LA teacher suicide sparks test-score pushback

[sonomak]

Source: Associated Press

The Los Angeles Times should remove teacher performance ratings from its website after the apparent suicide of a teacher despondent over his score, which was published in August, the union representing Los Angeles school teachers said. United Teachers Los Angeles has also asked school administrators to join with them in the request to the newspaper, union president AJ Duffy said.

The body of 39-year-old Rigoberto Ruelas Jr., a fifth-grade teacher at Miramonte Elementary School, was found Sunday at the foot of a remote forest bridge. Investigators believe he jumped to his death, although the inquiry is continuing, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

The motive for Ruelas taking his own life is far from clear. But union officials said he had been upset since the Times published his district ranking as a "less effective" teacher based on his students' standardized English and math test scores. Ruelas scored "average" in getting his students up to acceptable levels in English, but "less effective" in math, and "less effective" overall. The school itself ranked as "least effective" in raising test scores, and only five of Miramonte's 35 teachers were ranked as average.

The Times' publication of individual rankings for elementary school teachers sparked widespread outrage among teachers. The rankings ranged from least and less effective to average, more effective and most effective.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gWPvyAFlYCJSuFjMApjZbgORWhTAD9IGQNG81?docId=D9IGQNG81

[qb]

1. The obsession with test scores is really fucking with our schools.

They assign too much homework to elementary school kids, and fuck with the curriculum just to try an increase the scores. Some teachers also focus on just teaching kids how to do well on a standardized test.

[speppin]

2. I hope the scores get taken down NOW!

[YvonneCa]

48. MSNBC now has the story...

...here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39385991

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. This reminds me of accusations in the 1980's that Heavy Metal caused teen suicide

[msongs]

4. your pic shows 2 friends promoting the corporatization of schools for profit. nice nt

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. Most charter schools are run by non-profits

[Iowa]

27. You think that's a defense? That they're run by non-profits?

Non-profits are notorious for paying their executives extremely well while paying their front-line employees slave wages. Furthermore, many non-profits are funded largely by tax dollars (Goodwill Industries, for example), while simultaneously lobbying for the privatization of public jobs. The key word here is "privatization"... a linchpin of the right-wing, Republican ideology. It doesn't matter whether it's profit or non-profit. Either way it is a deliberate attack on the middle class, and no Democrat should be supporting it.

[mzteris]

35. omg - not this shit again -

over 80% of all charter public schools are local operations manned by parents, teachers, administrators, and concerned citizens of the community. They don't get "paid", they volunteer. The only people PAID are the EMPLOYEES of the schools - you know - the TEACHERS and an administrator or two.

[Iowa]

38. Try reading the thread. Jesus... doesn't anyone focus or pay attention anymore?

First of all, some charter schools are established by non-profits. Your claim that they aren't is bullshit. Second, I was speaking about non-profits in reply to a previous poster who seemed to think non-profits were a panacea. I was speaking about non-profits in general - not charter schools.

Try to keep up, OK?

[mzteris]

55. all charters ARE non-profit

10% of them are MANAGED by for-profit corporations and another 10% by non-profit corporations.

The rest are local non-profit - and no - not ALL "non-profits" are money making schemes. Many - most in fact - (and not just charter ones) are just a bunch of local concerned people who want to "do something good".

[Freddie Stubbs]

39. Aren't public school administrators paid a lot more than public school teachers?

[joeglow3]

47. Shhhhhhh

Don't bring that up.

[Tansy_Gold]

30. Many charter schools are run by non-profits with for-profit parent companies

the for profit sets up a non-profit subsidiary to run the school, but all the fees are paid to the for-profit parent company. And the for-profit parent companies profit handsomely, with not one shred of concern for the students or the tax payers.

In the very humble opinion of the DUer known as Tansy Gold, virtually ALL charter schools are rip-off scams designed to snooker liberals into believing it's a good and public enterprise when in reality its just another puke rip-off. There may be a few "success" stories, but I'd be willing to bet even the "success" stories have scams in their closets.

Charter schools are NOT friends of public education.


And you heard it from,


Tansy Gold

[mzteris]

36. MANY? you think 10% is "many"?

Charter schools ARE PUBLIC EDUCATION!!

[Tansy_Gold]

37. Charter schools are financed with public monies, but

when those monies end up in the hands of private, for-profit corporations, the public's interest is not being served, imho.

Look, I know you're going to defend each and every charter school because you have a vested interest in doing so. You have a child who has been well-served by charter schools. That's fine. I'm real happy for you.

But one anecdotal experience does not, in my personal opinion, justify the looting of what used to be a pretty darn good and virtually universal public education system to benefit the greed of a few rich assholes. And I don't give a rat's ass how many millions or billions Eli Broad and Bill Gates are "giving" to charter education. Their gifts come not with strings but, again imho, with ropes already tied into hangman's knots.

If charters had been wildly successful, if they had delivered on their promises to provide better education at a lower cost, then they would surely have replaced the "old" model universally. They haven't, and that's because too many of them have failed and failed horrendously.

Charters do not have to take in every child within their district. They get to pick and choose, even if it's by an "impartial" lottery. The objective -- and I agree that it's not always achieved -- of truly public education is that everyone gets the same chance, the same treatment, the same opportunities. Education by lottery is NOT public education.


Tansy Gold

[mzteris]

56. but most of the money ISN"T ending up in the hands of private

companies!!

No more so than any traditional school that "pays" for services to another company.

You do understand that most of the money being paid out is equal to or less than what is paid in salaries and services for a traditional school, right? Why else would charters be able to operate efficiently while be funded with FAR LESS MONEY than their traditional counterpart?

I have absolutely NO VESTED INTEREST!

My younger son attended charter public schools for k-5 but is now in a trad, btw.... and yes, he WAS well served - and so is every other student in both of those very successful LOCALLY OPERATED schools.

Where are you getting this "greed of a few rich" - that is most definitely NOT what charters are about. And again - 10% of all charters are even managed by for-profit companies. Tell me how that impacts the rest of the charters in the country? Why should they all be punished??

The ARE delivering as good - or better - education AT A LOWER COST. Too many have failed and failed horrendously? Really? Got some stats on that? And the ones that have closed - well at least they ARE closed rather than keeping on adding insult to injury to children in a community, unlike the failing traditionals, n'est pas?

Charters DO NOT PICK AND CHOOSE. That is a complete canard. There are some "requirements" - as in the immersion school - if you enter a higher grade being able to speak read and write, or in lower grades - meeting that demographic model of 1/2 native foreign language and 1/2 English speaking, etc... That isn't "picking and choosing".

Are you familiar with magnet schools? That is the trad version of charter - all magnets have a lottery. They also have particular "standards" and "admission requirements" depending on the focus of the school. Are you against those, too?

[Freddie Stubbs]

40. Competition is a freind of public education, unless

you don't think that it is up for the challenge.

[Doctor_J]

58. Yes. Competition has really improved US health care

holy shit. your spiel is right from the Teabaggers' Glenn Beck Said It So It's True bible.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Except for the slight difference that testing is DESTROYING teachers'

morale, making each and every teacher feel they are personally responsible for the failure of their schools, when it is POVERTY, MASS MEDIA, UNDERFUNDING, CRAPPY TEXTBOOKS, and BIZARRE educational theories developed by politicians, not teachers, which are to blame.

DUNCAN MUST GO.

If NCLB was a travesty under Bush, why is it suddenly good with Duncan's imprimatur?

It is, and always has been, nothing more than a deliberately created crisis meant to provoke the privitization of the schools - if you can't make money on it, it's no good.

EDIT: And where did heavy metal come into it? You think that tying a RW social meme which is patently untrue to it, you can make this patently untrue?

You obviously failed in logic in school. Maybe you should have listened to teacher.

[Freddie Stubbs]

21. Why get rid of Duncan? He is simply implementing President Obama's policies

The heavy metal analogy is apt in showing that suicide is not necessarily caused by the media.

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. Obama hired Duncan on the supposed strength of his record with

Chicago public schools - which was in truth a disaster, not unlike Bush's record with education in Texas. Wholesale firing of teachers, closing schools, privatization, charter (for-profit) schools...

Duncan's misbegotten ideas did not work in Chicago, and they won't work across the country. So who should Obama fire, himself?

The suicide of the teacher WAS caused by the new 'educational' climate, where teachers are held to be responsible for things far outside their purview and are seeing their careers destroyed because of it.

[Freddie Stubbs]

23. Did Ruelas mention the 'education climate' in his suicide note?

[Freddie Stubbs]

24. Didn't Obama promise to increase the number of charter schools before he appointed Duncan?

[LanternWaste]

16. I imagine it might remind a few people of that irrelevancy...

I imagine it might remind a few people of that irrelevancy...

[Tansy_Gold]

6. Results, not causes -- that's what they're looking for

The problem is that it is not possible to improve results if you don't look at the causes.

The school itself ranked as "least effective" in raising test scores, and only five of Miramonte's 35 teachers were ranked as average.

Let's look at that statement. What does it tell you? Do you really believe that ALL BUT FIVE of the teachers at this school are below average, and NONE are above average? That out of the whole school there isn't a single "good" teacher?

How 'bout looking at the community? How 'bout looking at the poverty level? How 'bout looking at the social reinforcement the kids get? Do they have books at home to read? Do they have parents who can help them with their homework? Do they speak English in school because they have to and another language at home because they have to? Is there anyone else in their household who understands/uses long division or trigonometry and can encourage them as they struggle to find the right answers?

I grew up in a working class all-white Chicago suburb, classic post-war baby boom community. My parents never had a lot of money, and neither of them had a college education, but we spoke English, we had books in the house, and my dad knew enough algebra and geometry that he could at least tell me whether I had come up with the right answer on my homework. There were no gangs in my neighborhood; guns were something we saw ONLY on tv and in movies. Our livestyles were not lavish, but our lives were stable. No one went hungry; if someone lost a job, it was only a week or two before they found another.

How does that compare to the neighborhood in which most of the kids at Miramonte School live?

IT'S NOT THE TEACHERS, you puke morons. IT'S NOT THE FUCKING TEACHERS. It's the socio-economic system you pukes have worked so hard to create since you elected a smiling B-movie actor to the governorship of California. THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT. You want schools that fail, teachers who fail, students who fail. You don't want hope at all, and the only change you want is more of the misery you're so good at creating.

You will cheer Rigoberto Ruelas's suicide, and you will quietly and subtly and relentlessly encourage other teachers who care to follow in his self-destructive footsteps. You want serfs; you want slaves. Lots of them. Especially brown and black ones, ones whose fathers are incarcerated so they have no breadwinners, because you also want women paid less, especially brown and black women.

You want charter schools, because they're a nifty hybrid of private and public -- all the opportunities for control and profit of the private, and all the nice public funding. Fail the children but line your pockets. Oh, I know, you'll trot out your so-called Dem and even Progressive supporters of the few charter schools that succeed, but your grand and ultimate objective is to destroy public education completely. You do not want the masses to learn. They might want to better themselves.

Does that sound familiar? Does that sound like the Old South prohibition against teaching slaves to read? You're damn right it does. And that's exactly what you want: You don't want them uppity n*****s to learn about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, Arthur Ashe and Malcolm X. You don't want even the white kids to know about Cesar Chavez and Rosa Parks, unless it's to paint them as troublemakers.

Fuck the damn test scores. FUCK THEM. Teachers should be teaching ideas and concepts and how to think and how to be creative. I know, I know, I know. I'm an idealist. I'm a dreamer. I'm a believer in what's right, even when it's not realistic.

That's where our passion and our power lies. Not in compromise and "getting along" with our enemies. We need to stand up and fight, against the stupidity and greed and hatred that's coming not only from the right, from the official GOP and elected pukes, but from the appeasers and compromisers and excuse-makers in our own party.

One of these days, there's going to be a Democrat who actually gets up and tells truth to power. Maybe Alan Grayson. Maybe Tony Weiner. Maybe Al Franken. I don't know. But somebody's got to get up and tell the president himself that we are on the republicans' road to ruin, and if he doesn't steer a hard left, it's all over.



Tansy Gold, pissed off

[bobburgster]

7. The causes are too difficult to change.

It is so easy for the politicians to blame teachers, and their unions.....doesn't cost anything, big business loves it, easy sound bite,.....I could go on.

Colin Powell and his wife spoke very well on the subject this morning (Morning Joe). if the support isn't there from the cradle to the classroom, teachers will fail through no fault of their own.

[Tansy_Gold]

9. The causes are NOT too difficult to change

They were changed in the 30s, in the 50s, in the 60s.

What happened to the "Yes We Can" campaign?

What happened to the "We are the change we've been waiting for"?

The pukes don't WANT to change the causes, but in fact it's not all that difficult to do: raise taxes on the wealthy. keep jobs at home. combat naked greed.

I think it's ironic that the "most christian" country, in terms of church attendance at least, is also the least christian in practice. Jesus isn't God, greed is.




TG, NTY

[bobburgster]

28. Uh, I was referring to the OP.....fixing education.

Did you even read what I wrote, before you responded?

[mbperrin]

8. All of it too true and too sad.

For instance, there's a suicide on the University of Texas campus today, sirens blaring and campus-wide lockdown. If a test is given there today, is there any doubt that the outcomes will be affected by what just happened?

Or does it just mean that the profs there are lousy?

No study is valid that doesn't hold everything constant except the variable being studied, and that is simply impossible in the education field. When you have dozens of students, we do not and cannot know all the factors that impact them individually away from the classroom.

What we can do is the best we can, be available for help, and treat students kindly and fairly.

The rest is noise for corporate profits.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. A most excellent rant.

Thank you.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. I'm not going to be as confident.

"Let's look at that statement. What does it tell you? Do you really believe that ALL BUT FIVE of the teachers at this school are below average, and NONE are above average? That out of the whole school there isn't a single "good" teacher?"

I don't know. It's certainly possible. I agree it sounds unlikely, but it is possible.
Without some sort of standardized testing, how can we possibly determine whether or not it is true?


I graduated the Seattle Public School System about 10 years ago. I think they did a good job overall, but I encountered quite a lot of teachers along the way, that simply had no capability to teach "ideas and concepts and how to think and how to be creative.". On the flipside, there were quite a few that not only could, but they could to so to a degree that I consider them worth their weight in gold.

In a few years, my son will be entering that same education system. I want the best for him, and short of these sorts of tests, I don't see any way to shed the teachers that cannot truly teach, inspire, and maintain an environment that allows our children to grow to their full potential.

Teaching to the tests can distort the education system as well, and clearly some adjustment is needed. However, I note you didn't suggest any specific improvements. What would you do, to encourage the 'spectacular' teachers we have now, get rid of the incapable, and attract new talent?

[Tansy_Gold]

14. You missed the point --

IT'S NOT THE TEACHERS.

Again.

IT'S NOT THE TEACHERS.

I had some great teachers -- Charles Schlereth, Art Brownell, Pat Quast -- and I had some utterly horrible ones -- Vivian Miles, John McGaughey. Most fell somewhere in the middle, and I suspect that's where most of the teachers are Miramonte fell.

The difference is that without the social support within the family and the community, the teachers shouldn't be held SOLELY responsible.

Anyone with half a brain should be able to understand this: there are very few non-performing schools in affluent communities, and lots of non-performing schools in poor communities. Why do you think this is so? Do you think it's because the teachers are so incompetent they can't teach? Or do you think that given the disadvantages kids from poor neighborhood have, the AVERAGE teacher needs to be SUPERTEACHER just to achieve average results?

IT'S NOT THE TEACHERS.

Do the kids have books at home? Do their parents routinely read to them? Do they watch television that expands their minds, or just American Idol and WWF (or whatever the fuck it is)? Do the kids come to school hungry? Do they get routine medical care? Is their home comfortable and safe and clean? HOW MUCH OF THAT IS THE TEACHER'S RESPONSIBLITY?

Do the kids speak English proficiently? Do they have family members at home who speak English and can help them with homework in English? Do they have family income sufficient to allow them to participate in extracurricular activities that will enhance their learning experience?

IT'S NOT THE TEACHERS.

The teachers get ALL the blame for hundreds of circumstances over which they have not one scintilla of control.

IT'S NOT THE TEACHERS.


Tansy Gold, who is not a teacher

[AngryAmish]

25. Are you familiar with the basis of the evaluation of teachers that was published?

It does not compare just the test scores. It measures the progress made year to year. It does not matter if the teacher has a room full of bright kids or dull kids. Progress is what is measured. Additionally, it does not just measure one year - which creates sample size problems. Three years were used, increasing the n.

[Tansy_Gold]

29. Yes, I'm familiar with it. It's very similar to the process used in

Arizona to determine if schools are failing or succeeding. Failure or success is based on how much they improve over a particular baseline.

But I stand by my statements. NONE of this bullshit evaluation crap takes into consideration the socioeconomic and cultural environment the kids come from. 65% ELL? What allowance is made for that? You get a new set of fourth graders each year who still don't speak sufficient English to take the test at the same level English speaking kids do. The fourth grade teacher isn't staying with these kids the next year; she/he has to start all over with a new bunch. How is that comparing apples to apples?

The public school system my son and daughter went through had over 50% of the students eligible for free and/or reduced lunches. I knew many of the teachers personally outside the school, and they often expressed their concerns that they couldn't always teach to the best students because they needed to devote more time to the students having difficulty, yet AT THE SAME TIME, they couldn't devote as much time as their struggling students needed because test scores and other evaluations meant they had to teach the brightest and best to bring up the average. This was in a small-town school that had a very, very, very diverse student population, quite literally from the children of millionaires to the children of obscenely exploited farm workers.

It's not the teachers. Most (not all, but most) of the bad ones don't stick around long enough to get tenure, so it's not even the unions. It's the society, it's the policies of encouraged nd enforced inequality that pervade virtually every aspect of our culture.

It's not the teachers.



Tansy Gold

[AngryAmish]

31. But they do take that into account

They take a test in the beginning of the year. Then they take a test at the end of the year. If a child has a low baseline then improvement - not judged by an objective standard but their personal improvement- is counted. An individual bad circumstance gets washed out by having a large enough sample size. Just like the kid whose family life calmed down and had a large improvement. Large enough sample sizes alleviate your concerns.

They are not punishing teachers with poor or dumb kids. Those teachers get measured just like everyone else - on making improvements from whatever level of achievement the kids had before.

Have you thought that schools for poor people get bad teachers because they are less desirable places to work? Would you like to work in a high or low crime area? So the nice areas get their pick of teachers and bad areas have to take the lemons other schools got rid of. That could be a reason why so many poor communities have many low rated teachers.

[woo me with science]

33. I wish I could attach this to the top of every thread about education.

I am so tired of the assumption that teachers will suffer because test scores of advantaged kids will be compared to those of disadvantaged kids.

[callous taoboy]

45. The author of the Iowa Basic test would tell you that comparing test scores was NEVER how test

scores should be used. So your ignorant comment about being tired of the argument that teachers in disadvantaged areas
suffer when their scores are compared with students in advantaged areas proves how absolutely clueless you seem to be
even in something as basic as how these tests were developed and what their intended uses were.

[woo me with science]

50. What an utterly foolish response,

since the point was that the test scores are not being compared.

Obviously the teaching of reading comprehension needs serious attention, as well.

[callous taoboy]

52. They most certainly are being compared.

The widest-read paper in our state publishes the scores for all districts in the state. The very fact that all schools must meet one state standard implies that we are being compared against that state standard and between schools.

The very idea that we are ranked, state-wide, according to our scores and our rankings are published as well screams comparison. Do you get it yet?

[woo me with science]

57. Okay, I see the problem now.

Yes, district standardized scores are in the paper. They have always been in the paper. However, the fact that you reference them here shows that you have absolutely no understanding of the process you are talking about. I will explain briefly, but then I suggest you do some more reading, because it is slightly more complicated than I am going to describe here.

Now, most people like yourself are intuitively aware that comparing the standardized test scores (i.e, the scores you see in your newspaper) of students in advantaged districts to the scores in disadvantaged districts would be unfair to the teachers in the disadvantaged districts. That is why the evaluation systems being most widely considered do not use that approach.

Let me repeat. They do not use the standardized scores that you see published in your newspaper.

In fact, the system has nothing to do with group-normed scores at all. Instead of using scores like the ones you see in your paper, which are developed by comparing individual students to a group (and then groups to each other), the systems we are talking about use intra-student PROGRESS measures. In other words, they compare the students to THEMSELVES to determine how much progress they have made. In addition, these scores are weighted to control for socioeconomic status and other other relevant variables.

This system allows all students to start at the same baseline. Whether a teacher has a high or low performing class is entirely irrelevant to the measure, as it is designed to focus on PROGRESS rather than absolute levels of achievement. Thus, teachers who are able to show progress in their students will be rated as effective, regardless of factors like absolute achievement levels, districts, or socioeconomic status.

Now, there are some valid criticisms of these approaches, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with the "test scores in the paper" that you reference. No evaluation system is ever flawless. In many ways, this system seems to be one of the fairest that has been considered so far.

I am finished with this argument for now. I debated with myself about giving you an actual answer given the rudeness with which you posted your initial, completely off-topic and ignorant response. I hope this gives you a place to start as you learn more about what the new systems entail.

[callous taoboy]

59. Wrong. The bottom line is AYP, which is comparaed among districts.

Districts deemed to have met or exceeded AYP get a better ranking than those that do not. Bottom line. This informnation is published. Via the rating system my school is being compared to schools in affluent distircts. The fact that my school will never (likely) reach the highest level of our accountability system while districts in affluent areas reach near 100% passing rates is grossly unfair.

[woo me with science]

62. No, you are having a parallel conversation here.

You are discussing ratings of districts. The conversation here was about systems being developed to identify effective teachers. They are two different processes entirely.

[msanthrope]

41. Three to seven years were used, depending on the data available.

I think it's an interesting study, lots of time, lots of kids.

[callous taoboy]

46. I am a teacher and you are spot on! Thanks, TG.

[Sabriel]

34. Thanks, TG

You're not alone in fury and frustration.

[54anickel]

51. +1,000

[Supersedeas]

60. Tell it....

[nunyabidness]

10. Many reasons,no solutions

It`s not my fault,It`s not my fault,It`s not my fault,It`s not my fault. The school system here was trading students back and forth to balance out test scores of all the districts schools. Bad students and good students.Trading them like ball players. And these people here are not the smartest people I`ve ever met so one can assume that this went on elsewhere as well. Ooo, those are some fine teachers and administrators. Fact is, if teachers were half as concerned with the students as they say they are, they would work to find a solution(s) to the problems of the education system, not constantly defend the current position and blame everything and everyone. What they fail to realize, I think, is there are some people out there that went through the school systems and learned. Now those people expect at least the same quality for their children. Thanks to all the good teachers. You know who you are.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. The thing is, the solutions are NOT in the hands of the teachers.

And largely not in the hands of the administrators either.

You say they were trading students around to get balance on the tests - that was not done to game the system, but to SAVE THE SCHOOL. It was the ONLY thing they could do, because 'teaching better' doesn't mean anything. A teacher-of-the-year transfers to an impoverished inner-city school where the kids have to be wanded and their backpacks searched before they can enter the building, and he will NOT be teacher-of-the-year that year - he'll be another below-average teacher at a below average school, even though everything HE did was exactly the same.

You know what schools NEVER fail? Those that are well-funded, in affluent areas which have low unemployment.

It has NOTHING to do with the teachers. Everything to do with the local economy. And up and closing 'failing' schools in those areas is the exactly WRONG thing to do; privatizing them, allowing the bottom 10% of the students to just disappear, is the WRONG thing to do.

Injecting a few hundred billion into the communities in which those schools are located is the solution. But that might mean YOU have to pay an additional 1.5% in taxes. Could you live with that?

[Tansy_Gold]

15. GMTA

:yourock:

[melm00se]

17. Number of teachers

with the number of teachers in the LA Unified School District (45,000 source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Unified_School_District) and a national suicide rate of 11.5/100,000 (source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm), statistically there could be ~5 suicides per year within the LAUSD teacher population.

[RaleighNCDUer]

26. Nonsense stats - drawing wrong conclusions.

Most suicides are of people with mental and/or physical illnesses - teachers almost invariably have good insurance, which means they are far less susceptible than the general population.

Besides illnesses, a predictor of suicide is employment - it goes without saying that if you are a teacher, you are employed. Now, potential unemployment can come into it (as with this case - not only unemployment but public ridicule and the destruction of his entire career).

A third predictor is PTSD - and rough as some school are they are not generally PTSD producing battlefields. Suicides among vets is high; teachers, not so much.

Saying "five per year" would be the norm is just nonsense.

[Freddie Stubbs]

43. So, the teacher was probably mentally/physically ill, not the victim of the evil newspaper

[RaleighNCDUer]

63. Not the evil newspaper - the evil policies promulgated by Duncan.

Have you gotten your check from him yet?

[YvonneCa]

18. "Principals have been using the rankings to crack down on teachers, he said"...

THAT's the important thing the general public needs to understand. That's why I keep defending teachers here. I've seen and experienced that, due to this reform that targets teachers.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Article excerpt:

Although other factors may have been at play in Ruelas' death, union official Mathew Taylor said Monday he believed the ranking was a contributing factor based on conversations with teachers at the school. Principals have been using the rankings to crack down on teachers, he said.

"He was a very well-respected teacher," Taylor said. "He took the pressure being applied to him to heart."

Ruelas was last seen Sept. 19 when he dropped off a birthday gift for his sister. He notified the school to get a substitute for his classes Monday and Tuesday, but he did not return to work Wednesday and his family reported him missing.

In a brief statement Sunday, the Times extended its condolences to the family and noted the death is under investigation.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines has said the type of teacher rankings published by the Times, known as "value-added," shouldn't be used as the sole criteria to measure effectiveness.

The school board last month authorized the district to start developing a new method for evaluating teachers that incorporates value-added rankings, as well as in-classroom observation and other measures.

Detractors say value-added rankings place too much emphasis on test-score teaching, especially in schools like Miramonte, a large school in an impoverished, gang-plagued neighborhood about six miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. About 60 percent of Miramonte students are Spanish-speaking English-language learners.

"Test scores are directly related to the socio-economic status of the student population," said Taylor. "The best teachers are given the toughest kids. This man had won many awards."

By all accounts, Ruelas did not shy away from problem kids.

Parents and former students described him as a mentor to youth tempted to join gangs and a tireless booster that low-income children could make it to college. He often stayed after school to tutor struggling kids and offer counseling so they stayed on the straight and narrow.

"He took the worse students and tried to change their lives," said Ismael Delgado, a 20-year-old former student. "I had friends who wanted to be gangsters, but he talked them out of it. He treated you like family."


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

THAT is how the teachers at my school work, too. They deserve MEDALS for what they do...instead, they are under attack. It is cruel and despicable.

[senseandsensibility]

32. The language issue can not be overstated

In some cases, it is THE reason for the low test scores, and yet, it is hardly mentioned. My heart goes out to this teacher.

[RobinA]

44. Why Are These "Rankings"

even being published in a newspaper. I am not a teacher, but I work helping seriously ill people to overcome some of their problems. Most do not make a lot of progress, but would probably do worse without the help. I have very little to say about what I can actually do for these people and there are a lot of variables involved that I have no control over. Much like teachers. Despite the near zero sense of accomplishment I get from my job, I like my people, I like working with them and I think I do make a difference, however small. Most people do not want to work with the population that I do. I think I do a pretty good job in an impossible situation. However, if my collegues and I start being ranked in the newpaper on the progress we make, I will guarantee that I (and many of them) will be unwilling to work at this job and will leave for easier pastures, of which there are plenty, BEFORE I get to the point of suicide. Damn if I'm going to get my head bashed in publicly because I choose to work with difficult people. Of COURSE a suburban rich kid with professional parents is going to make more progress in a year than the fifth of eight kids born in the inner city to crack mom. You can't fairly compare the two, even just on the basis of improvement. And we shouldn't be condemning teachers who make the choice to teach in the hardest districts.

I am far from a teacher apologist, but let's get real.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jefferson23]

42. How tragic, RIP. Screw you LA Times, nice propaganda tool work you have there. n/t

[totodeinhere]

49. I imagine that the teachers who get "most effective" ratings like this system just fine.

And the question remains, why do we have some of the worst schools in the industrialized world, yet we spend more money per student on a per capita basis than most other countries do. And the non native English speaking students excuse does not work because a lot of schools in Europe have non native speakers as well, yet those schools do better than ours do with less money.

I fully support President Obama's initiatives on education, and I support Secretary Duncan as well. They are trying to kick some ass to get some results, so of course they are going to face some push back. But IMO Obama is on the right track with education reforms.

[callous taoboy]

53. You teach where?

[totodeinhere]

54. In Nevada n/t

[Exultant Democracy]

61. I find it doubtful that he only killed himself because of the test scores,

The scores were probably the straw that broke the camels back.