Wisconsin
Bill: AB 40
Status: 02/20/2013 – Asm. Read first time and referred to Joint Survey Committee on Retirement Systems
Relevant Elements: 2, 6, 7, 8
Introduced by and referred to the Joint Finance Committee at the request of Republican Gov. Scott Walker on February 20. The bill is the executive budget act of the 2013 legislature. Digital learning highlights of the bill include:
- Create the charter school oversight board that would approve nonprofit, nonsectarian organizations, or consortia, to contract with persons to operate independent charter schools.
- Allow local school boards to prohibit students from attending charter schools unless the district’s enrollment is at least 4,000 and at least two schools in the district are underperforming.
- Require the Department to annually publish a school and district accountability report that includes multiple measures to determine student performance including measures of college and career readiness. The report would place each school into one to five performance categories.
- Provide for awards related to a school’s performance on the accountability reports.
- Eliminate a requirement that any person teaching an online course complete 30 hours of professional development.
- Prohibit the Department from requiring a virtual charter school teacher from completing professional development not required by teachers who do not teach in a virtual public charter school.
- Require the Department to develop and maintain an online resource to provide educational opportunities for parents, teachers and students, offer online learning opportunities, provide regional technical support centers, and provide professional development for teachers.