Wednesday, October 14, 2009

CTA--How Are You Going To Explain This To Your Membership?

Honestly, I thought CTA had planted a standard on the hill and was prepared to die for this one: no teacher in California will be evaluated based on the standardized test scores of his/her students.

Either I was wrong, CTA changed its mind, or it was just steamrolled:

California is back in the race.

Sunday afternoon Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that took away the biggest obstacle to the state winning a share of $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top funds for education.

Senate Bill 19, authored by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, eliminates a statewide ban against tying student test scores to teacher evaluations.


I emailed my union rep today to ask how this could happen and we "rank and file" teachers hear nothing about it until it's in the paper. I haven't yet received a response.
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3 comments:

  1. Dan Edwards8:11 PM

    "I haven't yet received a response." And I doubt you will hear anything from someone in leadership from CTA. Your local rep probably doesn't even know.

    I know we heard nothing about this at last week's building rep meeting.....

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  2. W.R. Chandler8:36 AM

    As long as we have public (government) schools with all the bureaucratic rules and restrictions and lack of accountability that go with any government operation, I am opposed to tying test scores to teacher performance. You cannot apply a private business model to a public institution.

    The day that the public schools are privatized (which I totally favor) and schools can make all parties involved (parents, students, etc.) accountable for their performance, then I will be totally behind tying test scores to teacher performance.

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  3. Anonymous6:39 PM

    First, I would guess that this is more about money than anything else. What wouldn't the state government do for more revenue? That's got to be a pretty short list of items.

    Second, the devil's in the details. I'm sure the CTA had a solid rationale for not dying on this hill. Perhaps they're figuring that the next gubernatorial election will result in someone more controllable being elected, and that once the check is in the mail, they can work their magic with the folks in Sacramento to blunt this or gut it somehow, to create the appearance of doing the right thing without actually doing the right thing, just like when they backed class size reductions (more teachers = more dues money, etc.).

    The CTA will always be true to themselves. The greater good never even comes up on their radar, unless it happens to mesh with the interests of their brass.

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