Reform: Rhee Calls For State Law To Bolster LA Agreement

Following up on yesterday's LA Times article describing the recent LAUSD-UTLA agreement on teacher evaluation as a "major victory" for the union, former Washington DC schools superintendent Michelle Rhee is describing the tentative deal as"falling short in many ways" and citing it as an example of the need for a "strong statewide policy governing teachers' performance evaluations."

Read below for Rhee's statement, provided via email.

This isn't the first time that Rhee has urged districts and states to enact tougher teacher evaluation laws.

Full statement from Rhee:

While the agreement between the Los Angeles Unified School District and the United Teachers of Los Angeles regarding use of student performance in teacher evaluations brought the two sides together, it still falls short in many ways. Unfortunately, it creates uncertainty over how students’ academic progress and test scores will be used to determine how well teachers are doing and contains no guarantee they will be used at all.

The agreement illustrates that California is in dire need of a strong statewide policy governing teachers’ performance evaluations.

StudentsFirst strongly believes that no district can accurately measure how well its teachers are doing without considering the performance of their students along with other important measures like classroom observations and parent/student feedback. That’s common sense. California parents are looking to Sacramento to put students first and take up this issue to develop a strong statewide policy governing teacher evaluations.

Previous posts from LA School Report: Questions About Teacher Evaluation Deal,  LAUSD Approves Teacher Grading Deal

 

Comments

[Monica]

The agreement was in response to an already existing law that had been ignored for many years. I will return later with a link. But shame on you Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst for not doing your homework!

[Monica]

Here is the citation of the current case that enforces the " pupil progress " law. That took me two minutes on my phone at lunch. If I had a computer and four minutes I could find a link to the original law.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2012/06/student_performance_must_be_pa.html