October State Council Report

  • We made the following endorsements for constitutional offices
    • Gavin Newsom for Governor
    • Ed Hernandez for Lieutenant Governor
    • Xavier Becerra for Attorney General
    • Tony Thurmond for State Superintendent of Public Instruction
    • Ricardo Lara for Insurance Commissioner
    • Fiona Ma for State Treasurer
    • State Board of Equalization
      • Connie Conway for District 1.
      • Neutral for District 2 – (Candidates are Malia Cohen and Cathleen Galgiani)  
      • No recommendation for District 3.
  • Money is going out to fundraising and Candidate recruitment, please be thinking about your school board races for 2018 and, if you need help, let your state council reps know (Corey Penrose, Jeanette Wiley, Alyson Brauning)
  • Materials for membership engagement and promoting safe schools can be found at www.cta.org/LeaderResources and www.cta.org/ForAllStudents.  The CTA’s Advocacy Agenda is also available at www.CTA.org/advocacyagenda.  The Advocacy Agenda is a great document for local chapters to start conversations with other members, parents and the community about LCAP.
  • CalSTRS Annual Progress Reports are only delivered electronically via www.mycalstrs.com. If you have not created your mycalstrs.com account, YOU NEED TO! Anyone that wishes to continue receiving a hard copy of their Annual Progress Report needs to make that request by contacting CalSTRS directly at 1-800-228- 5453 to request a form or download the form through mycalstrs.com. Forms must be received by CalSTRS by July 1st.
  • Members that have worked with multiple employers over their career may want to request a CalSTRS Service Credit Breakdown to verify the accuracy of their Annual Progress Report. Members can call 1-800-228-5453 in order to make this request.
  • AB 1035 (O’Donnell)

    • Chaptered by Secretary of State – Chapter 752, Statutes of 2017.
      Requires a local educational agency (LEA) that elects to use state?provided interim assessments to ensure that teachers have access to all functions and information relating to the assessments and student performance on the assessments, and establishes parameters for the local use of interim assessment data.
    • Interim assessments are tests which teachers can administer during the school year to check on their students’ progress and adjust their instruction to meet their students’ needs. For several years California teachers have had access to the interim assessments provided through the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). These assessments are a key part of California’s comprehensive assessment system.
    • In addition, current law is silent on how the information generated by the interim assessments may be used, leading to concern among teachers that the results may be inappropriately used for high?stakes purposes for their students or themselves.
    • When AB 1035 takes effect on January 1, 2018, educators will have greater autonomy in the use of interim assessments. The bill Deletes the requirement that the California Department of Education acquire interim and formative assessment tools through the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.
    • This means classroom teachers cannot be required to use the SBAC interim assessments and may choose to use other assessment types.  Unfortunately, this also means that the CDE may cancel its contract for the digital library at a moment when feedback from teachers who are regular consumers of the content has informed the development of significant new enhancements.
    • Requires all interim assessments offered to be developed in close consultation with current classroom teachers at each grade level assessed to solicit feedback regarding the capacity of the interim assessments to provide timely feedback to allow teachers to continually adjust instruction to improve learning.
    • This means, if districts choose to use interim assessments, classroom teachers must be involved in choosing the interim assessment, in scheduling the interim assessment, in deciding how to administer the interim assessment, and even if the interim assessment must be scored.



 

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