Value-Added Mashup
by Robert PondiscioAugust 30th, 2010
The Los Angeles Times clearly gave the wrong impression when it put a teacher on its front page and described him as “among the least effective of the district’s elementary school teachers.” We now learn the purpose was not to single out or embarrass bad teachers. The reason the paper has published a database with value-added scores for 6,000 LAUSD teachers is to correct the intolerable injustice of excellent teachers notgetting the credit they deserve.
“The Los Angeles Unified School District has hundreds of Jaime Escalantes — teachers who preside over remarkable successes, year after year, often against incredible odds,” notes the paper’s latest. “But nobody is making a film about them.”
It’s an outrage, I tell you! Emboldened by the Times support for teachers, perhaps theworkers should strike for fame. More VAM commentary from veteran L.A. teacher Walt