District, Teachers Agree on Peer Assistance Plan

Los Angeles school officials and leaders of the teachers union have tentatively agreed on a plan to have senior teachers consult with peers who receive poor evaluations to help them improve or encourage them to leave the profession.

The peer assistance and review program also would provide consultants to help inexperienced faculty members in low-performing schools.

Both district and union negotiators said the agreement, coupled with an anticipated infusion of a huge new allocation from the state for teachers’ salaries, bodes well for upcoming contract negotiations.

“Given the good news from the state, people of goodwill ought to be able to get together and find the way to get to ‘yes,’ ” United Teachers-Los Angeles President Day Higuchi said. “Easier said than done, but unless somebody really is determined to have a war, I don’t think anybody can justify the necessity for one.”

The teachers are demanding a 21% pay raise and are adamantly opposed to the district’s proposal to link pay to student performance on standardized tests. Union leaders have threatened to strike if their key demands are not met.

Peer assistance is the third package successfully negotiated between the two sides as a prelude to the beginning of contract talks later this month. The other two agreements cover the scheduling of teachers for summer academic intervention programs and pay for beginning teachers.

“The fact that we’ve negotiated these agreements is only positive for the overall climate,” Chief Operating Officer Howard Miller said. “They indicate we have a negotiating process that can produce good results.”

Miller said, however, that the three issues came up early as a result of timing rather than any strategy of trying to build momentum.

It was necessary to have teachers on board to organize summer remedial classes for thousands of failing students, Miller said. An agreement providing starting pay of $37,000 for first-year credentialed teachers was critical to the district’s recruitment program now getting underway, he said.

“Peer assistance and review has been under discussions for a substantial time as a separate item,” he said.

Interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said the latest agreement represents a “major step in creating an environment where outstanding teachers are recognized in helping their peers. I believe this step is symbolic of the way the district and its teaching force must work together.”

Miller said the agreement on peer assistance does not eliminate the district’s position that teacher accountability should be based, in part, on test scores.

The peer review proposal, long championed by the union as the best form of teacher accountability, appears headed for easy adoption by the membership. The union’s house of representatives voted 2 to 1 late Wednesday to recommend approval of the proposal.

The agreement was prompted by a new state law that requires all school districts to gradually replace mentor teacher programs with peer assistance. In the mentor program, teachers do not make recommendations for poor performers.

The legislation provided financial incentives for districts starting the program this year. L.A. Unified will receive $4.6 million for its program.

If the program is adopted by union members, a two-year trial will begin July 1. It will draw upon retired teachers and the district’s 14 full-time mentor teachers as the consultants.

A consultant will spend 240 hours with each permanent teacher referred for review and up to 120 hours with nonpermanent beginning teachers, depending on the consultant’s assessment of the need.

During the review, the principal could still recommend disciplinary action.

Only about 15 permanent teachers received unsatisfactory evaluations from their principals last year, a figure that even union officials concede does not reflect the actual number of subpar teachers.

Higuchi said he believes that the peer assistance program will instill more integrity in the evaluation process, which the union has long criticized as arbitrary and punitive.

The union considers peer assistance one element of an accountability process that also would include intervention in failing schools by teams of administrators and teachers.