Union Boycotts LA Times Over Teacher Evaluation Disclosure

Atypical Geek writes "According to Newsweek, the local teachers union is infuriated over the disclosure of teacher performance metrics. Quoting: 'Do parents have the right to know which of their kids' teachers are the most and least effective? That's the controversy roaring in California this week with the publication of an investigative series by the Los Angeles Times's Jason Song and Jason Felch, who used seven years of math and English test data to publicly identify the best and the worst third- to fifth-grade teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The newspaper's announcement of its plans to release data later this month on all 6,000 of the city's elementary-school teachers has prompted the local teachers' union to rally members to organize a boycott of the newspaper.' According to the linked Times article, United Teachers Los Angeles president A.J. Duffy said the database was 'an irresponsible, offensive intrusion into your professional life that will do nothing to improve student learning.'"

Comments

Re:like any other job?

[hedwards]

That has nothing to do with it. They are employees of the school district not, of the public. Consequently it's not up to you or I to make those decisions. If you don't like the results, you have options, take your kids out of public schools or vote for somebody different to run the school board, but you're no more there boss than I am the boss of the local Starbucks, by virtue of buying a drink from time to time.

I used to work for the state for a while, and it's mind blowing to me that random people think they're your boss. They have no clue what your job is or what the priorities are, nor do they know what the funding status of the project is, but somehow since it's taxpayer dollars, they're the boss. Which isn't true, they aren't the boss, and there is, at least in my state, mandatory auditing that goes on to deal with any problems that might pop up.

Re:Educational Problems

[Archangel Michael]

There's parental apathy, because the parents, short of removing kids to home school or private school, are slaves the the government educational system and have 0 Choice. Give PARENTS a choice, and see what happens to education of their children. Voucher systems improve education for everyone, but Teacher's Unions and Liberal Elites don't favor them because it is "unfair" for some reason or another, or fear of "religion" (private religious schools) getting "Government money", which is nothing more than a red herring.

If the kids are REALLY what matters, and it improves education for ALL kids, then keeping the current system is simply stupid, regardless of the reason. What those types are saying is that it is better to have a bad system that is "fair", everyone gets the same rotten service, or whatever than actually giving parents a choice.

As it currently is, we punish success and reward failure by giving MORE money to under performing schools and LESS money to schools that are better performing. These are our kids, and failure is NOT an option. It is just that when failure is rewarded, it becomes the choice, even if it is unconscious one.