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evaluations of teachers and principals.
• State Education Secretary Melody Schopp said the rules need to be in place by next month to meet the requirements set when federal officials granted South Dakota a waiver from No Child Left Behind. If the new rules are not in effect by the deadline, federal officials might force the state to once again follow the federal law, which Schopp said unfairly measured schools by a single test given to students each year.
• The new accountability system will be phased in over the next three years to rate school performance based on student test scores, student improvement over time, attendance and graduation rates, the readiness of students for careers or college, school climate and evaluations of teachers and principals, Schopp said.
• The part of the rating system based on teacher and principal evaluations will not take effect until the 2014-2015 school year, giving officials time to work out details, Schopp said. But other measures of school performance need to be put in place now so officials can identify schools that need help to improve student achievement, she said.
• "We need to provide intervention and support for out lowest-performing schools," the education secretary said.
• But Rep. Peggy Gibson, D-Huron, said the teacher evaluation requirement seems to be a backdoor attempt to implement evaluations that would be used to award bonuses to top teachers, something that has been referred to a public vote in the November election.
• The Legislature this year passed Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard's plan to give bonuses to top teachers, phase out tenure and recruit candidates for critical teaching jobs. The state's main teachers union, the South Dakota Education Association, collected enough petition signatures to put the measure on the ballot so voters can decide whether to keep it.
• The union argues that giving bonuses to the top 20 percent of teachers in each school district could hurt the quality of education because teachers might stop collaborating to help students as they compete for bonus money.
• Schopp said the school accountability system is separate from the governor's plan to give bonuses to top teachers and recruit teachers in critical subject areas. If voters reject the governor's plan, that would have no effect on the accountability system used to measure school performance, she said.
• The school accountability system is based on a separate state law that requires the Education Department to set up such a system, Schopp said.
• Bryce Healy, executive director of the union, urged the lawmakers to block the

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