BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-12 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 257
AUTHOR: Liu
AMENDED: April 25, 2011
FISCAL COMM: No HEARING DATE: April 27, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Beth Graybill
SUBJECT : Certificated school employees: evaluation and
assessment.
SUMMARY
This bill encourages a school district to include in its
evaluation and assessment guidelines specific information
relating to current best teaching practices in all subject
areas and authorizes a school district to include additional
criteria into the evaluation and assessment of certificated
employees.
BACKGROUND
Existing law, the Stull Act, expresses the intent of the
Legislature that governing boards establish a uniform system
of evaluation and assessment of the performance of all
certificated personnel within each school district, including
schools conducted or maintained by county superintendents of
education. The system must involve the development and
adoption of objective evaluation and assessment guidelines
that may be uniform throughout the district or for compelling
reasons, differ by regions within the district. (Education
Code � 44660)
The Stull Act further requires school districts to evaluate
and assess teacher performance as it reasonably relates to
the following:
1) The progress of pupils toward district-adopted
standards of pupil achievement and if applicable,
state-adopted academic content standards as measured by
pupil performance on state-adopted criterion referenced
tests.
2) Instructional techniques and strategies used by the
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employee.
3) The employee's adherence to curricular objectives.
4) The establishment and maintenance of a suitable
learning environment within the scope of the employee's
responsibilities.
(EC � 47662)
When adopting objective evaluation and assessment guidelines,
existing law authorizes school districts, by mutual agreement
between the exclusive representative of the certificated
employees of the district and the governing board, to include
any objective standard of the National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards (NBPTS) or the California Standards for
the Teaching Profession (CSTP), provided the standards are
consistent with the Stull Act. (EC � 44661.5)
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) States the intent of the Legislature to enact
legislation that would address the following issues
relating to the evaluation and assessment of
certificated employees:
a) All aspects of teacher and school district
effectiveness to ensure that an overhaul of the
state's current system is comprehensive enough to
attract, develop, retain, and support effective
teachers and administrators.
b) The role of teachers and others responsible
for creating a high performing culture of learning.
c) A fair and transparent assessment and
evaluation system that respects the confidentiality
of individual performance evaluations and due
process.
d) The use of successful and tested practices to
set a foundation for practical reforms that can be
tailored to fit the needs of California schools,
recognizing the complexities of teaching and school
performance and the myriad issues that contribute
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to the overarching goal of improving pupil
achievement.
e) Policy changes at the state level that allow
for local flexibility while ensuring access to
programs and content that meet the needs of all
pupils in the state.
f) The means by which various measures of
accountability can be incorporated into a support
structure for the improvement of teacher and school
district effectiveness.
g) An evaluation and assessment system that
assists teachers in developing their skills and
positively impacting pupil achievement, including a
reasonable approach to including pupil performance
data as well as pupil and parent feedback and peer
input.
h) An evaluation and assessment system that
allows for teacher development activities that
provide support structures and allow teachers to
grow throughout their careers.
i) The role of administrators in effective
teacher evaluations and assessment, including, but
not limited to, training in evaluation methods and
processes.
2) Encourages school districts to include in their
evaluation and assessment guidelines, specific
information relating to current best teaching practices
in all subject areas, as well as information relating to
objectively training evaluators on current best teaching
practices in all subject areas.
3) Authorizes school districts to incorporate additional
criteria into the evaluation and assessment of
certificated employees as it reasonably relates to the
progress of pupils toward the statewide academic content
standards or the common core standards. Prohibits pupil
data from constituting more than 25 percent of the total
evaluation and specifies that pupil progress is to be
measured by:
a) Pupil progress and growth during the school
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year, and if applicable, multiple school years.
Expresses the intent of the Legislature that
assessments occur, at a minimum, at the beginning
and end of each school year.
b) Additional data from locally developed pupil
assessments, as adopted by the governing board of
the district.
4) Authorizes the evaluation to include pupil and parent or
guardian input, as appropriate and authorizes a school
district to develop grade-level and subject-appropriate
surveys on certificated employees. Prohibits pupil and
parent or guardian input from constituting more than 5
percent of the total evaluation.
5) Specifies that prior to a final evaluation, the school
district may conduct multiple observations by trained
evaluators and peers with the opportunity for
constructive feedback and professional development.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill : Several studies have noted that
California's current approach to teacher evaluation
serves neither schools nor teachers well. A January
2011 report by the Center for the Future of Teaching and
Learning notes that evaluations pay "scarce attention to
student learning or do not connect that learning to
elements of teacher content knowledge or instructional
skills that could be improved." This report also
recommended making teacher evaluation multi-dimensional,
strengthening the training of those who conduct
evaluations, and tying evaluation results directly to
substantive feedback to teachers and providing a range
of professional development to strengthen practice.
This bill addresses the need for a more meaningful evaluation
system by encouraging school districts to include
information relating to subject-specific best teaching
practices and by authorizing school districts to include
specified data in the evaluation process. Although
school districts already have the authority to develop
and adopt evaluation systems that may include pupil
performance data, this bill could provide a framework
for districts to establish evaluation plans that present
clear expectations of teachers and staff, which could
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increase transparency in the evaluation process and
create an evaluation system that could be a more
meaningful approach to strengthening teacher quality
than the current evaluation system.
2) Best practices . According to the author's office,
administrators need better training and expertise in
order to accurately access employee performance and
should understand what constitutes effective teaching in
various subjects. To the extent that evaluation and
assessment guidelines specify what effective teaching
might look like in each subject area, they could provide
both teachers and evaluators subject-specific benchmarks
for assessing the quality of teaching. Would it be
practical to train a principal on the current best
teaching practices in all subject areas covered by a
school?
The California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP)
and the National Board for Professional Teaching
Standards (NBPTS) each articulate a set of "best
practices" for the teaching profession. The CSTP are
intended to provide a "common" language and vision of
the scope and complexity of the profession by which all
teachers can define and develop their practice. The
standards seek to serve and support professional
educators in fulfilling their professional roles and
responsibilities from pre-service teacher to experienced
practioner. The CSTP inform California's teacher
credential and induction programs. The basic standards
are as follows:
a) Engaging and supporting all students in
learning.
b) Creating and maintaining effective
environments for student learning.
c) Understanding and organizing subject matter
for student learning.
d) Planning instruction and designing learning
experiences for all
Students.
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e) Assessing students for learning.
f) Developing as a professional educator.
The NBPTS are organized around 16 different subject
areas, but include a set of "core principles" that are
similar to the CSTP:
a) Teachers are committed to students and their
learning
b) Teachers know the subjects they teach and how
to teach those subjects to students.
c) Teachers are responsible for managing and
monitoring student
learning.
d) Teachers think systematically about their
practice and learn from
experience
e) Teachers are members of learning communities
This bill would authorize districts to utilize
additional information that identifies best practices
relating to the specific subjects taught.
3) Related and prior legislation .
SB 355 (Huff) makes various changes to statutes governing the
evaluation of certificated employees and in how teacher
effectiveness may be considered in employment decisions.
This measure is scheduled to be heard by this Committee
on May 11, 2011.
AB 5 (Fuentes) deletes the Stull Act and requires school
districts, by mutual agreement with the local bargaining
unit, to implement a teacher evaluation system by July
1, 2012, as specified. This bill is pending in the
Assembly Appropriations Committee.
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AB 48 (Perez) specifies that the procedures to be used for
the evaluation of certificated employees is subject to
specified provisions of law regarding the scope of
representation of the exclusive representative of
certificated employees and requires the governing board
to consult with the exclusive representative with
respect to all other matters relating to the evaluation
of certificated employees. This measure is pending in
the Assembly Education Committee.
SUPPORT
None received.
OPPOSITION
None received.