More action on the Race to the Top and unions:
• The NEA and AFT affiliates in Rhode Island aren’t quite on board with the state’s plan just yet; the AFT affiliate wants “recourse” in the Memorandum of Understanding to prevent administrators from having too much power over assignments, reports Jennifer Jordan in the Providence Journal.
• The Tennessee Education Association is supporting legislation to position the state for the contest, but still hopes to insert a provision capping the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations at 35 percent. Other state officials think it should be 50 percent. The RTTT application guidelines don’t elaborate on what it looks like to base “a significant part” of evaluations on student achievement, and it’s not clear who’s going to emerge as the victor in this go-around. (A bratty five-year-old voice inside my head is saying ‘I told you so’ right about now.)
• In California, the Sacramento Bee has the scoop that the CTA, like other unions across the country, is urging local affiliates not to sign off on the MOU for the state’s Race to the Top bid. CTA has long been one of the more vocal NEA affiliates in its opposition to performance pay.