History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Subtraction by distraction: Publishing value-added estimates of teachers by name hinders education reform
- 11-14-2011
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By Diana Epstein and Raegen Miller/Center for American Progress
In August 2010 the Los Angeles Times published a special report on their website featuring performance ratings for nearly 6,000 Los Angeles Unified School District teachers. The move was controversial because the ratings were based on so-called value-added estimates of teachers’ contributions to student learning. These estimates statistically account for the different academic backgrounds children bring to teachers’ classes, but they are estimates nonetheless, and opaque ones at that. (see text box below) But the newspaper maximized the controversy—and perhaps the number of hits it drew to web pages with advertising—by attaching teachers’ names to the ratings. Parents and other interested members of the public could look up specific teachers in the database and see how they ranked in both math and English, from least effective to most effective. As with most value-added estimates, the data were based on students’ standardized test scores, and the teachers’ rankings were in relation to their peers. Publishing these records led to a fierce debate about whether or not it was appropriate to make this kind of personnel information publicly available. That discussion continues as the newspaper recently published an updated database of value-added scores for 11,500 teachers. (more...)
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