Head of American Federation of Teachers weighs in on Pittsburgh teacher ratings
June 13, 2014 4:41 PM
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten today weighed in on the release of Pittsburgh Public Schools teacher ratings that show 96.9 percent of classroom teachers are proficient or distinguished.
She made her remarks in the context of a recent California case in which a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu declared laws governing teacher job security unconstitutional, including those that require furloughs to be by seniority rather than performance.
“On one side of the country, a judge in California wrongly ruled that the only way to ensure that kids — particularly kids who attend high-poverty schools — have good teachers is to take away teachers’ due process rights,” Ms. Weingarten said. On the other side of the country, the most recent teacher evaluation results in Pittsburgh proved this is absolutely not true. Due process not only goes hand-in-hand with this new evaluation system, having those rights helped to strengthen it."
She said she wasn't surprised by Pittsburgh's results, given the "dedication and talent" of the staff, but "there's a bigger story here that rejects the assertion made in California that due process rights hurt educational quality."
The evaluation system in Pittsburgh was developed by district officials and teachers who are members of the federation. A dispute arose over the scores required to meet certain performa
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