I am a working classroom educator who is a National Board Certified Teacher, with a MS in education from USC as well as numerous other instructional credentials.
I have taught children professionally for the last 30 years, most recently 23 years with the Los Angeles Unified School District. I work hard to achieve excellence in my teaching, both for the children in my classroom and throughout the entire school.
In 1998 the school in which I teach was identified by an independent research study, sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, as the best of the 435 elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified District. We spent considerable time with Los Angeles Times reporters at that time to explain how, as teachers, we achieved school wide teaching and learning excellence. But the Times and its reporters never subsequently mentioned anything about our school’s teaching strategies or student achievement to their readers.
Our school has since been recognized as a California Distinguished School not once, but three times. It has been recognized as a Title One Award school five times. And last year, in 2009, the work of our teaching staff was finally recognized with a No Child Left Behind National Blue Ribbon School designation.
This June, the Times was specifically invited to visit our school for the Blue Ribbon Ceremony, which was attended by our State Superintendent of Education, and to see on exhibit in our school halls the kinds of teaching programs and learning outcomes our teachers and children have created together. They might have studied, as well, how we employ regular student test results, school wide, to sharpen our instructional focus. But not actually interested, apparently, in the hard work and complexity of teaching that make excellence in education possible, no one from the Times ever showed up.
The Los Angeles Times has now published a very dubious direct judgement on the quality of my work and professional commitment, as well as a personal attack on the reputation of many of my teaching colleagues who might work in far more challenging community environments, with the “statistically based” designation that my teaching was first “average” and now after a few weeks "more effective."
Except for a few common variations in test results for the community of children I have taught in recent years, the judgement of the Times conveyed to its readers – without any hesitation – might well have be to designate my work “below average.”
The Times has shown no hesitation in publishing these measurements knowing that VAM is flawed as discussed in Getting Value Out of Value-Added: Report of a Workshop, “If the number of students per teachers is low, just a few poorly performing students can lower the estimate of a teacher’s effectiveness substantially. Research on the precision of value-added estimates consistently finds large sampling errors. As McCaffrey reported, based on his prior research (McCaffrey et al., 2005), standard errors are often so large that about two-thirds of estimated teacher effects are not statistically significantly different from the average.“
Mr. Richard Buddin, the Rand-based author of the research study, asserts categorically at the outset of his report (P. 2) that “‘higher performing’ schools are inevitably schools with few disadvantaged or low-income students.” Last year (2009) the school at which I teach recorded an API of 915, with a total student population that was 35 percent Hispanic, and more than 90 percent of our students qualified under Title One as economically disadvantaged. No wonder the Rand Corporation has rejected any association with the study.
For better understanding of the difficulties of this form of measurement, I recommend the August 21, 2010 Wall Street Journal article, “Needs Improvement: Where Teacher Report Cards Fall Short.”

While I do not look bad under your system, I think it is imperative that you understand that test scores alone are not an adequate measurement of a teacher's worth. The last four years I have been an instructor with gifted students. Many of my students have had up to four years of exposure to the arts, and other alternative forms of education, that students in our resident school are not able to access. Statistics have borne out the fact that exposure to the arts throughout a child's academic career enhances their learning ability and creates a more positive feeling about education.
In addition, parents in the gifted program tend to understand the need for parental involvement in their child's education and that may be one of the biggest keys to success for students from all walks of life, across this country. Children of all ages need to hear from an early age that their education is a gift for their future and parents are usually the biggest influence on them.
Additionally, may I say that the use of ONLY test scores to evaluate teachers has little bearing on what is being done in the classroom. I have, in years past, volunteered to have resource students clustered in my room. What that means, at the elementary level, is that in addition to our children that are learning English(who have very specific needs), we have students that may have a gifted designation, as well as at-level students, and then students are integrated into the classroom with OHI designations as well as severe learning difficulties, including autism. Imagine the adapting of lesson plans on a daily, if not hourly, basis in order to meet the needs of these children. I have two dear friends who entered the profession of teaching because they love children and want to see them succeed. They have repeatedly volunteered to work with these special needs clusters and, while their students do make great strides each year, they are often not high enough to make a difference in your assessment of them as teachers. This past May, one of my 4th grade friends' students went from BB in math in his 3rd grade tests to advanced in math for his 4th grade testing. How is that for excellent teaching??? But your system labeled her as having little effect.
I can excuse a newspaper, somewhat, for not understanding the complicated system that LAUSD teachers work within. For instance, do you know that severely autistic(non-communicative) students in 5th grade must take all the same tests that every other fifth grader takes. Let me list the mandated tests our district has put in place, thus far. In addition to May state testing our 5th graders take Language Arts comprehensive assessments every 6-7 weeks. These include a cold writing test, grammar rules in context, reading comprehension, reading fluency, spelling and vocabulary. In addition, they must take four quarterly math assessments which require that we must fit in all the sections of that particular test within a less than three month period of instruction. Many of the countries in the world that surpass us in mathematics teach a strand per year so the they know their students have a solid base. We teach all strands every year.
Our students are also required to take three district science strand exams often overlapping the other above referenced assessments. All these require lessons crammed into the district's time frame, not the time needed by our students to fully understand the material.
When we became teachers we quickly learned that assessment is a necessary tool to be used to inform your continuing istructional practice so that, hopefully, there are no gaps in our students' learning. In reality, our district has us testing exiting fifth graders with a language arts set, a math assessment, and a science assessment all in the three weeks before they culminate and move on to sixth grade in a different school setting. How helpful do you think those exams are for informing instruction. It is painfully obvious on many of these post-standardized testing exams that our students are DONE. It is nearly impossible to keep their attention on the content, never mind to help them to care about the results that they will not see.
So, do we need a system that will eliminate those few teachers that don't care? Yes. Is this arbitrary, test-score based system helpful? Absolutely not! If you think showing up for the new year with an arbitrary label, knowing we have almost no say in the running of our schools, that we will run out of supplies before the end of the year, that we will have to come out of pocket for supplementary lessons, materials and continuting education, that we still have 7 furlough days to come out of our paychecks(when we have not had a cost of living raise in years) and that the public will continue to judge us based on incomplete and partial reporting--that this is easy? Know that it is not! But know this: the bulk of us will do it and do it well and continue to work hard at improving our practice and meeting the needs of our students---no matter how academically low they come to us, no matter how hurt they are by society, family woes, and an uncaring system. We will do so because we chose this profession of education because we believe that knowledge is the key to a better world for all. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Patricia Berger, NBCT-Canterbury Avenue

Teachers are asked to wear a variety of hats every day - educator, mentor, disciplinarian, babysitter, role model, and often parent. They also come into contact with a diversity of students - each an individual, each with their own learning abilities and disabilities. Over the years, I have worked with students with ADD, ADHD, ODD, Asperger’s Syndrome, Depression, and Anxiety disorder. I must prepare for their individual challenges. Not only am I supposed to make sure that they access and master the standards but more importantly I need to get them simply focused on the task at hand which is learning. For 22 years I have seen first-hand that some students do not test well. I can only coach them to do better while providing them with the critical well-rounded education the student needs – oftentimes not what is found on a standardized test. In my classroom, they learn to be responsible citizens who respect themselves and others. There is no test question for this. To use data from a test as a main indicator of a teacher’s ability is ludicrous. Teaching to the test does not broaden the student’s outlook on life. In my case, how can you use data from two different school populations? Not only is each year a different set of parameters but so are the different schools. Also a year is missing between the two schools. How can that be? There needs to be more to a teacher’s effectiveness than test scores. Why not ask the parents what they think? They would certainly disagree with your data and say that I as well as many others have made a difference in the life of their children.

Educating a student is a partnership between the student, parents, and teacher. When working together well, the student becomes a successful learner. I work diligently to get parents involved in their child’s school work, and to hold the child responsible for doing her/his best work. I spend untold hours preparing learning activities to actively engage my students in the process of learning. Sadly, every year I have some parents who don’t want to be that involved and don’t want their student to be challenged to achieve, and they remove their student from my classroom. Teachers are critical. Parents trump teachers.

This chart is flawed. As an example, the most recent math results of the CST for 2010 showed 58.3% of my students tested at the advanced level and 25% tested at proficient. This shows over 83% of my class tested at the proficient level or above in math. The chart unfortunately fails to show successes like this.

I have so much to say, I am having trouble saying anything. Now that's a first.

There are many more ways of being an effective teacher than by just teaching children how to fill in a bubble. Standardized tests do not teach Critical Thinking nor Problem Solving in a project situation. Both are highly prized attributes prized by employers and college professors. Children need to learn to think and defend their point of view.

I feel this rating system is hogwash.

I agree there is value in seeing trends in your students' scores over a period of time. I annually use my test scores to reflect on the job I'm doing and, even more so, where I need to improve. I also agree this is one way of assessing those among us who truly are a detriment to student learning. As with all professions, everyone in our profession is not qualified.

I have a problem, however, with the rubric used by the LA Times' reporters to "grade" our profession. It is SIGNIFICANT to note that the value-added measure of performance is only ONE of MANY ways a teacher can and should be evaluated. Whereas the Times dedicated 2 full pages of negative perceptions of teachers, it only provided ONE SENTENCE about the Obama Admin. stating value-added measures should be only 30% of the evaluation. Yet, the whole soon-to-be published "grade" will be 100% totally based on this one measure of competence! How unfair. What about the other 70% of our evaluation process??????!!!! You totally ignored it, intentionally, and it's obvious. Do you really believe parents will notice that sentence and give it its significance??? This was a blatantly unfair assessment of thousands of honest, hard-working, dedicated teachers.

The message sent to teachers is clear - teach to the test! THAT'S what the Times will grade you on and publish for all to see. No longer will teachers such as myself engage their students with more enriched, challenging, critical thinking, real-life activities beyond the standards. Such won't be on the test, and according to reporters at the Times, nothing else matters. Soooo, I'll scrap my 8 week Wonderful Body Machine lesson that has my students TEACHING parents and the student body on 8 systems of the human anatomy in a culminating auditorium presentation. I'll also scrap my 8 week BIZWORLD lesson, where students form corporations, write business plans, design, manufacture, market (Powerpoint presentations/video commercials), and sell their company's products as they compete for Small Business of the Year. Yes, I'll scrap my 5 week Computers-Inside-and-Out lesson, where they learn both the hardware and software technology of computers prior to disassembling and reassembling parent donated computer mainframes. I'll, of course, scrap my Advanced Math program, where my 5th graders willingly sacrifice their lunch play-time to learn middle school algebra and geometry. None of this will be tested! None of this will matter to my bosses at the L A Times news department.

Yes, it will expose the weak among us, and that's good. However, the repercussions will open up a pandoras box of chaos for principals and teachers. Too many parents will use and abuse this as ammunition to blame teacher after teacher for their child's academic deficiencies, taking no accountability themselves or placing any on the child. Parents are such a vital component in the academic progress - or lack of such- for their child. Yet, the Times chose to literally place all of the blame, once again, on the teacher in the classroom. The teacher with limited supplies, textbooks, disruptive students, etc. etc., etc. That, of course, is a whole different topic best not stated in this teacher bashing hit piece. First, we give up two $700 deductions in our monthly paychecks to cover for the district's incompetence in budget matters to save fellow teachers' jobs. Of course the ones at my school were laid off anyway.

Now this. If we are the "single most important" tool to learning, why not support us instead of constantly berating us. Will you push for salary increases for the Most Effective? Of course not. A lose-lose predicament for us. How shameful.

No, how disgraceful.

Parts make a whole. A well rounded education develops the whole child. Only focusing on English and Math instruction the entire day does not provide for an encompassing well rounded curriculum. What parts are missing? Subjects such as History, Geography, Music, Art, Dance, Drama, Physical Education, Science, and Technology. By teaching those subjects I am filling in the missing necessary parts of a child's knowledge. How can one ascertain teacher effectiveness based on testing two subjects out of the many others a child has learned in my classroom?
I address and nurture the social and emotional, as well as intellectual aspects of children. We need all three of those parts. How can the social and emotional growth in children from my classroom be measured? Paper and pencil testing does not determine that.
I teach and encourage a child to think out of the box, not how to fill in a circle with a pencil. By providing a well rounded education my students have the necessary knowledge and life skills they need to grow and succeed.

After 26 years of teaching in LAUSD, I am thrilled that I am rated as most effective. Teaching is extremely challenging and rewarding. I am a much better teacher today than I was twenty years ago. I am fortunate I had a chance to grow and develop as an educator before the Los Angeles Times published a website with a rating of my performance. I do think we need to maintain high standards for educators. I applaud any effort to improve our educational system. I believe we need a fair and expedient process for terminating teachers who are clearly ineffective. Since the basis of the added-value ratings is test scores, you should provide the public with more information about the test and the state standards. I think most readers would be amazed at what we expect of eight, nine, and ten-year olds these days. It's not that they are unable to meet the standards. Some just need more time, and some lack the perseverance required to read 10 to 12 long passages on the reading section of the test. The CST is not a basic skills test. It assesses mastery of some fairly rigorous standards.