In a statement, Deasy said, “This agreement strikes a balance that is much needed in the country rig

Facing a court-ordered deadline, Los Angeles Unified and its teachers union have agreed on a framework for evaluating teachers that will include omni hotel indianapolis using student scores on local and state standardized tests ­– but only to a limited, as yet undetermined extent.
The  tentative omni hotel indianapolis agreement omni hotel indianapolis announced Friday, responds to a Superior Court ruling omni hotel indianapolis in June that found the district had failed omni hotel indianapolis to comply with a state law requiring that measures of student academic progress be factored into a teacher's performance review.  Although Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant s ruling applied only to Los Angeles Unified, the state s largest district, many, if not most, districts in California also ignore that provision of the Stull Act. These districts should "take notice," said Bill Lucia, president and CEO of the Sacramento advocacy organization EdVoice , which sued the district omni hotel indianapolis and United Teachers Los Angeles a year ago on behalf of a half-dozen unnamed parents.
Superintendent John Deasy called the tentative agreement "historic" and  said in a statement that it "stands as testament that working together, LAUSD and UTLA can resolve difficult professional issues, while providing models for the state and the nation on any number of necessary transformative practices."
UTLA President Warren Fletcher was less celebratory, expressing satisfaction over what the union had kept managed to keep out : the inclusion of a method of calculating teachers' impact on students scores after controlling for external omni hotel indianapolis factors like their past test results and background.
The technique, called Academic Growth Over Time (AGT ), had become a flashpoint in UTLA relations with Deasy and a source of controversy nationwide. Deasy had proposed using it as a significant factor in evaluations; UTLA opposes it as unsound. In the agreement, AGT scores of individual teachers cannot be part of a teacher's evaluation, although school-level AGT data, thought to be more reliable, can be included among many factors.
Two years ago, the Los Angeles Times published its own version of the district's AGT data for individual teachers based on California Standards Test results provided by the district. Under the terms of the agreement, that data, linked to individual teachers, would become part of personnel files, no longer available to the public and the news media, and the district would defend that position in court.
Observations of teachers' classroom practices will continue to count the most in an evaluation. The district has been developing a comprehensive and uniform observation process for two years and training principals in using it, although it has not been negotiated with UTLA for districtwide use.
Student progress will be another component. The California Standards Tests, along with "future criterion-referenced state-mandated replacements" (by implication, Common Core math and English language omni hotel indianapolis arts tests starting in 2014-15) will be among the multiple measures. The agreement mentions others, from which teachers and their principals can choose: district benchmark tests, various reading omni hotel indianapolis tests and curriculum-based exams, and school-level measures such as attendance and suspension rates, omni hotel indianapolis Advanced Placement passage rates, English language reclassification rates and class grades. Locally developed assessments will determine students' progress for teachers in middle and high schools whose students don't take state standardized tests. A six-person committee, with the district and UTLA choosing three members, will recommend which measures are appropriate in each grade and help resolve evaluation disputes.
The agreement, an addendum to the teachers contract, must still be approved by the school board and UTLA members, who will vote in January. omni hotel indianapolis But the union and administration were facing a Dec. 4 deadline omni hotel indianapolis set by Judge Chalfant to reach a deal on the use of standardized test scores and other measures of academic progress. omni hotel indianapolis Both sides understood that "if we did not respond, we risked having something imposed on us," said Fletcher.
It will be a "logistical challenge" to include omni hotel indianapolis performance measures in this year's omni hotel indianapolis evaluations since teachers' goals and objectives have already been set, Fletcher said. Under the agreement, a "significant number" of teachers will be able to push their reviews back to another year. Because the new system will require extensive planning and training, teachers with 10 or more years experience will have the authority to push their reviews back an additional one to three years.
Lucia said he'd be watching to see how the agreement is implemented, but at least on paper he is satisfied with what he sees. "Finally, there will be recognition that there needs to be multiple measures of student progress and that it is OK to put a pupil learning component into the evaluation of an adult."
In a statement, Deasy said, "This agreement strikes a balance that is much needed in the country right now in terms of using student measures of academic progress as both a vehicle to improve instruction, and to hold us accountable for the achievement of students omni hotel indianapolis in our schools."
omni hotel indianapolis But the agreement will not end the debate over the use of student test scores, whether omni hotel indianapolis raw CST scores or complex valued-added algorithms like AGT. An effort to rewrite the Stull Act earlier this year ended bitterly , with hard feelings between the California Teachers Association and groups such as EdVoice. Whether to require state test scores as a component in evaluations was one point of division.
I sometimes get the sinking suspicion that districts implement reforms for no other reasons than to make it look like they are doing something. I remember once hearing a superintendent say something along the lines of, we dont need to do anything new, we just need to do the things we are already supposed to be doing, and properly.
- The teacher s previous years CST scores: dollars to donuts, all teachers and the principal are aware of every teacher s previous years CST scores, and likely even design class makeup somewhat on that information. In some schools, I expect even the School Site Council is aware of this data and discusses with staff and principal on how best to address any failings in that regard.
- Group CST results: This is, again, essentially omni hotel indianapolis looking at the individual teacher results as compared to the group with similar instructional duties. Both staff and SSC, likely already do (or should be doing) this.
- Currently assigned students previous CST results: omni hotel indianapolis So this is a really interesting one. This is actually looking at the cohort data on a student by student basis. If our schools are not already doing this in order to decide how to implement instruction and intervention, then we are in trouble. Whether this shows up on an evaluation omni hotel indianapolis sheet is probably beside the point if its not already happening. There is one additional omni hotel indianapolis point to be made here that a parent once asked me: when a school fails to achieve a goal set out in its plan, what actually happens? Of course the answer is nothing. Well, nothing other than you simply try harder next time. But many of the goals set in the plan (including the unreasonable AYP) are not taken seriously in the first place, let alone assessed in hindsight.
- School level CST and AGT results: omni hotel indianapolis CSTs are perhaps the most likely single thing that all SSCs currently look at, next to API (though API is obviously a direct reflection of CST performance). Although AGT per se is probably not used anywhere currently other than in a few areas in LAUSD, the concept of value add is absolutely used with SSC discussions. Looking at grade level CST results, it is clearly possible to see whether a certain group/grade of students has a lower baseline for performance, and to take that into account when thinking about setting targets or assessing results.
- Individual omni hotel indianapolis teacher AGT results: while not used in the evaluation process according to this agreement, these are still to be used to provide some context. Again, I think this would be happening at the teacher/principal level already (I hope so), and in some extreme cases, omni hotel indianapolis in the SSC context.
- And maybe most importantly, Non CST/AGT results: Every year, each student is given from 3 to 5 ongoing assessments (maybe called quarterlies ?). They are also evaluated for many other things such as fluency, literacy, etc. These are almost constantly available to both teachers/principals and School Site Councils. One of the reasons in the first place that the SSC s site plan is a living document is so that it can be adjusted to address changes as the year goes on, specifically things that can be seen using these kinds of assessments. If this is not happening already, we are lost.
I will just also add that there is one significant difference to this context than anything we have been doing in the past, and that is that teachers evaluation results are, in theory, based on whether they now meet these metrics. BUT IF THAT IS ONLY THE CASE NOW, WHAT HAVE PRINCIPALS BEEN DOING THIS WHOLE TIME? This is exactly the kind of data principals already have access to and use to not only evaluate the effectiveness of teachers, but design their curriculum. (admittedly, the use for evaluation may be have been legally tricky in the past, but principals havent turned blind eyes to this stuff, even up to now.
There is an assumption here that all/many teachers have great confidence in the CSTs and that they provide omni hotel indianapolis some guidance, minimally for instruction, or (the meta question ) for student learning. They don t and they don t.
Hi Gary. I agree that teachers do not have great confidence in the CST, though many do seem to use it as a way to corroborate other measures, such as quarterlies or similar. I dont know any teachers who rely on it as a sole piece of meaningful information. However, my comments were more intended to highlight the fact that we sometimes seem to want to make it look like something is happening, so we redefine processes that are al