Facing a court-ordered deadline, Los Angeles Unified and its teachers union have agreed on a framework for evaluating teachers that will include using student scores on local and state standardized tests – but only to a limited, as yet undetermined extent.
The tentative agreement announced Friday, responds to a Superior Court ruling in June that found the district had failed to comply with a state law requiring that measures of student academic progress be factored into a teacher’s performance review. Many, if not most, districts in California also ignore that provision of the Stull Act, and so should “take notice,” said Bill Lucia, president and CEO of the Sacramento advocacy organization EdVoice, which sued the district and United Teachers Los Angeles a year ago on behalf of a half-dozen unnamed parents.
LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy
Superintendent John Deasy called the tentative agreement “historic” and said in a statement that it “stands as testament that working together, LAUSD and UTLA can resolve difficult professional issues, while providing models for the state and the nation on any number of necessary transformative practices.”
UTLA President Warren Fletcher was less celebratory, expressing satisfaction over what the union had kept managed to keep out : the inclusion of a metho
