TVal: NEA Denies Flip-Flop On Teacher Evaluation

Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds -- everyone knows that -- but folks in and out of the reform movement have been noting apparent inconsistencies in AFT and NEA position on similar-seeming proposals and statutes.

This time it's Chicago reform critic Mike Klonsky who has questions.  One of them is directed at NEA head Dennis Van Roekel, whose union supported teacher evaluation law in Illinois that among other things gives student achievement a role but opposes the "nearly identical" law now in Colorado [SB191].

Wait just a second, says Alice O'Brien, NEA Office of General Counsel.  The Colorado lawsuit that NEA is supporting is a challenge to the "discharge without cause" provisions of SB191, not the evaluation provisions.  

According to the NEA, there's nothing like that in SB 7.  "The IL law was not modeled on SB 191, does not include the type of discharge without cause provisions challenged in the CO lawsuit, and includes collectively bargained evaluation plans, which IEA strongly supports."

Image via Klonsky.