To delay and change many details in the teacher evaluation criteria specified in a 2011 legislative package overhauling the “teacher tenure” and ratings system, which unless amended goes into effect in the fall of 2015. Among other changes the bill would reduce the amount of a teacher’s performance rating based on empirical student growth data collected by the state from at least 50 percent to 20 percent, with 30 percent based on "locally" selected growth assessments whose details and rigor may vary. Also, the requirement that a teacher who is rated “ineffective” three years in a row must be dismissed would not apply if any changes were made to the rating system during that period. The bill is cosponsored by Republicans Bill Rogers and Lisa Posthumus Lyons, and Democrat Adam Zemke.   Official Text and Analysis.

With the recommendation that the substitute (H-4) be adopted and that the bill then pass.

To eliminate qualifications from an exception to including special education teachers in the state-based test effectiveness rating requirement.

To reduce a requirement for "multiple" classroom observations for a teacher who has not been rated as "effective" to just two observations.

To revise details of which teachers the effectiveness rating process would apply to.

To require the Department of Education to file reports on the impact of the teacher effectiveness ratings on student performance.

To adopt a version of the bill that eliminates all state-imposed teacher performance rating systems, and instead just requires school districts to post online a description of the evaluation system and process it uses.

To reduce the percentage of a teacher's "effectiveness" evaluation that must be based on student progress as measured by state test data (instead of other local and potentially more subjective measures) from 50 percent to 20 percent in "core" subjects, with the remainder based on local measurements of student academic progress, and delay full implementation until the end of the 2017-2018 school year. The original 50 percent of assessments based on state tests requirement was established by a 2011 law basing school employment decisions on these ratings.