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CTA launches media campaign to mark 150th birthday
The California Teachers Association is celebrating the 28th annual national Teacher Appreciation Week with a bigger milestone – the 150th anniversary of its founding. It was May 1863 when then state superintendent of schools John Swett, a passionate advocate for free public education, held a state teachers’ convention and established the California Educational Society with fewer than 100 members, all men. It became the California Teachers Association in 1875. California itself had just become a teenager, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Quick Hits, Teacher Unions
California looks to Ontario schools’ reformer for guidance
Michael Fullan may be coming soon to a school district near you. The man credited with transforming the Canadian province of Ontario into one of the world’s most effective school systems is ready to help California do the same. Fullan, though, would lead the state in a sharply different direction from the forced march that federal officials … Read entire article »
Filed under: Achievement Gap, Featured, International Comparisons, No Child Left Behind, Program innovation, Race to the Top, Reporting & Analysis, Research, Standardized tests, Systemic Change, Teacher Collaboration, Teacher Unions, Teachers, Turning around failing schools
StudentsFirst hires former Assembly Speaker Núñez
Fabian Núñez, who once was an organizer for the California Teachers Association and counted on the CTA as an ally when he became state Assembly speaker, has been hired as a strategist by StudentsFirst, the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee reported. The hire is the latest signal that StudentsFirst, the Sacramento-based advocacy organization founded by ex-Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, plans to step up its political work in Sacramento. In pushing an aggressive national agenda that focuses on expanding charter schools, teacher evaluations and an end to teacher seniority and tenure, the organization has been at odds with teachers unions. In this month’s school board election in Los Angeles Unified, it gave $250,000 to candidates backing Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy and opposed by United Teachers Los Angeles. Citing … Read entire article »
Filed under: Quick Hits, School Choice, Teacher Unions
Most State Board members back districts’ NCLB waiver
A majority of State Board of Education members expressed strong support at their meeting Thursday for a consortium of districts’ unconventional request for a waiver from constraints of the federal No Child Left Behind law. “Congratulations,” Board member Carl Cohn told two superintendents representing the nine districts in the California Office to Reform Education, or CORE, seeking the waiver. “This restores our state’s reputation for bold experimentation. It will be interesting to see the extent to … Read entire article »
Filed under: Common Core standards, Evaluations, Featured, No Child Left Behind, Reporting & Analysis, Teacher Unions
Dramatic dip in ‘pink slips’ given to teachers
(This story has been updated.) Districts have issued dramatically fewer preliminary layoff notices to teachers this year, signaling an end to five years of high budgetary anxiety and providing one of the first concrete examples of the immediate benefits of Proposition 30. Statewide, districts sent 3,000-plus “pink slips” to teachers and certain other certificated staff, such as counselors and librarians, according to the California Teachers Association, which tracks the numbers. The Association expects the count to rise … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Funding and Taxation, Initiatives, Proposition 98, Reporting & Analysis, State Budget, Teacher Unions, Teachers
LAUSD’s Deasy, union spar over teacher evaluation measures
A high-profile teacher evaluation agreement was but days old Friday when Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy and the district’s teachers union expressed sharp disagreement over a contentious provision. United Teachers Los Angeles accused Deasy of breaking a binding agreement by requiring that “data-driven” measures of student achievement be given a “weight limited to 30 percent” of a teacher’s final evaluation. Deasy referred to the figure in guidelines he issued to principals on how to conduct … Read entire article »
Filed under: Evaluation, Reporting & Analysis, Teacher Unions, Tests & Assessments
EdWatch 2013: Teacher evaluation law will be taken on again
Breakthrough agreements in two California school districts and a much anticipated report on improving teacher effectiveness have raised expectations that it might actually be possible to amend or rewrite the state’s outdated and ineffective state law on teacher evaluations in a way that can work for both unions and school districts. Prospects looked bleak four months ago. A frenetic effort to rewrite California’s 40-year-old Stull Act died when Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes, a San Fernando Democrat, withdrew … Read entire article »
Filed under: Evaluation, Evaluations, Featured, Reporting & Analysis, Teacher Collaboration, Teacher Unions
Los Angeles Unified, union cut deal on test scores and evaluations
Facing a court-ordered deadline, Los Angeles Unified and its teachers union have agreed on a framework for evaluating teachers that will include using student scores on local and state standardized tests – but only to a limited, as yet undetermined extent. The tentative agreement announced Friday, responds to a Superior Court ruling in June that found the district had failed to comply with a state law requiring that measures of student academic progress be factored into a … Read entire article »
Filed under: Evaluations, Featured, Reporting & Analysis, Teacher Unions
New Assembly Education chair skeptical of plan for weighted funding
Any bill to change the way that California funds its public schools will have to go through Joan Buchanan, and that could present problems for Gov. Jerry Brown. Buchanan is the new chair of the Assembly Education Committee, and, as she made clear in a lengthy interview with EdSource Today (see transcript), she’s skeptical of Brown’s weighted student formula, which he plans to reintroduce next year. Her views reflect those of suburban and demographically better off school … Read entire article »
Filed under: Charter Schools, Common Core standards, Equity issues, Evaluations, Facilities, Featured, Funding and Taxation, Getting Down To Facts studies, Reporting & Analysis, Student spending, Teacher Pay, Teacher Unions, Technology, Tests & Assessments, Weighted Student Funding (Local Control Funding Formula)
Try a different tack: Hold teachers responsible for education quality
March 12th, 2013 | 5 Comments | By Charles Taylor Kerchner / commentary
The Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed piece I wrote about last week’s school board election, where a coalition of deep-pockets givers spurred by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spent over $63 per vote. It was not only big money but also money badly spent. One point I raised was the crafting of a Democratic alternative to the Republican position on teachers unions, which is largely that they should be weakened by restriction on bargaining rights. Generally, this … Read entire article »
Filed under: Commentary, Evaluation, Featured, Teacher Unions, Teachers