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As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger moves about the state, collecting corporate contributions so that he can push his so-called reform initiatives, he's being dogged by crowds of angry citizens instead of the adoring fans to which he's been accustomed. Teachers, nurses, parents, firefighters and law enforcement officers have shown up en masse to protest at private fundraisers in Century City and Irvine, plus countless other venues around the state. Organized by the Alliance for a Better California, the rallies are designed to show the governor that California's future is not for sale to the highest bidder |
The Association of California School Administrators, the California School Boards Association, and the California Federation of Teachers have joined with CTA to expose the governors so-called Excellence in Teaching Act as a fatally flawed scheme.
The hastily drafted initiative, which is now in the signature-gathering phase, does nothing to improve public education and will, in fact, eliminate rules guarding classrooms against unprofessional and criminal conduct.
The current system for removing certificated employees guilty of such conduct would be replaced with an unworkable process without clear guidelines for employee dismissals, according to ACSA, CSBA, CFT and CTA representatives.
The attorney general's analysis of the initiative, officially titled "School Employment Decisions. Employee Performance," concludes that the initiative "supersedes other, existing reasons authorizing teachers' dismissal" and replaces them with a system in which decisions are "to be based solely on employee performance and needs of the district and pupils." This eliminates reasons for dismissal based upon criminal and unprofessional conduct, substance abuse, and many other reasons currently listed in the state Education Code.
"Mouthing slogans is one thing," says CTA President Barbara E. Kerr, "but creating public policy that will actually improve public schools is another. It's clear that the intent here was not to improve the quality of teaching, but rather to draw attention away from the governor's failure to provide schools with the resources that are needed to attract and keep the best teachers."
"The future of our students and our state as a whole depends upon sound, positive improvements in education policy," says ACSA Executive Director Bob Wells. "Throwing the fate of our education system to the ballot box without adequate legislative review and discourse is simply bad policy."
"This is the kind of thing that happens when the initiative process is used to leverage or bypass the legislative process in the development of public policy," says CSBA Executive Director Scott Plotkin. "It's obvious that whoever wrote this initiative doesn't know anything about school law, and in the pursuit of an overtly political agenda, didn't do their homework."
While the governor touts it as a merit pay initiative, it is much more far-reaching. It contains language that would essentially eliminate collective bargaining in the state. It requires five or 10 years of good evaluations to gain permanent status and allows permanent teachers to be dismissed after two unsatisfactory evaluations. And it bases teacher pay on student test scores.
The provision linking pay and other employment decisions to student performance would make it next to impossible to find and retain teachers in schools most in need of help.
