Arne Duncan thinks it's great for L.A. Times to release teacher data publicly. [View All]

[madfloridian]

This simply infuriates me in its arrogance of assuming that a teacher can be judged by what her students do on one test. Our area publishes school scores and grades...but never the individual teacher data. This is outrageous.

Those teachers did not get to decide on any other factors such as who is in their class, the child's background, the parents' cooperation. Often the really good teachers are given too many problem children at once because they can "handle them." Sounds complimentary, doesn't it? But it is not.

That teacher's merit pay and evaluation will depend on the scores of the children who are assigned to them.

And Arne Duncan proudly comes out and says the L.A. Times is doing the right thing to publish the names of the teachers
Principals, teachers, students, parents, and even the National Council of Churches have pleaded with Obama and Duncan to stop these attacks on public education.

They are all being ignored.

U.S. schools chief endorses release of teacher data


U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, posing with ninth-graders Asha Antoine, left, and Arielle Watkins during a summit in Washington last week, endorsed The Times' report on teacher effectiveness. This type of public analysis, he said, “can really empower teachers to strengthen their craft and find out who are the great teachers around them.” (Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images / August 10, 2010)

He says parents have a right to know. He makes it sound like we want to hide things from the public. Lies, damned lies, Arne. Shame on you.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Monday that parents have a right to know if their children's teachers are effective, endorsing the public release of information about how well individual teachers fare at raising their students' test scores.

"What's there to hide?" Duncan said in an interview one day after The Times published an analysis of teacher effectiveness in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest school system. "In education, we've been scared to talk about success."

Duncan's comments mark the first time the Obama administration has expressed support for a public airing of information about teacher performance — a move that is sure to fan the already fierce debate over how to better evaluate teachers.

This is a shame.

A DUer has a post going about how Bill Gates seems to be well connected with the company forming the assessment of the school teachers. He seems to be the power now behind education reform, and Arne dances to his tune.

Gates money behind LA Times hit-piece & "effectiveness ratings" of individual teachers?

On Sunday the LA Times published a story which, once again, lays all the ills of US schools at the feet of teachers. In the months to follow, the Times will publish "effectiveness ratings" of individual teachers in the LA system; ratings the Times itself commissioned:

"Seeking to shed light on the problem, The Times obtained seven years of math and English test scores from the Los Angeles Unified School District and used the information to estimate the effectiveness of L.A. teachers — something the district could do but has not... In coming months, The Times will publish a series of articles and a database analyzing individual teachers' effectiveness in the nation's second-largest school district — the first time, experts say, such information has been made public anywhere in the country."

..."A $14,000 GRANT FROM THE HECHINGER REPORT, an independent nonprofit education news organization at Teachers College, Columbia University, HELPED FUND THE WORK. The institute did not participate in the analysis.

The Hechlinger Report has been in existence only one year; the Gates Foundation was one of its start-up funders & continues funding to this day: NEW YORK, NY – An independently funded arm of Teachers College at Columbia University today announced the creation of an innovative newsgathering effort called The Hechinger Report to provide in-depth coverage of national education issues on its own and in collaboration with other news organizations...The Institute’s entry into the expanding field of non-profit, non-partisan journalism is supported by $1 million in initial funding from Lumina Foundation for Education and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Lumina Foundation, Hechlinger's other funder, is also a recent creation (2000) & associated with finance & ed deformers: Lumina Foundation was created in the summer of 2000 when USA Group— at the time the largest private guarantor of student loans in the country—sold its assets to Sallie Mae. The proceeds of the sale, $400 million in cash and $370 million in Sallie Mae stock, formed the basis of the new foundation...

(Initiatives include) Making Opportunity Affordable, which is also funded by the Wal-Mart Foundation...

The CEO) has forged informal partnerships with organizations that have similar objectives, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The very people funding the study are pushing for education "reform". A conflict of interest methinks.