So why did Senator Montford support HB 7055 today? He had a list of reasons he thought were more important than the provisions he did not support. Montford is the long time head of the District Superintendents Association. He said many of provisions seemed small, but they were important e.g.

*consolidation of the scholarship programs under Step Up for Children
*support for the 300 lowest performing schools and SAI funding for low performing students
*adding prior year of teaching for qualifications for the Best and Brightest teacher bonus
*improving VPK regulations
*correcting Title I allocation by districts from last year’s HB 7069.
*Allowing a broader dual enrollment range of courses
*providing Reading Scholarships for students failing the FSA in grades 3-5 to give parents money to cover costs for tutors or other materials.

and most important, allowing districts to receive 100% of the 1.5 mills capital outlay and district flexibility to have schools that did not meet State K12 building code standards.

The big negative issues included:
*decertify teacher’s unions, but not police or fire unions.
*Hope Scholarships, paid for by sales taxes on new cars, for children who were documented victims of bullying or harassment.
*expansion of charter schools with independent governing boards.

There was a big emphasis on district accountability, a small provision to improve background checks for private schools, and a lessening of accountability for charters. This seems backwards.

A provision that requires districts to calculate financial efficiency indicators including the ratio of classroom expense to total operating expense, classroom instruction to total expense, and the ratio of full time students to administrators. These ratios are to be tied to student achievement for schools of similar size. The kicker in this provision would withhold salaries of district superintendents and school board members if the indicators did not meet a state standard. Sounds like more lawsuits in the making.