“Today, Massachusetts made state history when the governor signed into law legislation to put teacher effectiveness first,” Stand for Children Executive Director Jason Williams said in a statement. “This legislation, which ensures that performance comes before seniority in teacher staffing decisions, is a win for teachers, parents, children, and all of Massachusetts.”
The bill passed the Senate last week and the House this week without recorded votes.
According to the new law, its purpose is to assure effective implementation of education evaluation systems adopted by the Board of Education, provide training for teachers and administrators in evaluation and training, and ensure that “indicators of job performance as evidenced by evaluation and other factors are the primary factors in school staff decisions.”
The law also calls for a data collection system to assess the effectiveness of the evaluation system.
Final designs will be revealed in January, with construction slated to begin in the summer. With work on the new high school also planned for 2013, the town will be facing two huge construction projects in the same year.
Construction on the downtown project will mark the start of phase two of the more than $7 million effort. The work is the culmination of almost 10 years of planning, including numerous public hearings and constant dialogue among the town, its engineers and MassDOT.
Funded through the Public Works Economic Development Program (PWED), the first part of the project, completed last year, entailed improvements around Dean Avenue and cost $1 million.
Phase two construction, paid for with a $5 million federal grant as well as roughly $1 million in state and local money, consists largely of revamping the roadway and sidewalks and improving lighting (replacing the current cobra-head fixtures with period style lighting).
This morning, the House and Senate accepted the work of the Conference Committee and passed a budget for FY 2013. MassBudget's First Look provides a preliminary analysis of the key decisions that were made in conference. Among them:
This "First Look" offers an overview of the Conference Budget. Our more comprehensive Budget Monitor will be available in the coming days.
Read the FIRST LOOK
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