bills: Friday edition

Update: The Governor has announced that she signed the Community Schools Act, which I wrote about here.

The session is almost over, and as my colleagues deal with things like the budget and whether Hanna Skandera will get another hearing, I’m still diligently keeping an eye on education-related things that have passed both chambers. I’ve been doing this for the past three days, here, here, and here. I also wrote this morning about the Governor’s pledge to veto HB 481, on teacher pay scales.

I don’t have too much more to report this morning, except HJM 30, which has passed both houses.

HJM30: This memorial, sponsored by Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, calls on the Legislative Education Study Committee to convene a work group to study the use of standardized test scores, and specifically using such scores to evaluate teachers and schools. The group would report back to the LESC by October. I’m not sure they need legislation to convene such a work group, actually, but maybe they do. The language of the memorial is not exactly neutral. It essentially lays out the case against using test scores for such purposes, before calling for the work group to be convened. Click the link if you’re interested.

The other new edu-bill to pass both chambers since I last blogged is SB464, which deals with class size waivers and which I’ll deal with in a story in tomorrow’s paper.