7/15/11 – State School Superintendent Tony Evers says he believes the state’s largest teachers’ union will eventually support the major changes he and the governor are now talking about. Evers says there’s a certain urgency to get something done – because his agency plans to ask for a waiver this fall from the federal No Child Left Behind Act. He says the state will ask to be excused from certain regulations in the national school performance law – in exchange for coming up with own system to assess public schools and deal with low-performing facilities. Evers and Republican Governor Scott Walker have said there’s a general need for a number of basic changes. They include a new state achievement test, an early reading test for kindergarteners, a new data system to track each student’s school performance and personal health, and a new system for evaluating educators. Evers said he would also like to add notations to high school diplomas which reflect things like industrial certifications. He said it would more accurately represent what a student knows.
