Jesus Dario Duenas

A 3rd grade teacher at Liggett Street Elementary in 2007

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, Duenas ranked:

Most effective overall.
Most effective in math. Students of teachers in this category, on average, gained about 11 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.

Duenas' LAUSD teaching history

2002-03 through 2008-09 academic years

Liggett Street Elementary, 2007 - 2005

Jesus Duenas's Response:

Your results generally reflect my own opinions about my teaching and in general I agree that this is a much better process than "dog and pony show" we have now. However, I do have some concerns. During the period in which I was evaluated, I thaught three grade levels with students of widely differing entry levels. I taught a 4/5 split made primarily of students with IEP's, and two seperate classes made up of grade level or higher students. The combination class had much greater room for improvement and generally did so. The higher achieving classes did well, but had much less room for improvement. How does your formula account for the fact that a high achieving student, or class of studnets, may have little or no room for growth?

If you are a highly effective teacher, and you are to be evaluated under this system, would it not be better to have a class of lower level students whose scores can rise more significantly under your instruction? Or to game the system by selecting a class of student whose previous teacher is ineffective? The student's scores would not be a true reflection of their abilities and would provide an effective teacher an opportunity to add a few percentile points on top of their own added-value.

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.