2 LAUSD teacher groups support evals based on test scores ...

UPDATE, June 1, 2012: With the objective of working toward change with an active voice, rather than simply one of resistance, two educational organizations (soon to be joined by a third) have announced their support of the use of standardized test scores as a percentage of the criteria in assessing the effectiveness of a public school teacher.

The action comes a week before a lawsuit (see previous reporting below) against the Los Angeles Unified School District goes to trial; the suit was brought by parents accusing the district of violating state law in not assessing teachers on the basis of test scores.

As reported by Teresa Watanabe in this morning's Los Angeles Times:

The proposals were unveiled by Teach Plus Los Angeles, a network of more than 800 L.A. Unified teachers; and Our Schools, Our Voice, a coalition of L.A. Unified teachers, parents and community members.

...a third [national] organization ? New York-based Educators 4 Excellence... is also planning to endorse the use of student achievement data when it unveils its own proposal for a new teacher evaluation system in coming weeks....

The Our Schools, Our Voice proposal would phase in the weight of test score data, which would count for a maximum of 25% of the evaluation after two years. But the measure would take into account a student's English language ability and only count if the curriculum matched the tested material, if the student sample was statistically significant and if students attended the teacher's class at least 85% of the time. In addition, the school's overall growth in student performance could be used instead of the teacher's individual score if it was higher during the first two years.?
Observations, which would count for 60% of the evaluation, would be conducted by an administrator and a teacher trained to perform them.

Our Schools, Our Voice is a group of 15 people headed by former LAUSD teacher Mike Stryer and funded by the (Bill and Melinda) Gates Foundation.?

LAUSD wants to use standardized test results as some aspect of its assessment process, and has been doing so in a voluntary program with about 700 teachers (LAUSD, the second-largest district in the U.S., employs approximately 43,000 teachers, 40,000 of whom are said to be members of the union: ?any use of test data in teacher evaluation is opposed by the unions, California Federation of Teachers and United Teachers Los Angeles).

In May, in an interview with KPPC public radio in the Los Angeles region, UTLA president Warren Fletcher said:

"We're at the door, we're more than ready to bargain teacher evaluation...Not only do we want to comply with the law, even if we didn't want to comply with the law, it's still the law. We understand that. But this needs to be something that has been developed with teachers at the table."

Previously reported here on this topic:?

April 10, 2012: That the use of standardized test scores as part of teacher evaluations is a controversial contemporary issue is moot: the state, by law, already requires school districts to do so.

Thus, the basis of two briefs filed this week in the Los Angeles County Superior Court by EdVoice, a Sacramento-based non profit led by CEO Bill Lucia.?Lucia's case,?on behalf of 7 unnamed parents, argues that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has failed in its responsibility to its students and violated state law:

"By failing to assess teachers and administrators based on the progress of pupils and including that assessment as part of the annual evaluation, the LAUSD annually fails its statutory obligations to hundreds of thousands of children, their parents and guardians, taxpayers and the community it is responsible to serve.?

The little known Stull Act, passed in 1971, requires every school board to create its own local standards of student achievement and evaluate teacher performance accordingly; a key component added in 1999 by then speaker of the state Assembly, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, was the use of the California Standardized Tests as a measure of student progress in teacher evaluations.

The lawsuit, first filed in November 2011, contends LAUSD deliberately ignored and circumvented compliance of the Stull Act; it seeks an order to require the district to comply immediately by using measures of student performance in evaluating teachers and administrators.

John Fensterwald writes in detail in the blog Educated Guess:

The thrust of the EdVoice suit is that the current law, though not perfect, is stronger than legislators and educators think; it?s just been ignored ? and neutered ? by contracts that LAUSD and most districts have agreed to with their teachers unions.

?Indeed, the United Teachers Los Angeles? manifesto on the Stull Act states that its position is that ?standardized test scores should play no part in high stakes decisions such as dismissal,???the plaintiffs? brief states.

Complying with the Stull Act is a state mandate, yet the EdVoice suit notes that LAUSD has not filed for compensation for teacher and principal evaluations for five years ?? an indication that the district?s records are sloppy, that the evaluations are perfunctory, or perhaps that they?re not being done for many tenured teachers.

One problem with the Stull Act is that it?s binary: teachers are either rated satisfactory or unsatisfactory. An effective system would include several ratings, so that it becomes a development tool for good teachers to get better. That?s the ultimate goal, said Bill Lucia...

The district?s response is not due until May 1.

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

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