The California Teachers Association is expressing disappointment that lawmakers failed to approve AB 5, a CTA-supported landmark measure by Assembly Member Felipe Fuentes (D-Los Angeles) that would have transformed the state’s antiquated teacher evaluation system into a highly useful process that would help teachers improve their professional skills.

“California’s educators are disappointed that the Legislature missed a great chance to change the state’s teacher evaluation system in a way that would have improved our profession and student learning. AB 5 by Assembly Member Fuentes was based on sound research about how you build strong learning communities for students with a comprehensive teacher evaluation system,” said CTA President Dean Vogel in a statement released to the media.

“The California Best Practices Teacher Evaluation bill was an opportunity to get beyond the simple test score debate and to develop meaningful teacher assessments based on multiple measures of accountability. Teachers will continue to press for fair reforms like those outlined in this bill,” stated the CTA leader.

“Assembly Member Fuentes worked diligently with all stakeholders for two years to create a comprehensive package. We thank him for his leaderships on this effort. CTA will continue to press for the rigorous and fair reforms like those outlined in this bill to transform a teacher evaluation system that is currently superficial and cursory, and so contrary to fostering
the collaboration we know is necessary to improve student achievement.”

To read more about what is essential to a quality and comprehensive teacher evaluation system, see the CTA Teacher Evaluation Framework.

The author of the CTA-supported measure that would reform the antiquated 40-year old Stull Act teacher evaluation process has decided not to move the measure due to the difficulty in providing a full hearing to a series of amendments added to his AB 5 in the last days of the session.

Assembly Member Felipe Fuentes (D-Los Angeles) [pictured at right]  issued the following statement about his decision to hold the California Best Practices Teacher Evaluation Proposal:

“After working on this bill in a transparent and collaborative manner for more than two years, I could not in good conscience allow the proposed amendments to be voted on without a full public hearing.  There would not be sufficient time for myself or the stakeholders I’ve been working with, to review the amendments that were being proposed.  I believe this issue is too important to be decided at the last minute and in the dark of night.”

“I would like to thank all of the stakeholders who participated in this process for the past two years – particularly the parents and community members, whose dedication to improving our education system is unparalleled.  While every study has shown the quality of a teacher as the single most important factor in improving student achievement, I am disappointed that we were unable to update California’s out-of-date 40 year old teacher evaluation system.  We have moved the needle a long way in creating a modern teacher evaluation system here in California.  I am hopeful that someone else will take up this critical issue and the mantle of teacher evaluation reform next year.”

“Although I am termed out of the Assembly, I will continue this fight moving forward.  Because I believe that creating a rigorous teacher evaluation system is too important and ultimately our children’s futures are too important.  As a parent and legislator I know that every child deserves a quality teacher in their classroom.”

The California Teachers Association commended Assembly Member Fuentes for his hard work in seeking to revamp the evaluation system to help students and teachers.

An influential member of the Los Angeles Unified School District has added his voice to those, including the California Teachers Association’s, calling on lawmakers to approve AB 5, a comprehensive reform of the 40-year-old Stull Act that governs the evaluation of teachers.

LAUSD Board Member Steve Zimmer has written a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown expressing his support for the bill by Assembly Member Felipe Fuentes that would provide “transformational change” that Los Angeles’ students need.

Writes the Board Member: “Each and every Los Angeles student deserves a system that measures teaching and learning in dynamic ways that honor their multiple intelligences. And every teacher who has dedicated their life to educating our next generation deserves a new system that improves the profession and respects their lifework. AB 5 sets the framework for this to happen across our state.”

The full text of the two page letter is below.

On Tuesday, Gov. Brown unveiled a public employee pension reform package that contains some important changes for newly hired educators in California schools.

1.  All changes apply to NEW CalSTRS members – those hired after the bill has passed and enacted into law.
2.  All new CalSTRS members would be required to pay half of the normal cost of their retirement. The language is very unclear on the impact this would have for local school districts and school funding under Proposition 98.
3. Changes the formula for determining retirement benefits from 2% at age 60 to 2% at age 62, and from 2.4% at age 63 to 2.4% at age 65.
4. Eliminates the ability of teachers with more than 25 years of service to use their single highest year salary when calculating retirement benefits. All future teachers would be required to use their three highest years of salary.

The changes and others in the governor’s plan  would undermine the state’s ability to recruit and retain teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other key employees.

The California Teachers Association has sent a letter of opposition to the Legislature, urging lawmakers to vote against the bill containing the governor’s proposal, AB 340.

More information about the measure can be obtained from the CTA letter of opposition (below).

Some of California’s wealthiest residents are pumping millions of dollars into Super-PACs that underwrite campaign attack ads.

Even some of these donors concede they don’t like Super-PACs because they artificially magnify the voices of the wealthy to drown out the speech of the middle class. But the wealthy say they have to give because their political opponents are doing the same thing.

Despite the unbridled power of these funding entities and claims by the backers of Proposition 32 – the Special Exemptions Act — that the measure on the November ballot will reform campaign funding, Proposition 32 will do nothing to rein in Super-PACs or limit the contributions of a range of business entities, including limited liability corporations (LLCs), real estate trusts, and other wealthy special interests.

To learn more about Super-PACs in California and who’s funding them, read the Bay
Citizen’s expose, California Feeds Super-PACs of Both Persuasions.

Over the past three years, budget cuts have reduced enrollment in the state’s beleaguered community college system by 485,000 students, or 17% of the student population, Community College Chancellor Jack Scott told reporters during a Wednesday morning teleconference.

The already dire situation will get worse if voters do not pass Proposition 30, the CTA-backed revenue initiative on the November ballot.  Scott said the community colleges will lose another $238 million this year if the revenue measure fails.

Citing the “dire” financial situation, Scott said 70% of the state’s community colleges have reported that they have reduced their course offerings, with waiting lists for classes – and class sizes – skyrocketing.

Class sizes have increased by 10%, to over 30 per section in colleges including Long Beach Community Colleges,  Long Beach CC President Eloy Oakley stated.

Chancellor Deborah Blue, State Center CC District, said that her colleges had reduced course offerings by as much as 40%, with a devastating effect on the Fresno area economy that has unemployment in the 15-33% range. Chancellor Brice Harris of the Los Rios Community College district, said 1400 course sections, or about 9.3% , had been cut.  The college’s work force had been cut about 218 full-time equivalent positions, also about 9%.

Employees are looking at a 6% salary cut, and the district has had to  push off healthcare costs
onto the “backs of our employees.”  More than $13.3 million of the district’s reserves have been “burnt through,” and the “failure of the tax initiative would make things dramatically worse,” Harris noted.

The district officials noted that while they had tried to minimize faculty layoffs, part-time instructors had been hit hard since most serve as temporary employees.

A noted columnist for the Sacramento Bee has denounced Proposition 32, the Special Exemptions Act, as “bogus” political reform that aims to undermine the ability of organizations like the California Teachers Association to protect public education, students, their members, and middle-class Californians by blocking the organizations from fully participating in the political process.

Dan Morain, in Money flows to lawmakers as final votes loom, notes that political contributions have a major impact on elected officials’ decisions, and he cites contributions by corporations, political giving that won’t be regulated by Prop. 32.  He fears voters will be fooled into supporting Prop. 32 by believing it is real campaign reform.

“The link between donations and legislative action is clearest at the end of a session. Politicians and the moneyed interests that enable them cannot help themselves. It will take an initiative to fix the problem, although Proposition 32, the bogus campaign finance overhaul on the Nov. 6 ballot, isn’t the answer,” writes Morain in his August 29 column.

“Without a doubt, voters disgusted with the political system will be tempted to embrace Proposition 32. A cynical initiative gussied up to look like tough campaign finance reform, Proposition 32 is the latest effort by union foes to limit labor’s ability to raise and spend money on California campaigns,” Morain emphasizes.

A new survey released by the Pew Research Center finds that 58% of respondents believe the rich are paying too little in federal taxes, below their fair share of the costs of government services.

The results,  released August 27, find that only 2% of those polled believe that their upper income colleagues are paying a fair proportion in federal taxes. By contrast, only 8% believe the wealthy are paying “too much” in taxes.

The new Pew survey follows by several weeks the earlier Pew research brief that determined America’s middle class is “disappearing” in the wake of the Great Recession of the first decade of the 21^st century.

The pollsters contacted 2,508 adults over the age 18 by telephone from July 16-28, 2012. Pew Research Center cites a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8%.

Read the entire report here.

Helsinki, Day #5 - We spent the entire day immersed in the Finnish teacher training system, visiting teacher training centers in the morning and the University of Helsinki in the afternoon. One of my colleagues in the US entourage, Mary Cathryn Ricker from St. Paul Federation of Teachers, captured the experience with this post on her blog. Thank you, Mary Cathryn!

Potential teachers are chosen after two or three years of undergraduate preparation through grade point average, test scores and a make-it-or-break-it interview. Ultimately it is the interview that is used to choose people to study to become teachers. The interview is conducted with content teachers, content-area professors, and an education professor. This group is looking for a virtual single-minded motivation to be with children as the priority.

Olli stressed that the role of teachers and teacher education are important to the now famous Finnish success that we are here to study.

Once chosen, these potential teachers are paired with master teachers at a teacher training school, like the secondary school I visited. To be a master teacher you must have at least two years of experience but Olli said the reality was that these teachers had much more than two years and a tremendous amount of value was placed in finding master teachers who had advanced degrees beyond the initial, mandatory Masters degree required to enter the profession.

Read the full blog post from Mary Cathryn Ricker.

Today, we are OUTRAGED!

Yesterday the “Anderson Cooper 360” show did a hatchet job on CTA, grossly distorting the truth about educators’ involvement in politics and more specifically our efforts on SB 1530.

It came as a shock to us while watching the video that this was a CNN story, and not the gotcha faux-reporting of FOX “news”.  The story made assumptions and drew conclusions without looking at the facts of the entire story.

SB 1530 was born out of the headlines from Miramonte elementary school last year where a teacher was accused of doing horrible things to students. Unfortunately the bill was little more than political grandstanding by opportunists masquerading as education “reformers”.

The alleged actions of the accused teacher at Miramonte were unconscionable – on that we can all agree. But if you read the bill in question or followed the real discussions on SB 1530, you know it did nothing to make kids safer in schools.

Under current law Superintendent Deasy and LAUSD were negligent. They did not remove the accused teacher from the classroom which they have the power and obligation to do. Nor did they report the accused to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, as they are also required to do. Current law allowed for this teacher to be removed from the classroom immediately. Sadly, LAUSD administrators are the ones who didn’t take any action.

In fact, CTA supported amendments to SB 1530 that would have streamlined the dismissal process. Unfortunately, Senator Padilla rejected these amendments, and kept his focus on making it easier to fire any teacher, innocent or guilty.

We cannot oversimplify this serious issue. And “AC360”’s reporting’s one-sided, almost gleeful vilification does just that. CNN didn’t follow any ethical journalistic practices, and they need to be called out.

There is an agenda at play here, one that plays directly into the hands of the Yes on 32 campaign’s dishonest promise to “get special interest money out of politics”. They want our money out of politics (but not theirs!) and will go to whatever lengths to get their way. It must be noted that the first to publish the “AC360” video clip was the Yes on 32 campaign, and the first to promote it on Twitter was Democrats for Education Reform and Gloria Romero, who support the Yes campaign and who will continue to influence politics with their charter/privatization agenda even if 32 passes.