Senators’ Silence Dooms Teacher Evaluation Bill
To the surprise of almost no one, a bill that sought to make changes to California rules on how to evaluate teachers failed to pass the Senate Committee on Education during its second-chance hearing Wednesday.What was particularly notable about the bill’s failure was the absence of the majority of the Committee’s members during the hearing and the vote.
Last week, the members had deadlocked 4-4 on the legislation, dubbed SB 441, with one abstention. This week, only three out of nine senators — Senators Mark Wyland (R-Carlsbad), Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar), and Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) — voted “yes.”
The other six members of the Committee sat silently when their names were called. (Watch video of the roll call here, around the 2:59 time mark.)
The bill’s defeat comes as disappointing news to the bill’s supporters, which included education reform group StudentsFirst and LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, who has been pushing to improve the teacher evaluation system in LAUSD.
Deasy had sent a letter to SB 441′s sponsor, Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), expressing his support for the bill on April 17: “This bill will allow us to continue making refinements on the work we have been engaged in over the last four years and build upon the successes we have experienced,” Deasy wrote. (Read the full letter here.)
The news was no doubt welcomed by the California Teachers Association (CTA), which had opposed the evaluation bill from the start and had urged the Education Committee to reject it.
The Senators’ reticence to take a position might seem like an unwise political choice, given the backlash some State Assemblymembers received last year when they
