Where education policy in California is really decided. That has to stop.

 These days, two things are clear when it comes to education policymaking in the Golden State. The first is that affiliates of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers have all but sewed up their sway over both the state legislature and the executive branch. The second? That very little in the way of overhauling the state’s byzantine array of school districts, county education offices, Indian education centers, and agencies such as the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team until school reformers mobilize voters and grassroots players into beating back the NEA and AFT.

This was particularly clear this week as debate emerged over a proposed tweak of the state’s Stull Act, which governs teacher evaluations (and has been the subject of lawsuits by Parent Power and school reform outfits) through Assembly Bill 5. On its face, the plan actually looks like a winner for improving teacher quality. After all, it would end the practice of only evaluating veteran teachers every five years (thus letting laggards off the hook for woeful performance) by requiring those with good performance ratings to be evaluated every three years, while others would be required to be evaluated biannually. It would also allow for the use of objective student performance data, albeit as part of the mealy-mouth and generally ineffective “multiple measures” approach the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others have been touting.

But strong reform measures tend to die in the legislature these days, especially if they involve overhauling the array of traditional policies that NEA and AFT affiliates defend in order to preserve their influence (even at the expense of children and good and great teachers). Any “reform” measure that manages to pass out from one legislative body to another can be assumed to be little more than smoke. In the case of AB 5, which has managed to pass out of the state assembly and is now being considered by the state upper house’s appropriations committee, this assumption would be the correct one.

Although the proposed bill would allow for objective student test score performance data, whether it would actually be included in any evaluation would depend on state-mandated negotiations between districts and NEA and AFT locals as part of the collective bargaining process. Given the lack of backbone from all but a few districts (notably the Los Angeles Unified School District), one can easily assume that the new evaluations would be no better than the current regimes now in place. Then there is the fact that the law doesn’t even require laggard teachers rated unsatisfactory on two consecutive evaluations to be sacked from their jobs. Which is why the NEA affiliate in California has moved away from outright opposition to AB 5 to a more-neutral stance — and why StudentsFirst, the California branch of Education Trust, and other reformers are in the unusual position of lobbying the legislature to ditch the bill altogether.

The other factor that makes AB 5 a feeble half-measure lies with Article XIIIB of California’s constitution, which mandates that the state government must reimburse districts and other local governments for complying with reporting requirements that otherwise would be considered “unfunded mandates.” The proposed teacher evaluation plan wouldn’t go into effect until after the Golden States hands over as much as $80 million a year to compensate districts for the cost of the new evaluations, as well as hand back billions more in education funding the state owes districts as part of the Proposition 98 mandate (which ties up a third of state general fund revenues to school spending). So it would be several years before the new evaluations go into effect. And given the state’s virtual default fiscal position, the new evaluations may never come into place.

Meanwhile there is the reality that California has still not addressed the lack of a statewide teacher database which could be tied to the CALPADS student data system and allow for more-comprehensive evaluations using student test score growth data. As Dropout Nation readers may remember, Gov. Jerry Brown canceled the teacher database development project soon after taking office last year under the (relatively legitimate) guise that the state was doing an atrocious job of developing both that system and the long-troubled CALPADS. Which, in turn, makes it difficult for many of California’s districts (especially the smallest districts, many of whom are still using FileMaker and Excel spreadsheets to handle even the most-complex data tasks) to conduct more-effective evaluations. Certainly the development of a teacher database could happen if the state continues to reduce the number of data collections and systems already in place (125 of them back in 2008 when I co-wrote A Byte At the Apple). But until Brown and state education superintendent Tom Torlakson (along with the legislature) actually puts real thought into addressing teacher performance data (and the state’s overall school data woes), it isn’t going to happen. This, again, plays into the hands of the NEA and AFT, which oppose any use of data in teacher evaluations.

The bad news in California is that matters on the teacher quality front may not get better. Yesterday, a state appellate court voided the settlement struck between the American Civil Liberties Union’s Los Angeles branch and L.A. Unified that ended reverse-seniority (also known as Last In-First Out, or Last Hired-First Fired) layoffs at the district’s worst failure mills; the appellate panel ruled that the AFT’s Los Angeles local should have been able to take the original case brought by the ACLU to trial. While one can expect the civil liberties group and L.A. Unified to appeal the ruling, it will take a while to happen. It is unlikely that either the legislature, Brown, or Torlakson will make any effort toward ending quality-blind layoff rules that hurt poor and minority kids (as well as high-quality teachers with fewer years of seniority).

Then there is the lack of leadership on improving evaluations from traditional districts. The state association representing them has opposed AB 5 and will continue to do so unless legislators find a way to pay the full tab. The fact that only L.A. Unified seems willing to take some leadership on this front — including implicitly encouraging lawsuits such as the successful tort brought by a group of families led by local activist Alice Callaghan (and funded by reform outfit EdVoice) — should be disheartening to any reformer expecting more.

In the long run, it will take a combination of court action and rallying support among families and others at the grassroots in order to advance systemic reform in the Golden State. As seen over the past couple of years with efforts in Compton and in Adelanto by Parent Power activists to use the state’s Parent Trigger law to take over schools, there are plenty of families ready to battle with NEA and AFT affiliates in order to give their kids a high-quality education; while some in the Beltway (notably the folks at the American Enterprise Institute through its slapdash Parent Power report) are skeptical that rallying families can lead to gains at the ballot box, there is plenty that reformers can do to rally them to voting out legislators far too comfortable doing teachers’ union bidding. As noted in this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, reformers need to take the opportunity to make it happen. Because in California, there is no reform-minded leadership at the state level.