Linda Clark, the Meridian School District superintendent who co-chaired the tiered licensure committee with state Education Board member Rod Lewis, said she had no problem with the changes the board made to the tiered teacher licensing rule today. “I believe in the process, and when this process is used, the results get better,” she said. “They were all things that we discussed. There’s no change that was not discussed thoroughly by the committee.” She said she believes the licensing rule, setting up the new residency certificate and requirements for new teachers, along with recent moves by the state’s college and university teacher-training programs to come together and have a unified definition of the standards that a prospective teacher has to meet, together are two important moves toward improving teacher quality in Idaho with “gatekeeper” approaches.

Lewis said he doesn’t know if the changes will satisfy the strong opposition the board saw around the state to the new rule. “Who knows,” he said. “We believe they are major changes. We’d like to believe that it will make a difference.” He said, “We’ll see how it goes. What matters now is how the Legislature deals with it. The rule will have to go to the Legislature for their approval. We think it’s a very meaningful step forward for enhancing teacher effectiveness, and serves as a foundation for significant increases in teacher compensation.”

Boise School District Superintendent Don Coberly, who earlier had opposed the rule, said he still has concerns, but thought the changes were significant and appropriate. “I felt like the state board really listened to a lot of the comments that were made,” he said. “I think moving to a two-tier system was wise.” He also praised removing the new accountability measures from the license-renewal process for experienced teachers. However, he said he still has concerns about the way they’d play out for teachers in their first three years – they could lose their licenses over performance issues. “We don’t do that in any other profession,” he said, “where you take away a certificate for unsatisfactory performance. You fire ‘em. But losing a certificate is a whole different issue.”

Plus, he said, the “basic” rating in certain areas that could cost a new teacher his or her license differs from state law that uses “satisfactory and “unsatisfactory” ratings. “Basic” actually could be considered satisfactory performance, he said, so it seems odd to revoke a certificate over it.

Matt Compton, director of public policy for the Idaho Education Association, said the teachers group still has major concerns. “Teachers and parents and school board members all have been saying we should come back to the table … bring more teachers to the table,” he said. “There’s still time. We need to slow this down. That’s certainly something that has been ignored in this rule here today.” He said, “We still have a very serious concern about connecting evaluations to professional certification.”