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A bipartisan group of Washington state lawmakers announced plans Thursday to make statewide evaluations of teachers and principals more rigorous and uniform.

Before a hearing room packed with education reform advocates, Rep. Eric Pettigrew, D-Seattle, acknowledged that not everyone would be happy with the proposed changes.

"It's hard to be here when you're bucking against the system, the way things have always been done," he said. "It is our obligation as leaders to make sure every single child in this country has the opportunity to succeed."

Last year, at the behest of the Legislature and governor, a handful of school districts instituted a pilot program to expand teacher and principal evaluations from two options - unsatisfactory and meets expectations - to four. That system is scheduled to take effect statewide in 2013.

The soon-to-be-introduced legislation would also take effect in 2013, but would make several changes to the current law.

It would include student evaluations as a measure in rating teachers, replace seniority with evaluation results as the primary means of determining layoffs and other employment decisions and require schools to adhere to strict statewide standards, instead of interpreting state guidelines in each district.

"We've got to get this going," said Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island. "We've got to take the focus off the adults in this situation and put it back on the kids."

When enacted last year, the current law marked the first time in about 25 years that the state set new statewide criteria for teacher evaluations and the first time a statewide system had been set up for principal evaluations.

The selected pilot districts were Anacortes, Central Valley Spokane, Kennewick, North Mason, North Thurston, Othello, Snohomish and Wenatchee, and a coalition of small districts including Almira, Davenport, Liberty, Medical Lake, Pullman, Reardan-Edwall, Ritzville and Wilbur. A total of 55 districts applied to be part of the pilot.

The selected districts were given money to help update both teacher and principal evaluations. Washington did not get money from the federal government to help pay for the program, but the Legislature and the governor wanted school districts to go ahead with this school reform effort.

The lawmakers on Thursday also announced plans to allow public charter schools to begin operating in Washington state.