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Superior Court judge denies lawsuit that claimed teacher evaluations must include student test scores
A judge in Northern California on Monday denied the claims in a lawsuit that challenged school districts that don’t use student test scores as part of teacher evaluations. Students Matter, the nonprofit organization that filed Vergara v. California, sued 13 California school districts last year, saying those districts were not in compliance with the Stull...
By Sarah Favot | September 19, 2016
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5 key lessons from the successes (and failures) of President Obama’s teacher evaluation reforms
The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act and the waning of the Obama administration bring to a close federal efforts to improve teacher evaluation — a practice once widely derided for its infrequent and pro forma observations, inflated ratings and lack of consequences. Today most states combine different measures, including classroom observations and student test data,...
By Matt Barnum | April 4, 2016
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LA Unified files for NCLB waiver without teacher evaluation deal
* UPDATED LA Unified met today’s deadline and filed an application for a No Child Left Behind waiver without one of the key requirements of the U.S. Department of Education — an agreement with the teachers union on a three-level teacher evaluation system. If approved, the California Office to Reform Education (CORE) Waiver would clear...
By Vanessa Romo | March 31, 2015
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New USC Poll: Public Approval for Testing and Evaluations
Nearly two-thirds of California voters said students should be tested in every grade to ensure that they are progressing, a new PACE/USC Rossier Poll shows. The strong majority contradicts calls in Sacramento to reduce standardized testing. The poll found that only 22 percent of voters said California should cut back on testing. “Most of the political...
By LA School Report | September 3, 2013
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Teacher Evaluations Still a Work in Progress
Teacher evaluations for the 2012-13 school year were due about a month ago. Even though they included a section for “student achievement,” it’s safe to say that particular section was a work in progress. “There was literally just a few weeks to get it implemented, and we had to implement it according to the courts,”...
By Hillel Aron | June 14, 2013
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Greuel Endorses New Teacher Evaluation Plan
The squabbling over education in the LA mayor’s race took a much-needed turn towards the substantive earlier today with a speech from candidate Wendy Greuel laying out some of her priorities to reform Los Angeles schools. In remarks delivered at Granada Hills Charter High School, Greuel called for an audit of LAUSD “to slash non-school site...
By Hillel Aron | April 11, 2013
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The “Ineffective” Teachers Game
A recent New York Times article about states and districts finding that just two to six percent of teachers are rated ineffective (Curious Grade for Teachers: Nearly All Pass) — even using new student achievement data has set off a ton of chatter online about whether that percentage is too low, too high, just about...
By LA School Report | April 1, 2013
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Dueling Evaluation Memos from Union, District
On Friday, LAUSD sent out an announcement about the new teacher evaluation program that the district and the teachers union agreed to earlier this year, clarifying its position on the use of student achievement data. Now, UTLA is denouncing the district memo for “attempt[ing] to discredit UTLA’s internal materials to our membership while also continuing...
By Alexander Russo | March 20, 2013
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Group Calls for “Courageous” School Board
Ama Nyamekye, the executive director of Educators 4 Excellence Los Angeles, an organization that advocates for teachers to take a more active role in shaping education policies, wrote an op-ed in last week’s Huffington Post LA calling for a more “courageous” LAUSD School Board: “Our school board needs to get to work tackling a tall order of...
By Samantha Oltman | March 19, 2013
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Revamp Teacher Evaluation Plan, Says LA Times
Expressing concern about increasing divisiveness between LAUSD and the teachers union, the LA Times editorial page calls for a more thoughtful, balanced approach to making much-needed improvements, including a proposal for LAUSD to make student achievement less than 30 percent of teacher evaluations: “We don’t know what heft test scores should have in performance reviews —...
By Alexander Russo | March 12, 2013