Now, even Bill Gates thinks sharing teachers' value-added ratings publicly doesn't make sense (see NPR Weekend Edition segment
here). And that's a good thing, a walking back to a more reasonable position. But let's not forget that it wasn't always this way (my one quibble with Joy Resmovits' story Friday
here). This is actually a big shift. Two years ago when the issue first started gaining attention the reform crowd generally sat on its hands. I remember calling around when the LA Times first said it was going to publish teacher ratings and trying to get comments, and not getting much response. Perhaps reformers weren't sure what they thought, or thought that they'd let the newspapers do the job for them, softening up the landscape (funded by Hechinger in one case,
goaded by Joel Klein in another). Or perhaps reformers thought it
