Graded: LA Teachers' Public Evaluation Raises Questions

Sept. 2, 2010 — -- It is a simple enough concept that has quickly turned into a raging debate: grading teachers based on their students' performance on standardized tests in math and English.

But imagine if it were your performance being evaluated and the subsequent results were then posted on a newspaper's website.

The Los Angeles Times did just that last month, publishing the names of 6,000 teachers of the L.A. Unified School District, along with data showcasing how well their students performed, in an investigative report titled Grading the Teachers.

"I think transparency is a great thing, and I think teachers should also be in favor [of] transparency," parent Patrick Ferry told ABC News.

Just yesterday, members of the Los Angeles school board publicly acknowledged that the current evaluation system did in fact need reworking, with some agreeing that parents should receive more information about their children's teachers. Though formal talks regarding the issue have yet to take place, the group is scheduled to meet today to discuss handlings of such performance evaluations.

The newspaper not only graded teachers based on their students' marks, but took seven years of test scores and tracked how much individual students improved each year under their instructor's supervision. In other words, the paper tried to determine how much value a teacher added to each of his or her students' education.

"Value-added" assessment is a tool now used by hundreds of school districts in 21 states, many of them linking a teacher's pay to improving students' performance. Some districts will then revoke tenure for teachers or even fire those whose students fail to do so.

The Los Angeles school district has apparently had the data for years, although administrators never crunched the numbers for fear of an outcry from the teacher's union. Indeed, the president of one of the biggest teacher's unions told ABC News' Christiane Amanpour Sunday that she is angry about the data appearing on the Times website.

"Let the teachers see it, let them use it," said Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers. "In fact, they are starting to do that in L.A., but don't publish it in this way."

But one of the Times reporters said he stands behind the controversial article.

"I can certainly understand why they'd be angry or frustrated to have their names and their scores published in the newspaper in this way," reporter Jason Song said. "But we weighed the public interest in doing this kind of information and decided it would be best if we released it."