The governor's read to lead development fund, the Read to Lead Development Council, grants in support of literacy and early childhood development programs, teacher licensure, screening kindergarten pupils for reading readiness, remedial reading services for certain pupils, evaluating teacher preparatory programs and educator effectiveness, requiring the exercise of rule-making authority, and making an appropriation

Assessments of reading readiness This bill directs each school board and each independent charter school annually to assess all pupils in five-year-old kindergarten programs for reading readiness. If the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) determines that sufficient moneys are available, the school board and the charter school must also assess all pupils in four-year-old kindergarten programs. The school board and charter school must use an assessment selected by DPI. The school board and charter school must provide a pupil whose assessment indicates that he or she is at risk of reading difficulty with remedial reading services. The bill appropriates moneys to DPI to provide school districts and independent charter schools with the assessments.

Teacher licensure Beginning January 1, 2014, the bill prohibits DPI from issuing an initial teaching license that authorizes the holder to teach in grades kindergarten to five or in special education unless the applicant has passed an examination that tests the applicant's knowledge of specified facets of reading development and reading instruction. The bill provides that any teacher who passes the examination must notify DPI in order to have a notation added to the teacher's license indicating that he or she passed the examination.

Teacher preparatory programs Under current law, DPI establishes standards and requirements for and approves education programs leading to licensure as a teacher, including programs leading to licensure as an alternative education program teacher. This bill requires each teacher education program located in this state to, beginning on July 1, 2012, and annually thereafter, provide DPI with a list of graduates, and their graduation dates, from each term or semester of the program's most recently completed academic year. The bill requires DPI to include this information about graduates of teacher education programs in the statewide student information system.

This bill requires DPI to work in consultation with the governor's office, the University or Wisconsin system, chairpersons and ranking members of the senate and assembly education committees, the technical college system, and the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities to determine how the performance of recent graduates of teacher education programs should be used to evaluate the teacher education programs and what measures of performance will be used to evaluate teacher performance. The bill also requires DPI to develop a system through which information about teacher performance and the evaluation of teacher education programs will be made available to the public. The bill requires DPI, beginning in the 2013-14 school year, to report for each teacher education program the rate of passage on first attempt of students and graduates of the program on examinations administered for licensure as a teacher and as an alternative education program teacher, and any other information recommended by DPI in consultation with the entities above, on the system developed as required in the bill.

Beginning in the 2013-14 school year, each teacher education program must prominently display this information on the program's web site and provide this information to persons receiving admissions information to the program.

Educator effectiveness evaluations This bill also requires DPI to develop an educator effectiveness evaluation system (state system) and to develop, by rule, an equivalency process aligned with the state system (equivalency process) to assist school districts in the evaluation of the performance of teachers and principals in the district. Under the state system, 50 percent of the total evaluation score assigned to a teacher or principal must be based on measures of student performance, and 50 percent of the total evaluation score must be based upon the extent to which the teacher's or principal's practice meets standards established under the 2011 Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium or under the 2008 Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Educational Leadership Policy Standards, respectively. The equivalency process must be based upon the same interstate standards as the state system and must evaluate a teacher with reference to the following four domains:

planning and preparation, the classroom environment, instruction, and professional responsibilities and development. Teachers and principals evaluated under both the state system and the equivalency process must be placed in one of multiple performance categories. Each school district must begin evaluating teachers and principals using either the state system or the equivalency process in the 2014-15 school year.