McKenna, Inslee both back teacher evaluation plan

The leading candidates for governor made a rare appearance on the same stage Thursday and voiced support for using teachers’ and principals’ evaluation scores to guide decisions on moves and layoffs.

Jay Inslee and Rob McKenna praised the state’s new bipartisan evaluation law backed by Gov. Chris Gregoire, which moves in that direction, but they agreed the state should go further.

School issues are expected to play a central role in the race, which is unfolding on the heels of the state Supreme Court declaring the Legislature isn’t amply funding basic education. McKenna has announced an education plan, and Inslee plans to unveil one next week.

“This is going to be the first gubernatorial campaign in at least 20 years where our public schools are the No. 1 issue in the election,” said McKenna, the state attorney general and a Bellevue Republican.

While McKenna supports allowing charter schools as an option for students in failing schools, Inslee, a Bainbridge Island Democrat who resigned from Congress this month to campaign, demurred on the charter-school issue, promising to talk about it in detail when he rolls out his plan.

Previewing the plan, Inslee praised an alternative to charter schools that Gregoire, a Democrat who opposes charters, recently signed into law. It allows a few elementary schools to partner with colleges of education, and Inslee said he would expand on that idea.

Earlier, he told the state teachers union any alternative schools should preserve teachers’ rights and shouldn’t divert money from public schools without somehow making it up to them.

Inslee also said he would call for making “a pool of dollars available to help schools” make innovative changes and use new teaching technologies. And he said he would propose a mechanism for transferring information from places where innovation is happening to other areas.

“We have pockets of creativity and pockets of innovation but it is not spread widely across the state,” Inslee said.

McKenna, for his part, endorsed the concept behind merit pay, saying the state should “pay our great teachers more because they’re great; pay them more when they work at the most challenging schools so they’ll stay there.”

The new law on evaluations requires them to play a role in personnel decisions but leaves it up to each of 295 school districts to decide how big a role through bargaining with unions. Inslee told reporters lawmakers should require evaluations to be a “significant” part of those decisions.

McKenna later took Inslee to task, claiming in a news release that Inslee had given the teachers’ union a different answer.

The Washington Education Association asked if layoffs and assignments should be determined through local collective bargaining, and while Inslee didn’t give a yes or no, he said state policies should “allow for local flexibility.” He did, though, say the state should play a part to “move underperforming teachers into different professions.”

McKenna didn’t fill out the questionnaire; his campaign said it was clear from past contributions the union would back Inslee.

Jordan Schrader: 360-786-1826 jordan.schrader @thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/politics

This story was originally published March 30, 2012 at 12:00 AM with the headline "McKenna, Inslee both back teacher evaluation plan."