Parents & The Controversy Over The LA Times Story On Evaluating Teachers

The Los Angeles Times published a very controversial article this month publicly linking student scores to individual teachers, and using that to evaluate whether teachers were “effective” or “ineffective.” You can read more about it at The Best Posts About The LA Times Article On “Value-Added” Teacher Ratings.

Steve Zimmer, a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education, published a commentary on the Huffington Post on the article, and talked about how it portrayed parents:

The most insidious and reckless part of the Times story can be found in the final section entitled “Parental Trust.” The Times’ argument here: if you are a parent and you trust your teachers and your school you are naïve, you are ignorant and you are hurting your child. The message is damning and it is clear. The editor’s decision to highlight the positive quote by parent Maura Merino about her son’s teachers was juxtaposed with a line beneath it that said her son’s teacher was in fact ineffective. The Times seeks to explode the bonds of trust painstakingly built in schools across the city and to challenge the esteem teachers hold in many communities.

It’s a column well worth reading….

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