You have to chuckle just a bit when you read about the fact that the Obama Administration and California are at odds over the issue of the ability to use student achievement as a measure for rating the effectiveness of teachers. Apparently at stake are some federal dollars for California’s education system because California is one of a few states that actually has a law (no doubt passed with the considerable helf of one of the state’s largest public employee unions – the California Teachers Association) that actually prohibits using student achievement to rate teacher performance. Read about it in the Los Angeles Times here.
First and foremost, how lame for us here in California. It makes NO SENSE to not have as a factor (and perhaps as the largest factor) in assessing a teacher their ability to sucessful get their students to learn. Do we have a law that says you cannot judge an auto-mechanic based on their ability to fix cars? Or how about determining if an attorney is doing a good job based on whether they win their cases? Oh well, that California law is par for the course here in the "Golden State" where the unions, through their tools — liberal Democrat legislators — have turned our state into a grotesque "sciene project" for the left. That law should be repealed quickly.
The reason I pen this commentary though, is because I find it delicious that there is a battle between President Obama and the liberals here in California over this issue. And perhaps I find it ironic that, in this case, the left is a victim of their own vision of an expansive and overreaching size and scope for our federal government.
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July 25th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Taking federal money is like your compelled to dance with that chubby chick that constantly chased you in high school…libs cannot function without other people’s money….so get used to it…state rights are dead in California forever….