I have a copy of the judge’s writ and will try to post it (it is in a pdf file and I don’t know how to copy that).
Background: UTLA has resisted the imposition of value-added-assessments to evaluate teachers, knowing that research shows these measures to be highly unstable and inaccurate. UTLA was burned two years ago when the Los Angeles Times created its own rating system and used test scores to publish its ratings of thousands of teachers.
Subsequently a California group called EdVoice, funded by billionaire foundations (Broad and Walton), discovered a 40-year-old law called the Stull Act, which says that pupil performance should factor into the evaluations of teachers and administrators. EdVoice filed suit on behalf of anonymous parents to demand that the LAUSD school board start using test scores to evaluate teachers.
An interesting thing about the billionaire foundations: They want charters (and in Walton’s case, vouchers). They want teachers to be evaluated by test scores. But typically, when the law is written (as in Louisiana), teachers in charter schools are exempt from evaluation by test scores. What does that mean?
One critic wrote me to say that this is “Deasy v. Deasy,” since LA superintendent Deasey is known to support such measures. I am willing to give John Deasey the benefit of the doubt, as he has a chance to show that he stands against junk science (VAM).
And the law says both teachers and administrators so presumably the leadership of the district will be evaluated by test scores as the decision moves forward.
Meanwhile, here is the UTLA lawyer’s summary of the decision:
PLEASE DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ IN THE TIMES OR DAILY NEWS. THE ONLY ITEM BEFORE THE JUDGE YESTERDAY WAS THE TIME FRAME WITHIN WHICH THE DISTRICT MUST COMPLY WITH THE DECISION REGARDING THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE STULL ACT. THE PLAINTIFFS WERE TRYING TO IMPOSE AN EARLY SEPTEMBER DEADLINE, WHICH WAS REJECTED BY UTLA, AND THE COURT. THE ONLY OUTCOME FROM YESTERDAY IS THAT THE DISTRICT HAS UNTIL DECEMBER 4 TO RETURN TO COURT TO SHOW COMPLIANCE, WHICH ALLOWS TIME FOR MEANINGFUL, GOOD FAITH BARGAINING. (IF THERE IS NOT MEANINGFUL, GOOD FAITH BARGAINING BY THE DISTRICT, UTLA CAN SEEK APPROPRIATE RELIEF FROM PERB.)
Jesus E. Quiñonez
Holguin, Garfield, Martinez & Quiñonez, APLC
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Realistically, there were many acceptable ways under the Stull Act that California teachers could show pupil performance. Yes, standardized test scores could be used if that is what the teacher chose to use to demonstrate student performance but there were many others: teacher observation, principal observation, student work samples and portfolios, criterion referenced tests, and text book publishers tests were all very acceptable ways to demonstrate pupil performance. No teacher or principal in California ever thought that standardized tests were the only way to demonstrate student performance – when did that change? I don’t believe it has.
LikeLike
Here are a few more specifics about EdVoice, the education lobbying group.
EdVoice was founded in 2001 by Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix, Microsoft board member, Green Dot founding funder) and John Doerr (venture capitalist, investment banker), along with and former CA state Assembly members Ted Lempert and Steve Poizner. Eli Broad and Don Fisher (deceased CEO of The Gap and major KIPP supporter) once served on EdVoice’s board.
EdVoice has received a ton of money from all of the above as well as from Carrie Walton Penner and Fisher’s widow, Doris. Penner lives in the Bay Area and is a Walton Family Foundation trustee. She also sits on KIPP’s board, as does Reed Hastings, and the Fishers’ son, John.
Back in 1998, Hastings also co-founded Californians for Public School Excellence with Don Shalvey. This is the organization that pushed for the Charter Schools Act of 1998, the law that lifted the cap on the number of charter schools in the state.
Don Shalvey was involved with starting the first charter school in California, just after the passage of the California Charter School Act of 1992 (CA was the second state to pass a law). He is also founder and former CEO of Aspire Public Schools. Reed Hastings has been a major source of Aspire’s financial backing, including its launch. In 2009, Shalvey stepped down from his post at Aspire and went to work for the Gates Foundation, but for a while he stayed on Aspire’s board. The Gates Foundation has given generously to Aspire.
In 2011, Hastings and Doerr pumped $11M into DreamBox Learning, an online education company started by a former Microsoft executive and the CEO of a software company. It was acquired by Hastings with help from the Charter School Growth Fund.
BTW, EdVoice co-founder Lempert is currently president of an Oakland-based org called Children Now; he occasionally teaches at Cal. Poizner, a conservative Republican and wealthy Silicon Valley high tech entrepreneur, was defeated by Meg Whitman in the June 2010 gubernatorial primary, and is now the State Insurance Commissioner. For several years he worked for Boston Consulting Group as a management consultant.
More conniving fun and games.
LikeLike
Thank you so much for such detailed background on this issue.
LikeLike
A few more fun factoids from here in California:
The charter school founded by Don Shalvey, San Carlos Community Charter — California’s first — is in a very low-poverty suburb on the San Francisco Peninsula, but still serves significantly fewer nonwhites, English-language learners and low-income students than the district overall.
And Reed Hastings founded a charter in Santa Cruz, Pacific Collegiate (PCS, that’s nationally recognized for its high achievement and is a bastion of segregation. The Santa Cruz school district originally rejected the application for the charter, years ago, on the basis that the proposal appeared likely to create a segregated school. The county approved the charter. And indeed, the school’s lack of diversity in a district and county with a high population of low-income Latinos has been an ongoing topic of contention in the community, even as PCS tops national lists of “best high schools” year after year.
I’ll do some number-crunching on Aspire schools soon. I understand but haven’t confirmed that Linda Darling-Hammond used to be on their board and long ago quietly withdrew from it.
LikeLike
As a teacher who came from a business background, I understand the dismal success of VAM’ s have many members assuming nothing can be helpful for teachers if it is not 100% (or even 70%) accurate..we are fighting a LOSING battle…It makes more sense IMHO, if we adopt a system developed by Utla & Lausd that does like a 3 year test drive of the version that Lausd proposes – with Utla input of what the next steps would be if a teacher had poor ratings for those test years – AND allowing for items that affect the outcome of those test scores (family lack of support, child not following rules, or bringing books or even participating in class, teacher being moved from grade to grade every few years) and THEN Utla & Lausd would have to work on an algorithm to adjust FAIRLY for these obstacles…WE need to drive with Lausd and not continue to say we oppose ANY attachment of this VAM scam to a review -If the tests mean nothing, then maybe that is a point to also fine tune…THEY SHOULD BE MEANINGFUL TO KIDS AND ALIGNED TO WHAT TEACHERS TEACH…Not what we SHOULD HAVE taught. I think the real issue is: What will Lausd DO with that information, and HOW will they support a teacher to improve..As long is it is all done with collaboration ( I KNOW a filthy word..) I am not afraid of this VAM mess – as it has been said, “This too shall pass..” The more Utla argues against ANY form of accountability via those darn test scores..we look like WE have something to hide….maybe a few members do, but I am tired of this back and forth..it is beginning to make me question what are we Lausd & Utla in this for??? The sport of it all??
LikeLike
I am going to respectfully disagree with Ms. Nunley for one simple reason: to willingly comply with policy that one knows is heinous, is nothing short of injurious to both individual teachers, teachers’ unions, and students. I have been a teacher and principal in California for my entire educational career (30+ years) and can tell you with certainty that VAM based on California’s Stull Act (AB 293) is a complete perversion of that bill’s purpose, and most importantly, practice.
I am not a lawyer, but I do know that past practice and precedent count for a lot in legal circles and California’s Stull Act has never been interpreted to mean that teachers must be evaluated on a student’s standardized test scores. The bill simply states that teachers will be evaluated on “student progress”, but since when is a student’s progress limited to a standardized test score? To go along with VAM based on standardized test scores is to make an assumption that the sum and substance of a student’s school performance and experience is limited to the bubbles he or she is filling in on any given day: an obsurdity. Since 1971 when the Stull Act went into effect, “student progress” was something that was interpreted by the teacher being evaluated and the school principal. Yes, the evaluation could include test scores, but just as valid were criterion referenced tests, publishers tests, student portfolios, teacher observations, principal observations and, as of late, even the observations of other teachers or bargaining unit members. The important thing was the agreement between the teacher and principal about what was appropriate considering the teacher’s stated goals.
To indicate that UTLA should “go along” with despicable policy is a symptom of exactly why teachers across the nation have found themselves in a predicament like they’ve never before experienced. Standing up against policy that is just plain wrong has nothing to do with hiding anything. Indeed, going along with such policy as VAM shows a willingness to comply with atrocious policy, even though you know that it is injurious to both students and teachers, an act that doesn’t garner the respect of anyone. It’s time to draw the “line in the sand” and do what we know as professionals is the right thing: resist VAM and encourage our unions to fight it at every opportunity.
LikeLike
Mr. Pastoor,
Perhaps I was not as clear as I wanted to be in my post. I know and agree there are many inconsistencies with AGT/ VAM measurement vehicles – I also know and despise that the art of education has been poisoned by models from Big Business. Can we at least see eye to eye that the type of ‘measurements’ are being escalated with this VAM program??? Since our U.S. Government has unfortunately ushered in this irrational era of “accountability and transparency” due to their many mistakes, does it not follow that all large -scale public institutions are now being expected to do the same?????
What I was attempting to say, and did poorly is – I think Utla and teachers should accept that SOME form / percentage of high stakes testing scores are what the public now understands are a measure of accomplishment – even if WE as teachers know they do not tell the full story of a child’s learning – and we need to take off the table our “All or nothing” type of reasoning in the media….The media plays up the way we say we oppose ANY form of VAM – WE/Utla need to be actively involved in the development of HOW any measurement of student performance looks, what it measures, and what it needs to work to benefit (not punish or diminish) what teachers do. The harder we voice that we will accept NO inclusion, the more the rich stakeholders will advocate that WE are hiding our fear of seeing what can be done/changed/improved in our profession
I fully believe WE MUST insist that any measurement vehicle be fairly and appropriately balanced out with other measures designed and agreed to by Utla and Lausd – Ultimately I think if we don’t work on a compromise, no matter how much we hate the idea of a VAM in the first place, it will forced upon us at some point – I fear sooner than later, to accept a ALL Lausd designed plan with NO Utla input that not only hurts teachers Stulls, but hurts education as a whole. To allow teachers 3 years of a test run, and have real dialogue and compromise, in my mind will be a good PR piece for Utla, and to perhaps return to a more child – centered discourse on how to support all teachers as Utla’s plan proposes, but also how to encourage teachers who are not serving our children well to leave the profession – without huge media fanfare – and most of all refocus our members, LA School Board, and Lausd on the real job of educating the children of LA.
As I read and re-read Utla’s views on this, it is clear that a shared and mutually agreed upon form of measurement IS what Utla wants Lausd to work with them on..but our media-speak is so clear that we will not accept ANY form of a VAM that we are missing a great opportunity to engage in public discourse and parental support that would force Lausd’s hand to mutually create a fair vehicle…we have lost valuable time that could have had some form of a revised Stull already in a pilot this year or next..and these rich, deep pocketed dudes are itching to spend their money and force it down our throats…I fear money may win…I HOPE I am very wrong!!
I appreciate you keeping me honest and on task..great .
LikeLike
If, as you say, VAM will be forced upon us anyway, then make them publicly force their point so we and our unions can publicly denounce it. To willingly comply is folly when we know the VAM is hurtful to students and teachers. It is no wonder that teachers get no respect from the DOE or the public when we back off of our principles and sacrifice students on the altar of privatizers, bean counters, and corporations. We do not need to comply to be “given” a seat at the table – by our presence we are already there on a daily basis. The union tactic of “going along” in order to have a voice at the table is ill conceived logic. We need to turn the table over and the sooner the better. NO willing compliance with despicable policy.
LikeLike