James Allen Lebovitz

A 5th grade teacher at Haynes Elementary in 2009

These graphs show a teacher's "value-added" rating based on his or her students' progress on the California Standards Tests in math and English. The Times’ analysis used all valid student scores available for this teacher from the 2002-03 through 2008-09 academic years. The value-added scores reflect a teacher's effectiveness at raising standardized test scores and, as such, capture only one aspect of a teacher's work.

Overall value-added effectiveness

Math effectiveness

English effectiveness

This chart shows where teachers in this effectiveness category fall on a distribution of all teachers’ scores.

Compared with other Los Angeles Unified teachers on the value-added measure of test score improvement, Lebovitz ranked:

Average overall.
Average in math. Students of teachers in this category, on average, did not gain or lose significantly on the California Standards Test compared with other students at their grade level.
Less effective than average in English. Students of teachers in this category, on average, lost about 3 percentile points on the California Standards Test compared with other students at their grade level.

Lebovitz's LAUSD teaching history

2002-03 through 2008-09 academic years

Haynes Elementary, 2009 - 2003

James Lebovitz's Response:

The problem with this is that you do not know which students I teach. You might know who my homeroom students are, the students on my official roster, but I do not teach these same students english or math. At Haynes we team teach and our students switch classes for the academic subjects. We have been doing this for at least 9 years and at all grade levels (except K). As a result, the results above are not accurate, and possibly not even close to accurate.

Also, from reading the Times I get the impression that teachers do not see their individual students CST test scores. In the 12 years that I have been teaching I have seen these scores every year. I know exactly how each of my students did on the tests.

There is always room for growth and improvement, and I am not against evaluating teachers, but your series does more harm than good for education. If The Times goes ahead and publishes the individual rankings of individual teachers, you will have crossed the line. I will take a stand and cancel my subscription (which I've had for 20 years) to the LA Times.

The Times gave LAUSD elementary school teachers rated in this database the opportunity to preview their value-added evaluations and publicly respond. Some issues raised by teachers may be addressed in the FAQ. Teachers who have not commented may do so by contacting The Times.