BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
AB 5 (Fuentes) - Teacher Evaluations.
Amended: June 22, 2011 Policy Vote: Education 6-0
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: August 13, 2012
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: AB 5 requires school districts to implement a best
practices teacher evaluation system, as specified, by July 1 of
the first fiscal year in which the deficit factor is reduced to
zero.
Fiscal Impact: This bill places future mandates on school
districts when the provisions take effect, which will result in
substantial new reimbursable costs. Those costs will be
partially offset by repealing existing requirements that result
in approximately $18 million per year in reimbursable mandate
costs.
Mandate: 3-year evaluation cycle - Millions to tens of
millions of dollars in annual evaluation costs to increase
evaluation frequency for certain (likely more than 100,000)
teachers from a minimum of once every 5 years to once every
3 years.
Mandate: Multiple observations - Millions of dollars to
implement multiple observations of each teacher, instead of
a single observation required for evaluation.
Mandate: Collective bargaining - Substantial new mandate
for every schools district to collectively bargain its best
practices teacher evaluation system.
Mandate: Training - Potentially substantial mandate to
train evaluators to meet new "appropriately trained and
calibrated evaluators" requirements.
Background: The Stull Act, in existing law, expresses
legislative intent that governing boards establish a uniform
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system of evaluation and assessment of certificated personnel
within each school district, and requires school districts to
evaluate and assess teacher performance as it reasonably relates
to the progress of pupils toward district-adopted standards of
pupil achievement and pupil performance on criterion referenced
tests; instructional techniques and strategies used by the
employee; the employee's adherence to curricular objectives; and
the establishment and maintenance of a suitable learning
environment within the scope of the employee's responsibilities.
(Education Code � 44660 et. seq.)
In developing guidelines and procedures for evaluating
certificated personnel, existing law requires governing boards
to avail themselves of the advice of the certificated
instructional personnel in the district's organization of
certificated personnel pursuant to collective bargaining
statutes. A school district may, by mutual agreement between the
exclusive representatives of the certificated employees of the
district, include any objective standards from the National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) or any
objective standards from the California Standards for the
Teaching Profession (CSTP). (EC � 44661.5)
Existing law requires an evaluation and assessment of the
performance of each certificated employee to be made at least
once each school year for probationary personnel, at least every
other year for personnel with permanent status, and at least
every five years for permanent employees who have been employed
with the district at least 10 years and were rated as meeting or
exceeding standards in their previous evaluation. Employees who
receive an unsatisfactory rating may be required to participate
in a program designed to improve the employee's performance and
to further pupil achievement and the instructional objectives of
the district. Teachers who receive an unsatisfactory rating are
required to participate in the Peer Assistance and Review
Program if their district offers such a program. (EC � 44664)
Existing law establishes the Peer Assistance and Review Program
for Teachers (PAR) by authorizing school districts and the
exclusive representative of the certificated employees to
develop and implement the program locally. PAR programs include
multiple observations of a teacher during periods of classroom
instruction and sufficient staff development activities to
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assist a teacher in improving his or her skills and knowledge.
The final evaluation of a teacher's participation in the program
is made available for placement in his or her personnel file.
(EC � 44505)
Proposed Law: This bill requires the following sections of the
Stull Act to become inoperative on July 1 of the first fiscal
year following the fiscal year in which the school district
revenue limit deficit factor is reduced to zero: a) Legislative
intent that governing boards establish a uniform system for
evaluation and assessment; b) The requirement that a governing
board, in developing and adopting guidelines, avail itself of
the advice of the certificated instructional personnel in the
district as part of a locally negotiated collective bargaining
agreement; c) The authorization that a school district may
include objective standards from the NBPTS or the CSTP in its
guidelines; d) The requirement that each school district
establish standards of expected pupil achievement at each grade
level in each area of study and to evaluate certificated
employee performance as it reasonably relates to specified
criteria; e) The requirement that evaluation and assessment of
the performance of certificated employees be conducted every
year for probationary employees, at least every two years for
personnel with permanent status and at least every five years
for personnel with permanent status who have been employed with
the district at least 10 years and were rated as meeting or
exceeding standards at their last evaluation. (EC � 44664)
This bill requires the governing board of each school district
to adopt and implement a best practices teacher evaluation by
July 1 of the first fiscal year following the fiscal year in
which the school district revenue limit deficit factor is
reduced to zero; requires the teacher evaluation system to be
locally negotiated; and specifies that if the certificated
employees of the school district do not have an exclusive
bargaining representative, the governing board of the school
district shall adopt objective evaluation and support
components, as applicable. This bill specifies that a best
practices teacher evaluation system has the following
attributes:
1) Each teacher is evaluated on the degree to which he or she
accomplishes the following objectives:
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a) Engages and supports all pupils in learning, as
specified;
b) Creates and maintains effective environments for
pupil learning, to the extent that those environments
are within the teacher's control.
c) Understands and organizes subject matter for
pupil learning, evidence of which may include, but is
not limited to, extensive subject matter, content
standards, and curriculum competence.
d) Plans instruction and designs learning
experiences for all pupils, evidence of which may
include but is not limited to, use of differential
instruction and practices based upon pupil progress
and use of culturally responsive instruction, as
specified;
e) Uses pupil assessment information to inform
instruction and to improve learning, as specified:
f) Develops as a professional educator, as
specified:
g) Contributes to pupil academic growth based upon
multiple measures, which may include but are not
limited to, classroom work, local and state academic
assessments, pupil grades, classroom participation,
presentations and performances, and projects and
portfolios; as specified;
1) Multiple observations of instructional and other
professional practices are conducted by evaluators who have
received appropriate training and who have demonstrated
competence in teaching evaluation, as determined by the
district.
2) Specifies that the requirement for a teacher evaluation
system does not prohibit a locally negotiated evaluation
process from designating certificated employees to conduct,
or participate in, evaluations of other certificated
employees for purposes of determining needs for
professional development or providing corrective advice for
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the certificated employee being evaluated.
3) Requires a school district governing board to establish and
define job responsibilities for certificated
non-instructional personnel whose responsibilities cannot
be evaluated appropriately under the best practices teacher
evaluation system and to evaluate and assess the
performance of non-instructional certificated employees as
it reasonably relates to the fulfillment of those
responsibilities.
4) Requires the evaluation and assessment of the performance
of each certificated employee to be made on a continuing
basis as follows:
a) At least once each school year for probationary
personnel.
b) At least every other year for personnel with
permanent status.
c) Except as provided in the locally negotiated best
practices teacher evaluation system, at least every 3
years for employees with permanent status who have
been employed at least 10 years, as specified;
d) Requires the employing authority to notify an
employee in writing if the employee is not performing
his or her duties in a satisfactory manner and to
describe the unsatisfactory performance. Requires the
employing authority to confer with the employee and
make specific recommendations as to areas of
improvement, and requires an annual evaluation until
the employee achieves a positive evaluation or is
separated from the district.
e) Specifies that an employee evaluation that
contains an unsatisfactory rating of an employee's
performance may include a requirement that the
certificated employee participate in a program
designed to improve appropriate areas of the
employee's performance, as specified, and requires any
certificated employee who receives an unsatisfactory
rating on an evaluation to participate in PAR if the
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district has such a program.
Staff Comments: The Stull Act, in existing law, expresses
legislative intent that governing boards establish a uniform
system of evaluation and assessment of certificated personnel
within each school district, and requires school districts to
evaluate and assess teacher performance, as specified in the
Background. The state has reimbursed school districts
approximately $18 million in annual mandate costs related to
implementing the requirements, but that amount is likely to be
adjusted in future years. The 2012-13 Stull Act mandate is
included in the new K-12 mandates block grant, under which
school districts may opt to accept $28 per pupil for all active
mandates instead of traditional reimbursement. To the extent
that school districts choose to participate in the mandates
block grant, the state will realize savings related to the Stull
Act mandate as it exists under current law.
This bill would, once the school district revenue limit deficit
factor is reduced to zero (which would require approximately
$9.2 billion to achieve), repeal those provisions and replace
them with new teacher evaluation requirements. The state would
presumably stop paying the Stull Act mandate (for traditional
reimbursements) and would remove it from the mandates block
grant, but would instead pay more extensive mandates to
implement this bill's provisions that address the same issue of
teacher evaluation. The full cost of implementing this bill will
depend on the extent of successful mandate claims filed by
school districts. The Commission on State Mandates will
ultimately determine which implementation activities and
expenses will be reimbursable. That determination will likely
include, at a minimum:
Collective bargaining : This bill specifies necessary components
of a teacher evaluation system, and mandates that the details of
those components be collectively bargained at the local level.
Under this bill, approximately 1,000 school districts are
required to develop and collectively bargain their teacher
evaluation procedures. Collective bargaining expenses related to
this requirement, including legal counsel time, will likely be
reimbursable, as will staff time spent developing the initial
proposals school districts present during collective bargaining.
Training : This bill requires classroom observations be conducted
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by evaluators who have been "appropriately trained and
calibrated to ensure consistency and who have demonstrated
competence in teacher evaluation, as determined by the school
district." Training evaluators will be a reimbursable expense,
and the extent of that expense will be determined by the school
district's locally-determined standards.
Evaluation frequency: Upon implementation of a new evaluation
system, this bill requires teachers with 10 years or more
experience to be evaluated every 3 years and to be observed
multiple times for each evaluation. Staff time for multiple
classroom observations, written evaluations, evaluation reviews,
and meetings with the teacher will all likely be reimbursable.