Joan Buchanan, Source: Ed Source

Via Ed Source | by John Fensterwald

Signaling the resolution of an acrimonious issue, Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, introduced a bill Friday to make dismissing teachers charged with severe misconduct quicker, easier and cheaper.

“I want to thank the education community for its willingness to continue to work on this critical issue,” Buchanan said in a statement. “We share a common goal of keeping our children safe and providing a fair and efficient process.”

Buchanan praised the compromise that was reached, and said that Gov. Jerry Brown, who vetoed her version of the bill last year, would sign it. Brown spokesman Jim Evans confirmed in an email, “As introduced, the Administration supports Assemblymember Buchanan’s approach.”

In a further sign of movement, Bill Lucia, CEO of EdVoice, an advocacy organization, said he would withdraw a proposed ballot measure dealing with teacher dismissals if the bill, as proposed, becomes law by mid-June. In an unusual alliance, Lucia and the California Teachers Association, who have clashed over teacher evaluations, charter schools and, until now, teacher discipline and dismissals, issued a joint statement praising the compromise and each other’s efforts.

Read full story here.

Assembly member Joan Buchanan, left, and State Senator Alex Padilla, right

Governor Jerry Brown’s veto of AB 375, a bill that would have amended California’s teacher dismissal process, doesn’t mean the effort is dead.

“The governor still wants to do something,” LA Unified’s chief lobbyist, Edgar Zazueta, told LA School Report. “I do see there will be one, if not several, efforts to do this next year. Hopefully we’re able to find somewhere in the middle, where more stakeholders can embrace final product.”

Zazueta added that Brown “always wants to make sure that all the stakeholders are on board. With 375, it was unbalanced. None of the folks who do dismissals were part of process.”

Gloria Romero, who just left California Democrats for Education Reform to start her own organization, the Foundation for Parent Empowerment, also sees a pathway forward, even if it remains uncertain who’s leading the effort.

“The stars are aligned,” she said. “There will be a very bright public spotlight on this. The legislature will have to act. The question is, who carries it this time?”

Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, the East Bay Democrat who sponsored the measure, has not decided whether she will go forward with a reconfigured approach or defer to someone else on the issue. One possibility is State Senator Alex Padilla, who authored a bill, SB 10, that would have made it easier to fire teachers accused of harming a student.

That bill died in committee after an intense lobbying blitz from the California Teachers Association.

This year, Padilla declined to take the lead on the new version of the bill – perhaps because he’s running for California Secretary of State and doesn’t want to antagonize the teachers unions. Buchanan’s bill was supported by teacher unions but widely attacked reform groups and newspaper editorial boards statewide.

“I still strongly believe that the discipline appeal process is broken,” Buchanan said in an email. “It takes too long and costs too much money. However, I agree that the path forward is uncertain.”

The question then, is there a compromise to made?

Romero also said that if the legislature doesn’t act, there could be a move by outside groups to write a ballot initiative. “There’ve been discussions, believe me, about which way to go forward,” she said.

A ballot initiative could pressure the legislature into acting. But the real pressure might come from Vergara v. California, the lawsuit filed by Students Matter aimed at tearing up many of the laws that govern the teacher dismissal process. That trial is set to being on January 27 – and could have an enormous impact on how teachers in California are fired.

Students Matter spokesperson Danielle Kelton said that Brown’s veto “definitely highlights the failure of the legislature to address the problem.”

*This update includes a comment from Buchanan. An early version of the post mistakenly identified the Vergara plaintiffs as Students First.

Previous posts: John Deasy on AB 375 Veto: ‘Wise Decision’; BREAKING NEWS: Brown Vetoes Weak Teacher Dismissal Bill; Brown Facing Pressure to Veto ‘Flawed’ Teacher Dismissal Bill; Unions Ask Court to Dismiss ‘Bad Teacher’ Suit

Gov. Jerry Brown

Governor Jerry Brown is facing rising opposition to a bill designed to make it easier to fire teachers accused of abusing students. Critics say it doesn’t, and that could make it harder for him to justify signing it into law. The deadline for consideration is Sunday.

Over the last few weeks, school district superintendents, education groups and newspaper editorial boards across the state have expressed their concerns, pointing out what they perceive as numerous shortcomings in the measure, AB 375, authored by Joan Buchanan, a Bay Area Democrat.

Richard Carranza, Superintendent of San Francisco Unified, wrote in SF Gate, “This bill is a classic case of good intentions to protect student safety gone awry” and pleaded with the governor to veto the bill.

In a commentary for the Modesto Bee, Cindy Marks, President of the California School Boards Association, called AB 375 “deeply flawed,” saying, “I’m unaware of any school board or superintendent who has taken a position in support of the bill. It appears no one who has investigated and removed a teacher believes AB 375 is good for schools.”

Other opponents, including Students First, EdVoice and the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee concluded that the final version of AB 375 got so watered down by the time it reached the governor’s desk that the process for getting rid of teachers who may be a threat to student safety may actually be more onerous.

Their advice to Gov. Brown: A complete do-over; veto AB 375 until lawmakers can draft a better, more effective version.

Opponents of the bill say its most egregious problems are it would place a seven-month limit on the time a district has to bring a case against a teacher, a process that usually takes more than twice that long. It also prohibits the use of evidence more than four years old. It makes it more difficult to add or change charges if new information is uncovered during investigations, and it limits to five the number of witness who can testify against an accused to teacher.

In the 2012 Miramonte sex abuse scandal, in which teacher Mark Berndt was accused of lewd acts against 23 children at the Los Angeles elementary school, that would have been devastating, said state Senator Bob Huff, a Republican representing parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino Counties who voted against AB 375.

“This bill would have shut out the voices of Mark Berdnt’s victims,” he said in a speech on the senate floor. “Anyone who molests children should have no right to exclude the voices of their victims.  How can we stand here in good conscience and say that is good for students?”

Instead, he said, a bill should limit witnesses only in cases dealing with teachers being dismissed for insufficient performance.

Buchanan, whose bill is backed by the California Teachers Association as well as UTLA, told EdSource “that the opponents are spreading misinformation and waging a campaign ‘not based on facts but emotion.’”

Assembly member Das Williams, who represents Santa Barbara, agrees.

“The truth is that AB 375 is faster. It is better than the current system and it will cost less money,” he told LA School Report.

Williams said he hopes Gov. Brown approves the bill.

“I understand why people would want the bill to be even stronger but I don’t understand how vetoing the bill and having nothing is better,” Williams said. “I think that the system we have right now is obviously flawed, and we do need to take some action and this is the action that we have before us.”

There’s nothing to stop the legislature from making it better in the future, he added.

Previous Posts: Brown Urged to Veto Weakened Teacher Dismissal Bill*; Teacher Dismissal Bill: No Added Concern for Predators; LA Unified Blames ‘Cumbersome’ Law for Dismissal Delay

Assembly member Joan Buchanan

The teacher dismissal bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown‘s signature includes no specific language for streamlining the process of removing teachers for sexual and physical abuse, which had been the focus of earlier bills. The final version simply creates protocols to govern any dismissal case.

Brown has until Oct. 13 to sign it.

Assembly Bill 375, which passed both houses of the legislature last week, grew out of other bills, more narrowly written, that focused on teachers who posed threats to children. Those efforts, opposed by teachers unions, evolved into a wider bill that creates overall procedures with deadlines when none were in place before, prompting some lawmakers were characterizing as too long, too expensive and too cumbersome.

Sponsored by Joan Buchanan, a northern California Democrat and new chair of the Assembly’s education committee, the final version has the strong support of the unions, in part, for maintaining a three-member panel that decides a case — two teachers and an administrative law judge — and for loosening the eligibility requirements for teachers to serve on the panel.

But critics of the bill before Brown argue that it betrays the purpose of the original legislation, denying districts an explicit pathway to removing teachers accused of immoral and illegal behavior.

“For me, I see no benefit in the bill,” John Deasy, the LA Unified superintendent, told LA School Report, referring AB 375. “It neither strengthened nor weakened the current law. In other words it does not help. I look for legislation that makes it easier for districts to dismiss teaches who harm students quickly and cost effectively.”

Bill Lucia, CEO of Ed Voice, a grassroots nonprofit group, is urging Brown to veto the new law, calling it “unsafe for children” and saying it would increase “the likelihood that perpetrators will negotiate a buyout and a hall pass to inflict child abuse again in another California public school.”

Buchanan’s bill evolved from SB 1530, which was introduced last year and never made it out of an Assembly committee, thanks to a two Democrats voting against it and four abstaining — as well as heavy lobbying by the California Teachers Association.

The bill would have given school boards the authority to suspend without pay a teacher or administrator who is notified of dismissal for conduct involving sex abuse, drugs or violence toward children. It would also have given school boards, not a panel — the final authority over dismissals.

One Assembly member who abstained from the voting was Betsy Butler, who was narrowly defeated last year by Richard Bloom, the former mayor of Santa Monica.

Running as an underdog, Bloom had blasted Butler’s abstention, telling LA School Report last year: “I’ve never done that in 13 years of being a public official. I think it’s our responsibility as elected officials to register our opinions and have discourse on them. That’s what public discourse is about.”

But this time, Assemblyman Bloom abstained from AB 375, which had been held up in committee, only to resurface and reach the Assembly floor last week in the final legislative session, a time lawmakers usually scramble to approve bills before the deadline.

“AB 375 was significantly amended and passed out of one committee, then moved on to another committee where, a day before the Assembly and Senate votes, it received a favorable vote,” said Bloom. “While advocates for the measure were certainly prepared, there was virtually no time for school boards, community activists, or anyone other than insiders to evaluate and comment on the reformulated bill.”

Bloom said he scrambled to do his own research and found mixed assessments, with some calling the measure a “modest step forward,” while others told him that “limits on depositions, time constraints on investigations and other factors, would make it harder, not easier, to discipline those accused of heinous acts like child molestation.”

In the end, Bloom simply didn’t feel comfortable voting one way or the other.

“Given that neither I nor my staff had the time to independently evaluate these conflicting views I decided that I could not support the bill, but was not comfortable, at that point, in voting “No'” he said. “My abstention had the same effect as a “no” vote.

“I remain concerned that the legislature has unwittingly passed a bill that would make it more difficult to discipline a teacher like Mark Berndt.  I think that result, if accurate, is unconscionable.“

Berndt is a former third grade teacher who is awaiting trial on charges that he molested more than 20 students over five years.

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The bill awaiting Brown’s signature has unambiguously good news for a certain category of teachers in California public schools: It codifies compliance with a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court decision that being a member of the Communist party cannot be grounds for dismissal.

Previous posts: Richard Bloom Criticizes Betsy Butler For SB 1530 Vote; Assemblymember Bloom Opposes Teacher Dismissal Bill; Teacher Dismissal Bill Blocked Over Seven-Month Time Limit

Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-San Ramon)

After nine months of hearings and amendments, legislation aimed to quicken and streamline teacher dismissal procedures failed to pass in the Senate Education Committee by one vote.

The Chair of the Senate Education Committee Carol Liu (D-Glendale) — the only LA-area lawmaker on the committee — decided not to vote for or against the bill because of district administrators and attorneys’ concerns. Many other lawmakers followed suit.

Liu did grant the bill reconsideration, however, but it now will not be reconsidered until at least January.

Unless the process is changed at the state-level, bill sponsor State Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-San Ramon) says LAUSD and other districts will continue to wade through onerous dismissal procedures that can last 18 months or longer.

However,  Edgar Zazueta, the director of government relations for LAUSD, said that while Buchanan’s bill would be a great improvement to the current law there are some serious flaws that could damage the district if the bill passed as is.

The Buchanan legislation has been supported by the teachers union, among others.

Assembly Bill 357 was expected to pass with strong support from teachers’ unions and student advocacy groups.  It would have made it easier for districts to suspend and fire teachers for serious offenses, an especially pertinent issue given the continuous slew of child molestation and teacher misconduct cases that continue to crop up throughout LA Unified.

First reported by EdSource Today, the failure of the Buchanan legislation was a repeat of the failure of similar legislation in 2012.

Last year, Buchanan voted against the legislation, SB 1530, which was championed by Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima).  This year, she developed her own legislation and was joined by Padilla, but was met with similar push back by the state Senate.

What is really holding the bill back, from perspective of LAUSD, is the proposed seven-month time frame for dismissing teachers accused of misdeeds in the classroom.

“This bill says that if the seven months pass without a resolution, a district gets another 30 days,” Zazueta explained. “But ultimately that time period may lapse, and the bill states that the district would have to refile the case. That’s a big concern for us.”

“It doesn’t make sense for us to have to start from scratch, put people back on the stand and do the whole thing over,” he added.

District lawyers warned that Office of Administrative Hearings, where the dismissal cases are heard, has a difficult time putting these on the calendar from the get go, according to Zazueta. To district administrators, a seven month dismissal resolution seems like a long shot.

“What our lawyers told us is that the Office of Administrative Hearings (where the dismissal cases are heard) has a difficult time putting these on the calendar from the get go,” said Zazueta. “Just because we say it will happen in seven months, will it actually happen?”

Buchanan disagrees with this assessment, saying that most dismissal hearings actually take days or a week once they are scheduled at the Office of Administrative Hearings because their deadlines are written into statues, and that forces the OAH to make sure cases are concluded.

“It works,” said Buchanan. “So to say you cannot get it done in seven months’ time, I don’t believe is correct, since these cases are not part of judicial branch.”

United Teachers of Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher said the union will continue to support the bill despite the recent setbacks. The administrators’ union also said they support the bill, though they also have concerns about the hard-set time deadline, among other details.

“Yes the process should be faster, but I think [the bill’s sponsors] tried to make it faster than would be possible,” said AALA President Judith Perez.

Perez said that she was concerned at the speed teachers could be dismissed if the bill passed and explained that putting such a specific length of time could backfire for school districts.

Buchanan acknowledges that’s what prevented the bill from passing.

“The bill stalling really hinged on one law firm who testified and said the process cannot be completed in seven months so cases will get dismissed and end up costing districts more money,” said Buchanan.

Depending on the severity of the charges in a teacher dismissal case, the process can drag on for a year or more, costing districts money they don’t have.

Buchanan says the biggest problem facing schools is actually not the sexual abuse and misconduct cases like Miramonte, but the dismissals for unprofessional conduct and unsatisfactory performance which are less cut-and-dry, harder to prove, “drag on for extended periods of time” and often costs districts hundreds of thousands of dollars.

On this issue, Buchanan and LAUSD agree.

“Sometimes cases last over a year,” said Zazueta. “Some cases have even dragged on for multiple years.”

These delayed dismissal cases can cost LAUSD anywhere from $150,000 – $300,000 for one case, he said. If the district loses a case once it finally gets to trial, Zazueta says the district has to pay the two panelists it finds to sit in for the hearing about $7,000-$9,500.

Under Supt. Deasy’s administration, Zazueta says the district has tried to “be more aggressive to see which employees should be in the classroom,” which can result in more teacher dismissal cases.

With months until the January consideration, Buchanan says she will do whatever it takes to get the bill ready to pass.

“I need to sit down individually with every member of the Senate Committee on Education to make sure they truly understand what the bill really does,” she said. “If we need to amend it we will.”

Previous posts: Mixed Reactions to New Teacher Dismissal Bill; Deasy Wants Stronger Teacher Dismissal Bill; State Teachers Union Rejects Criticism of Teacher Dismissal Bill; Deasy Requests Changes to Teacher Dismissal Bill

A controversial bill aimed at ensuring teachers accused of sexual misconduct and other immoral acts can be more easily removed from the classroom is now awaiting referral in the Senate Rules Committee before its eventual hearing by the Senate Education Committee.

Given the array of allies and opponents focused on teacher misconduct — especially after reports of ongoing sexual misconduct at Miramonte Elementary School shocked LAUSD — the bill’s next step will be closely followed and hotly debated.

Recently passed by the House, the bill (known as AB 375) being championed by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo) will be heard and referred in the next seven to 10 days, according to the Senate Rules Committee’s Bob Franzoia.

“The Education Committee should hear this bill by June 26 or July 3,” said Franzoia.

The Buchanan legislation is a response to the Miramonte scandal, where Los Angeles Unified elementary school teacher Mark Berndt was fired and charged with 23 counts of sexual misconduct with students.

Berndt appealed the case and the district chose to pay $40,000 to drop his challenge, according to the Sacramento Bee.

A previous and somewhat stronger version of the legislation, AB 1530, was proposed and defeated last summer, thanks in large part to opposition from teachers unions.

Lawmakers’ votes against the legislation made national news and contributed to the defeat of at least one Assemblymember in November 2012.

Buchanan’s AB 375 would set a deadline of seven months for the administrative appeal, start to finish, expanding the current law’s deadline of 60 days

However, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy has expressed concerns about the legislation despite amendments made earlier this month.

Deasy is not alone.  The current union-backed bill doesn’t strengthen the teacher dismissal process nearly enough, according to former State Senator Gloria Romero.

In a highly critical piece published by the Orange County Register, Romero asked, “what good is shortening the [dismissal] timeline if it only results in a the same flawed outcome?”

The California Teachers Federation says the bill’s timeline is needed to give removed teachers ample time to prepare their cases.

And, according to CTA spokesperson Frank Wells, AB 375 is also opening the door to companion legislation aimed at holding school districts and administrators accountable for school employees accused of child abuse.

“AB 375’s companion bill, AB 1338 would strengthen reporting and employee education requirements on school districts,” Wells told LA School Report.

“We believe school districts should face penalties for not following the law and failing to report serious misconduct to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing; that is an issue that still needs to be addressed.”

Previous posts: Mixed Reactions to New Teacher Dismissal Bill, Villaraigosa Expresses Concerns About Teacher Dismissal Bill, Deasy Wants Stronger Teacher Dismissal Bill

Former Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt (via SCPR)

California Teachers Association President Dean Vogel has issued a sharp response to criticism of the proposed teacher dismissal bill being championed by Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), focusing in particular on those of former state lawmaker Gloria Romero:

“Far from jumping late onto any dismissal bandwagon, CTA has led support of efforts to expedite the dismissal process, maintain existing safeguards that remove teachers from classrooms immediately when charged with serious offenses and toughen penalties for districts and school personnel who fail to follow mandated abuse-reporting procedures. These are the facts, despite any claims from paid spokespersons for organizations founded and funded in part by outspoken, school-privatization proponents and hedge-fund managers who see dollar signs in public-school funding… We applaud California lawmakers who are moving ahead with bills that keep children safe and streamline the process for removing people who don’t belong in our classrooms, while still maintaining safeguards against false allegations.”

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has added his voice to a group of education leaders who are reluctant to support the current union-supported teacher dismissal bill being considered in Sacramento unless it’s amended to address key issues.

In an April 19 letter sent to the bill’s sponsor, Assemblymember Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), Villaraigosa praises Buchanan for her “willingness to tackle this difficult and sensitive issue.” But he says he’s withholding support for the bill, known as AB 375, unless she addresses “areas of concern” he has — many of which echo those that have been expressed by LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, education advocacy group EdVoice, and former State Senator Gloria Romero.

Both the Mayor and LAUSD want Buchanan to amend the rules to make it easier to find teachers to serve on the three-person Commission on Professional Competence that has the final say on whether teachers are fired. (Read about LAUSD’s position on the teacher dismissal bill here.)

Villaraigosa also agrees with EdVoice CEO Bill Lucia on the bill’s revised timelines; current law requires dismissal hearings to begin within 60 days, but AB 375 would actually extend that time to six months. They both think the longer timeline delays the process unnecessarily.

Last but not least, the Mayor takes issue with the bill’s rules on pretrial evidence, writing, “the process for allowing the use of relevant information must be less onerous.” Education advocate Gloria Romero, who is head of California Democrats for Education Reform, also warned that the bill could “severely limit pretrial evidence discovery.”

Read the full Villaraigosa letter here.

What remains unknown is how Buchanan and the bill’s current supporters, including the California Teachers Association, will respond to these concerns.

Previous posts: Deasy Requests Changes to Teacher Dismissal Bill; Mixed Reactions to New Teacher Dismissal Bill; Assemblymember Bloom Opposes Teacher Dismissal Bill

Earlier this month, LA School Report interviewed education players in California about AB 375, sponsored by Assemblymember Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), which would streamline the dismissal process for teachers accused of sexual abuse and other forms of misconduct.proposal.

EdVoice, LAUSD, and others generally said they were happy something was being done to improve the current teacher dismissal process. But they also expressed concerns that the Buchanan bill didn’t have enough teeth to fix a system that has failed repeatedly to effectively dismiss teachers.

Since then, concerns have continued to surface — along with a handful of praise. Most recently, Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) has come out against the proposal. And written commentary from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is in the works, according to his office.

On April 1, Gloria Romero, the head of California’s Democrats for Education Reform, wrote a harsh critique of the bill the O.C. Register, claiming it will make things worse by “severely limiting pretrial evidence discovery, creating an entirely new hearing process for suspended teachers and disallowing consideration by the panel of new information.”

On April 7, the LA Times published an editorial in support of the proposal, observing that it “makes more sense” than “several reform-oriented bills [that] went overboard.”

But an April 11 Daily News editorial (“Bill makes it (a tiny bit) easier to fire abusive teachers,”) described the Buchanan proposal as a “watered-down” version of the previous legislation that makes only “small changes around the edges, but is hardly revolutionary.”

Specifically, “the bill requires appeals be wrapped up in seven months, which hardly seems speedy. And it retains an appeals board rather than leaving it up to district officials,” according to the Daily News.

Despite all the shortcomings it finds with AB 375, the Daily News wrote, “this bill should pass because it would improve the system we’ve got now – a little. The original [Padilla] bill would have served the public better, but because of the inordinate power of one organization, it didn’t have a chance.”

Earlier this week, Chris Wheat, a spokesperson for Assemblymember Bloom, told LA School Report that Bloom would not vote for the bill in its current form.

Bloom won a November 2012 contest against incumbent Betsy Butler in which he highlighted Butler’s refusal to support a previous teacher dismissal bill that was championed by Senator Alex Padilla.

“If we get the bill as written on the floor, we would not be able to support it,” Bloom spokesperson Wheat said.

Bloom specifically criticizes how the bill includes two teachers on a three-person commission that has the final say in whether a teacher is dismissed or not.

The LA Times raised the same issue, noting that “Buchanan’s bill would have better balanced the makeup of the review panel, by placing an administrator on it, or a parent.”

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa plans to write a letter responding to AB 375, according to press secretary Vicki Curry, but she wasn’t able to disclose what kind of response it will be.

LA School Report has also reached out to lawyers representing victims affected by the Miramonte sexual abuse case to hear what they think about the bill. We’ll update you when we hear back.

On Tuesday, the LAUSD School Board voted to support the new teacher dismissal bill that’s making its way through the statehouse in Sacramento as well.

Previous posts: Mixed Reactions to New Teacher Dismissal Bill; Teacher Misconduct Proposal Wins Unexpected Support; More Failing Teachers Pushed Out Under Deasy

Assemblymember Joan Buchanan

AB 375, a new bill meant to streamline teacher dismissals, could be headed for quick passage after clearing the State Assembly’s Education Committee with a 7 – 0 vote Thursday.

The bill’s chance at passing is undoubtedly aided by the announcement last week that the state’s largest teachers union, the California Teachers Association, was joining forces with Assemblymember Joan Buchanan and Senator Alex Padilla to support AB 375.

But the alliance of Padilla and Buchanan and the quick pace of action in the statehouse have left some observers confused and concerned. Is AB 375 a watered-down teacher dismissal bill? Or have the unions, legislators, and education advocates finally come to a working compromise that will help streamline the teacher dismissal process?

Edgar Zazueta, the director of government relations for LAUSD, praised AB 375 as a “step in the right direction.”

But he also expressed reservations.

“I think we’d argue that there’s more consideration to be done here. We thank [Buchanan] for moving in the right direction, but we think we could push envelope a little further,” Zazueta said.

LAUSD, StudentsFirst, EdVoice, and Democrats for Education Reform have expressed a mix of praise and concern.

To be sure, the CTA, Padilla, and Buchanan are unlikely allies.

The union vehemently opposed both of Padilla’s teacher dismissal bills (SB 10 and last year’s SB 1530), and when SB 1530 was up for vote in the Assembly last year, Buchanan helped kill the bill when she voted against it. Yet Padilla has shelved SB 10 and teamed up with Buchanan to help pass AB 375.

According to CTA spokesperson Frank Wells, the union supports AB 375 because the bill “does the things we wanted.” He cited how Buchanan’s bill leaves the final dismissal decision in the hands of a Commission on Professional Competence made up of two fellow teachers and an administrative law judge.

In SB 10, Padilla planned to limit the commission to having only an advisory role, instead giving the local school board the final decision on whether to fire a teacher. Padilla also wanted to exclude the teachers from the commission, reducing it to a lone judge. It was this plan to limit the commission to an advisory role that “was a major sticking point” for the CTA with SB 10, Wells said.

Reform-minded Gloria Romero, head of Democrats for Education Reform in California, is skeptical the bill will accomplish much. (Read her critical review of the CTA’s involvement with AB 375 in an O.C. Register column here.)

EdVoice and StudentsFirst praised Buchanan for lifting the statute of limitations on evidence that can be used against a teacher during the dismissal process. (Current law prohibits the use of evidence from more than four years ago.)

However, both groups said they are still reviewing the bill and deciding just what they think.

In a letter sent to Buchanan, EdVoice expressed specific concerns that AB 375 won’t effectively improve the dismissal process for teachers who have sexually or physically abused their students.

EdVoice CEO Bill Lucia told LA School Report that he has several issues with the bill. “There’s no question whatsoever that SB 10 was more streamlined than AB 375 in terms of dealing with people who are child predators on the payroll at taxpayers’ expense,” Lucia said.

Lucia’s main concern clashes directly with the CTA’s praise for AB 375: The bill maintains the current law that gives the Commission on Professional Competence the final dismissal decision for teachers accused of “immoral conduct” such as sexual and physical abuse.

“To maintain the same process for someone who can’t teach and for someone who is a child molester is unacceptable,” Lucia said. “That kind of behavior is criminal, not a matter of professional competence.”

Lucia also takes issue with AB 375’s revised timelines, which have been extended longer in some cases than the timelines SB 10 proposed. While SB 10 would have required hearings to begin 60 days after a teacher asked for it, AB 375 allows the hearing to start within six months; and while SB 10 required that the Commission reviewing the case to choose its three members within seven days, AB 375 extended the time to 45 days.

The CTA’s Frank Wells defended the new timelines: “Padilla’s bill may have had a shorter timeline, but it was less fair. We want to streamline process, but we also want to give people adequate time to prepare their cases.”

Both EdVoice and StudentsFirst say they’re in the process of carefully inspecting AB 375 and meeting with stakeholders, including parents, teachers, and community members, to decide whether or not AB 375 has enough force to merit their support. They expect to decide by the end of the month.

To read the full text of AB 375, go here; for SB 10, go here.

Previous posts: Lawmaker Supports Former Opponent’s Teacher Dismissal Bill; Report: Teacher Dismissals Costly, Lengthy; Commentary: Implications of a Bloom Win

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An Urban School District That Works — Without Miracles or Teach For America
Union City makes an unlikely poster child for education reform. It’s a poor community with an unemployment rate 60 percent higher than the national average. Three-quarters of the students live in homes where only Spanish is spoken. A quarter are thought to be undocumented, living in fear of deportation. WaPo Opinion

Now, Padilla plans to join forces with Assemblymember Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), head of the Assembly’s Education Committee, who introduced her own alternative teacher dismissal bill this week.

Buchanan might seem like an unexpected ally for Padilla, given that Buchanan voted no (along with fellow Democrat Tom Ammiano) on the previous version of Padilla’s bill, SB 1530, which was endorsed by LAUSD and opposed by UTLA.

Buchanan and Padilla say they will work together to pass AB 375, which shares some of SB 10’s key provisions, such as permitting teacher dismissal during the summer and allowing the use of evidence that is older than four years.

In a statement released to LA School Report, Buchanan said she opposed SB 1530 last year because its focus on teachers who abuse students was too limited:

“The dismissal process takes too much time and is too costly for all types of dismissals.  We need a better process that works for everyone – one that is fair, ensures due process, and can be done in a timely and cost-effective manner.”

It remains unclear at this point whether the Buchanan legislation is as rigorous as the Padilla proposal. EdSource has a good analysis of the two bills; read the story here. Or, see the full text of SB 10 here and the draft text of AB 375 here. However, cooperation between Padilla and Buchanan could mean AB 375 has a better chance of passing.

Previous posts:  Richard Bloom Criticizes Betsy Butler For SB 1530 Vote; Where’s UTLA Stand on Teacher Removal?;