BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1285
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 30, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
SB 1285 (Steinberg) - As Amended: June 22, 2010
SENATE VOTE : Vote not relevant
SUBJECT : Education employment.
SUMMARY : Makes various changes to the procedures school
districts must follow when hiring, terminating and reappointing
teachers; requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction
(SPI) to force school districts to comply with teacher
termination rules in low performing schools; and, requires the
county superintendent of schools (CSS) to compare the percentage
of first and second year teachers at low performing schools with
the rest of the district. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires a CSS, during the visit to each school ranked in
deciles 1 to 3 of the Academic Performance Index (API), to
determine the extent to which the percentage of teachers in
each school who are in their first or second year of teaching
exceeds or falls below the percentage of teachers in the
district who are in their first or second year of teaching;
and, specifies the first or second year of teaching shall
include time served as a temporary, probationary, or permanent
teacher.
2)Removes county office of education (COE) funding for Williams
lawsuit site visits from the categorical flexibility
provisions; and, deletes the corresponding requirement for
COEs to conduct at least one site visit per school.
3)Requires a school district superintendent, when making initial
teacher assignments, to assign teachers in such a manner that
the percentage of teachers in each school who are in their
first or second year of teaching does not exceed the
percentage of teachers in the district who are in their first
or second year of teaching by more than 10%; and, specifies
the first or second year of teaching shall include time served
as a temporary, probationary, or permanent teacher.
4)Specifies that a school district may deviate from terminating
or reappointing a certificated employee in order of seniority,
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for purposes of maintaining or achieving compliance with
constitutional requirements related to equal protection of the
laws, as it applies to pupils and to certificated employees.
5)Requires, for purposes of maintaining stability of
certificated employees who provide instruction in a classroom
at schools in deciles 1 to 3 of the API, the proportion of
certificated employees who provide instruction in a classroom
terminated at those schools in any given year as part of a
reduction in the number of employees shall be no greater than
the proportion of certificated employees who provide
instruction in a classroom terminated in the school district
as a whole; and, specifies that this limit shall also apply to
reductions of certificated employees who provide instruction
in a classroom at schools on the list of the persistently
lowest-achieving schools (PLAS) approved by the state board of
education (SBE), provided those schools have put in place
certificated employees who provide instruction in a classroom
as part of a school reform plan approved by the governing
board.
6)Specifies the SPI shall require local governing boards that do
not comply with proportionate terminations at schools in
deciles 1 to 3 of the API and PLAS to reinstate the
certificated employees terminated in violation of the limit;
specifies that certificated employees who are reinstated shall
be returned to employment at the school from which they were
terminated; specifies that local governing boards shall not
make further reductions in force in certificated employees at
that school for the remainder of the school year; and,
prohibits local governing boards from making reductions in
certificated employees at other schools in the district to
compensate for these reinstatements.
7)Specifies that a school district may deviate from reappointing
a certificated employee in order of seniority for purposes of
furthering improvements in pupil achievement at schools in
deciles 1 to 3 of the API that have put in place certificated
employees who provide instruction in a classroom as part of a
school reform plan approved by the governing board of a school
district; authorizes governing boards to reappoint
certificated employees who provide instruction in a classroom,
regardless of seniority, at these schools in a manner that
supports the school reform plan; and, authorizes governing
boards to use this authority to reappoint certificated
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employees who provide instruction in a classroom at schools on
the list of PLAS approved by the SBE.
8)Makes Legislative findings and declarations that every
California child has a constitutional right, under the equal
protection clause of the California Constitution, to equal
educational opportunity; that some school districts have
declined to use this authority and have not protected pupils'
rights to equal educational opportunity; and, that school
districts shall utilize the authority in existing law to
deviate from terminating a certificated employee in order of
seniority in order to maintain or achieve compliance with the
constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws, and
to prevent disparate impacts of teacher layoffs on pupils'
rights to education.
9)Declares Legislative intent to identify federal funds to
support teachers in schools ranked in deciles 1 to 3 of the
API and that these funds support programs designed to enhance
professional development and retention, as specified.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires districts to terminate employees in the inverse of
the order in which they were employed. Specifies that
districts may deviate from the order of seniority in
terminating and reappointing a certificated employee:
a) If the district demonstrates a specific need to teach a
specific course or course of study, or to provide services
authorized by certain services credentials and the retained
individual has the specific experience or training required
to meet that need; or,
b) For purposes of maintaining or achieving compliance with
constitutional requirements related to equal protection of
the laws. (Education code 44949, 44955 and 44956)
2)Prohibits the dismissal of a teacher on permanent status
except for "cause," which includes but is not limited to
immoral or unprofessional conduct, conviction of a felony or
any crime involving moral turpitude, unsatisfactory
performance, or evident unfitness for service. (Education
code 44932)
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3)Requires a CSS to annually report on the status of the schools
within the county that are ranked in deciles 1 to 3 of the
API, pursuant to the Williams lawsuit. (Education code 1240)
4)Authorizes, for the 2008-09 fiscal year to the 2012-13 fiscal
year, recipients of the Williams lawsuit funding to use
funding received for any educational purpose; and, requires a
COE to conduct at least one site visit to each of the required
schoolsites pursuant to Section 1240 and shall fulfill all of
the duties set forth in Sections 1240 and 44258.9 (Education
code 42605)
5)Requires the superintendent of each school district to, in
addition to other powers and duties granted to or imposed upon
him or her, subject to the approval of the governing board,
assign all employees of the district employed in positions
requiring certification qualifications, to the positions in
which they are to serve; and, specifies this power to assign
includes the power to transfer a teacher from one school to
another school at which the teacher is certificated to serve
within the district when the superintendent concludes that the
transfer is in the best interest of the district. (Education
code 35035)
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : The entire contents of this bill were deleted in the
Assembly Judiciary Committee and the amendments removed the bill
from their jurisdiction.
This bill makes various changes to the procedures school
districts must follow when hiring, terminating and reappointing
teachers. The bill requires school district superintendents to
assign teachers in such a manner that the percentage of teachers
in each school who are in their first or second year of teaching
shall not exceed the percentage of teachers in the district who
are in their first or second year of teaching by more than 10%;
prohibits superintendents from laying off a higher proportion of
teachers at low performing schools compared to the district
average; and, specifies the SPI shall require local governing
boards that do not comply with proportionate terminations at low
performing schools to reinstate the certificated employees
terminated in violation of the limit. Further, the bill
requires the CSS to determine whether the percentage of teachers
at low performing schools who are in their first or second year
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of teaching exceeds or falls below the percentage of teachers in
the district who are in their first or second year teaching;
and, removes the COE funding for Williams settlement site visits
from categorical flexibility.
The author's intent is to ensure students have access to quality
teachers and that student civil rights are protected in our
education system. According to the author, "children at schools
with disproportionate numbers of junior teachers face an unfair
burden of destabilization in the next round of reductions in
force. This bill would protect schools from disparate impact in
that process, with particular emphasis on deciles 1 to 3
schools." In practice, however, several of the proposals in
this bill create concerns because they cannot be easily
implemented state-wide. Two pieces of the bill, the
clarification of the equal protection clause and the requirement
for proportional layoffs at deciles 1 to 3 schools, do speak to
the real world needs of students in the classroom.
Williams Lawsuit Monitoring & Categorical Flexibility . This
bill requires the CSS, as part of the Williams Lawsuit site
visits, to determine the extent to which the percentage of
teachers at the school who are in their first or second year of
teaching exceeds or falls below the percentage of teachers in
the district who are in their first or second year of teaching.
The committee should consider whether the information gathered
from these site visits could be helpful in demonstrating the
potential differences in teacher experience at an individual
school compared to other schools within a district and could
highlight inequities within a school district. However, the
committee should also consider the fact that it is unclear what
the potential ramifications would be for districts that are
found to have deficiencies. Besides the CCS notifying the
district superintendent and potentially the SPI, it is unclear
how the deficiencies will be corrected and if any penalties will
be assessed.
The bill also removes the Williams lawsuit site visit funding
from the flexibility provisions in the budget. Currently, these
funds are flexible and COEs are authorized to do only one site
visit per school if they are able to fulfill all of the
requirements under the Williams lawsuit during one site visit.
This flexibility also allows COEs to potentially use excess
funds in this account for other purposes, or move funds from
this account to other accounts for different purposes. It is
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unclear whether removing these funds from the flexibility
provisions will mean that the COE pre-flexibility funding levels
will be restored, including the approximate 20% funding
reduction that all flexibility funds received. The committee
should consider whether removing the Williams lawsuit site visit
funding from flexibility will be accompanied by a restoration of
the funding to pre-flexibility levels. If these funds are
removed from the flexibility provisions, but the funding level
will not be restored, the committee should consider whether COEs
will be able to efficiently manage their workload with reduced
funding, especially since this bill would reinstate all the
Williams and Valenzuela lawsuit requirements and add additional
duties to the COE to complete during the site visits.
Achieving the Same Percentage of First and Second Year Teachers
at Each School . This bill requires the superintendent, when
making an initial assignment, to assign teachers in such a
manner that the percentage of teachers in each school who are in
their first or second year of teaching does not exceed the
percentage of teachers in the district who are in their first or
second year of teaching by more than 10%. Does this mean that a
superintendent must only consider experience when making initial
teacher assignments? The definition of "initial assignment" is
also unclear. Does the initial assignment only occur when a
teacher is first hired by the district? Does the initial
assignment include the first assignment at the beginning of each
school year? Does it include transfers?
It is unclear if it is possible for a superintendent, when
making an initial assignment, to assign teachers so that the
percentage of teachers in each school who are in their first or
second year of teaching does not exceed the percentage of
teachers in the district who are in their first or second year
of teaching by more than 10%. For example, if school A is
replacing a five teachers and school B is replacing one teacher,
is it possible for the superintendent to hire enough teachers
with three or more years of experience at school A to balance
one first year teacher at school B? Similarly, if 20% of the
teachers in school A are in their first or second year and 50%
of the teachers in school B are in their first or second year,
does that mean a superintendent must only hire teachers with
more than two years experience for school B in order to decrease
the percentage of first and second year teachers? And
conversely, must a superintendent only hire first or second year
teachers to teach at school A to increase the percentage? What
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happens if the superintendent must hire a math teacher, and the
only qualified applicants are first or second year teachers, and
the addition of that teacher will put the school over the
allowable percentage? The committee should consider whether
this requirement is attainable or appropriate at the local
level.
If the "initial assignment" includes transfers and
reappointments, and if it were possible for a superintendent to
assign teachers at the start of a school year so that all
schools had a similar percentage of first and second year
teachers, wouldn't the proportion be disrupted if a single first
or second year teacher requests a transfer, gets an extended
illness, goes out for maternity or paternity leave, is
dismissed; or, is laid off and reappointed? With this in mind,
it is unclear how assigning teachers for their initial
assignment will achieve parity of first and second year teachers
among schools. In addition, the committee should consider
whether including transfers in this provision will create a
conflict with current law that allows a principal at deciles 1
to 3 schools to refuse the transfer of a teacher. If a
superintendent is required to create a balance of first and
second year teachers across all schools, and in doing so
transfers a teacher, what would happen if the principal invokes
the right to refuse that transfer? This conflict would make it
unclear whether the superintendent or the principal makes the
final decision under the law.
If years of experience were also considered during
reappointment, it is also unclear whether it would be possible
to achieve parity among schools during the teacher assignment
process. For example, if a teacher is to be reappointed at
school A and they have 3 years of experience, and a teacher is
to be reappointed at school B and they have 1 year of
experience, would the superintendent be unable to reappoint one
of those teachers since their experience levels will create
inequity between the schools? Would the superintendent be
prohibited from hiring back one of those teachers and instead be
required to hire a new teacher with exactly the same experience
as the teacher at the other school?
According to the author, as a long term solution, districts need
to create a better balance of teacher experience across schools,
both to avoid risk of disproportionate layoffs in times of
budget crisis, and to protect the lowest-performing schools from
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teacher turnover that results from aggregating the most junior
teachers to low-performing schools as training grounds while
allowing higher performing schools to attract and retain those
teachers who stay in the profession. This bill would move
districts in that direction.
Is this a State-Wide Solution for a State-Wide Problem ?
According to the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning
(CFTL), recent studies conducted by Ed Trust West and SRI found
that state-wide, the average years of teacher experience in
decile 1 schools compared to decile 10 schools does not vary
substantially. They found that the average teacher experience
in decline 1 schools is 11.1 years while the average teacher
experience at decile 10 schools is 13.5. Upon further review,
CFTL found that among particular school districts there are
several instances where one school has an average of two years
teacher experience while another school has an average 19 or 20
years, yet the district average is 11-13 years. While this
pattern appears in particular school districts, it is unclear if
this pattern is consistent across all school districts across
the state and whether a state-wide requirement is appropriate.
The committee should consider whether all school districts in
the state should be required to balance the percentage of first
and second year teachers at all schools, especially small school
districts that would have little or no flexibility; or, whether
this requirement should only fall upon districts with
demonstrated inequalities.
According to CFTL, San Juan Unified School District has five
schools in deciles 1 to 3 that have more than a 10% higher
percentage of first and second year teachers than the district
average. This equates to 7% of the schools in the district or 5
out of 75 schools. Long Beach Unified School District has 10
schools in deciles 1 to 3 that have more than a 10% higher
percentage of first and second year teachers than the district
average. This equates to 11% of the schools in the district or
10 out of 90 schools. Oakland Unified School District has 29
schools in deciles 1 to 3 that have more than a 10% higher
percentage of first and second year teachers than the district
average. This equates to 20% of the schools in the district or
29 out of 142 schools. The committee should consider whether
school districts, like Oakland, that have a larger percentage of
schools that fall outside the allowable district range of first
and second year teachers, will have significantly more
difficulty implementing these provisions of the bill in a short
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amount of time, due to the scale of the issue.
Constitutional Protections . This bill clarifies existing law to
ensure that both students and teachers are protected by
constitutional requirements for equal protection under the law.
This will ensure that both the rights of teachers and students
can be considered during the layoff and reappointment process.
According to the author, against the backdrop of California's
fiscal crisis, the principle of equal educational opportunity is
under strain statewide. An unprecedented budget shortfall has
forced school districts to release thousands of teachers and
other employees, with real consequences for children. These
consequences, however, are not felt equally by schools. The
committee should consider whether this clarification in the law
is necessary and whether the authorization is clear enough to
ensure proper implementation state-wide.
Layoff Decisions based on Seniority and Low Performing Schools .
This bill prohibits school districts from laying off higher
percentages of certificated employees who provide instruction in
a classroom at low performing schools (deciles 1 to 3) than the
district as a whole; and, authorizes districts to diverge from
seniority to make layoff and reappointment decisions. A recent
policy brief published by The New Teacher Project notes that a
key consequence of the sole use of seniority in layoff decisions
is that "high-poverty schools tend to have higher concentrations
of more junior teachers, quality-blind layoff rules
disproportionately affect the most vulnerable schools and
students." Further, due to the budget crisis, California school
districts have laid off more teachers in the last several years.
The New Teacher Project policy brief argues that a more
quality-based layoff process will "likely decrease the total
number of teachers affected by layoffs. Last-hired, first-fired
layoff rules greatly exacerbate the impact of layoffs on schools
and teachers because more junior teachers earn lower salaries;
closing a budget gap by laying off the lowest-paid teachers
means that more teachers must be laid off to meet the budget
target." However the study is quick to clarify that it is not
advocating for more senior teachers to be laid off to close the
budget gap. Instead, the brief states: "Even [an evaluation]
system that gave credit to years of experience without making
seniority the sole factor would result in greater diversity of
experience and salary levels among teachers in the layoff pool,
reducing the total number of layoffs required and thereby
reducing the burden on the remaining teachers and their
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students."
In February 2010, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in superior court
against the state and Los Angeles Unified School District
(LAUSD) "for carrying out budget cuts last year that
disproportionately affected [low income students and students of
color] at the three schools, decimating their teaching staffs.
While many schools around the state lost zero teachers to the
budget crisis, more than half of the teaching staff at Gompers,
Liechty, and Markham middle schools lost their jobs as permanent
teachers. At Liechty, fully 72% of the teachers received layoff
notices; at Markham, the layoffs included almost the entire
English department along with every 8th grade history teacher."
The ACLU states, "Because state and district policies allowed an
overwhelming number of the newest teachers to be hired at the
highest need schools, Gompers, Liechty and Markham suffered
enormous and disproportionate impacts on their teaching staffs."
The lawsuit further states that these schools were unable to
rehire for the vacant teaching positions off the rehire list
because of the difficult neighborhoods in which these schools
are located. In May 2010, the courts issued an injunction
stating that LAUSD may not implement any budget based lay offs
of classroom teachers at these three schools, pending further
order from the court.
Supporters argue that significant bumping like that which
occurred at these schools is extremely disruptive to school
communities and classroom instruction. It has been argued that
when these challenging schools begin the reform process by
hiring new administrators and teachers who are excited and
dedicated to teach at these schools, a cultural change begins to
take place that often affects student achievement in a positive
way. When these committed teachers are laid off, and teachers
from other schools in the district are "bumped" into teaching
positions at these challenging schools, the teacher is often
unhappy, the cultural change is disrupted, and student
achievement can also be negatively effected. While it could be
argued that more senior teachers can provide higher quality
instruction, if that individual teacher is not committed to
working at an extremely low achieving school, they may not be
committed to the cultural changes happening at the school and
often do not stay at the school. The committee should consider
whether low performing schools should be protected from
disproportionate layoff bumping practices due to their unique
staffing challenges and laser focus on increasing student
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achievement and the quality of instructional programs. The
committee should also consider whether districts should be
allowed to consider the potential impact of losing most members
of a particular department at an individual school or losing a
teacher with special skills or training, during the layoff
process.
According to the author, newspaper accounts from this year's
reduction in force experience and data regarding distribution of
junior teachers in districts around the state confirm that the
risk of low income students of color bearing a disproportionate
burden of the budget crisis by losing more of their teachers
than other students lose remains present and severe throughout
California and certainly is not unique to Los Angeles.
Persistently Lowest Achieving Schools (PLAS) . In addition to
deciles 1 to 3 schools, this bill prohibits school districts
from laying off higher percentages of certificated employees who
provide instruction in a classroom at schools identified as PLAS
than the district as a whole; and, authorizes districts to
diverge from seniority to make reappointment decisions. The
committee should note that the schools currently identified as
PLAS include schools above decile 3.
PLAS schools are required to choose one of four intervention
models: Turnaround; Restart; School Closure; or, Transformation.
The Turnaround model specifically requires 50% of the teachers
at the school to be replaced. This bill prohibits teachers at
PLAS from being laid off at a greater proportion than other
schools in the district; and, authorizes districts to reappoint
teachers at PLAS regardless of seniority, but the bill does not
specify a timeline. In other words, if PLAS were prohibited
from laying off a higher proportion of teachers than the
district average, how would that be harmonized with the federal
requirement that 50% of the teachers be replaced? Further,
under this bill could a PLAS reappoint a teacher it was just
forced to let go under federal law? In order to meet federal
law, it may be necessary to identify a timeline under which PLAS
that have elected specific intervention models are required to
abide by these requirements.
The bill specifies that the provisions apply to "schools on the
list of PLAS, approved by the SBE." Since schools may be
identified as persistently lowest achieving for other reasons
under current law, this reference to PLAS should be more
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general, so as to apply to any identified PLAS.
Requiring the SPI to Enforce Layoffs . This bill specifies the
SPI shall require local governing boards that do not comply with
proportionate terminations at schools in deciles 1 to 3 of the
API and PLAS to reinstate the certificated employees terminated
in violation of the limit; and, specifies that the governing
board shall not make reductions in certificated employees at
other schools in the district to compensate for these
reinstatements. Some argue that this provision amounts to a
financial penalty for districts that attempt to lay off higher
percentages of teachers. The committee should consider whether
it is appropriate for school districts to be financially
penalized for failing to comply with this provision in the bill.
Teacher Reappointment, Seniority and School Reform Plans . This
bill authorizes school district governing boards to reappoint
teachers without regard to seniority at deciles 1 to 3 schools
and PLAS, if it is part of a school reform plan. This provision
in the bill raises many questions. It is unclear how formal a
school reform plan would need to be in order to use the plan as
a reason to reappoint teachers without regard to seniority.
What elements would be required to be included in the school
reform plan? Would the school reform plan be required to even
mention teachers? For example, if a school board approved a
school reform plan to update the facilities at a school, could
that "school reform plan" be used to authorize the district to
reappoint teachers without regard to seniority, when the reform
plan has nothing to do with instruction? Would this provision
authorize districts to pink slip notice 100% of the teachers at
a decile 1 to 3 school, and thus authorize a district to
reappoint only the least experienced, and least costly teachers?
Further the bill is silent with regard to the evaluation method
that districts would need to use in deciding which teachers to
reappoint. The committee should consider these questions before
implementing this policy state-wide.
Intent Language . The bill includes intent language that
encourages districts to utilize the equal protection language in
the California constitution and declares that some districts
have declined to use this authority and thereby have not
protected pupils' rights to education. The committee should
consider whether it is appropriate to declare that pupils'
rights have not been protected under existing law.
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Inconsistent Terminology . In existing law, teachers are
referred to as certificated employees. This bill uses the term
"certificated employees who provide instruction in a classroom."
These terms are not interchangeable and actually refer to
different types of employees. The term certificated employee
includes certificated teachers of all types including, but not
limited to, special education teachers and resource teachers and
also includes certificated nurses, just to name a few. The term
certificated employees who provide instruction in a classroom
could refer to teachers that are assigned to a group of students
all day; or, it could refer to teachers that provide one day or
one hour of instruction in a classroom. The term may or may not
include resource teachers and special education teachers,
depending on if those particular teachers provide classroom
instruction. The committee should consider whether the term
certificated employees who provide instruction in a classroom
should be clarified.
The State-Wide Perspective . This bill proposes several large
policy changes to be implemented state-wide on an urgent basis.
Unfortunately, some of the provisions in the bill are difficult
or impossible to implement state-wide. In addition, the
provisions in this bill spark intense debate and perhaps warrant
further discussion in the Legislature before implementation.
Other factors must also be considered during such a debate
regarding teacher seniority, such as what type of evaluation
tools are available that address teacher effectiveness, the
types of teacher mentoring and professional development that
exists state-wide, and the financial impact of the proposed
policy changes.
Arguments in Support . According to Public Advocates, "Even
before the fiscal crisis, California's students in schools with
higher concentrations of students of color, poor students and
immigrant students were disproportionately taught by the least
prepared and experienced teachers. Nearly a quarter of interns
(23%) in California teach in the 10% of schools serving the
highest concentrations of minority students (98-100% non-white),
while less than 2% teach in the 10% of schools with the lowest
concentration of minority students. Intern teacher assignments
increase sharply as the percentage of minority students in a
school increases. Ultimately, students in the 10% of schools
that are nearly entirely minority see five times as many interns
on staff as students in the decile with the lowest minority
concentration. We applaud Senator Steinberg's response to the
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civil rights claims of poor students and students of color in
Los Angeles Unified School District. We note that, ultimately,
to resolve the issue of the inequitable distribution of teacher
quality in California will require both a high quality,
multi-dimensional teacher evaluation system to identify the
teachers who are effective and highly effective and those who
are in need of improvement and an infusion of adequate resources
into the system to attract and retain teachers equally in
low-performing schools. Even before California's fiscal crisis,
our schools were greatly underfunded. In these difficult times
of severe budget cuts though, it is all the more critical that
we as a State ensure the remaining resources in the system,
including teachers, be equitably allocated and not
disproportionately cut in the neediest schools. SB 1285 makes
an important contribution by forcing the system to ensure that
any adverse impacts of teacher assignments or of
reductions-in-force are not disproportionately visited upon the
neediest students in the lowest-performing schools."
Arguments in Opposition . According to the California Federation
of Teachers, "The first of several concerns with the bill is the
fact that the Superintendent may impart a "penalty" on school
districts for "mismanaging" layoffs as defined in the bill.
While we appreciate the proposal of the penalty to protect and
restore classroom teachers' jobs and to prevent the redirecting
of layoffs to others in the district, we feel that the districts
will then target the next group of employees and that would be
the paraprofessionals in the classroom, the bus drivers, the
secretaries in the offices, the library technicians, etc. In
essence, the districts would close their financial gaps on the
backs of a different group of employees who provide other vital
services to the students. Another grave concern is the use of
the Academic Performance Index and the decile system for
labeling and protecting of deciles 1 through 3 schools. The
labeling or ranking of a decile is based solely on test scores
and does not necessarily reflect the neediest students. One
year the teachers at a decile 1 through 3 school may be
"protected" from layoffs; the following year, when the teachers
and staff have successfully improved the testing performance of
the students and become a decile 4 or higher school, the
teachers will then be more vulnerable to layoffs. This proposed
system also does not take into account different types of
schools when comparing percentages of teachers laid off, that
is, when comparing elementary, middle and high schools within a
unified school district. Finally, the proposed amendments to
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Education Code 44956(c)(3) gives the district unilateral
decisions on who to bring back from layoffs regardless of
credentialing and seniority. This will allow for more arbitrary
decision credentials, training and competency are equal. On the
contrary, by skipping more senior teachers on the rehire list
for decile 1 through 3 schools, it passes over the factor that
is at issue; experience and seniority. We believe this proposal
is not needed and will actually be counterproductive."
According to the California Teachers Association, this piece of
legislation creates instability while purporting to stabilize
staff at low-performing schools to avoid a disproportionate
impact of lay offs. An unintended consequence of these
proposals may be that Districts over-notice teachers throughout
the District and then through the administrative transfer
process create vacancies at decile 1-3 sites and persistently
low achieving schools in order to pick and choose who returns.
In times of economic strife, these choices may result in age
discrimination; selecting cheaper teachers to balance district
budgets. By permitting districts to layoff and rehire teachers
out of order, SB 1285 (Steinberg) will curtail teacher seniority
rights under the Education Code without adding any civil rights
protections for students that do not already exist.
Committee Amendments : Staff recommends the bill be amended in
the following ways:
1)Delete the contents of the bill except the following
provisions:
a) Require school districts to ensure that layoffs in
deciles 1 to 3 schools do not occur at a higher proportion
than the district;
b) Authorize school districts to terminate and reappoint
teachers without regard to seniority to achieve compliance
with constitutional requirements related to equal
protection of the laws as it applies to pupils and to
certificated employees; and,
c) Establish Legislative intent that that every California
child has a constitutional right, under the equal
protection clause of the California Constitution, to equal
educational opportunity; and, that school districts shall
utilize the authority in existing law to prevent disparate
impacts of teacher layoffs on pupils' rights to education.
2)Specify that during a reduction in force hearing, the
proportion of teacher layoffs at deciles 1 to 3 schools
compared to the district average shall be considered.
SB 1285
Page 16
3)Clarify the definition of certificated employees who provide
instruction in a classroom.
Related legislation . SB 955 (Huff) from 2010, pending in the
Senate Rules Committee, an urgency measure, makes various
changes to statutes governing staffing notification deadlines,
layoff and dismissal procedures, and reemployment preferences
pertaining to certificated educators.
Previous legislation . SB 1655 (Scott), Chapter 518, Statutes of
2006, prohibits, among other things, the governing board of a
school district from adopting a policy or regulation, or
entering into a collective bargaining agreement that assigns
priority to a teacher who requests to be transferred to another
school over other qualified applicants who have applied for
positions requiring certification. SB 1655 provided that, if
its prohibitions were in direct conflict with the terms of a
collective bargaining agreement in effect on the date of
enactment of that bill (January 1, 2007), those prohibitions
would become operative for any successor agreements.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California
Asian Pacific American Legal Center
California State NAACP
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay
Area
Public Advocates
Public Counsel
Rainbow Push Coalition
Opposition
California Federation of Teachers
California Teachers Association
Analysis Prepared by : Chelsea Kelley / ED. / (916) 319-2087