CHARLESTON — Student achievement, the school calendar, and teacher hiring and development are the key topics of Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s sprawling bid to overhaul West Virginia’s public education system, introduced Monday in the state Senate and House of Delegates.

With the Senate Education Committee beginning its review of the 179-page bill today, groups representing teachers, school workers and administrators were largely critical of its provisions. Supporters include the state Chamber of Commerce.

“To us, this looks like a bill that all West Virginians should embrace,” Chamber President Steve Roberts said. “We think the governor’s bill is a huge leap in the direction of student-centered learning, putting student needs first.”

Public schools state-wide would begin offering full-day early education to 4-year-olds by the 2016-17 school year under the bill, in a quest to boost reading levels by grade three. It also requires standards by the 2014-15 year for measuring whether high school juniors are ready either for college or a vocational-technical career. Schools would then offer remedial courses to students identified through testing during their senior years.

“The standards shall be clearly linked to state content standards and based on skills and competencies rather than high school course titles,” the legislation says.

The teachers’ unions praised the early childhood learning initiative, but Judy Hale, president of the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, singled out language allowing for new end-of-coursework testing for the college and career readiness standard.

“We’re just spending so many days preparing for student testing and then doing the testing,” Hale said Monday. “Students and teachers are inundated with tests.”

The 55 county school systems would keep basic oversight of their school calendars, while still aiming to provide at least 180 days of instruction. As most counties chronically miss that target, Monday’s bill removes limits on the 12 days set aside for such purposes as professional development, teacher-parent conferences, and opening and closing schools.

 It would allow for year-round calendars, currently followed by a handful of public schools. A county’s calendar-setting process must also include at least two public meetings.

Both Hale and Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, challenged this approach to the school calendar. Both believe it comes at the expense of collaboration time for teachers, with Hale questioning whether it would strip educators of paid holidays.

The teacher unions also each decried the proposal allowing Teach for America to recruit for West Virginia’s classrooms. The nonprofit group sends graduates of top colleges to high-needs public schools for two-year terms, and says it has 10,000 teachers in 36 states. Tomblin administration officials say that 15 West Virginians are taking part in Teach for America but cannot be assigned to the state under current law.

The governor’s bill offers a route for program participants to stay once they’ve completed their term, while dropping the requirement that teachers need a bachelor’s degree in a discipline offered in the public schools. Hale said Tomblin should instead encourage a new, alternative path to teaching focused on West Virginia graduates that recently passed the Legislature.

County school boards must consider hiring recommendations from both principals and faculty senates, as part of the bill’s revamping of the hiring process. Lee objected to its targeting of seniority.

“It plays to the misconception out there that seniority is the deciding factor, and it’s not,” Lee said. “No one has shown me how the current system doesn’t provide the most qualified teacher.”

The Regional Education Service Agencies and the public colleges and universities would help develop a new program to further a teacher’s development. The proposal would also remove the cap that now reimburses up to 200 teachers a year for their National Board certification, while also paying for the renewal of that vaunted status.

Tomblin’s bill would also expand the Underwood-Smith Teacher Scholarship so it helps teachers with loans if they serve in either subject areas or parts of the state with critical shortages. The expansion would help a qualifying teacher repay up to $2,000 a year for a maximum of $15,000.

The legislation follows a wide-ranging audit that contrasted West Virginia’s multibillion-dollar annual spending on public schools with poor rankings for student performance. The audit, released in early 2012, describes a system rigid with state-level bureaucracy and highly detailed laws controlling all aspects of public education.

Monday’s bill also grants a request from the State Board of Education, which wishes to conduct a national search for a state schools superintendent. It would continue to require a master’s degree for that office, but it would no longer have to be in education administration.