L.A. teacher reviews should include student achievement, judge says

Source: LA Times

In a tentative ruling that could potentially transform California teacher evaluations, a Los Angeles judge ordered the L.A. Unified School District to use student academic progress in reviewing instructors.

L.A. County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant upheld claims by a group of parents that the district was violating a 40-year-old state law, known as the Stull Act, which requires that teacher evaluations include measures of how well pupils are learning what the state expects them to know each year. The law was amended in 1999 to specifically require the use of state standardized test scores to measure student progress.

But Chalfant did not order the district to use student test scores in evaluations. Which specific measures are used, how they are incorporated into performance reviews, how the different elements are weighted and how administrators are trained in using student performance measures “may well be a matter subject to collective bargaining,” he wrote.

The ruling, while tentative, lends significant legal clout to a growing movement to use student test scores as part of a teacher’s performance review. Several states have begun incorporating them into teacher reviews and the Obama administration is also pushing school districts to use them.


Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/06/la-teacher-reviews-should-include-student-achievement-judge-says.html