Analyzing data about teacher performance in the Los Angeles Unified School District; United Teachers Los Angeles’ call for a boycott of The Times

What we can learn

Re “Who’s teaching our kids?,” Aug. 15

My wife and I are both retired California public school educators. We want to commend The Times for its investigation into the effectiveness of teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. You have brought much-needed light.

Though our respective careers were far different — my wife taught in elementary grades; I worked in secondary grades — we often had to evaluate ourselves because there was no way to compare our performance with other teachers’. Conceivably, we both might have been in need of great improvement, but we had no way of knowing.

For the sake of today’s generation of students and those still ahead, there has to be a better way of judging how good each teacher really is. Your series can only be a help in that direction.

Robert Wakefield

Oceanside

Picture this: You have a career in a respected profession that you have been in for years. Once a year you are tested and compared with your peers. You have no input on the testing process, and the results are unknown to you.

Then, a respected newspaper gets information from your employer about the results of these tests and allows a reporter to interview you about your results — which, unbeknownst to you, are not on par with a fellow employee’s. You are now identified in the newspaper as an “ineffective” employee, while your colleague is “effective.” Who would want this job?

Free public education is a cornerstone of our democracy. Attacking dedicated teachers who have missed the bar on teaching to standardized tests will only discourage people who are considering teaching as a career. Shame on The Times for publishing this series, and shame on L.A. Unified for sharing its testing information.

Teresa Nield

West Hills

I thought it was the job of newspapers to report facts to the public without malice. I don’t believe that has been done in this case.

I have been teaching with L.A. Unified since 1985, and have two teaching credentials, a specialist’s certificate and a master’s degree in education. Yet I am constantly working and evaluating what I do. Most of the teachers I know do the same. Our administrators take the evaluation process seriously.

I have lost respect for this newspaper. The Times has lost me as a subscriber.

Diane Moss

Westlake Village

As a long-retired teacher, I was aghast to read this piece. Much of the information was good. The problem was The Times listing names of poorly performing teachers and publishing their photographs.

My heart bled for Karen Caruso. It is obvious that she does all in her power to be a good teacher. For her to be called out as an ineffective teacher in The Times will do untold damage to her and the children she teaches. The same is true of John Smith.

I was considered a very good teacher, and I would have been devastated if I had been treated this way.

Silvia Barger

Long Beach

As I scour my just-released test scores from the past school year, I am struck by the student who shot up 84 points in my eighth-grade honors English class. Oops, I also see a kid who dropped 44 points.

These are two girls, in the same period, the same learning environment, taught the same standards-based curriculum and given the same homework assignments.

Why the discrepancy? Is it me? Am I to be held accountable for such disparity in test scores within the same class?

Looking at each of my classes, I see the same thing. My conclusion? Teenagers are teenagers. They are inexplicable, as are student test scores.

Naomi Roth

Marina del Rey

The Times must be as qualified to judge good teaching as I am to judge good journalism.

That being said, here’s my take on your article: You posit that raising student test scores equals good teaching.

No. Or at the most, maybe.

Raising student test scores equals getting students to raise their scores on a state test. When somebody can prove that high test scores produce good citizens, critical thinkers and productive members of society, then and only then can we say the teachers who taught those kids were “good.”

Steve Franklin

Glendale

The writer, a teacher at Sun Valley Middle School, was named a 2004-05 LAUSD and L.A. County teacher of the year.

Let’s grade the editors, reporters and staffs of major metropolitan newspapers. What was the circulation of your paper when you started? What is it now? Who’s responsible for its slide? Oh, not you?

You’re saying there are many other factors why some papers are slipping while others are doing better at holding readers? That you can’t judge the work of a professional by a single metric, and that to imply otherwise would be misleading at best?

Steve Kaplan

Chatsworth

The Times’ methodology is sound, but it ignores one fundamental thing: The results make no distinction between teachers who educate and those who “teach to the test.”

In today’s high-pressure environment, it is practically impossible to do both.

An “educator” who receives children who have been previously taught by a series of “testers” will almost certainly see her English and math scores decline.

Does that mean she is a bad teacher? Does that mean the children are worse off?

My wife used to be an “educator,” and she has always been very highly regarded by parents, principals and her peers. She is now forced to become a “tester.” Her pupils show the necessary “improvement,” but they certainly are losers, as they now lack true education.

Laurie Pane

Burbank

Congratulations to The Times for its commitment to focus on the most important issue facing caring citizens: public education.

I am not an expert on education, but it doesn’t take an expert to understand that the outrageous dropout rate in our public schools will lead us to second-rank status.

Hopefully your series will be a spur to change.

Gil Garcetti

Santa Monica

Union calls for a boycott

Re “Union urges Times boycott,” Aug. 16

That United Teachers Los Angeles has called for a boycott of The Times only proves that newspapers are neither obsolete nor irrelevant. Good work!

Catherine Cate

Santa Ana

My wife is an L.A. Unified teacher with more than 20 years of service. She and I had a spirited discussion Sunday morning about the “value added” analysis of teachers undertaken by The Times.

Mere hours later, our phone rang with a pre-recorded message from UTLA President A.J. Duffy urging union members like my wife to respond by canceling their subscriptions to The Times.

Just how this otherwise irresponsible and cowardly call to action will help solve the education crisis that is LAUSD I am uncertain, but I am considering getting a second subscription for myself and my family.

David Tilles

Mar Vista

Cheers for your reporting on teacher effectiveness. Boos and hisses to Duffy for his “shoot the messenger” response.

If Duffy has data showing how students benefit from the current seniority system, he should share that data; otherwise, he should pay attention to what The Times has to say. He might learn something.

Even the two “ineffective” teachers you identified in Sunday’s article showed more concern for the success of students than Duffy seems to have.

I hope teachers ignore his boycott idea. In case they don’t, I’m sending in $100. I hope you can use it to get extra copies of The Times to schools and libraries in the LAUSD area.

Thomas B. Gage

San Dimas