Union says L.A. teacher evaluations are irresponsible. Do you agree?

 

"It is the height of journalistic irresponsibility."

That's how the United Teachers Los Angeles described the Los Angeles Times' decision to publish a database of about 6,000 third- through fifth-grade city school teachers ranked by their effectiveness in raising student test scores.

The database is part of a Times series that rated teachers by using a "value-added" analysis based on seven years of standardized test scores obtained from the Los Angeles Unified School District. The value-added method looks at previous student test performance and estimates how much a teacher added to or subtracted from a student's expected progress.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, had asked The Times not to publish the database. In an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week," she criticized the paper for using value-added scores in "isolation." In a later statement, she said the union is "disturbed that teachers will now be unfairly judged by incomplete data masked as comprehensive evaluations."

In the video above, Times Database Editor Doug Smith explains how the database was put together and addresses criticism generated by it.

What do you think? Share your views below.

Comments

[hardworking parent]

Someone made a comment on environmental factors for low test scores. Just because a student lives in the projects and is poverty stricken doesn't mean he or she can not be gifted! All Teachers should be tested once a year and it should be posted that way the proper steps can be taken to try and better them. If that doesn't work then get rid of them! My child is in her 3rd yr of college and i am a single parent. I believe all teachers should be held accountable because it wasn't all peaches and cream. My daughter did have teachers that gave nothing but paper work and hardly taught! NOT GOOD! Lets also hold the union accountable for not being on top of things but giving themselves raises!

[NYCee1]

Of course I agree. That's putting it mildly.

Will you at least post this? Very big of you, if so.

[NYCee1]

Yes. I agree.

[just me]

Every principle at every school knows the teachers that are just showing up to get a pay check, I work in a south bay high school and I have seen teachers sleeping in class, I have seen teachers watching soap operas in class, hanging out while students stand at doors after the passing period bell waiting on teachers coming to open classroom doors, but students are denied entry into the class when they are late....shame on the principle for not allowing a paper trail so some of these teachers can be held accountable...