I again am dishearted by this publication and its misrepresentation of my work as a teacher. First of all, I taught more than 79 children in the years between 2003-2006. During that time, I was responsible for teaching approximately 200 fourth grade students language arts. Our school made the decision to departmentalize because the teachers felt we could better serve students if we specialized instruction based on our teaching strengths. This data is obviously inaccurate because I didn't teach math during this time and my language arts scores are averaged in with the scores of the two colleagues who I teamed with during those years. Furthermore, I was rated "more effective" in language arts last time my rating was published and "average" in math. I see that things have mysteriously shifted and now my language arts rating is "avearge" and lower than my "average" math rating. Please explain! I asked for my information to be taken down during last summer's publication because it is inaccurate, and my request was refused. I was told to comment which to me is not a satisfactory response.I wonder how any of you reporters would feel if you were inaccurately rated publicly based on your work. I again request for my name to be removed from your data base. I have been a literacy coach and reading intervention teacher since the 2007-2008 school year and have not had my own class during this time since Iwork with small groups of students throughout the day. Although this is upsetting, I take great pride in the work I do as a reading specialist and will continue to teach as many kids as I can to read and write proficiently before they leave elementary school.

I have five years of scores considered in this "value added" system. I concede that is is likely that I was not highly effective my first year or two. I do however know that my third and forth year of teaching over fifty percent of my students test scores increased or remained proficient or advanced. Maybe this is not enough to be highly effective according to the LA Times but it sure was effective for those children. In addition, I know the Times claims that there is no need to control for race or socioeconomic status, but a 2010 Study conducted by Stanford University and Berkley said differently. It claimed that the races of the children in the "value added" scores could effect the overall effectiveness rating. My career began at a school where 100% of the students were socioeconomically disadvantaged and all minorities, and I'm sorry Times, but no matter what you claim, that does matter. Finally, last year I began with a fourth and fifth grade combination class, by November I was renormed into a substitute position and then in January given a class of the school's 22 lowest scoring FBB students as an intervention. I worked with them until May when I left for maternity leave and the students tested with another teacher. I don't even know which group of children that I taught last year is even included in my "value added" score. Whichever children it was did not receive my instruction for more than three months in total, but I have their test scores to exclusively represent my test scores and effectiveness as an educator. How do you control for that Times? At the end of the day, you can keep printing "value added" scores. You can even contend that they define a teacher, however those of us that actually work in a classroom everyday know that simply cannot accurately represent the real effectiveness of a teacher. I know people want data, and statistics, and numbers to crunch. Well perhaps less people could focus their time or arbitrary measures that include only a snapshot of a teachers impact, and more time focusing on figuring out ways to keep even us "least effective" teachers from being fired every year.

I wonder how many value-added will be this year after a year of harrassment and retaliation from my principal. Can you add that in?

OMG my rating has not improved since the last data base was published. Maybe it is because I RETIRED in 2007.

This rating is based on only three (3) of my forty-five (45) years of teaching. That is only seven percent (7%) of my career.

This rating only shows ninety-three (93) students out of over 1,300 students. That is only seven percent (7%) of the students I taught.

This rating dropped the 02/03 school year and added the 09/10 school year. At that rate it could possibly be four more years before my name is dropped from this data base.

That is possibly four more years of being listed as a least effective teacher in math and English, with no change, because I am RETIRED.

A new “rookie” principal was assigned to Los Feliz the last two years of my career.
1. She did not allow me to use my previously successful methods.
2. She harassed and forced some teachers to switch students for some
subjects.
3. Therefore all 93 of those students used for my rating were not
necessarily taught by me.
4. The morale as well as the school’s API score plummeted.
5. Los Feliz went from a “High Achieving School” to a “Program Review
School" very quickly after she was assigned as principal of Los Feliz
Elementary School.

I wish you would have taken into consideration which children's parents are going through divorce, cancer treatments, and the like. I wish you would have included who didn't sleep well the night before, or forgot to eat breakfast the morning of testing. I wish you would have included behavioral problems that ceased because of a teacher's involvement. I wish that instead of lumping all LAUSD teachers in the same box of ability (or lack thereof), you would have taken into consideration teachers who have less than 20 children in their class because parents have actually pulled their child out of a particular classroom based on a particular teacher's inability to control students and educate them at the same time. I do the best I can, and on any given day results will be better or worse. I personally wish you would have included my second- and third-grade class scores, where most, if not all, my students scored proficient or advanced in math. This doesn't validate me nor my ability to teach -- it only validates this reporter's lack of insight into our profession.

On one hand I am happy to be rated most effective, on the other hand having taken statistics, I recognize that 35% margin of error renders this data at best inconclusive, at most invalid. LA Times has been a pioneer in backlash against public school teachers, an example of biased journalism & a champion of charter schools which skim our most promising students with promises based on falsified data. I challenge any reader who denigrates the efforts of teachers to come into my school and teach for one day. As to those who cry against the large proportion of immigrant children in LAUSD schools, where were your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents born? Blame the society that does not respect learning & is proud of its ignorance (Sarah Palin for President is one example), for the ills of the education system not the teachers. The witch hunt perpetrated by LA Times is driving many great teachers away.

Both of these charts seem to display normal distribution, yet in both cases you put the average ranking left of center. Why is this? What is the range, scale, and label for the X-axis? What is the standard deviation? Each teacher's data should be able to be placed on a scatter plot, and if so, what is the correlation coeficcient for each teacher? Without these basic elemtents of labeling and description it is hard to take this data that seriously. Furthermore, how did adjust your process in response to the substantial criticism from the National Education Policy Center (at http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/FactSheetTwo.pdf) of your processes and finding?

In our departmentalized magnet program, I do not teach my own students math. They have another teacher for math class, and I teach that teacher's class science. These math scores are not a reflection of my teaching and should not be linked to me. This data base should be adjusted for teachers in situations like mine in which we do not teach the all of the tested subjects.

I have no idea about the very small sample size (33). Hence, the standard error of measure results in a greater range (area) in which the true score lies.

I may have been the " teacher of record" in 20o6, but not the teacher in deed. I left the classroom in 2006 to assume a position with LAUSD in which I was an advisor in the state's new teacher induction program. My students were taught by another teacher or teachers.

I thoroughly enjoyed my 27 years of service as a classroom teacher with LAUSD and remain so joyful to have successfully taught hundreds of students during my career.

Respectfully,

Hanns Michael Botz, Ed.D.

I continue to have serious reservations about this data. Regardless, it would interest me to see the two years side by side. I understand you averaged several years, dropping 2003-4 and adding 09-10 but if you are looking to establish a review of growth in ability or lesson delivery you would need to see the data history.