The writer of a bill revising the police force on instructor evaluations has pushed upwards the start date to ii years from now, found a $threescore one thousand thousand pot of money to jump-start the procedure in districts with the everyman-performing schools, and given parents and students a role advising teachers and districts on criteria to employ in the evaluations.

Assemblymember Fuentes testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday. Click to enlarge.

Assemblymember Fuentes testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Mon. Click to enlarge.

Assemblymember Felipe Fuentes released the latest ­amendments on Wednesday, ane solar day before his bill goes earlier the Senate Appropriations Committee for a crucial vote. In deciding whether to move the bill forward to the full Senate – or let it die – the committee will consider the bear on of state-reimbursable costs that AB 5 will create for school districts.

Fuentes has a surprise, partial solution. He would divert $60 meg side by side yr from unused money in the Quality Education Investment Deed, a multibillion-dollar court settlement reached with Gov. Schwarzenegger to increase funding for the lowest-performing schools. The money would be used to train administrators and teachers in districts with QEIA-eligible schools in evaluation techniques and for other expenses preparing for the new evaluation organization. (Fuentes' office didn't know offhand how many of the land's 1,000 districts would qualify for this money.) Still, Fuentes would get out it up to the governor and the Legislature to decide how to pay for actually implementing the new evaluations when they would go into upshot on July i, 2014. The Department of Finance estimates the boosted cost, beyond the $xix 1000000 the state's already paying districts under the current law, would be at to the lowest degree $20 one thousand thousand.

The California Teachers Association, which negotiated the QEIA settlement and has fought to preserve it, had non taken a position on the revised pecker as of Wednesday evening.

The latest version would give parents and the community a say in recommending the criteria that a district would use in evaluating teachers, including mayhap a parent and pupil survey. Districts would hold a hearing for public suggestions on criteria for evaluations and a second hearing to explain the criteria they negotiated with teachers. That amendment won over Public Advocates, a nonprofit organization advocating for parents and depression-income families. "We're happy that the policy acknowledges that including parents, students, and the community is sound policy," said Liz Guillen, director of Legislative & Customs Affairs at Public Advocates.

Other opponents unmoved

But other advancement groups remain opposed to AB 5, for reasons that I outlined Tuesday and last week. Main among them: the failure to crave using data on student academic growth, among other measures, to determine teacher performance; the lack of at to the lowest degree three rating levels of performance, instead of only satisfactory or unsatisfactory; and the failure to require using evaluation results in personnel decisions, such equally whom to lay off. On Wednesday, the leaders of 10 organizations, including EdVoice, Education Trust-West, and StudentsFirst, sent a alphabetic character to Fuentes stating reasons for their opposition.

Their advocates letter besides emphasized that AB v in its electric current form would non meet federal Department of Didactics requirements for a land waiver from the federal No Child Left Backside law. At stake, the advocates said, are tens of millions of dollars, now restricted for other purposes, that the state could use to pay for "high-quality" instructor and principal evaluation systems.

Reading tea leaves over NCLB waiver

But Sue Burr, executive director of the State Board of Education and key adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown, disagrees with the advocates on this primal betoken. Burr said Wednesday that an earlier version of AB v had been forwarded to federal pedagogy officials, including Michael Yudin, assistant secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, and they "were quite favorable," even without an explicit requirement for using data from standardized tests in the evaluations. "They did say in that location would accept to be guidance from the Land Board to create evaluation models for districts, but they were encouraging to the states."

A conventionalities by Brown's advisers that AB 5 could help California obtain a waiver could provide a reason for the governor to sign the beak if it gets to his desk-bound. A federal waiver from NCLB could free up $354 million in restricted Title I money that could more than pay for a robust teacher and primary evaluation system. California skipped the first 2 deadlines for applying for a waiver, instead submitting a not-complying version, without a commitment to practice a statewide evaluation organisation. Passage of AB 5 could enable California to utilize for the next and final round in September, Burr said.

To be eligible for a waiver, a state would take to agree to criteria for evaluating principals and administrators too as teachers. AB five would require regular evaluations for all staff members with education certificates, which administrators besides have. Withal, the bill doesn't really deal directly with administrators. That, too, could be a stumbling point for a waiver.

The revised AB 5 includes i more of import amendment unrelated to evaluations. Along with the $sixty 1000000, it calls for diverting an additional $29 one thousand thousand that would go toward implementing Common Core standards in math and English language arts in the 488 schools receiving QEIA funding. That works out to $73 per pupil, money desperately needed for teacher training and the purchase of curriculum materials for the new standards.

To get more reports like this one, click here to sign upwards for EdSource's no-price daily email on latest developments in education.