Jennuine Captures Photography, Flickr

Jennuine Captures Photography, Flickr

A safe New year prediction: EdSource writers won't sit around Monday mornings wondering if there's anything to write nearly. Especially because it is an election yr, 2022 will be interesting and intense. Hither are nine big issues to follow in 2016, with my predictions nigh whether annihilation will change during the year. The scale ranges from i to 5 "Fensterwald Faces", with one significant no chance, and 5 significant highly likely.

In the courts

Ii lawsuits – one in state courts, 1 before the U.S. Supreme Court – pose huge challenges to the country'south two statewide teachers unions. One and maybe both will be decided in 2016. The California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers are worried about the outcomes – for skillful reason.

Vergara v. California: In 2014, ruling on a lawsuit brought on behalf of nine students, Los Angeles County Superior Court Approximate Rolf Treu overturned as unconstitutional five teacher protection statutes. Treu said that a two-twelvemonth probationary catamenia for new teachers – curt compared with probation in most states – a layoff statute that protected senior teachers; and dismissal statutes that can go far burdensome to burn down the state's worst-performing teachers, violated the constitutional right of low-income and minority students to an equal opportunity to get a good pedagogy.

The state and the CTA appealed the ruling, and lawyers for Students Matter, which brought the lawsuit, expected a decision in 2015. But it didn't happen, and there'south no deadline for the Court of Appeal to rule. Treu's 16-page decision, in the view of some analysts, was lite on substance.

Likelihood that the state 2nd District Court of Appeal volition hear oral arguments and issue a decision this year:

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Likelihood that whenever it decides, the court will overturn Treu'due south determination in Vegara:

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Friedrichs v. CTA: In Friedrichs v. CTA et al, 10 California teachers and a teachers group, Christian Educators Association International, sued the California Teachers Association and state of California over the state law that requires that teachers pay fees to their local unions and the state CTA to comprehend the costs of bargaining. The teachers argued that mandatory fees violate their gratuitous speech rights.

Dating back to a iv-decades-old conclusion,Abood v. Detroit Board of Teaching, the Supreme Court has upheld the correct of states to require public employees to pay "fair share" or "agency fees" to unions that are obligated to represent them. Overturning the statute would affect non just teachers unions but potentially all public employee unions in California and the 24 other states with similar mandatory fees laws. All public employee unions could experience a huge drop in membership and, with it, a loss of money, ability and influence if dues get strictly voluntary. That'due south why Friedrichs will exist i of the big decisions of the U.Southward. Supreme Court this spring and why unions and the Democratic Party, traditionally a strong union ally, are crossing their fingers.

Ane of the court'southward nearly bourgeois justices, Antonin Scalia, has voted in the past to uphold Abood but could be the sway vote if, every bit some legal experts predict, the case is decided 5-4 either way.

Likelihood that Scalia volition modify his position and smack down public employee unions past fully or substantially agreeing with the Friedrichs teachers:

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At the polls

Schoolhouse structure bail: Voters haven't passed a statewide schoolhouse construction bond since 2006, and school districts are continuing in line with billions of dollars worth of requests for a land that has no money to give them. But Gov. Jerry Brownish said during upkeep discussions last year that he wants the state to lower, not add to, long-term debt. He proposed that districts bear a bigger share of construction costs, with the state chipping in annually to help only districts without the means to build or repair schools.

School districts don't like that idea, and so a coalition of districts and building and design contractors, the Coalition for Adequate Schoolhouse Housing, or Cash, accept placed a $nine billion school bond on the November 2022 ballot.

But Brown may become the last word. The governor may cut a deal with the Legislature to pre-empt CASH past putting a much smaller bond on the June primary election that includes his ideas for reforming the rules for dispensing school construction money. Brown would accept to move quickly to line that up in time for a June vote.

Likelihood that Brown proposes a modest state bond on the June election:

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Likelihood that if Brown does that, the larger Greenbacks bond is withdrawn or is defeated in November without the support of the governor and the land'south teachers unions:

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Proposition 30: In 2012, amid the economical recession, Brown championed Proposition 30, establishing temporary increases in the state sales tax and income taxation on high-wage earners (couples making over $500,000, individuals making over $250,000). Information technology has brought in between $6 billion and $10 billion per year, primarily benefiting K-12 schools and community colleges. But the sales tax increase expires in 2022 and the income tax surcharges in 2018. Without the extension, K-12 revenues are projected to be apartment afterward 2022 and will decline if there's a recession. Adding to the financial pressures, school districts are facing a $two billion increase in teacher and administrator pension costs over the next four years.

Both the California Teachers Association and the California Hospital Association called for extending Prop. 30 and submitted separate initiatives to the Secretary of Land. The hospital association proposed making Prop. 30 permanent and splitting the proceeds between increasing back up for Medi-Cal for depression-income people and expanding early babyhood education. Last month, after negotiations, the 2 refiled a articulation initiative, with compromise language, which would avert competing initiatives on the same ballot – a sure path to defeat for both. Still, the CTA has yet to have a formal position on the new wording, pending approval past its 700-member State Council.

The joint initiative, the California Children'south Education and Health Care Protection Human action of 2016, is closer to the CTA's original proposal. It would extend Prop. xxx'due south higher tax on high earners though 2030, with Thousand-12 schools and community colleges getting commencement fissure at the money to meet funding requirements under Proposition 98. After obligations to schools are fully funded, the next 45 percent of revenue would fund wellness care for children and their families through Medi-Cal, up to $2 billion, with the rest going to the General Fund.

Time is running out: The CTA must collect 585,407 signatures by June to put the mensurate on the ballot. The other challenge is Brown, who has said repeatedly that he sold Prop. 30 to voters as a temporary tax to avoid farther cuts to education.

Likelihood that Brownish volition non oppose the extension, even if he won't hold to campaign actively for it:

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In the Legislature

Public employee unions: While Friedrichs 5. CTA makes its way through the courts, Democrats in the Legislature and officials in the Brown administration have been tossing about ways they might soften the impact if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the decades-old state police force requiring all public employees to pay "fair share" or "agency" fees to unions that are obligated to bargain on their behalf.

A victory by the plaintiffs in Friedrichs, withal, would shift the burden to the unions to convince workers to voluntarily give them money. Worried that a ruling against the CTA would severely weaken their biggest marry, the administration and Democratic leaders are considering several ideas. One is a new law requiring school districts and other government agencies to requite unions a half-60 minutes at the start of the year to make a pitch for membership to new employees. Many districts already do this. The concept was explained to school groups at a coming together in November, but the final diction is even so being drafted.

Likelihood that Democrats, with Brown's blessing, would push button through a bill this year to try to soften a ruling confronting the public employee unions:

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Cap on district reserves: Brownish and top Democrats in the Legislature infuriated organizations representing schoolhouse boards and administrators in June 2014, when they quietly inserted into the country upkeep a limit on the amount of money that districts could put aside for financial emergencies and needs such as computer purchases. The move was pushed past unions representing school employees, who had complained that districts, following the recession, were hoarding greenbacks.

The California Schoolhouse Boards Association made rescission of the cap its meridian priority for 2015, but its effort crashed in September, when members of its coalition split up over compromise legislation that would take raised the level of the cap and exempted small districts from any restrictions on reserves.

The school boards association volition be back at information technology again in 2016, trying to get the purists, who insist on a full repeal, and the pragmatists, who'll settle for a bargain, on the aforementioned page. Then there are school officials who privately say the whole upshot is overblown, since districts can figure out ways effectually the cap.

This may be a case of issue fatigue.

Likelihood that the reserve cap will be rescinded in 2016:

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Teacher shortage: Before the recession and decentralized school funding under the Local Control Funding Formula, California had several programs to entice college graduates to become teachers in hard-to-staff or struggling schools. There was APLE, the Assumption Programme of Loans for Educators, a program that forgave $11,000 or more in college loans, and the Governor'south Teaching Fellowships, a program phased out more than a decade ago that provided grants of up to $xx,000 for aspiring teachers who agreed to teach in schools with low-performing students. The country also funded BTSA, Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment, a mentoring program required for new teachers to become their full credential.

In October, Brown vetoed a beak that would have required the state to fund BTSA in those districts that offered it, and an effort to restart APLE foundered in the Legislature. Just louder predictions and show (here and here) of an impending teacher shortage, and an EdSource-commissioned poll indicating voters view this as a serious problem, could lead the Legislature and Chocolate-brown assistants to deed in 2016. Relaunch an APLE-like program? Fund a marketing entrada to persuade college students to pursue educational activity in a more benign post-No Child Left Behind era?

To direct more back up to teachers, advisers with Dark-brown'south ear, such as Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who chairs the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, must convince Brown there's a country function in addressing the shortage. And then Brown will have to agree to spend some of the projected several billion dollars in 1-fourth dimension revenue he'll have at his disposal.

Likelihood that Brown will address the teacher shortage in the country upkeep (probably in the May revision):

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Preschool Promise: In the 2014-xv budget, Brown and the Legislature made a promise to provide state-subsidized preschool slots for every low-income iv-year-old in the state. But they didn't say exactly when.

In this year'southward budget, the lawmakers made progress toward meeting the hope, calculation 9,500 slots. Only 22,000 low-income 4-yr-olds are still being left out. When pressed on why he didn't allocate more in this twelvemonth'due south budget, Brown said that it "isn't that child intendance isn't a good thing. But there's a lot of skillful things, and then which one do you want?"

Providing funding for the slots will non in itself fulfill the promise. Currently, there are not enough providers to meet the need, and relatively depression reimbursement rates brand it hard to concenter new ones. In addition, in that location are not enough facilities statewide to add together 22,000 more children.

Some leaders in the pedagogy customs worry that more money for pre-One thousand means less for K-12. Boosted money for preschool and child care was left out of the compromise linguistic communication of the proposed initiative extending Prop. 30 that the CTA and the California Infirmary Clan agreed to. Advocates are turning to allies in the Legislature to once again push button through a substantial increment in preschool slots. If California's budget remains stiff, they are optimistic they'll become at to the lowest degree get the same number of slots as last year, and too get a share of ane-time funds for facilities.

Likelihood that the Legislature will fund at least an additional 9,500 preschool slots, plus ane-time funding for facilities this yr:

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The State Lath of Education

Future of the Academic Performance Index: Congress' passage of the federal Every Educatee Succeeds Act, the successor to No Child Left Behind, compounded the already packed agenda of the State Board of Education.

In March, the board and Superintendent of Public Didactics Tom Torlakson must present the Legislature with a state plan detailing in what grades, in what grade and in what subjects students will be given state standardized tests. And so, by September, the lath must laissez passer a set of statewide metrics or rubrics that will guide districts in measuring their improvement and guide the state in determining when it must intervene in failing schools. At the same time, the board must ensure its new schoolhouse testing and accountability system complies with the new federal law that, while giving states flexibility, comes with a new set of complex requirements.

The biggest challenge may be to figure out whether it can meet the federal mandate that information technology identify the 5 per centum of worst-performing schools needing intervention without re-creating the Academic Performance Index, a unmarried number based solely on exam scores, rating a school's performance. The lath suspended the API two years ago and wants to switch to a "dashboard" of metrics that prove a more multi-faceted picture of a school.

State officials at this point don't have a clue whether a dashboard would be in conflict with the new federal police; neither do we.

Likelihood that the state board will exist forced to re-create an API-like measure of schoolhouse performance:

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Staff writer Susan Frey contributed to this report.

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