AUGUSTA, Maine — Rep. David McCrea, D-Fort Fairfield, has introduced legislation to amend teacher evaluation requirements to provide more autonomy and local control to school districts as they develop and implement their teacher evaluation systems.
“The mandate created a one-size-fits-all solution that simply doesn’t work for every school district,” McCrea said. “This does not undo any work but simply allows individual school districts to make alterations to this component as they find necessary.”
L.D. 633 removes the requirement that student learning and measures of growth and state assessment results be used to measure educator effectiveness.
“As an educator for 48 years, I can tell you the development of teacher evaluation systems as required under state law has been met with enthusiasm among educators,” said McCrea. “This bill removes the student performance portion of a school system’s evaluation plan as a mandate and instead leaves the matter up to local option. It does not remove the mandate that schools have to implement a robust teacher evaluation system.”
The Maine Education Association testified in support of the measure.
The Education and Cultural Affairs Committee will hold a work session on the bill in coming weeks, at which point they will offer amendments and vote on a recommendation to the entire Legislature.
McCrea is serving his first term in the Legislature. He represents Caswell, Easton, Fort Fairfield, Hamlin, Limestone, part of Presque Isle, Stockholm and Cyr Plt., plus the unorganized territory of Connor Twp.
