Education: teacher evaluations: pupil surveys.

Existing law requires that the performance of a certificated employee shall be evaluated and assessed on a periodic basis as it reasonably relates to the progress of pupils toward standards, the instructional techniques and strategies used by the employee, the employee's adherence to curricular objectives, and the establishment and maintenance of a suitable learning environment, as specified. This bill would permit the governing board of any school district maintaining any of grades 9 to 12, inclusive, to establish a committee of high school pupils and teachers to develop and monitor a process by which pupils provide feedback to teachers in that district. The bill would require the committees to develop and administer a pupil survey that solicits comprehensive data on different aspects of a class and the effectiveness of the teacher in teaching the class, and allows for data to be compared among all of a teacher's classes. The bill would also provide that data derived from pupil surveys with respect to any individual teacher shall be confidential and released only to that teacher and that no administrator or any other school or district official shall view any completed pupil survey of, or data derived from pupil surveys pertaining to any individual teacher without the express written consent of that teacher. The bill would also prohibit the pupil surveys to be included in, or used to influence, the existing teacher evaluation process, if any, in any school district that adopts this pupil feedback process. The bill would also require the State Department of Education, in consultation with the California Association of Student Councils, to develop model guidelines for the teacher evaluation process for voluntary adoption by local school districts and to post them on their Internet Web site on or before January 1, 2011.