STAND INITIATIVE PETITION

Recognizing that excellent teachers are critically important for student success, the MTA has long advocated for high standards for those who want to enter and remain in the profession, along with high-quality mentoring and professional development for educators. This past year, the MTA was a leader in developing a more effective and comprehensive educator evaluation system – one that includes a streamlined process for dismissing teachers who receive poor evaluations and fail to improve. This new system is being rolled out statewide over the next three years.

Unfortunately, a national organization with no particular expertise in education – Stand for Children – is seeking to disrupt the implementation of this system through an initiative petition on the November 2012 ballot. This complex question would make changes in the yet-to-be-implemented evaluation system and impose new state mandates on school district personnel decisions.

The initiative is opposed by Massachusetts Education Secretary Paul Reville and a growing number of affected groups, including the Massachusetts Parent Teacher Association, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators’ Association, the Massachusetts Elementary School Principals Association, the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Reading Association, the Massachusetts Association of College and University Reading Educators, the Massachusetts School Library Association, the Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies and the Massachusetts Administrators for Special Education. And the opposition is growing.