Roberta Jean Guarnieri

A 5th grade teacher at Kentwood 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, Guarnieri 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.
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.

Guarnieri's LAUSD teaching history

2002-03 through 2008-09 academic years

Kentwood Elementary, 2009 - 2003

Roberta Guarnieri's Response:

This test does not measure all student's modality of learning. It does not take into account the students that need to move during a test, need to hear the information orally, or the students that need to express themselves without pencil and paper. It also does not take into account the students that fear taking formal tests, and the ones that come to school sick. It does not show extenuating situations of fellow teaching partners out sick for years, and having to cover two classes when the substitute is weak in subject matter.
Teachers take their individual students into consideration and test on their varied learning abilities, not grade them on one standarized test to see what they have learned.

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.