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Former Washington DC schools superintendent Michelle Rhee credits LAUSD and UTLA for making progress with their tentative teacher evaluation deal but describes it as”falling short in many ways” and cites it as an example of the need for a “strong statewide policy governing teachers’ performance evaluations.”

Read below for the full statement from Rhee, who is now head of the Sacramento-based StudentsFirst school reform advocacy organization.  As you may recall, efforts to strengthen state teacher evaluation laws were stymied last year.

Full statement from Rhee:

While the agreement between the Los Angeles Unified School District and the United Teachers of Los Angeles regarding use of student performance in teacher evaluations brought the two sides together, it still falls short in many ways. Unfortunately, it creates uncertainty over how students’ academic progress and test scores will be used to determine how well teachers are doing and contains no guarantee they will be used at all.

The agreement illustrates that California is in dire need of a strong statewide policy governing teachers’ performance evaluations.

StudentsFirst strongly believes that no district can accurately measure how well its teachers are doing without considering the performance of their students along with other important measures like classroom observations and parent/student feedback. That’s common sense. California parents are looking to Sacramento to put students first and take up this issue to develop a strong statewide policy governing teacher evaluations.

Previous posts: Questions About Teacher Evaluation Deal,  LAUSD Approves Teacher Grading Deal