This Week at the Statehouse – Week 10
Today ends the Legislature's self-imposed second funnel date. Bills had to pass a chamber and pass out of a committee in the other chamber for that bill to remain alive this session. This does not pertain to appropriations and tax bills.
Bills worth noting still alive:
HF 2235 - Requires the K-12 statewide assessment be developed by the Iowa Testing program within the University of Iowa.
HF 2253 – Construction projects and improvements built by a private contractor under a lease or a lease-purchase contract with the Regents and other state and local governmental agencies would be subject to the same competitive bidding requirements currently in law as they relate to contract bidding.
HF 2280 – Requires preservice teachers to continue to take the Praxis I test; however, teacher candidates would not be required to take and pass the Praxis II test, with a score above the 25th percentile nationally, to be licensed in Iowa through the Board of Educational Examiners. We believe nothing in the bill would prevent the universities from continuing to provide an end of program assessment or test. If our teacher preparation programs find the end of program exams useful measures of student preparedness, we believe they can still use them as these assessments are required by other states where candidates may choose to teach, and the data from the program completion assessment serves our teacher education programs well relative to continuous improvement efforts.
HF 2354 – Restricts third parties who receive K-12 student data from using it for targeted advertising.
HF 2390 – American Sign Language would be considered a world language to meet accreditation standards, as part of a foreign language class taught in Iowa high schools.
HF 2458 – Implements the Governor’s Future Ready Iowa recommendations. This is the Governor’s priority to help 70 percent of Iowa's workforce to have education, training or recognized certification beyond high school by 2025. There is no money in this bill just policy language. Budget issues will come up later this session.
SF 415 – Gives immunity to people under the legal age of drinking from certain alcohol-related crimes if they, in good-faith, sought emergency assistance for themselves or other persons due to alcohol overdoses.
SF 2113 – By July 1, 2019, school boards would be required to have one hour of nationally recognized training on suicide prevention and post intervention for all licensed school personnel who have contact with students in grades K-12.
SF 2131 – Allows home-schooled children to take classes from Iowa Learning Online, at their own expense. An Area Education Agency Online Learning Working Group is established where the AEAs, in collaboration with the community colleges and the department of education, identify effective means by which students may access educational instruction and content online and identify partnerships between existing providers of rigorous and high-quality online coursework. They are to report their findings to the General Assembly by October 15, 2018.
SF 2360 – Creates a Dyslexia Task Force, which over the next 18 months is to come up with recommendations relating to dyslexia response to be provided to the Governor and Legislature. The recommendations must include student screening, interventions, teacher preparation and professional development, classroom accommodations, and assistive technology. The House Education Committee passed an amendment to this bill that adds an institution of higher education to the task force. UNI is in a great position to provide valuable expertise on this task force as we graduate the most teachers each year.
Bills worth noting that died:
HF 2301 – Relating to contract bidding for work exceeding $100,000 at Regents’ institutions.
SF 41 – Eliminating tenure in state public universities.
SF 2344 – Relating to Free Speech on Campus at Regents’ institutions and community colleges.
SF 2361 – Requiring Regents institutions have a financial literacy course, employment information and salaries for students & 3-year degrees.
SF 2362 – Requiring higher education institutions to encourage more use of open educational resources.
We are still waiting for a decision on the deappropriations bill (SF 2117). We are also waiting on targets for next year FY 19 budgets.