California District Teachers Union Backing RTTT Grant

The Los Angeles Times (11/7) reports that the teachers union in Merced, California, "has voted to back a controversial federal grant program, but only after extracting district guarantees that student test scores would not be used to evaluate individual instructors. Sheila Whitley, president of the Merced Union High School District Teachers' Assn., said Tuesday that 67.6% of 191 teachers surveyed said they would support the Race to the Top grant application as long as the district honored its pledge not to use test scores in individual performance reviews. Both sides agreed to negotiate the possible use of schoolwide or district scores to evaluate teachers instead, clearing the way for Merced to submit its application last week."