Education Secretary Says Administration Is Committed to Testing - NYTimes.com

Education Secretary Says Administration Is Committed to Testing - NYTimes.com:



Education Secretary Says Administration Is Committed to Testing

By MOTOKO RICHJAN. 12, 2015

With debates about the appropriate role for the federal government in public education increasingly polarized, the secretary of education, Arne Duncan, insisted on Monday that the administration would not back away from annual testing for students and performance evaluations of teachers based in part on the results of the tests.

In a speech on Monday to outline the administration’s priorities for a revision of No Child Left Behind, the signature Bush-era education law, Mr. Duncan said that “parents, teachers and students have both the right and the need to know how much progress all students are making each year towards college- and career-readiness.”

Annual testing has become a point of contention in the often-bitter discussions about how best to improve public education.

Continue reading the main story

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In July, the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, called for an end to mandated yearly testing, and a growing group of parents and educators has been pushing back against what they see as rampant testing and test preparation.

In August, Mr. Duncan said that testing issues were “sucking the oxygen out of the room in a lot of schools” and allowed states to delay using test scores in teacher evaluations.

The requirement that schools test students every year in reading and math between third and eighth grade and once in high school was enshrined in the No Child Left Behind Act. The tests were intended as a way for schools to see whether all student groups, but particularly minorities and poor students, were being taught adequately.

That law, which governs how $23.3 billion in federal education funding is spent and was passed with bipartisan fanfare in 2001, has been up for reauthorization since 2007. So far, Congress has been unable to agree on a new version. The House passed a bill in 2013, but the Senate version did not make it out of the Education Committee.

In a telephone interview Sunday night, Mr. Duncan said the primary purpose of the education law was to guarantee that public school students all have a chance at educational and economic mobility.

“Is this simply a good idea for some or is it important for all?” he said. “I don’t think any of us should feel comfortable if we’re going to just do Education Secretary Says Administration Is Committed to Testing - NYTimes.com:

4 ways privatization is ruining our education system - Salon.com

4 ways privatization is ruining our education system - Salon.com:

4 ways privatization is ruining our education system

Its most deleterious effect: The proliferation of charter schools means underperforming children get left behind

PAUL BUCHHEIT, ALTERNET

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

Profit-seeking in the banking and health care industries has victimized Americans. Now it’s beginning to happen in education, with our children as the products.

There are good reasons – powerful reasons – to stop the privatization efforts before the winner-take-all free market creates a new vehicle for inequality. At the very least we need the good sense to slow it down while we examine the evidence about charters and vouchers.

1. Charter Schools Have Not Improved Education

The recently updated CREDO study at Stanford revealed that while charters have made progress since 2009, their performance is about the same as that of public schools. The differences are, in the words of the National Education Policy Center, “so small as to be regarded, without hyperbole, as trivial.” Furthermore, the four-year improvement demonstrated by charters may have been due to the closing of schools that underperformed in the earlier study, and also by a variety of means to discourage the attendance of lower-performing students.

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Ample evidence exists beyond CREDO to question the effectiveness of charter schools (although they continue to have both supporters and detractors). In Ohio, charters were deemed inferior to traditional schools in all grade/subject combinations. Texas charters had a much lower graduation rate in 2012 than traditional schools. In Louisiana, where Governor Bobby Jindal proudly announced that “we’re doing something about [failing schools],” about two-thirds of charters received a D or an F from the Louisiana State Department of Education in 2013. Furthermore, charters in New Orleans rely heavily on inexperienced teachers, and even its model charter school Sci Academy has experienced a skyrocketing suspension rate, the second highest in the city. More trouble looms for the over-chartered city in a lawsuitfiled by families of disabled students contending that equal educational access has not been provided for their children.

2. The Profit Motive Perverts the Goals of Education

Forbes notes: “The charter school movement began as a grassroots attempt to improve public education. It’s quickly becoming a backdoor for corporate profit.” A McKinsey report estimates that education can be a $1.1 trillion business in the United States. Meanwhile, state educational funding continues to be cut, and budget imbalances are worsened by the transfer of public tax money to charter schools.

Education funding continues to be cut largely because corporations aren’t paying their state taxes.

So philanthropists like Bill Gates and Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch and Jeff Bezos and the Walton family, who have little educational experience among them, and who have little accountability to the public, are riding the free-market wave and promoting “education reform” with lots of standardized testing.

—–Just Like the Fast-Food Industry: Profits for CEOs, Low Wages for the Servers

Our nation’s impulsive experiment with privatization is causing our schools to look more like boardrooms than classrooms. Charter administrators make a lot more money than their public school counterparts, and their numbers are rapidly increasing. Teachers, on the other hand, are paid less, and they have fewer years of experience and a higher turnover rate. The patriotic-sounding “Teach for America” charges public school districts $3,000 to $5,000 per instructor per year. Teachers don’t get that money, business owners do.

—–Good Business Strategy: Cut Employees, Use Machines to Teach

The profit motive also leads to shortcuts in the educational methods practiced on our children. Like “virtual” instruction. The video-game-named Rocketship Schools have $15/hour instructors monitoring up to 130 kids at a timeas they work on computers. In Wisconsin, half the students in virtual settings are attending schools that are not 4 ways privatization is ruining our education system - Salon.com:

Mandates of and from Our Hearts | Poetic Justice

Mandates of and from Our Hearts | Poetic Justice:

Mandates of and from Our Hearts

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Poetic Justice

We are being mandated to death. A mandate is an official order, a commission to do something, a law. I am tired of official orders and of commissions and of the law. I need the mandate paradigm to be shifted now.

I am sitting in front of a blank screen on this Sunday evening – almost Monday morning – just thinking about the mandates we educators are under. We have mandates from our school, our departments, our district, our state, and, yes, from the government. We have mandates to test our young children and mandates to write up goals on our own evaluations based on those tests. We have mandates to enter data every month, every week, every day, and every period of every day. We have mandates to meet in data teams to manipulate and further extrapolate more data from the data. We educators are being mandated to death.

Then I began thinking about the mandates our children are under. They are mandated to attend school and to pursue an education. They are mandated to take evaluative and standardized tests. Then they are mandated to sit in review sessions if they do not pass the tests. They are mandated to practice taking tests so that they can pass the end of the year mandated standardized test. They are mandated to be obedient and compliant and they are mandated to dress and act according to school, district, state, and federal codes. They are mandated to sit in meetings if they do not pass the tests. They are mandated to be college and career ready. And they are mandated to take tests to see if they are college and career ready before, during, and after they are in college or on a career path. Our students are being mandated to death.

I remember when the new mandate paradigm first appeared in my school. I was told in no uncertain terms that our reading/writing program could no longer exist and that we had to adopt a comprehensive school curriculum where all grades and all subjects would all be doing the same thing at the same time according to the new curriculum. This was my first mandate and it broke my heart because it destroyed years of successful creative and innovative Mandates of and from Our Hearts | Poetic Justice:

"Our schools are being starved into failure in order to justify mass privatization Timothy Meegan Chicago Sun-Times

Naomi Klein*: "In one of his most influential essays, Friedman articulated contemporary capitalism's core tactical nostrum, what I have come to understand as 'the shock doctrine'. He observed that 'only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change'. When that crisis occurs, the actions taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. Some people stockpile canned goods and water in preparation for major disasters; Friedmanites stockpile free-market ideas. And once a crisis has struck, the University of Chicago professor was convinced that it was crucial to act swiftly, to impose rapid and irreversible change before the crisis-racked society slipped back into the 'tyranny of the status quo'. A variation on Machiavelli's advice that 'injuries' should be inflicted 'all at once', this is one of Friedman's most lasting legacies."

Tim Meegan, "The Shock Doctrine, Our Schools & Our Children", Reclaim Reform, Aug. 2014
http://reclaimreform.com/…/tim-meegan-the-shock-doctrine-o…/

David Sirota, "The 'Shock Doctrine' Comes to Your Neighborhood Classroom", Salon, Sept. 2011
http://www.salon.com/2011/09/06/shockreform/

Lance Fialkoff, "Shock Doctrine USA: The Urban School Privatization Script", Reclaim Reform, Aug. 2013
http://reclaimreform.com/…/shock-doctrine-usa-the-urban-sc…/

Adam Sanchez, "The Education 'Shock Doctrine'", International Socialist Review, Sept. 2011
http://isreview.org/issue/71/education-shock-doctrine

*Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine (2007) [excerpt from the introduction]
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/excerpt

Gates gives $35 million to Obama's community college overhaul - CSMonitor.com

Gates gives $35 million to Obama's community college overhaul - CSMonitor.com:

Gates gives $35 million to Obama's community college overhaul

At the first ever White House community college summit Tuesday, President Obama announces new grants to help community colleges prepare Americans for new jobs.

By Sara Johnson, Contributor / October 5, 2010

WASHINGTON

President Obama announced the creation of two new competitive grants for community colleges Tuesday – a part of his continuing efforts to reshape community colleges to meet the changing needs of the American economy.

At the first White House Summit on Community Colleges, Mr. Obama said Tuesday that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $35 million “Completion by Design” program will target schools in nine states over five years. In addition, the annual Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence will award $1 million to exemplary community colleges beginning next fall.

Obama's goal is to graduate an additional 5 million community college students by 2020. According to the Census Bureau, 15.2 million Americans 25 years and older currently have a community college degree.

“In the coming years, jobs requiring at least an associate’s degree are going to grow twice as fast as jobs that don’t require college,” Obama said in his opening remarks at the summit. “We will not fill those jobs – or keep those jobs on our shores – without community colleges.”

Community colleges are also an integral part of America's economic recovery, said Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, who hosted the summit.

“Getting America back to work is America’s greatest challenge,” Dr. Biden said in her opening remarks. “And community colleges are critically important to preparing graduates for those jobs.”

The announcement of these two programs follows Obama’s launch yesterday of the “Skills for America’s Future” program, a partnership between community colleges and employers to assist students in developing job-based skills.
“The goal is to ensure that every state in the country has at least one strong partnership between a growing industry and a community college,” Obama said at a meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board Monday.

Obama announced that United Technologies Corporation, Accenture, and The Gap, Inc. have signed on as supporters of the program, and he said he hoped that others would follow suit.

For example, Gap will offer development experiences in interviewing, resume writing, and job shadowing, with a focus on entering retail careers, said Eva Sage-Gavin, executive vice president of human resources and corporate affairs.

She added that Gap Inc. is currently providing all the funding for its $1 million program, aimed at 2,000 community college students beginning in January 2011.

These programs highlight an increased focus on community colleges Gates gives $35 million to Obama's community college overhaul - CSMonitor.com:

An Insider's Look at How Standardized Tests are Really Graded Badass Teachers Association

Badass Teachers Association:

3 Weeks In The Marking Factory: An Insider's Look at How Standardized Tests are Really Graded

By:  Anonymous Canadian BAT

I'm sitting in the marking factory with 3,000 other teachers from across Ontario where, for the past three weeks, I've been marking the Grade 6 reading component of the provincial standardized achievement test. Before the start of my first day here, a representative from the Ontario Teachers' Federation flagged down a group of us and adjured us to refuse to mark the test, since the Ontario Teachers' Federation doesn't support standardized testing. But, of course, neither do any of us. We're just here because we need the money. I might have been warned of what was to come by the coffee break that first morning: 10:30 by my clock rolls around and I make for the door, only to be barred by my group leader. We aren't allowed to leave until the chimes ring. So a group of teachers silently line up single file, waiting to be dismissed. Kind of makes me remember how I felt as a student and why I don't insist on this lineup bullshit from my Grade 8 students. The bell rings. The hallway floods with 3,000 people trying to get to the cafeteria. It takes 10 minutes to negotiate the line, another five to get to the coffee pots, then the chimes ring again. No time even to smoke. Some break.

The test is administered by the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO), supposedly to give parents concrete results on how their children are performing in school. At the elementary level, Grade 3 and 6 students are assessed on a four-point scale in reading, writing and mathematics with level one being 50-60 per cent and level four being 80-100 (notwithstanding those who just don't have a clue, who are marked NE1). There's no nuance; a high level two and a low level three may be a hair's breadth apart and separated only by the markers mood that day. It's probably important to note that, taking the Grade 6 test cold with no preparation, I -- an Honours Bachelor of Arts graduate, summa cum laude -- was graded a level two last week. Now, there's an important difference between assessment and evaluation. Assessment seeks to test learning in order to better direct it: find out what you need to teach, then teach it. The EQAO was established with this ideal in mind. Evaluation, on the other hand, seeks to draw conclusions and render judgments on the quality of the performance task: in this case, the test. This is how the tests are actually used. Originally, almost 18 years ago, they were going to be the first step in a complicated and flawed teacher effectiveness evaluation process.

The EQAO says the results mean nothing in the ranking of schools, as all schools in Ontario are delivering a quality education. Nonetheless, it publishes the ranked results every year, best schools to worst. The best -- surprise! -- tend to be in affluent areas and confer bragging rights, often precipitating a rush for optional attendance at the school. The worst -- surprise! -- tend to be in socio-economically disadvantaged communities. I teach in such a community.

Students and parents set great store by the results of this test. So do schools; at my school alone, tens of thousands of dollars have been spent to improve the comparative ranking of our school. This results in a hell of a lot of test-teaching. In Eduspeak, this is called "best practices." We are told to leave the Level 1s and 4s alone; just raise the Level 2 students to Level 3 work and the Level 3 students to 4.

Back to the marking site, where they are telling us to improve our daily tally of marked test booklets. Each test takes between five and 10 minutes to mark. By the fourth day here, I'm just skimming the tests looking for key words and going with my gut feeling. What Malcolm Gladwell called “Thin slicing,” is surprisingly effective. Other colleagues with whom I have furtive conversations also skim. Is the child obviously learning disabled? Give him a level one instead of NE1. Made you laugh? Level three. Real howler? Level four. I figure this is sabotaging a flawed process by removing some of its Badass Teachers Association:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan to outline education priorities and defend testing - The Washington Post

Education Secretary Arne Duncan to outline education priorities and defend testing - The Washington Post:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan to outline education priorities and defend testing

By Lyndsey Layton January 9  

As a new Congress gets to work to rewrite the 2002 federal education law known as No Child Left Behind, the Obama administration is drawing what Education Secretary Arne Duncan calls a “line in the sand”: The federal government must continue to require states to give annual, standardized tests in reading and math.

In a speech scheduled for Monday at an elementary school in the District, Duncan is expected to insist that any new law retain the trademark of No Child Left Behind, requiring that every public school student be tested annually in math and reading in grades 3-8 and once in high school, and also be tested in science at three points during those years.

“He will outline the need to widen and ensure opportunity for all students — the original purpose of this landmark law,” said Dorie Nolt, Duncan’s spokeswoman. “He will call for quality preschool for every child, improved resources for schools and teachers, and better support for teachers and principals. He will also call on states and districts to limit unnecessary testing so that teachers can focus needed time on classroom learning.”

The administration’s position comes amid growing anti-testing sentimentfueled by an alliance of parents skeptical of standardized tests, teachers unions that say using test scores to evaluate teachers and schools has warped education, and conservatives who argue that the federal government should play a much smaller role in local education.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a former U.S. education secretary, university president and state governor who became chairman of the Senate education panel Monday, said he is weighing whether to ditch the federal requirement to test.

“Every parent, every teacher in 100,000 public schools is asking the question, ‘Are there too many tests?’ ”Alexander said in an interview Thursday. “I don’t know the answer. I’m asking the question. And the United States Senate ought to be asking that question as we think about No Child Left Behind.”

Alexander said the federal requirement appears to have created a cascading effect in states and local school districts, most of which now regularly test students during the course of the school year to make sure they are on track to succeed on the federally required exam at year’s end. And this year, as most states prepare for new tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards, the testing debate has gained new urgency.

“It’s a good, healthy discussion that the country is having,” said Alexander, who has scheduled a Jan. 20 Senate hearing on testing and set an Education Secretary Arne Duncan to outline education priorities and defend testing - The Washington Post:

Resolution to Support the “I Refuse” Movement - NYS ALLIES for Public Education

Resolution to Support the “I Refuse” Movement -      NYS ALLIES for Public Education:



 Resolution to Support the “I Refuse” Movement

BREAKING NEWS!Across NYS, Parents and Educators are combining forces to push back against harmful “reform” policies and to preserve equitable and child centered public education in New York State. Parents and Educators will continue to insist to Governor Cuomo and Chancellor Tisch that our children and their teachers are more than a score and that we reject their attacks on public education.

New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), NY BATs, Lace to the Top (LttT), STCaucus, Long Island Opt-Out (LIOO), and the Port Jefferson Station Teacher’s Association (PJSTA) have collaborated to write the following Test Refusal/APPR Resolution. The above organizations are in full support of this document and encourage education leaders and local union chapters across NYS to adopt this resolution. By adopting this resolution, local unions pledge to oppose high stakes testing, to advocate for an engaged and socially relevant curriculum that is student-based and supported by research; and to ask that their members refuse the NYS tests for their own children in grades 3-8.

Please share this resolution widely and show your support and solidarity for this action by displaying the “My Child is Refusing the NYS Tests” or “Less Testing, More Teaching” bumper sticker. These stickers and magnets are available in the NYSAPE Café Press store. We will also send the image files upon request to anyone interested in printing themselves or purchasing in bulk from the vendor of their choice. 

Resolution to Support the "The I Refuse Movement" to oppose High Stakes Testing:

WHEREAS, the purpose of education is to educate a populace of critical thinkers who are capable of shaping a just and equitable society in order to lead good and purpose-filled lives, not solely prepare that populace for college and career; and

WHEREAS, instructional and curricular decisions should be in the hands of classroom professionals who understand the context and interests of their students; and

WHEREAS, the education of children should be grounded in developmentally appropriate practice; and

WHEREAS, high quality education requires adequate resources to provide a rich and varied course of instruction, individual and small group attention, and wrap-around services for students; and

WHEREAS, the state assessments are not transparent in that–teachers and parents are not allowed to view the tests and item analysis will likely not be made available; and

WHEREAS, the assessment practices that accompany Common Core State Standards – including the political manipulation of test scores – are used as justification to label and close schools, fail students, and evaluate educators; therefore be it

RESOLVED that the (insert union) opposes standardized high stakes testing that is currently pushed by the Federal and State governments, because this testing is not being used to further instruction for children, to help children, or to support the educational needs of children; and be it further

RESOLVED, the (insert union) advocates for an engaged and socially relevant curriculum that is student-based and supported by research; and be it further

RESOLVED, the (insert union) will embark on internal discussions to educate and seek feedback from members regarding standardized high stakes testing and its impact on students; and be it further

RESOLVED, the (insert union) will lobby the NYS Board of Education to eliminate the use of high stakes testing; and be it further

RESOLVED, the (insert union) will ask that all of its members have their own children refuse to take the Grade 3-8 assessments: and be it further

RESOLVED, the (insert union) will organize other members and affiliates to increase opposition to high stakes testing; and be it further

RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution will be sent to the NY State Board of Education, the Governor of NYS, and all members of the NYS legislative branch; and be it finally

RESOLVED, that after this resolution is passed by the (insert union) Representative Council, an appropriate version will be submitted to the American Federation of Teachers for consideration at the AFT July 2016 Convention and to NYSUT for consideration at the 2015 RA.

Please encourage your members to purchase/replicate these bumper stickers/magnets to support test refusal as a way to stop corporate education reform.    http://www.cafepress.com/nysalliesforpubliceducation

- See more at: http://www.nysape.org/resolution-to-support-the-ldquoi-refuserdquo-movement.html#sthash.vK0YFKq1.dpuf

EXCLUSIVE: Rich, poor school funding disparity hits record - NY Daily News

EXCLUSIVE: Rich, poor school funding disparity hits record - NY Daily News:

EXCLUSIVE: Funding inequalities between rich, poor school districts reached record levels under Cuomo: report

Overall, schools in poorer districts spent $8,733 per pupil less in 2012 than those from wealthier ones, an inequity that grew by nearly 9% from before Cuomo took office in 2011, according to the study by a coalition of education advocacy groups opposing many of the reforms pushed by Cuomo.

BY KENNETH LOVETT 

 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

MIKE GROLL/APFunding inequities between poor and rich school districts across the state has reached record levels under Gov. Cuomo, says a new report.

ALBANY — In the opening salvo of what promises to be a heated battle this year over education reform, a new report says funding inequities between poor and rich school districts across the state has reached record levels under Gov. Cuomo - and has soared 43% in New York City.

Overall, schools in poorer districts spent $8,733 per pupil less in 2012 than those from wealthier ones, an inequity that grew by nearly 9% from before Cuomo took office in 2011, according to the study by a coalition of education advocacy groups opposing many of the reforms pushed by Cuomo.

While the 100 wealthiest districts spent on average more than $28,000 in state and local funding per kid in 2012, the 100 poorest districts in the state spent closer to $20,000 per student, the report found.

The report, obtained by the Daily News, is set to be released Monday. The coalition includes the Alliance for Quality Education, which is backed by the powerful teachers unions, the Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, Opportunity Action, and National Opportunity to Learn.

Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said that the state provides three times as much per pupil in high-need districts than it does in low-need ones.

State education aid per pupil actually went up 9.3% during Cuomo’s first term, with a significantly higher percentage going to poorer districts, he said.

“It’s ludicrous that some special interests are seeking to create a false choice between closing the achievement gap between rich and poor districts and the Governor’s efforts to protect taxpayers, while also injecting accountability and innovation into the system,” Azzopardi said.EXCLUSIVE: Rich, poor school funding disparity hits record - NY Daily News:

EXCLUSIVE: Rich, poor school funding disparity hits record - NY Daily News:

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LABOR BOARD RULING: LAUSD MUST REPEAL TEACHER EVALUATION SYSTEM – 3 stories + UTLA press release

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: LABOR BOARD RULING: LAUSD MUST REPEAL TEACHER EVALUATION SYSTEM – 3 stories + UTLA press release:

LABOR BOARD RULING: LAUSD MUST REPEAL TEACHER EVALUATION SYSTEM – 3 stories + UTLA press release

BY THOMAS HIMES, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS | HTTP://BIT.LY/1YRZGM8

Posted: 01/09/15, 2:15 PM PST [Updated:  1/10/2015, 5 PM]  ::  California’s Public Employment Review Board tentatively ordered Los Angeles Unified School District to repeal a key element of an evaluation system that could tie teacher pay to the performance of students.

The evaluation system was championed by former Superintendent John Deasy and reform advocates as a means to hold teachers accountable.

But because LAUSD instituted an “observation” portion of the evaluation system without consent from its 35,000-member teachers union, it violates state law, according to the preliminary ruling from Administrative Law Judge Eric Cu.

“Restoration of the status quo is the normal remedy for a unilateral change in working conditions or terms of employment without permitting bargaining members’ exclusive representative an opportunity to meet and confer over the decision and its effects,” according to the ruling.

The order also requires LAUSD to repay any teachers who lost money as a result of the new observation and evaluation system at a rate of 7 percent interest per year. The system was instituted in March 2013.

While the Christmas Eve ruling has yet to be listed in the state agency’s database, it was reported first by this news organization Friday.

The ruling came in response to a 2013 complaint filed by UTLA in California’s quasi-judicial authority for labor disputes. UTLA claimed LAUSD deprived teachers a chance to negotiate the new evaluation system by unilaterally imposing it. District officials have previously denied the claim.

LAUSD formulated the new evaluation system based on recommendations from a task force. In 2010 the task force, consisting of reform advocates, district administrators and union leaders, issued a report criticizing the previous evaluation system as more “tied more to discipline than performance growth,” according to the Teacher Effectiveness Task Force’s “Final Report” issued April 13, 2010.

The resulting evaluation system, however, has been decried by teachers union leaders as unfair because it ties pay to performance, which in part is judged by student achievement — something that can be affected by factors outside the classroom in a school district that educates students living in widely varied circumstances.

In a Nov. 18 memorandum to board members, district administrators write that union leaders were told the new rating of “highly effective” would not be used to decide pay.

The discussion came up in contract talks between district negotiators and teachers union leaders who remain divided on central issues such as pay raises and class-size reductions. An LAUSD bargaining effort to form a committee that would revamp the evaluation system was rejected last year by teachers union leaders, who continue to plan and stage protests in preparation for a strike.

Board member Bennett Kayser welcomed the ruling as an opportunity for LAUSD’s new superintendent, Ramon Cortines, to renegotiate an evaluation system with union leaders.

“I believe Superintendent Cortines will help us to find more inclusive, equitable and fair evaluation processes for district employees,” Kayser stated. “LAUSD’s test scores have been on the rise for the last 10 years and not because of punitive evaluations of teachers.”

The district has until Feb. 22 to appeal the ruling. Should LAUSD appeal, it would allow for continued use of the evaluation while the appeal is decided by the full review board.

The district’s top attorney, General Counsel Dave Holmquist, stated, the district “is continuing to consider its options. Should LAUSD lose an appeal, it could further contest the issues in state courts.”

Holmquist also pointed out that certain aspects of the system withstood UTLA’s challenge, including the district’s addition of positions designed to mentor teachers.

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Labor board rules against LAUSD for teacher evaluations

BY VANESSA ROMO | LA SCHOOL REPORT | HTTP://BIT.LY/1YRBCUM

Posted on January 9, 2015 3:11 pm [* UPDATED]  ::  LA Unified violated state employment laws by imposing an evaluation system on members of its teacher union, UTLA, a state agency said in a tentative ruling made public today.

If the ruling made on Christmas Eve by the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) stands, the district would have to stop the evaluation process, which was implemented in 2013 under former Superintendent John Deasy. The district would also be ordered to compensate UTLA members for any financial losses incurred as a direct result of the evaluation system, which was based on a four-level observation rating system.

UTLA, which filed the complaint in June 2013, said in a statement it is “gratified” for the board ruling. The district has until Feb. 22 to appeal, but the union said it “is confident that if there is an appeal, the full PERB board will affirm the administrative law judge’s decision that the District acted unlawfully.”

David Holmquist, the district’s chief legal counsel, declined to comment on the preliminary ruling, saying he has not had an opportunity to discuss the ruling with the school board.

“I’m not ready to say what we think it means,” Holmquist told LA School Report in a phone call. “There’s a lot that we need to figure out,” he added.

The board will review the findings and plan a potential response at its board meeting next week.

“Once I bring it up to the board we will decide what responses we want to make to that,” Holmquist said. Some possibilities he mentioned are filing an extension of time to continue litigation or firing off a list of objections to the preliminary ruling.

In the meantime, Holmquist confirmed the district is “in conversation with UTLA.”

Since the district implemented a four-level evaluation, UTLA has objected, arguing that the union’s 30,000 members never had a chance to vote on it. They also allege it creates a path 4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit: LABOR BOARD RULING: LAUSD MUST REPEAL TEACHER EVALUATION SYSTEM – 3 stories + UTLA press release: