Reps. Bruce Cozart (R-Hot Springs) and Mark Lowery (R-Maumelle) have filed two bills aimed at rolling back the labor law that establishes due process for firing teachers and certain administrators in Arkansas.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Michael Wickline reported this morning that, for the second time in four years, Republican Rep. Mark Lowery had been cited by the state Ethics Commission for failing to comply with campaign finance reporting law. The minor penalty won't discourage similar in the future.
Bill Rahn, a gym owner and lawyer, has announced as a Democratic candidate for state House from District 39, currently held by Republican state Rep. Mark Lowery of Maumelle.
Yesterday's vote by the State Board of Education to nix Gov. Asa Hutchinson's plan to replace the PARCC test with the ACT Aspire has attracted the anger of some Republican legislators, who say they intend to fight the state board's decision in a committee with power over agency contracts.
The House Education committee failed a bill by Sen. Alan Clark (R-Lonsdale) that would have created a "right of access" for charter schools to lease unused or underutilized facilities from a public school district. The committee also rejected a second try by Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Bigelow) to require high school students to pass the United States citizenship test as a prerequisite to graduation, which I wrote about last week.
The House voted 86-1 this morning to approve Rep. Mark Lowery's bill to drop use of the test that measures performance on the Common Core curriculum standards after it is used this year.
The House today reconsidered the bill by Rep. Mark Lowery of Maumelle to allow areas with 2,500 or more students to secede from a larger school district. It would open the door for Maumelle and Sherwood to leave the Pulaski County Special School District at some point.
Rep. Mark Lowery, a Republican from Maumelle, has introduced a bill that would put the brakes on Arkansas's implementation of standardized testing based on Common Core State Standards. Lowery says the bill is motivated in part because legislators have been told by ADE officials, unofficially, that "the PARCC contract will not be renewed" beyond the current academic year.