AALA: ACSA OPPOSES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
From the Associated Administrators Los Angeles (AALA) Weekly Update for June 8, 2015 :: http://bit.ly/1EYHhWd
●● NOTE:
- The Association of California School Administrators (ASCA) was established in 1971. ACSA is the largest umbrella organization for school leaders in the nation, serving more than 14,500 school leaders.
- The Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) was formed in 1981 when elementary, secondary, supervisory and adult administrators joined forces to form a single association to represent all middle managers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. During the first ten years membership in AALA was voluntary. In 1991 AALA became the exclusive bargaining unit representing all certificated middle managers except confidential and personal service contract senior staff.
- · ACSA is a statewide advocacy organization; AALA is a collective bargaining unit in LAUSD. The two are not affiliated, though many LAUSD administrators are members of both.
June 4, 2015 :: ACSA, the Association of California School Administrators, has taken a position of opposing AB 575 (Senator Carol Liu-D) and SB 499 (Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell-D) which are scheduled to be heard on the Senate or Assembly Floor no later than Friday, June 5. The identical bills are likely to be merged and will repeal the existing Stull Act of 1971 and establish a best practices teacher and school administrator evaluation system by July 1, 2018, that requires specific components, such as state and local formative and summative assessment data and observations. The new system would have to be negotiated with the local collective bargaining unit. The bills are a response by lawmakers to recent court rulings and public pressure to include student test scores in the evaluation process. While ACSA is strongly opposed to the legislation, neither CTA nor CFT have taken a position.
Under the bills, the teachers’ evaluation system would be based on the California Standards for the Teaching Profession and would include seven objectives on which they will be rated. The section of AB 575 that applies to administrators says that the evaluation system must be based on the California Professional Standards for Educational Leaders and includes these provisions for evaluation:
· the success by which the administrator facilitates development and implementation of a vision for pupil learning, parent and community communication, advocating and supporting a safe, nurturing school culture that sustains a quality instructional program conducive to pupil learning and staff professional growth, providing ethical and professional leadership.
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· the academic growth of pupils over time, based on multiple measures, which may include pupil work as well as pupil and school longitudinal data.
· Requires the governing board of a school district to identify who will conduct the evaluation of each school administrator, as specified.
The bill also includes the provision that …certain elements …cannot be negotiated away including: frequency of evaluations; classroom observations from evaluators trained for the task; requiring districts to receive and consider input from parents, students, and community members into the development of the local evaluation process; requiring evidence of teachers’ contribution to students’ academic performance through multiple measures, including summative and formative assessments; requiring that teachers who are evaluated unsatisfactory participate in a district’s Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) program if it has one; and requiring that teachers in charter schools also be evaluated under the new best practices system.
Based on the above analysis of the bill provided by the Appropriations Committee, AB 575 seems to be a bill that administrators and teachers would support. We, at AALA, are disappointed that ACSA, an organization which represents school administrators, would advocate removing evaluations from the negotiating table and permit individual school districts to implement whatever type of evaluative system it desires. ACSA members have been sent an email encouraging them to send letters of opposition to their state representatives saying this legislation will harm students and that standards of acceptable performance should be determined by the governing board rather than as a 4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: AALA: ACSA OPPOSES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING:
