CTA Files Bill that Gives Teachers Role in Negotiating Professional Issues, Improving Student Learning

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SACRAMENTO - Today, CTA announced the filing of Assembly bill 2160, which will herald a new era in California's public schools. Currently, frustration with lack of control in their classroom causes many teachers to leave the profession. In fact, in the first five years, half of all new teachers do not return to teaching. If AB 2160 passes, real classroom teachers - and not school district bureaucrats - will have more power over what and how to teach, said Wayne Johnson, president of the 330,000-member California Teachers Association.

"This bill takes control of the classroom away from distant bureaucrats and puts more decisions into the hands of the educators who work with the children every day," Johnson said. "By expanding the scope of the state's bargaining law, teachers and their union representatives will be able to negotiate the procedures by which decisions about curriculum, textbooks and teacher training are made - and about how to increase parental involvement. By empowering teachers, you empower public education."

Johnson noted that the bill is supported by recent CTA polling data showing registered voters statewide overwhelmingly favor giving teachers more professional control over what they can negotiate: 84 percent said teachers should negotiate teacher training issues; 82 percent said they should negotiate involving teachers on school site councils and other decision-making panels; 78 percent said they should be able to bargain about how to help under-performing schools; 76 percent said educators must have the right to negotiate over programs to involve parents.

AB 2160 would not overturn any state or federal law. For example, the state's mandated testing program and new academic standards are not affected. Only issues under the jurisdiction of the local school board could be negotiated.

The bill would expand the state's Education Employment Relations Act - which now confines the scope of bargaining to wages, hours and working conditions - to allow teachers to negotiate, for the first time, the decision-making procedures for critical areas such as developing and implementing any program to enhance student academic performance; developing education objectives and course content, and selecting evaluators and intervention teams for under-performing schools.

CTA is affiliated with the 2.6 million-member National Education Association.