United Teachers Los Angeles announced Saturday that teachers had ratified by a 2-to-1 marginthe framework for evaluating teachers that negotiators for the union and Los Angeles Unified reached in November. The two sides reached a court-ordered deal after a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled in June that the Stull Act, the state law governing teacher evaluations, requires that the district include standardized test scores in a teacher’s review.
Both sides claimed victory with the agreement. Standardized test results and still-to-be-determined district assessments will be among several measures of student academic progress – something that the district had sought. However, the district’s method of calculating the impact of an individual teacher on students’ scores, called Academic Growth Over Time, which UTLA adamantly opposes, will not count as part of an evaluation.
UTLA and the district must now negotiate key details of evaluations for future years. Legislators
‘Parent trigger’ organizers find willing partner in Los Angeles Unified - by John Fensterwald
The third time appears to be a charm for organizers marshaling parents to reconstitute low-performing schools under the state’s “parent trigger” law. Compared with the trench warfare with teachers and district officials that parents encountered while seeking to transform low-performing elementary schools in Compton and Adelanto, parents at the 24th Street Elementary School in Los...