New Chancellor Cathie Black's take on value-added teacher data: It's not black and white
Monday, December 13th 2010, 2:02 PM
When incoming Schools Chancellor Cathie Black visited the Daily News editorial board last week, it was clear she was already embroiled in the first big conflict of her tenure.
It involves the Department of Education's controversial plans to release value-added data that would enable the media to rank, from first to last, thousands of teachers based on the test-score gains of their students.
But this conflict isn't unfolding via angry exchanges between Black and parent advocates or the teachers union, as you might expect. The wrestling match is happening inside Black's own head.
First, a quick primer. Last summer, the Los Angeles Times got hold of the test-score improvement statistics for more than 6,000 third- through fifth-grade teachers in that city's public school system - and put out the scores, in a searchable database, for all to see.
The local teachers union was apoplectic, insisting that this information was intended to
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