I think we should be proactive to ensure that the details of these initiatives align with our philosophy. I agree with the increase in teacher salary and eliminating step-based pay. My first question though is how the new designations are defined. I assume there will be some sort of data used in making the determination of when a teacher moves from apprentice to career and so on. I think we should be at the table ensuring that the the data used to make these high stakes decisions about teachers is reliable and valid data matched to the purpose of its use. I'm not so sure how I feel about the high school exit exam, but again I think we need to be at the table ensuring that if an exam is something our state supports (and the research also supports), then our expertise is needed in the development of the test items and administration procedures.