Based on test score data covering seven years, The Times analyzed the effects of more than 6,000 elementary school teachers on their students' learning. Among other things, it found huge disparities among teachers, some of whom work just down the hall from one another.

After a single year with teachers who ranked in the top 10% in effectiveness, students scored an average of 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math than students whose teachers ranked in the bottom 10%. Students often backslid significantly in the classrooms of ineffective teachers, and thousands of students in the study had two or more ineffective teachers in a row.

The newspaper plans to publish an online database with ratings for the more than 6,000 elementary school instructors later this month.

After learning of the analysis and the database last week, union leaders began making automated calls to teachers objecting to publication. In the Friday evening call, Duffy said the database was "an irresponsible, offensive intrusion into your professional life that will do nothing to improve student learning.

Article: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/15/local/la-me-teachers-react-20100816

_____________

Opinion Notes:

Note 1

"Among other things, it found huge disparities among teachers, some of whom work just down the hall from one another."

Hall Distance has nothing to do with the types of students that a teacher may teach. One teacher may teach the advanced. Another teacher may be assigned students who have fell behind because of personal problems or a learning disability impacting them. The learning disability may be something major or it may be something temporary such as caused by depression.

_____________

Note 2

"After a single year with teachers who ranked in the top 10% in effectiveness, students scored an average of 17 percentile points higher in English and 25 points higher in math than students whose teachers ranked in the bottom 10%. Students often backslid significantly in the classrooms of ineffective teachers, and thousands of students in the study had two or more ineffective teachers in a row."

- How are teacher rankings determined in the study?

- Does the teacher teach the test that are used to determine effectiveness at the expense of actually teaching the students or is other criteria used?

- How does the student do a year after with the so called "effective" teacher and with a different teacher?

- One year of education prepares a student for the next year of education. Is the student actually benefiting from the current teacher or benefiting from the previous years teacher helping them deal with learning problems.

_____________________________________
Opinion Note:

In Education, every measurement of child accomplishment or teacher ability is highly subjective. When the media crunches suspect data and manipulates that data to support Bill Gates political policy on Education, that is very disingenuous.

_______________________________________

At the end of the day, a child's success or failure is up to the child and up to their parents. Of course, we've all had teachers that we totally hated or totally loved. We rightly or wrongly blame part of them for our short comings and we rightly or wrongly give them credit for part of our success.

The problem with the American Education System is NOT the teacher. It is the philosophy promoted by the media and by the government that education is about the system and not about the child. The system needs to be more about the child and a lot less about the politics. Learning is a life time event. It does not begin with the school year and it does not end with the school year. It does not begin that first day the child steps into the hostile environment we call a school and it does not end when the child throws their cap up in to the air.

[The following opinion is based on normal children and not those with serious learning problems. I realize all is not possible with every child.]

If a school has not taught a child the basics and has not taught a child how to teach themself, then the school has not done its job. If a child leaves the system without the ability to reason out problems and use basic common sense in life, then the school has not done its job. If the school has not nurtured the child but causes the child to leave the system with even worse mental problems than when they enter the school, then the school has done worse than not done its job.

This current economic crisis happened in part because the schools have not done their job. We have a population who collectively would make one bad economic decision after another. We have a population who would put people in the White House that they know almost nothing about but would base their votes largely on media propaganda. I am not talking about just the last election but all of modern elections.

Schools have got to start teaching children how to teach themselves. The notion promoted by idiots in the media that children need to be "taught" and that means "spoon fed" everything they know by genius teachers is fucking retarded.

Most schools have trouble keeping teachers. Period. Yet we are going to have politicians and people in the media to encourage even more teachers to walk away from their life's calling. Why? Because so many people in government and people in media were never taught how to reason things out. That is not the fault of the teacher. That is the failure of the system, led by crooked politicans, who in truth WANTS a population that is gullible to media propaganda and liar politicians.