Firing the Bad Teachers: Ted Olson and LAUSD Parents Sue

Hillel Aron:

It's unusual for a man like the influential Deasy to enjoy being sued. But these are unusual times. As Deasy had hoped, Superior Court Judge James Chalfant tentatively ruled that Los Angeles Unified School District's leaders had ignored a key state law, the 1971 Stull Act, which requires LAUSD to grade not just its students but its teachers.

Hailed 31 years ago as a key reform, the Stull Act requires all school districts to evaluate their educators annually. Teachers were to be assessed on many criteria, including how well pupils progressed under their tutelage.That never happened.

Assessing teachers by how well their students learned was all but ignored statewide. LAUSD, which educates one in every nine children in California, never bothered.

Deasy's courtroom loss inDoe v. Deasy "did exactly what has been my position," Deasy says. Chalfant ordered school districts to take student progress into account in grading their teachers.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 18, 2013 12:29 AM
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