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LA Unified targets ineffective beginning teachers
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LA Unified targets ineffective beginning teachers
LA Unified targets ineffective beginning teachers
Ineffective teachers are in the crosshairs of L.A. Unified schools superintendent Ramon Cortines. Cortines announced today administrators will do more to weed out incompetent beginning teachers before they gain tenure.
It takes two years for beginning instructors in California to become permanent teachers. During that time, school districts have wide discretion to not to rehire a teacher. After that, an instructor has wide protections under labor contracts.
About one in ten district teachers has been with L.A. Unified for less than two years. Cortines wants principals to do more to eliminate underperforming teachers during that two-year probationary period.
He also wants the administrators of L.A. Unified’s eight local districts to track hundreds of beginning teachers who got a “Needs Improvement” tag on their evaluations.
United Teachers Los Angeles president AJ Duffy says the Cortines proposal is misguided. To improve teacher quality, Duffy says the district should work with the teachers union to help principals do a better job evaluating teachers.
The Cortines proposal comes as the superintendent has asked the teachers union to approve pay cuts help close a large budget deficit expected next year.
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