School Board Update

ABCUSD School Board Approves Salary Agreement

This Tuesday the ABC School Board approved the 2015-16 school year tentative agreement with the ABC Federation of Teachers with a vote of 6-0.

Board members commented on the excellence that teachers exhibit across the district and the desire to continue to maintain a competitive salary schedule that is in the top quartile when compared with other L.A. County School Districts.

Sent on behalf of CFT President Joshua Pechthalt

On Saturday, September 12, the CFT Executive Council, the elected governing body of the CFT, interviewed Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez, who were seeking CFT's endorsement for their candidacies for United States Senator.  They are running to replace Senator Barbara Boxer, who is retiring next year.  CFT leaders asked each of the candidates ten questions.  Executive council members took turns in asking each of the candidates questions.

Both candidates were outstanding in their interviews, and are strong supporters of quality public education.  After the interviews there was a great deal of discussion affirming that we would be well served by both candidates.  However, Kamala Harris has been a tireless supporter of CFT for many years and has stood shoulder to shoulder with school employees, faculty, educators and advocates.  She has fought for quality education and workers rights throughout her career, and is especially forceful in pursuit of dismantling the school to prison pipeline for at risk youth.

These qualities came through clearly in her interview, and the CFT Executive Council is pleased to announce our support for Kamala Harris for United States Senator in 2016.

New  article written by ABC Superintendent Mary Sieu in the May/June Leadership bi-monthly magazine put out by Association of California School Administrators.

See the post below for the article....

Educators Appeal Deeply Flawed Vergara RulingDecision hurts students and hurts teachers

LOS ANGELES — The California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers filed opening briefs today in their appeal of Judge Rolf Treu’s deeply flawed decision in Vergara v. California, a baseless lawsuit brought by corporate privatizers seeking to strike down statutes protecting teachers from arbitrary firings, providing transparency in layoff decisions, and supporting due process rights, all of which contribute to student success.

“This suit was never about helping students,” said CTA President Dean E. Vogel. “As educators we believe every student has the right to a caring, qualified and committed teacher and that is why we are appealing the judge’s misguided decision. He completely ignored all evidence demonstrating the laws challenged in this case help ensure students have quality and caring teachers in their classrooms, and did not consider the impact of a severe lack of funding and growth in poverty which are some of the most important factors impacting student achievement. Instead, he based his decision on unfounded arguments made by corporate reformers seeking to impose their political agendas on students and educators. Where are these people when it’s time to support adequate funding for our students, peer assistance and review programs for struggling teachers, and lower class sizes that ensure our students get the one-on-one attention they need to succeed? That’s what truly helps our students.”

During two months of trial, the plaintiffs and their expensive attorneys failed to produce a single student who had ever been harmed by these laws, while teachers, principals, school board members, superintendents, and nationally recognized policy experts offered dozens of examples of how these laws have helped and continue to help millions of California students.

CFT President Joshua Pechthalt said, “Wealthy anti-union advocates like David Welch, the funder of this suit, are obscuring the real problems of public education, which are best addressed by restoring funding to programs that ensure student success. It is not coincidental that the law firm he retained is one of corporate America’s leading anti-worker, anti-union firms. Public education has a crisis of retention for experienced and new teachers alike. We already lose fifty percent of new teachers before their fifth year.  This is due to the difficulties of teaching in a severely underfunded system, and to the systematic attacks on teachers resulting in fewer young people enrolling in teacher education programs. These tough challenges are only compounded by this lawsuit. We need to support new teachers, help them to improve, and retain them. We need well-funded mentoring and teacher evaluation programs that help improve teacher practice and assist teachers that are struggling.  It’s a mistake to drive a reform agenda based on how educators are going to be fired. We can’t fire our way to excellence. We are confident that when a fair and conscientious judge takes into account the evidence that Judge Treu paid no attention to, we will prevail in this appeal.”

“The right to a fair dismissal process ensures that I can speak out on behalf of my students on issues like addressing school safety concerns or having adequate textbooks and supplies,” said Erin Rosselli, 15-year kindergarten teacher and 2015 Teacher of the Year from Orange County. “These laws ensure I won’t be fired or laid off for arbitrary reasons or in retribution for standing up for kids, and that school administrators do their jobs when it comes to observing and evaluating the work I do.”

The appeal targets numerous flaws in last year’s ruling, among them that there is no evidence the challenged laws have caused harm or inevitably would cause harm to anyone, that the court blatantly ignored evidence proving these laws improve the quality of public education in California, that the court intruded on an inherently legislative function, and that the student plaintiffs recruited to front the case have no standing to bring suit. Some of those students attend charter and pilot schools that aren’t even governed by these laws, and the teachers they did complain about in their testimony had very good evaluations; one was the Pasadena Unified School District Teacher of the Year. The suit was brought by Silicon Valley millionaire David Welch and supported by corporate special interests seeking to undermine the teaching profession and push their agenda on California public schools.

Gaby Ibarra, a fifth grade bilingual immersion teacher at Niemes Elementary School in the ABC Unified School District, said, “If I did not have the peace of mind that comes with knowing my job will still be there when I advocate for my students, my classroom, my school, and my community, it would not be possible to teach effectively. The laws protect best practices in the classroom. The lawsuit twists the real meaning of these laws. After a teacher passes her probation, “permanent status” just means the right to a fair due process hearing before dismissal. Everyone should have that right, and especially someone who can be vulnerable to political pressures as teachers have been so many times in the past.”

CFT and CTA were interveners in the case; the State of California is filing a separate appeal. More information on the case as well as background can be found here and here.

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The 325,000-member CTA is affiliated with the 3.2 million-member National Education Association.
The CFT is the statewide affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, and represents faculty and school employees in public and private schools and colleges, from early childhood through higher education.

Press Release
AFT, NABE and TESOL on Senate Bipartisan ESEA Bill
Encouraging Signs for English Language Learners and Their Teachers
For Release:
Monday, April 13, 2015

WASHINGTON—Leaders of three organizations representing the majority of educators who teach English language learners said Monday they are encouraged by the Senate bipartisan Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization proposal.

"The proposed bill represents a significant step forward to support the academic and language needs of ELLs, to adequately prepare teachers to work with ELLs, and to promote equity," said leaders of the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association for Bilingual Education, and TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) International Association, in a statement to their members.

One of the most important provisions in the bill, said AFT President Randi Weingarten, would be to give English language learners with basic or little English proficiency a three-year grace period before taking English language arts assessments in English. "This is a significant step toward more appropriately assessing English learners, and it better aligns with what research shows and educators know: that it takes time to learn English. ELLs need enough time to be part of the English-language culture. We've seen testing after one year, and it's just not fair or right. This is an example of the commonsense provisions Sens. Murray and Alexander have put in their bill."

English language learners—preK-12 students who are working toward becoming proficient in the English language—are one of the fastest-growing student populations. The goals of these three organizations include promoting educational excellence and equity for ELLs to ensure they are able to meet the same challenging college- and career-ready standards required of all students.

Leaders from the three organizations said they were pleased the Senate bill includes funds for professional development for general education and mainstream educators who have not worked with ELLs, and funds to help recruit, retain, mentor and induct educators of ELLs and ELLs with disabilities.

Weingarten said Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) took an important bipartisan first step in reclaiming the original purpose of ESEA, which was to help children, particularly those at risk, and address education equity.

"This is a significant and great beginning of a long legislative process to get a final bill that provides the right resources and policies for those with the most needs, including ELLs, and for their teachers," Weingarten said.

Santiago Wood, executive director of the National Association for Bilingual Education, said the bill is encouraging, and NABE will work on making it better as the legislative process continues. "We will be advocating for high-quality bilingual education programs, considering we live in a globally competitive economy and all students could benefit from learning more than one language," Wood said.

"We will focus our efforts on promoting a strong collaboration between English as a second language teachers and other teachers for the benefit of this diverse student population. This collaboration is at the heart of effective instruction for ELLs," said Rosa Aronson, executive director of TESOL International Association.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is expected to take up the Alexander-Murray bill on Tuesday.

# # # #

The AFT represents 1.6 million pre-K through 12th-grade teachers; paraprofessionals and other school-related personnel; higher education faculty and professional staff; federal, state and local government employees; nurses and healthcare workers; and early childhood educators.

A great article by Anne OBrien
Deputy Director of the Learning First Alliance on the ABCFT/ABCUSD partnership.

When Teachers and Administrators Collaborate

From Edutopia

Find the original article here

Those of us in education know that systemic change requires collaboration. And when trying to implement large-scale initiatives like the Common Core State Standards that require rethinking professional learning, curriculum and instructional materials, family engagement activities, assessment and other aspects of the education system, collaboration is particularly important.

But too often the rhetoric of change indicates that it is being done to teachers, not with them -- particularly change driven by politicians who know little about education and are more conscious of the political realities they face than the best interests of students. And as we have learned from education reforms past, that type of change is doomed to fail.

Yet there are places across the country where that is not the case. These are places where teachers and administrators work together both to implement policy decisions in ways that benefit students and to develop innovative solutions to the challenges that their community faces. One such place: California's ABC Unified School District.

Collaboration in ABC

ABC has been widely praised for the collaborative relationship that exists between its teachers and administrators. Not only has the district received a great deal of positive press about this partnership (for example, one blogger recently wrote that he "left ABC rejoicing in what they have been able to accomplish" in this arena), it also served as the basis for research by Rutgers University's Saul Rubinstein and John McCarthy on how working together improves student achievement.

What makes ABC so special is not just the fact that a strong partnership between teachers and administrators exists. It is the fact that the collaboration has been institutionalized. The partnership has thrived for well over a decade, under multiple superintendents and through a number of school board elections. And this has led to a district culture "of shared planning, decision-making, and responsibility" that is "built on respect, commitment, and trust," as a 2011 case study puts it.

Among the many issues that teachers and administrators in ABC have tackled together are curriculum development, textbook selection, recruitment and hiring, mentoring, teacher evaluation and support, and use of data-based decision making to improve student performance. And the partnership is having a positive impact on students.

One early example of collaborative problem solving in the district was the creation of the Southside Schools Reading Collaborative, which targeted resources and support to six high needs schools that then showed the most growth on standardized assessments in the district. And Rubinstein and McCarthy's research shows that the district's students have higher achievement in the schools with stronger partnerships between teachers unions and school administration.

What Does It Look Like?

Those in education use the words "collaboration" and "partnership" quite liberally, often giving little to no details on what specifically good examples look like. But a 2011 set ofcase studies of six districts, including ABC, that have developed and sustained strong relationships between teachers and their unions and administrators while improving public education found thirteen common themes, including:

• Emphasis on teacher quality, including professional development, new systems of evaluation, peer-to-peer assistance and mentoring programs
• Focus on student performance, with districts creating opportunities for teachers and administrators to work together to analyze student performance to identify and focus on priority areas for improvement
• Substantive problem-solving, innovation and willingness to experiment, working together to come up with new ways to address critical issues, with the partnership serving as a vehicle for improvement (not as the end in itself)
• An organizational culture that values and supports collaboration, evidenced in part by leaders speaking of a culture of inclusion, involvement and communication, as well as respect for teachers as professionals and for their union
• Collaborative structures at all levels in the district, with an infrastructure that promotes and facilitates collaborative decision-making in schools through building-level leadership teams, school improvement committees, school advisory councils or other such bodies that meet on regularly and play a key role in site-based decision making

Collaboration in Action: Common Core Implementation

When a district that has a strong collaborative culture undertakes a major initiative like implementing the Common Core, what does it look like? We at the Learning First Alliance recently interviewed two representatives of ABC to find out:Richard Saldana a high school teacher and department chair who also serves on the executive board of the ABC Federation of Teachers, and Tanya Golden, a sixth grade teacher who also serves as a teacher leader. Each shared their experience with the Common Core, and what emerged reinforced the notion that collaboration plays a key role in the day-to-day operations of the district, while also illustrating the importance of teacher voice and leadership in implementation.

What exactly does that mean?

It means that the district has had over 144 teachers on Common Core study teams for the past two years, and that the district convened teachers to develop and review instructional units when none were available.

Recognizing that Common Core implementation is an enormous undertaking, it means that teachers and district leaders worked together to identify three key academic focus areas for the school year: text dependent questions, writing from sources, and academic vocabulary (with each school site selecting one on which to concentrate).

And it means that the district provides teacher leaders like Golden to support them in that effort -- teacher leaders who meet monthly with the district's academic services division for professional learning to equip them with the skills they need to help schools succeed.

It means that teacher leaders like Saldana meet at least monthly with district leadership to discuss concerns that come forth from the teachers representative council of the union (which also meets monthly), so there's a constant flow of information between teacher and the district.

It means that teachers and administrators go together to school board sessions and parent information meetings, speaking with one voice.

It means that the district provides joint trainings for teachers and principals, with district officials and teacher leaders presenting information together. The goal: To send a unified message and ensure clear communication.

The Key Takeaway

The way that ABC has approached the Common Core -- and the way it approaches all issues -- seems intuitive. So why don't we hear more stories like theirs?

As Saldana put it, "I think the most important lesson for all of us is to find the time to collaborate. I think the biggest reason we don't collaborate is because it takes time."

But as the experience of ABC shows, finding that time makes improving student learning a whole lot easier.

ANNE OBRIEN'S PROFILE

On the reelection of State Superintendent
of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson

Statement by CFT president Joshua Pechthalt

There was plenty to celebrate in California last night, but for educators, the most important result in many ways was the reelection of Tom Torlakson as State Superintendent of Public Instruction. This means that students, parents and educators will continue to have a champion in Sacramento. 

The people of California have wisely sent a clear message to Marshall Tuck, the former Wall Street banker and charter school CEO, and his billionaire backers: our schools are not for sale to the highest bidder. While Tuck remained silent on the critical issues that affect quality public education—growing economic inequality, poverty in communities surrounding our schools, and how we might achieve the funding necessary to address the impact of these factors on education—Torlakson won his campaign by focusing on the need to address these concerns squarely.  

Tom Torlakson has been a solid advocate for smaller class sizes, peer assistance and review programs, and wrap-around services to help schools serve as community centers for the families of their students. The CFT will continue to work with Tom Torlakson to propose these ideas to the public and the legislature, and to promote progressive tax policies like Proposition 30 that create the funding to make quality public education possible. 

The members, officers and staff of the California Federation of Teachers wish to thank Tom Torlakson for his steadfast advocacy for our students and for his consistent efforts to support policies that provide educators with what we need to do our jobs. We look forward to another four years of working with a great Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

We also extend our congratulations to Governor Jerry Brown on his historic reelection and on the passage of Propositions 1 & 2.  The Governor continues to build a legacy as one of California's strongest governors and most important political leaders. 

The passage of Prop 47 will begin to ratchet back the ill-advised growth of the prison-industrial complex, spend taxpayer money on more beneficial projects, and allow people who have made mistakes or poor choices to gain more productive possibilities for their lives. 

California is also well served by the election of Betty Yee to the controller’s office, and by the reelection of John Chiang, Treasurer, and Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. The people of California remain in good hands with a team of elected officials who, unlike in many states, actually believe in the power of government to do good for its citizens, and who seek the most practical path to making that happen.

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 The California Federation of Teachers represents 120,000 education employees, from Head Start through the University of California. It is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. More info: www.cft.org

“Yes on Measure AA
for ABC’s Schools”
Campaign Kick-Off!

Sept. 9, 2014 - 5:00 p.m. Artesia DES Hall (Portuguese Hall)
11903 Ashworth Street, Artesia 90701

Please come and learn how you can assist with Measure AA to support our schools.
Donations to support Measure AA may be made out to: "Yes on Measure AA for ABC’s Schools"

Paid for by the Yes on Measure AA for ABC’s Schools Campa 

AFT’s Weingarten on Torlakson’s Announcement on Vergara Appeal (Friday - August 29,2014)

WASHINGTON—Statement from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on California State Superintendent Tom Torlakson’s announcement that he would ask the state’s

attorney general to seek appellate review in the Vergara v. California case.

"State Superintendent Tom Torlakson gets who teachers are, the challenges they face and the dedication they bring to the classroom each and every day. He understands that teachers need due process to advocate for their kids and take risks, and that true equity in our schools will never be reached until we tackle issues like fair funding, poverty and segregation. That’s why we are grateful, but not surprised, that he announced today that he would ask the attorney general to seek appellate review in the Vergara case. Far too many people, both in California and now in New York, are trying to divide teachers from their students.Torlakson is doing the opposite, and we need more leaders who are going to look at the whole picture and do what’s right, no matter what. We need leaders who will work with legislatures—not just the courts—to fix laws that need mending. We need leaders who will respect teachers. Thank you, Tom, for showing that leadership."