Teaching is a complicated job. There’s the lesson planning, in-class instruction, making sure students understand their lessons and more.

If legislators have their way, there could be drastic changes to an already complex classroom.

Teachers are receiving an abnormal amount of attention this legislative session, as multiple bills in the state House of Representatives and Senate examine and redefine what it means to teach.

“It’s dismaying that so much attention is on teachers and it seems to be negative attention on what teachers have done wrong or poorly,” said Rep. Jeanne Poppe, who works at Riverland Community College when the legislature is not in session.

Issues like teacher collective bargaining, preventing teachers from striking, changing teacher tenure and more have made their way through the legislature.

Most of the measures are proposed by the GOP. Of the 29 teacher-related bills in the House, 19 are from GOP representatives. Of 23 similar bills in the Senate, 17 were authored by GOP senators.

Change on the horizon

There are plenty of changes included in the GOP education omnibus bill announced last week. One of the measures includes a “qualified economic offer,” which in effect classifies teachers as essential employees, thus removing their right to strike for economic reasons if a district offers a pay increase greater than the district’s increase in state funding in a given year. A similar Senate measure would tie at least 50 percent of a teacher’s salary increase to state comprehensive testing scores.

“We need to tie teacher retention to student achievement,” said Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington, chair of the Education Finance committee.

Similar measures include repealing the Jan. 15 contract deadline penalty and limiting contract negotiations to the summer, when school isn’t in session.

If negotiations break down under the summer month proposal, teachers would have to follow the previous contract’s terms. If there’s still no agreement the following summer, a state arbitrator would determine which offer between a district and its teachers union should be taken.

“(The measure) is not about improving education, it’s about removing the basic human and civil right to collectively bargain,” said Brad Anderson, president of the Austin Education Association, Austin’s local teacher union. “It takes the negotiations process out of the hands of educators and school districts and moves it to a third party with no ties to the Austin community and no sense of local needs.”

When it comes to negotiations, that type of measure may not benefit districts either.

“It kind of ties up both parties,” said Mary Burroughs, Austin Public School human resources director. “I don’t know that one side or the other would come out better in that type of situation.”

Union leaders are incensed over a measure that would grade schools based on a reform system created by the Florida state legislature, similar to No Child Left Behind guidelines, which mandate annual state comprehensive testing. While legislators intend on finding a way to measure teacher success, education experts say teacher and student success is hard to define by NCLB standards, which allows states to set arbitrary guidelines. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently testified before Congress that more than 80 percent of U.S. schools were expected to fail this year’s state comprehensive test goals.

“We don’t know how much students learn each year,” Duncan said in his speech. “We don’t know what they need to get over the bar. And we can’t recognize and reward the teachers and principals that are succeeding.”

Many conservatives claim the same can be said of integration funding, which would be radically altered in both GOP omnibus bills. GOP senators would shift integration revenue into a literacy program, while GOP representatives would turn integration funding into innovation funding, which hasn’t been defined.

“We think it’s absolutely the wrong thing to do,” said Tom Dooher, president of Education Minnesota, the state teachers union. “We need to be investing in our kids. That’s going to be the growth of our economy.”

Teacher tenure could be redefined as well, as both GOP bills would make teacher employment at-will for the first 90 days, followed by a similar three-year probationary period that teachers have before becoming tenured. Teachers would also have five-year renewable tenure contracts instead of their current tenure system, in which a teacher’s tenure doesn’t expire.

Union officials say tenure isn’t as protective as critics claim. Tenure allows teachers to have a hearing if district officials wish to fire them, instead of a job guarantee. “That was designed to help good teachers,” Dooher said. “It’s a right to hearing and having a fair process.”

It isn’t just the GOP that wants to see changes, however. Similar moves to step and lane changes as well as required cultural competency training have been proposed by DFL legislators. Sen. Kathy Sheran, DFL-Mankato, introduced a teacher assessment bill earlier this month, albeit not as detailed as the grading system in the GOP omnibus bills.

He said she said

With so much attention on teachers, union leaders don’t see party distinctions when it comes to what they feel are attacks on the teaching profession.

“Educators are not what’s ailing our education system, they’re what’s helping it,” Dooher said. “Many of these elements have nothing to do with children. It’s union busting masquerading as education reform.”

GOP legislators strongly disagree. Garofalo, who is married to a public school teacher, denies there is an anti-teacher sentiment in the Legislature.

“We love teachers,” Garofalo said. “We need to be able to differentiate, we need to be able to measure teachers that are effective or not effective.”

According to some educators, this latest spat between unions and legislators is the same old story playing out another year.

“I don’t think it’s anything new,” said David Krenz, Austin’s superintendent. “As I look back, there’s no one thing that anyone can do that’s going to be the magic bullet. I think we really need to look at how we deliver education, pure and simple.”