Diana M. Martinez

A 5th grade teacher at Morningside 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, Martinez ranked:

Least effective overall.
Less effective than average in math. Students of teachers in this category, on average, lost about 4 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.

Martinez's LAUSD teaching history

2002-03 through 2008-09 academic years

Morningside Elementary, 2009 - 2003

Diana Martinez's Response:

Value-added scores are a vlaid tool to measure teacher effectiveness to a certain point, but should not be used as an evaluative measure. It should serve as a means for professional development and growth, epecially when pinpointing areas of further growth as an educator. In hindsight it is disappointing that the district did not enable educators access to this data previously, and perhaps offer professional development opportunities by highly effective teachers.

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.