Ana Andrade Lima

A 5th grade teacher at Paseo del Rey Fundamental in 2006

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, Lima ranked:

More effective than average overall.
More effective than average in math. Students of teachers in this category, on average, gained about 4 percentile points on the California Standards Test compared with other students at their grade level.
More effective than average in English. Students of teachers in this category, on average, gained about 2 percentile points on the California Standards Test compared with other students at their grade level.

Lima's LAUSD teaching history

2002-03 through 2008-09 academic years

Paseo del Rey Fundamental, 2006 - 2003

Ana Lima's Response:

I believe that the value-added measure utilized by the Times in its series of articles about teacher performance zeros in on a very important issue through an extremely narrow and one-sided lens. Your reporting team has missed a valuable opportunity to open up an honest, dynamic, and constructive forum for discussion on extremely timely problems centered around public education. To have done so, would have required a deeper look into all parties involved and the level of accountability (or lack thereof) they are (or should be) subject to. This would have included looking beyond the surface and more deeply into student effort and personal engagement, parental involvement, teacher preparation and performance, administrative support and competence, as well as district-level support, management, and overall ability to administer such a large and complex body of educators, children, and families. Public education is a collaborative effort! Your analysis would have been of some concrete value had it been framed within a more multidimensional context. As is, it does little past finger-pointing.

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.