Who Should Have Access to Teacher Data?
The president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, has weighed in on the Los Angeles Times' value-added project. She agrees that parents, teachers, and principals have the right to access this kind of performance data, but argues making such data public to the public at large isn't appropriate.
In some ways, the L.A. Times series is really a litmus test about data, its usage, and who gets to access it. And it's unclear whether other journalists or districts are going to follow the paper's lead and try to obtain these data or to make them public. In the past, getting access to such information hasn't been easy: Researchers