Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board Conference Committee Report Passes Legislature; On Way to the Governor.  Both the House and Senate passed HF 140 today on almost straight party-line votes.  I haven't seen the actual roll calls, but it appears that no DFLers voted for the conference committee report in the House and only 2 DFLers voted for the bill in the Senate.  The primary complaint of the DFLers centers around the Tier 1 License category in the proposed tiered licensure framework.  While someone with that license needs a bachelor's degree to teach an academic subject and an associate's degree or industry certification (and five years experience) to teach a career and technical education course, the concern expressed by those who oppose the bill believe that this waters down standards.  There is also some concern about the Tier 3 License as it relates to teachers coming from other states.  The final vote in the House was 76-54 and the vote in the Senate was 36-31.  It will now head to the Governor and it is unclear what he will do with the bill.  The administration has voiced concerns at several junctures in the negotiations, but most were under the impression that those concerns had been assuaged with changes made to the bill during the conference committee proceedings.  That assumption may be in error, however, as a number of DFLers pointed out in their comments today that the administration had not signed off on the bill.  I guess we will wait and see.  It could certainly be a bargaining chip of sorts as the big ticket items are discussed in the coming days.

Here is a link to the conference committee language that was passed today:  HF 140

Negotiations are On!  The Agriculture bill has been agreed to by all parties and that will probably be cleared off the floor tomorrow or Thursday, but that was the smallest of the budget bills and is not controversial.  We'll see how things go from here because until the big furniture comes out of the truck, it's anyone guess as to the timeline for finishing.

In the musical vein, let's hope that the negotiations go like this:

And not like this:

Until tomorrow's update, I'll be watching things unfold.