Barbara Jean Aran

A 4th grade teacher at Lorena Street 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, Aran ranked:

Least effective overall.
Least effective in math. Students of teachers in this category, on average, lost about 10 percentile points on the California Standards Test compared with other students at their grade level.
Least effective in English. Students of teachers in this category, on average, lost about 7 percentile points on the California Standards Test compared with other students at their grade level.

Aran's LAUSD teaching history

2002-03 through 2008-09 academic years

Lorena Street Elementary, 2009 - 2003

Barbara Aran's Response:

1. Teachers are told to use multiple measures to assess students, never to use only CST scores. So shouldn’t this be the same for teachers?
2. Blooms Taxonomy http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm is more important to critical thinking than test prep.
3. Composition of classes varies from year to year.
4. Fallacy of using one average #, ups and downs of students within any class, and year to year.
5. Methodology is controversial among experts.
6. Teachers told the scores were confidential and would never be used in evaluation.
7. This is the death of all arts in school—now only test prep.
8. Beware of what you wish for—this data release is Pandora’s box—a nightmare for principals, teachers, and a feast for attorneys.
9. The period covered by this study coincides with the lengthy terminal illnesses of my parents in another city.
10. Glad I retired.

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.