Senators take over bill-reading…

Various senators are now reading the full text of the 24-page school-reform bill, SB 1184. Sen. John McGee, R-Caldwell, read from the bill in a conversational tone. Sen. John Tippets, R-Montpelier, read quickly but quietly. The full reading was forced by Senate Democrats in protest of the bill; they also objected to suspending rules to take it up today, when it was on the Senate’s 2nd Reading Calendar; without the two-thirds vote to suspend the rules, the bill couldn’t have been taken up before tomorrow.

The bill shifts funds from salary-based apportionment, the main funding stream from the state to school districts for teacher salaries, to instead fund technology and teacher merit-pay bonuses. It also permits parents to enroll students in any online class, with or without their school’s permission, and directs a portion of the school district’s state funding to pay the online provider through a funding formula laid out in the bill. In a program phased in over several years, the bill requires shifting more of the salary funds each year, as it phases in purchases of laptop computers for every high school student in the state, though school districts would control how those computers are used. The first laptops, to be purchased in 18 months, would be for teachers. It also directs the state Board of Education to develop rules requiring online courses as a high school graduation requirement, starting with students who start 9th grade in 2012.