NASHVILLE (AP) - A bill to close public access to teacher evaluation data is headed for a full Senate vote.

The Senate State and Local Government Committee voted 7-0 on Tuesday to advance the bill sponsored by Republican Sen. Jim Tracy of Shelbyville.

Tracy said access to the data should be limited to school officials and not available to the general public. In the senator's words: "Evaluations are supposed to be used as a tool to help teachers, it's not going to be used for anything other than that."

Under recent changes to state law, half of teachers' assessments must derive from testing data, while the rest comes from classroom observations.

The companion bill was awaiting a vote in the House State and Local Government Committee on Wednesday.