LA teacher suicide sparks test-score pushback

[Hannah Bell]

SOUTH GATE, Calif. — The Los Angeles Times should remove teacher performance ratings from its website after the apparent suicide of a teacher despondent over his score, the union representing Los Angeles school teachers said...

The motive for Ruelas taking his own life is far from clear. But union officials said he had been upset since the Times published his district ranking as a "less effective" teacher based on his students' standardized English and math test scores.

Ruelas scored "average" in getting his students up to acceptable levels in English, but "less effective" in math, and "less effective" overall. The school itself ranked as "least effective" in raising test scores, and only five of Miramonte's 35 teachers were ranked as high as average

NOTE: In the current environment, "least effective" school = targeted for takeover & firinGS.

In a statement, the newspaper extended its condolences to the family and said it published the database "because it bears directly on the performance of public employees who provide an important service, and in the belief that parents and the public have a right to judge the data for themselves."

NOTE: Per the LA Times bogus metrics, I give you: THE WORST TEACHER IN LOS ANGELES: What a horror!

"I don't really know what you saw in me to inspire the type of kindnesses you bestowed upon me, but I want to thank you for them because I never forgot how they made me feel."

Those kindnesses? Ireland appointed the girl to clean the faculty lounge, a "privilege" that went to one student each year and paid 10 cents every day. She let the girl help file classmates' work in the cabinet next to the teacher's desk. She gave the girl a ride to school some mornings, when she passed the girl walking alone.

"These may seem like small simple things, but as I write this letter to you, 30 years later, my eyes are filling up with tears. You must have known that I needed to feel special and you took the time and made the effort to help me in ways that have lasted for my lifetime."

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-banks-20100914,0,6236087,full.column






Detractors say value-added rankings place too much emphasis on test-score teaching, especially in schools like Miramonte, a large school in an impoverished, gang-plagued neighborhood about six miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. About 60 percent of Miramonte students are Spanish-speaking English-language learners.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gWPvyAFlYCJSuFjMApjZbgORWhTAD9IH2S4O0?docId=D9IH2S4O0

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Shameful

Positively shameful.

[Starry Messenger]

2. According to the "experts" we are just test coaches.

We are supposed to ignore the human needs and feelings of our students and just crank out product.

[JDPriestly]

3. I looked at the list of scores by school.

The scores directly reflect the socio-economic and educational level in the community. Magnet and schools that specialize in science education do very well. As do schools in affluent neighborhoods like Woodland Hills, Hancock Park, etc.

These scores do not measure teacher performance. As I have often stated on DU, they measure family performance and the economic and/or educational level of most of the parents of the children that attend the school.

The LA Times is perpetrating a hoax with this list of scores. The list reflects something, but it is not teacher performance.

[hlthe2b]

4. I heard a story on the impressive success of Finnish schools

on radio this morning. They were aghast at the US movement towards a test-score driven system that takes all individualism, teacher judgment and creativity from the process. They have no national standards nor testing program and never have. :shrug:

I had my share of testing many decades ago and of course there was the SAT (and similar)... Nonetheless teachers were not teaching to a test, but rather the material. I'd hate to be a student now.

[Orlandodem]

5. I'd suggeset that his family sue, but since teachers are now 2nd class citizens (thanks to Obama)

there is no legal recourse. They and their families will next be stripped of access to the court system for cases like these.