Merced teachers union backs controversial federal grant proposal
A Merced teachers union has voted to back a controversial federal grant program, but only after extracting district guarantees that student test scores would not be used to evaluate individual instructors.
Sheila Whitley, president of the Merced Union High School District Teachers’ Assn., said Tuesday that 67.6% of 191 teachers surveyed said they would support the Race to the Top grant application as long as the district honored its pledge not to use test scores in individual performance reviews. Both sides agreed to negotiate the possible use of schoolwide or district scores to evaluate teachers instead, clearing the way for Merced to submit its application last week.
The grant requires that a teacher evaluation system using student test scores or other measures of academic achievement be in place by 2014. That requirement is a key reason that most teachers unions have refused to support the federal grant program.
Merced joined Riverside's, Fresno's and a few other California teachers unions in bucking the trend and backing