This is different from last year, even though I have not been in the classroom for years now. Can you just delete my name from this thing please?
And my last name is Sinatra. or Sinatra-Rutz, but NOT Sinatra-Rut.

In looking at my revised ranking, I am concerned about the algorithm for determining this ranking. The Times says the ranking "is a statistical approach that estimates a teacher's effectiveness at raising student performance on standardized tests." So, my question then is, what if a student comes into my class with a perfect score and gets a perfect score the next year? I am considered a "highly effective" teacher? After all, the test score didn't raise at all. Or, what if that student the perfect score enters my class, then misses just one question on the CST. Am I then an "less effective" teacher? I have no problem with the performance of my students being considered as part of my performance as a professional, but the VA should not be the ONLY method to determine a teacher's performance. I'm glad the Times points this out.

It's amusing to see the lack of knowledge displayed here about statistical validity. Two samples from eight years of teaching is statistically meaningless. It is not an adequate sample size. Furthermore, the fact that these two samples were from the first two years I taught, make the evaluation even less meaningful, as it is a skewed sample. I understand that the corporation that runs the Times is in bankruptcy, but there must be a better way for the Times to make money than denegrating teachers.

Celebrate growth and progress; they come in small increments.

This value added model is flawed because the statistics do not accurately asses the value teachers add to student learning. In most cases, the California Standards Test for Language Arts is not an accuarate measure of student progress and should therefore not be used for teacher evaluation. Let me show you why. Imagine your a fourth grade teacher, with a group of 7 students on the second grade reading level. After a year of instruction, you manage to get them to the third grade level, a difficult accomplishment considering you teach a fourth grade curriculumn. Now, to accurately measure the progress, would you give them a second, third, or fourth grade reading assessment??? The state chooses to give a fourth grade assessment. What is the problem with this? This would be like giving kids who have just mastered their addition facts a multiplication test to see if they have improved in their addition. I am deeply disapointed in the integrety of the LA times as a credible news organization and I have to wonder if Eli Broad, the billionare who meddles in school board elections has paid off the Times to print these useless statistics. Remember, a teacher killed himself over this and your still at it again. Dishonorable!!

You still have not validated your results satisfactorily for me. Nowhere in your data do you account for students' knowledge prior to 5th grade. If they were already low, maybe they did do better. Nowhere in your data do you show what may have occured in the students' lives -past or just the night before. This effects learning. Nowhere in your data do you show students who are not test takers. They freeze or they play a game of dot-to-dot. Nowhere in your data do you respond to how class size affects learning or even whether students' continue to study at home.
Your data will never convince me that I was a less than effective teacher. It does show that your newspaper/reporter has no concern for human beings already being kicked around and how they will react to your data. No, I won't commit suicide because I KNOW that I was an excellent tracher and I was effective. I taught my students from where they entered my room and using high expectations and any means necessay to teach them, my students learned. They exceeded my expectations. Standardized testing cannot show all of a student's learning. It is limited to certain information that the student may or may not know.
Until you walk in my shoes(not for a day, but for years) you cannot evaluate me or any teacher. Good administrators are those who spent years in the classroom and know what to look for. Teachers need to get back their power to plan, teach, and evaluate. They need stop trying to teach to the test. I have been curious why aren't you evaluating doctors, dentists, or even lawyers. They too provide a service. I think the reason is simple: People can critize/evalate teachers because every individual has spent years in a classroom and tends to feel they know about teaching. WRONG!
I am now retired. You should be happy. I would have spent any extra time I had this last year critiquing /evaluating your newsarticles. I would have bombarded your offices with letters, my students' work(some ungraded--for your grade and timespent), requests for the reporter to get down into the trenches--not use useless data.
I am so disappointed in your newspaper. I give you a failing grade for these articles. GRADE = F

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. It is one test, on one day.

I have not been teaching for 2 years, and prior to that I never taught those subjects. I have no idea how my name is being used in all these rating scales. Please check all you facts before publishing! These reports are NOT accurate are are causing unnecessary damage and harm to the individuals involved.

We should all be asking ourselves, what is the LA Times trying to accomplish by publishing these scores? We are not being told anything we haven’t known for years. Publishing these dubious scores has done little but divide schools across the district at a time when we should be pulling together. My scores are based on only 3 years and 110 students. I have taught over 400 students in the past 17 years. It is a very small and poor sampling and would be considered invalid in any real research.

I believe that these scores are not always accurate, due to the fact that each year, the type of students teachers work with are different. For example, if I have students who score advanced in an area the previous year, and they score in the advanced range in the same area when they are in my class, then there is really no value added. Yet, they have scored in the advanced range. The real advances show up when a student scores well above where they had scored the previous year. These scores should not be placed solely on one year with a teacher. Many factors go into effect, such as a sight or hearing problem; a divorce or death in the family; an illness which the child was suffering during the test (without letting the teacher know; maybe it was coming on). Not all teachers have the same make up of students. One teacher may have a smart group of children who pay attention and achieve excellent results, while another teacher may have a challenginf group, and the test results are not as high as the teacher had hoped. Yet, both teachers may have done an excellent job with classroom management and lesson preparations. To me, value added judgments do not seem fair as a rating for teacher performance.