LA School Board Presses Ahead With 'Value-Added' Teacher Evaluations

The national debate over "value-added" teacher ratings has found an especially contentious battleground in Los Angeles.

Over the summer, Los Angeles Times reporters published teacher effectiveness ratings for 6,000 city teachers. Reporters collected seven years' worth of data from the Los Angeles Unified School District and analyzed it according to the "value-added" system.

According to the Times' definition,

"Value-added" analysis is a statistical method that estimates the effectiveness of a teacher or school by looking at the standardized test scores of students -- in this instance, math and English scores on the California Standards Tests.

When South LA fifth-grade teacher Rigoberto Ruelas received a "less effective than average" rating he grew visibly depressed, according to colleagues. Soon after, Ruelas' body was found in a forest ravine; the coroner determined he jumped to his own death.

Ruelas' suicide sparked a media frenzy in the city. According to fellow teachers, Ruelas was exemplary in his dedication to his students -- although test scores didn't reflect these efforts.

On Monday, more than a month after the incident, protesters marched in front of the Los Angeles Times. According to the New York Times, hundreds of protesters demanded that Ruelas' ratings be removed from the online database.

The use of value-added ratings has been a divisive issue around the nation. The federal Department of Education, headed by Arne Duncan, has come out in support of the rankings, arguing they help provide for greater accountability in the education system.

Teachers unions, meanwhile, have been fighting the use of value-added scores. In New York City, the union is currently embroiled in a lawsuit to keep the teachers' scores away from newspapers and public eyes.

According to American Federation of Teachers' President Randi Weingarten, the demand for value-added rankings has deterred the union's own teacher evaluation reforms.

Despite criticism, the Los Angeles school board is pushing ahead with their plan to include value-added scores in teacher evaluations.

The Los Angeles Times reports,

The Los Angeles Board of Education unanimously approved a contract Tuesday with a company that will analyze teachers' effectiveness in raising students' standardized test scores.

The agreement with the University of Wisconsin Value Added Research Center, which does similar work for New York City public schools, could cost about $1.5 million.

The next step? The school board is still in the midst of negotiations with union leaders to make value-added scores a part of formal teacher evaluations.

Meanwhile, the controversy rages on nationwide.

Comments

[researcher]

02:57 PM on 11/15/2010

"Religion, fundamentialist type (bitterness, lack of hope in the future), is the result of these conditions, not the likely cause."

that was my point that capitalism creates such a society that we have now.

when shopkeepers became corp CEO'S this created even more of a corrupt society hidden in the framwork of capitalism.

http://pubrecord.org/world/5811/depleted-uranium-babies-afghanistan/

the interaction of religious fundamentalism and capitalism is very complex like the egg and the chicken thing.

the economic system's effect on beliefs such as capitalism will create perfectly what we now have in america. capitalism is doing its thing even to perfection of creating such a society of wars for corp profits, religious fundamentalism supporting blind patroitism and nationalism and god's chosen nation status, and a society of short term results only mentality. ie wall street.

instead of looking at the system creating such conditions in our ignorance we blame everyone but ourselves for allowing such a corrupt economic system to become our cherished paradigm.

in their ignorance even the liberals and progressives love this cherished economic paradigm called capitalism.

[KaAp]

09:34 AM on 12/17/2010

That is why we must label this neoliberalism and call it out for what it is ... capitalism needs new markets in which to expand and beginning in the 1980's with the proprietary school scandals: in six short weeks ... on my matchbook cover (which ultimately made U of Phx the largest university in the nation) and on the K-12 level with the transformation of ketchup into a vegetable. It has continued on unfettered until now. I agree with you in terms of religious fundamentalism (which needs to expand its population share to save souls) being intertwined with this form of hyper-intensified capitalism.
What is the result of such extreme objectification on an actuarial scale of existence? Everything and everybody has particular value on the actuarial scale of existence from the new slave trade, to the human body parts trade, to college students selling egg and sperm for profit.
Nevertheless, value added scores are a moot measurement that is being pushed onto schools via corporate foundations (like Gates) who stand to gain from this statistical measurement without any foundation at all (see Lancet the British medical journal's critique of his medical "aide"). I could go on about the confusion between accountability and accountancy and the focus on enumeration or the strangely constructed meaningless and simplistic use of measurement is patently absurd ... hypercapitalism (and attendant neoliberal measures) destroys democratic possibility.

[jparso3]

06:57 PM on 11/13/2010

what about the parents responsibility for their kids education? maybe if the parents took more responsibility for the kids education and actually read to them when they are young and work with them when they are in elementary school then they will not have to depend on the school system to teach them.

[researcher]

12:58 AM on 11/14/2010

our educational system is a reflection of our society.

as our society declines which it is doing our educational systems will decline.

it is all connected. that oneness thing.

now the good news thank the universe that an economic system called capitalism will always cause a nation to self destruct in wealth and power and morals and empathy.

we see that lack of empathy in the tea party folks. ie profits over people.

what would the universe of laws be if a profits over people agenda was successful?

and if you dont think economic and political systems combined with religious agendas have a huge impact on a society and its success as a society check history out.

as communism has failed capitalism must fail. stated that many years ago while americans were cheering the downfall of communism.

now socialism must also fail. history tells us that.

what is left? oh the capitalists are not going to tell you that one. it is too good for them the way things are. they cant lose even if they fail. 2008 proved that.

[gcarl]

01:14 PM on 11/15/2010

researcher, re your statement that folks don't care. One historic dichotomy is militarism vs. 'aristocratic' government. Militarism = constant war = cruelty ('don't care') = needs uneducated masses. Aristocratic = nation has long periods of peace = education = 'live and let live' policies of ruled and rulers.

In the 1880's Nietzsche said it was the rise of 'shopkeepers' and their values, which are short term profits (your 'profits over people'), which have no need for education and the 'long view' of history and progeny. He 'predicted' WW I, etc, as wars for raw materials and for markets for the shopkeepers. Capitalism uses a 'war' of propaganda to get people to buy things they don't need, and thus the lack of empathy when the shopkeeper type merges with the military types.

Religion, fundamentialist type (bitterness, lack of hope in the future), is the result of these conditions, not the likely cause.

[researcher]

02:18 PM on 11/13/2010

the amount of response to this post says it all about how concerned americans are for the education of their young.

I was hoping for some dialog on pay for performance.

it is an american paradigm in spite of the evidence.

that paradigm effect is that powerful.

1.5 million down the tubes to the calif tax payers.

but any nation that spend trillions on its wars what is 1.5 million. as they say chicken feed.

it will make some professors happy and they will get a ton of publications from it so they can keep their jobs professing. ie publish or perish thing.

[researcher]

07:20 PM on 11/12/2010

"Like many other medium- and high-performing teachers"

the emphasis is still on teachers not the system. GM blamed its workers for decades for their poor quality cars just as americans are blaming their teachers

must look at entire system and culture to find what to improve. then how to improve must take into consideration the difference between systemic causes of variation and special causes of variation that americans know little about. including this consulting firm of professors. if they has knowledge of variation they would not advocate a pay for performance agenda.

it will fail has always failed and will continue to fail. ie wall street is living proof of its failure.

the blame game is on in america in politics education government military etc.

when a nation is in a self destructive mode everyone wants to blame someone other then themselves.

with education it is going to be the teachers, with gov it is going to be the politicans, with industry it is going to be either the unions or the CEO's.

the root cause is always ignorance better stated as unawareness. greed, arrogance, self rightousness has found its way into the american culture. ie rome all over again but it only took us about six decades it took rome 600 years. technology thing.

[Anthony Krinsky]

03:26 PM on 11/12/2010

Rigo was a martyr but not for the reasons offered by the UTLA.

http://edobserver.blogspot.com/2010/11/rigo-ruelas-rip-stuck-with-slackers.html

As I note in this blog post, he was stuck with slackers at Miramonte. What is a caring teacher like Rigo who doesn't want to quit their job, to do? Seethe? Sulk? Scream? Jump?

Like many other medium- and high-performing teachers, Rigo was imprisoned in a failure factory. His viewpoint is not represented by his union - in fact, he broke many union rules and mantras by working late and not blaming his children for academic challenges.

[guendy]

06:51 PM on 11/12/2010

Check yourself.
There are no union rules and mantras that discourage teachers from leaving late.
There are no union rules and mantras that encourage blaming students for not learning.

[researcher]

02:33 PM on 11/12/2010

"I would like to hear the comments of a teacher that received a great score - do they feel their score was unearned? Or do they feel that finally, they are being recognized for all the years of work?"

this will tell you nothing. if you had read my two posts you would have read that indeed about 5% of the teachers will have great scores. what does that prove? are they special causes of variation? maybe?

the idea is to improve the entire system not just find those hero teachers. but the ameriican culture is hero worship and individual performance. it is our culture that is taking us down and to hold the teachers responsible for that is ignorance. now teachers have the same ignorance as the rest of this culture but this does not mean they should be held responsible for systemic variables.

this consutling group thinks it can account for those social technical variables. dont believe them. plus their big gun is pay for performance. pure ignorance of variation as it applies to systemic and special causes of variation.

wall street uses pay for performance as does the big three; they are living proof of its self destruction. medical insurance uses pay for performance that is how pre existing medical conditions came into being.

this is the power of paradigms. even after failure after failure we want more of it. that is the very definition of insanity. and we americans are deep into it.

[guendy]

07:01 PM on 11/12/2010

Spot on.
Funny how for-profit organizations use 'pay for performance' tactics, we forget that education is not a 'for-profit' organization, if it becomes a for-profit organization we will be in deep sheeeet.

[Lucy Lamb]

12:35 PM on 11/12/2010

The LA Times based their articles on 7 YEARS worth of value-added scores data. This was data compiled by LAUSD, but not available to anyone - not the parents, teachers or principals - until now. To say that this information has no substance is to bury your heads in the sand. I would like to hear the comments of a teacher that received a great score - do they feel their score was unearned? Or do they feel that finally, they are being recognized for all the years of work?

[guendy]

07:02 PM on 11/12/2010

I have talked to teachers who earned 'good' scores and they are also very upset because it makes it difficult for them to work with their colleagues in a collaborative group due to the competition factor in printing scores. More importantly, when asked why their student's scored higher on the state exams they said it was because they practiced test taking with students regularly, and in regularly they meant at least twice a week. Perhaps the answer to better test scores is to have students practice test taking skills constantly, but then that leaves little time for actual teaching of history, science, social studies, math, reading, writing, etc.

[ThomasPaine1776]

03:45 AM on 11/12/2010

I love this imaginary pool of replacement teachers that they think are just sitting around, waiting for a phone call. My district can't get or keep "highly qualified teachers". You know how much BS you have to go through to get a job that pays 42,000 a year? First, get a college degree. Okay. second, get enrolled in a teacher credential college. Okay. Now, take a bunch of classes that are theoretical and vague, then, you get to teach in someone else's classroom, FOR FREE. You work your a$$ off for a YEAR for NO PAY. That's a nightmare. Student teaching is the worst experience of my life. THEN, you get lucky and you get hired. Okay. Now, you CONTINUE with "CLAD" and BTSA and an endless assortment of "Required courses -- THAT YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR-- on your own time. Kinda like traffic school. All very boring and useless. TWO YEARS of watching EVERYTHING YOU DO, with NO PROTECTION from your "union". That's right, you pay union dues for two years, and you have NO PROTECTION from it. Okay. You somehow make it, and then you start work, usually in a district so far away you end up MOVING there. Typically, the districts with the highest turnovers are the ones with the poorest students and the worst reputation. Now, after all that, you get blamed for being a bad teacher by everyone, including the president of the united states, who wants to PRIVATIZE you all.

[ThomasPaine1776]

03:33 AM on 11/12/2010

I could take a sharpie and a map, and circle the areas that are going to get the hight test scores, and the low test scores. Has nothing to do with the teachers. A good teacher, teaching in a poverty stricken district is going to get lower test scores than a terrible teacher in Beverly Hills School District.

[Angie Sullivan]

02:34 AM on 11/12/2010

As a teacher I will love value added ratings when and if:

1. I can refuse any student I don't like in my classroom
2. I only have to teach people who can learn fast and test well
3. I don't have to deal with any outside distractions, like paperwork, parents or administrators

Unfortunately the reason I don't like value added ratings:

1. I teach EVERYONE who enters my classrooms regardless of their willingness or ability to learn
2. I teach at-risk students who traditionally don't test well for a variety of reasons.
3. I spend a lot of my energy doing things and keeping people happy. These things don't help one student in my classroom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uONqxysWEk8

[researcher]

02:03 AM on 11/12/2010

"Much basic research remains to be done to build high-quality value-added models and indicators that can legitimately support district and state accountability and high-stakes applications such as pay for performance".

these folks are going to push first and foremost pay for performance.

know they; none of them understand variation as it applies to systems.

it will be a huge failure but promoted as a huge success for a variety of reasons.

these people will collect their 1.5 million and leave. please please dont believe these people, that they know what they are doing. they dont.

dont let those phd's fool you I have one of my own and no phd program in the nation teaches systemic causes and special causes of variation.

they are going to present you with a statistical model that will knock your socks off but in the end it will be based on average. this will be a huge failure and guess who they will blame for the failure not them but the teachers and the unions.

anyone and I mean anyone that promotes pay for performance is ignorant of variation. they may know statistics but not variation. world of difference.

teachers my heart goes out to you for these ignorant professors mean well but they understand little about human psy and variation.

they are going to try and con you with their statistical model. look close there will be an average mentality in there somewhere.

[guendy]

07:04 PM on 11/12/2010

The problem is that LAUSD LOVES to throw money away (except for teacher's salaries of course).

[researcher]

11:58 PM on 11/11/2010

please note the word average.

half of the teachers will be deemed non valued added.

this is typical average mentality that will create a whole hosts of problems.

teaching to tests. cheating, fudging the data, half of the teachers told they are failures, 40% afraid they will be below average next time, profound fear sets in throughout the schools, pure ignorance but american ignorance at its best.

now the top ten per cent will feel like winners like our top ten per cent of our students feel like winners.

I retired at 62 after 20 years a consultant. american leadership does not get it. period.

skinner and pavlov and social darwinists are loving this one again and again and it fails over and over and over.

it is teacher based not system based. teachers hang on to your hats here comes profound ignorance you way again. you are being had by pure ignorance. 85% to 95% of the problems are systemic. they wont tell you that will they?

drucker never meant this to be but americans in their ignorace picked up the pay for perforamance thing because they think they can buy performance, ie excellence. just like we are trying to buy off the iraqis and afghans.

[nsmavrik]

11:44 PM on 11/11/2010

See. This is the difference between teachers and administration. Teachers actually CARE whether or not they are good at their job.

They are not a cold hearted as these people that can't wait to show people's weaknesses like the LA Times.

Tell us again that we don't make EVERY teacher the scapegoat when student's test scores are not well.

This old saying "There are no bad students only bad teachers" is so misguided and offensive to all the teachers who work for long hours with minimum pay, full of dedication and no respect.

Here's a secret folks: "There are no bad students only bad teachers" is not fully true. PARENTS, ADMINISTRATORS, and the STUDENTS themselves should have an equal part of responsibility on the well being of the student's education.

[researcher]

01:22 AM on 11/12/2010

you forgot gov and a national culture of results only oriented.

leadership that wants instant results.

leadership that thinks it can buy its way out of this crisis.

what is causing america to self destuct is the same thing that is causing american education to fall behind other industrialzed nations. to blame teachers is so short sighted it says leaps and bounds about the ignorance of leadership in this nation. there was a reason we had to bail out two of the big three. lack of effective leadership. that simple that complex.

[Karen McCaughan]

10:55 PM on 11/11/2010

This is one area that is so difficult to discuss and analyze. What exactly is it that we want our kids to come out of school knowing? Standardized tests do not assess whether our kids are going to be taken advantage of by a phisher. They do not measure the kindness learned coupled with critical thinking skills that allows our kids to give of their time, resources, or selves to other human beings.

We require much of our teachers that is not standardized. We do not have a national curriculum against which to use the standardized test. Different socio-economic backgrounds and a variety of other variables all point to different results on a standardized test. Our kids will never be homogenous (thank goodness).

If we ask people what a teacher does, no doubt we will get hundreds of answers...and all will be right, because our teachers perform heroically daily and accomplish those things that we ask of them.

At this point, I think rating teachers would be rather like rating psychologists. We know the ones we would send our family members to...and the only thing we say about them is we learned a lot (worked out our issues) from them.

[P Alan Grene]

10:19 PM on 11/11/2010

Value Added is a useful model if we're talking about turning sheet metal into toasters. As it turns out, students are actual live human beings and not toasters at all.

[researcher]

01:24 AM on 11/12/2010

well finding a good toaster that really works is very difficult.

one side too brown or burnt and the other side no brown enough.

I have tried many even very expensive ones to no avail.

any suggerstions????????????