A commission of testing experts, headed by Dr. James W. Popham, emeritus professor at UCLA, has published a report titled Building Tests to Support Instruction and Accountability which contains a set of nine criteria by which states can be held accountable.

NEA reports: "Let's not leave teachers in the dark about the content their students are being asked to master. Let's provide educators with the professional development they need to use those, (test), results on the frontlines, in the classroom.d

It is the intent of the HEA leadership to have a new and inclusive contract for the appropriate certificated employees of HUSD by the end of this school year. For too many years, HEA and HUSD have operated under the notion that an expired contract is as effective as a current one. That is wrong. Because the contract we operate under is so old, and because most unit members who have been in the district long enough to have received their own copy of the document in 1997 don't still have that document in their possession, too few people know what is in the contract and what our rights and conditions of employment are. All of us on the Executive Board are committed to getting a new and corrected contract in your hands.

To accomplish the contract make over, your HEA negotiating team has been working with HUSD's team since November to iron out specific areas of the document and to adjust it to legal changes.