Kathleen Samms

A 5th grade teacher at Seventh 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, Samms ranked:

Less effective than average 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.
Less effective than average in English. Students of teachers in this category, on average, lost about 3 percentile points on the California Standards Test compared with other students at their grade level.

Samms' LAUSD teaching history

2002-03 through 2008-09 academic years

Seventh Street Elementary, 2009 - 2003

Kathleen Samms's Response:

I work in a team-teaching situation where I teach science and social studies to two rooms of fifth grade students. My partner teaches math to both rooms while I teach social studies and science. We each teach reading/lang. arts to our own classrooms. I find it interesting that for the past several years ,60% of my students have scored proficient or above in language arts, and their science CST scores have been several points above the state average - 60% or more scoring proficient or above. I find it hard to view myself as an ineffective teacher.

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.