League tables of teachers published

A huge controversy has erupted in the United States about the publication of “value added” ratings of teachers by the Los Angeles Times. Last weekend, the Times published a league table of the top 100 elementary school teachers in the LA school district. It also published “value added” ratings of 6000 teachers and 470 schools which can be accessed through a search facility on the Times website.

The US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, endorsed  giving the public access to teachers’ value-added scores. He said parents have a right to know if their children's teachers are effective and how well individual teachers fare at raising their students’ test scores. “What’s there to hide” he was quoted as saying in one interview after the Times published the findings of its initial analysis and announced its intention to publish individual teacher ratings on a database [Los Angeles Times, 16 August 2010].

This is the first time the Obama administration has expressed support for the publication of information about individual teacher performance.

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