Cinda issues an invitation. But the party has already taken place.

IEA President Klickna meets with PREA members at Lobby Day in Springfield last Spring.

I received an email from IEA President Cinda Klickna today. Not a personal one. It went to all members I assume.

In the subject box: “Prizes! Conference! PERA!”

Well, who wouldn’t rush to open that email?

We already got the prize. That was handed to us two years ago when IEA Executive Director Audrey Soglin was appointed to head the team that wrote the Illinois grant for Race to the Top money. One of the requirements that Arne Duncan and Audrey’s old boss, Duncan’s Senior Advisor Jo Anderson,  demanded as a part of any proposal was that the state legislature pass a law requiring teacher performance reviews tied to student growth measures (read standardized tests).

That would be PERA, the Performance Evaluation Reform Act.  Every district must, by law, negotiate language that ties teacher performance reviews to student growth measures.

That laid the basis for Senate Bill 7 which replaced tenure and seniority as a basis for reduction in force with  a PERA score along with principal evaluation.

Did teachers have anything to say about this?

No.

But now Cinda and Audrey are asking for teacher voice. Now.

In my many years as a teacher and teacher advocate, I’ve argued that you can’t make quality improvements to education without listening to the voices of professional teachers.

Well, my friends, people are listening. And now it’s up to us to make sure we speak up.

The Performance Evaluation Advisory Council (PEAC), a consortium of education stakeholder groups, is sponsoring a series of forums at which teachers can provide input on the new evaluation law (Performance Evaluation Reform Act aka PERA) and how it will affect teachers and principals.  That input will help guide the recommendations PEAC will make to the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) on how the law should be implemented.

It is extremely important that the voices of the classroom experts, the teachers, are heard prior to creation of these recommendations!

As you know, the new PERA evaluations for teachers and principals will combine multiple measures in new evaluation plans, including a mix of student growth measures, observations of classroom teaching and other components.

In my district we did that already. We negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that spelled out in rich detail what good teaching practice looks like. Because of PERA, we must throw that away and try to come up with something that meets the demands of Arne Duncan.

On what planet does that count as listening to teachers, Cinda?