Jo Ann Pace

A 4th grade teacher at First 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, Pace 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.

Pace's LAUSD teaching history

2002-03 through 2008-09 academic years

First Street Elementary, 2009 - 2003

Jo Pace's Response:

While I am certainly happy to see where I fall, I don't think much of this way of measuring effectiveness of teachers. It is using only one test, first of all, and it has been done by a newspaper, rather than a non-partisan company who specializes in data collection and analysis. I don't buy this as an accurate measure of me as a whole teacher any more than I buy the CST being a measure of a student as a whole student. But hey, thanks....it was at least nice to see that what my colleagues and I already knew about me professionally, could be supported by this analysis. It beats a sharp stick in the eye. :)

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.