After being voted out of committee in a 9-6 party-line vote, Republicans will advance S.B.5 to a full vote later today. The substitute bill changes can be seen here - SB5 LSC Analysis. It is expected that the Senate will concur and later this week, the bill will be signed into law by the Governor. The Plain Dealer Reports
Changes to the bill approved Tuesday include: a different process to decertify a public union; a provision to explicitly allow police and firefighters to negotiate for safety equipment; a prohibition against public workers contributing to a political action committee through a payroll deduction; and a new performance-based pay scale for teachers and other workers.
Further attacks on public education are reported by the Dispatch
The report goes on to discuss how dismantling of the teaching profession will be further pushed along in conjunction with S.B.5
It strikes references to teacher salary schedules and says that when boards cut teaching staffs they "shall consider the relative quality of performance the principal factor in determining the order of reductions." Boards may consider seniority, "but only after considering other factors," namely merit and licensing achievements.
The budget language also eliminates an opportunity for a fired teacher to seek a hearing before an impartial referee, stating instead that school boards will hear appeals and make final decisions.
Finally, it what only feels like salt in the wounds, we learn the Governor will be attending a screening of the discredited movie "Waiting for Superman" with the discredited and under investigation radical Michele Rhee
But since 2008, more than half of D.C. schools were flagged by a testing company for having unusually high rates of wrong-to-right erasures. At one school, Noyes Education Campus, the number of erasures in one class was so high that the odds of winning the Powerball grand prize were better than the erasures occurring by chance.
Stay tuned for more news throughout the day, from the Statehouse on our Twitter stream, as we bring news of the S.B.5 vote.