By now, most people have heard about the lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of Stand for Children’s ballot initiative “An Act to Promote Excellence in the Public Schools.” One part of the lawsuit challenges the Attorney General’s summary of the initiative, which is required by Amendment 48 of our state constitution to provide a “fair, concise summary.”
When commenter Christopher O’Leary asked what exactly what the initiative would do, I was hard-pressed to do what Stand for Children has refused to do: explain how its initiative actually affects education. This difficulty is reflected in the AG’s summary, which might suffice for a first year law student, but would be pretty obtuse for the average voter.
I’ve posted the AG’s entire summary below. Aside from eliciting opinions, I was hoping BMGer’s might take a shot a explaining parts of it. Can you summarize the intended effect of SFC’s initiative? Can you summarize part of it? Is the summary “fair and concise”? Can you do better? Is it fair to provide voters with this summary as a source of information? Here it is:
This proposed law would require that school districts use model “educator evaluation standards” issued by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, or adapt such standards for use, in evaluating teachers, principals, and administrators. Such evaluations would be used in decisions to hire, grant professional teacher status, transfer, promote, demote, lay off, or dismiss educators.
A school district and its teachers’ union, if any, would decide whether to (1) implement a model evaluation system to be designed by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education using the Board’s standards, or (2) develop another system consistent with those standards. If the district and union, after good faith collective bargaining, could not agree on another system, and until any agreed-upon alternative was approved by the Department, the district would implement the model system. The proposed law would replace the current law under which evaluation standards may be set by collective bargaining at the local level, or by binding arbitration if the district and union cannot agree.
Any educator who received an unsatisfactory rating would either (1) be placed on an improvement plan for up to 1 year; or (2) at the educator’s request, could request a second evaluator, who the school district would choose from a list set up by the school district and the teachers’ union, if any. All evaluators would have to take a training program set up by the Department.
If the second evaluator disagreed with the original evaluation, the superintendent would decide whether to require an improvement plan. After completion of an improvement plan, an evaluator would decide if the educator had achieved proficiency in all previously unsatisfactory areas, and an educator could request a second evaluator on that issue. If the second evaluator disagreed with the first, the superintendent would make the final decision. Under the proposed law, if a teacher with professional teacher status was dismissed for incompetence or failure to meet performance standards, or had received 2 overall unsatisfactory ratings in 5 years, the district would not have to offer a second improvement plan.
The proposed law provides that to be eligible for professional teacher status in a district, a teacher would have to serve full-time in that district for 3 years and be rated proficient or exemplary, on each standard and overall, in the third year. If a teacher did not obtain such ratings, the superintendent could, at the principal’s recommendation, give the teacher a 1-year extension. A teacher could also obtain professional teacher status if the teacher recently held that status in another district, had voluntarily resigned from or was honorably dismissed by the other district, and had been rated at least proficient, on each standard and overall, in the first year in the new district. A superintendent could no longer award professional teacher status based only on the recommendation of a principal in whose school a teacher had served for a year. The proposed law would eliminate the requirement that a teacher without professional teacher status be automatically appointed for the next school year unless notified otherwise by June 15th.
If a teacher with professional teacher status was dismissed for any reason and requested that an arbitrator review the dismissal, the arbitration hearing would have to begin within 75 days of the notice of dismissal and end within 120 days of the notice. At the arbitration hearing, evaluation documents would be treated as substantial evidence of the grounds for dismissal. In deciding whether the grounds for dismissal had been proven, the arbitrator would not consider a teacher’s seniority or length of service. A school district and teachers’ union could agree to have teacher dismissals reviewed by a panel of teachers and principals with a history of exemplary performance ratings, instead of an arbitrator, but the proposed law’s other requirements for arbitration hearings would still apply.
The proposed law would require that decisions about hiring, transfers (including transfers when a regional school district is formed or dissolved), and layoffs, be based mainly on certifications, merit and ability, including evaluations, and other factors related to job performance and the best interests of the students. Experience and seniority would be secondary. If 2 educators had equal certifications, merit and ability, and evaluations, seniority would be the deciding factor.
The proposed law would require that in hiring and transfers, the principal and educator must agree on the placement. The school district and the union would collectively bargain about how much paid leave, up to 1 year, to give a teacher who could not find an agreed-upon position in the district. The proposed law would eliminate the current requirements that no professional teacher may be either (1) laid off due to a reduction in force or reorganization, if there is a teacher without such status for whose position the professional teacher is certified, or (2) displaced by a more senior professional teacher, unless that teacher is qualified for the junior teacher’s position. The proposed law would eliminate certain educator transfer rights that apply when a regional school district is formed or dissolved.
The proposed law would take effect on January 1, 2013. It would not affect existing collective bargaining agreements, but would have to be followed in future agreements.
It also does appear that the union has a role, which is good, but why can’t we just say a teacher is evaluated by the building principal, with a negative evaluation appealable to another review either by another principal in the district or a district administrator?
for unions in the initiative. This is Walkerism by ballot measure. Here’s the MTA’s summary of what it does.
Erodes PTS rights by
I’m serious about the crowdsourcing though, if you can, take a part and try to summarize it.
This is so hard to respond to thematically, because it isn’t written thematically. It’s a hodgepodge wish list with more ragged ends than I can imagine.
I’ll tell you one gigantic effect off the top of my head — this takes money out of the classroom, and resources away from the kids. That is because this bill imposes a staggering paperwork and bureaucratic burden on schools and districts without any provision for funding them. Already, many schools are looking at doubling their administrative overhead because the new evaluation system de facto doubles the number of evaluations and observations that much be conducted. So money, people, and resources are pulled out of the classroom and put into offices.
Take this entire business about first and second evaluators, improvement plans, etc. Imagine a large district struggling with a student population whose entire education happens inside the schools. How will that superintendent mange all these new plans that s/he has to personally supervise?
By hiring more administrators to take on part of the burden. By shifting the resources of the schools away from the kids and toward the adults. I don’t like the idea that the taxes I pay are going to fund new piles of paperwork routed between adults in the guise of education.
then it is a selective repeal of Proposition 2-1/2, which (among may other things of course) requires the Commonwealth to fully fund new spending requirements it imposes on municipalities, or makes those requirements optional.
Prop. 2-1/2 would be a much worse law without that stipulation.
is based on the premise that, by making things even worse for teachers, you make things better for children.
Yes, I agree that between the lines of all this impenetrable gobbledygook is the notion that there are all these lousy, complacent teachers out there that we can bear down on and either make them uncomfortable enough to work harder, or replace them with one of legions of well-qualified, experienced, trained teachers in waiting in the wings. Both are dubious premises at best.
As a parent, it does not warm my heart to think of my kids being taught by teachers who feel disrespected and are desperately afraid that if they don’t get on with the principal and they don’t increase test scores, they will be out on the streets.
But beneath the idea that making things worse for teachers makes things better for kids is another really big false assumption. It’s the idea that if either of those two things could be accomplished (lazy teachers working harder or bad teachers axed and replaced with new teachers who are fabulous from Day 1), THEN we would overcome the achievement gap and all students would live well and prosper.
This fallacy was repeated in Saturday’s Globe oped on the Boston teachers contract, when the authors wrote: “Research shows that teacher quality is the most important factor determining student learning.”
I felt like my head would explode if I read this completely false assertion one more time, so I submitted the following letter to the editor:
Read this LA Unified School District teacher’s reaction to her evaluation, here.
How would the “model evaluation system” measure a teacher’s performance and ability to improve student achievement under circumstances like this?
is that it places complete trust in administrators. Fact Check: administrators do not become administrators through promotion. At best, administrators are no better at their jobs than teachers are at theirs.
And as you point out Lisa, Stand for Children doesn’t acknowledge the lives of students living in poverty. The homelessness, the hunger, the violence. At best, America doesn’t acknowledge poverty, at worst, we blame the poor for their own condition.