Teacher "Grades": Public or Private?; "L.A. Times" Reporter Discusses Grading L.A. Teachers
VELSHI: OK, interesting development in Los Angeles. The "Los Angeles Times" is going to be naming names, a database on 6,000 teachers which rates them based on the students' progress on standardized tests from year to year. Now it would be the first such disclosure in the nation. Union leaders are calling for teachers to boycott the newspaper, and others to boycott the paper. I'm joined now by A.J. Duffy, who is the president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles. I believe he's in Los Angeles joining us via Skype. A.J., can you hear me?</s>A.J. DUFFY, PRESIDENT, UNITED TEACHERS LOS ANGELES (via Skype): Yes, just make it Duffy, please.</s>VELSHI: All right, very good. Tell me what your overview of this whole issue is?</s>DUFFY: Well, I want to make it clear. We are asking our members to stop purchasing and cancel their subscriptions to the "Times" to protest the idea that they are going to -- they're going to do things to individuals that's not right. Every teacher wants to know the test scores, every parent and student should know them. But to plaster them out in the public and to use it to lambaste teachers -- in two cases, two very excellent teachers by multiple measures -- is a terrible, terrible thing. It's almost -- it's almost McCarthyism. But I want to be clear, we have been attempting to work with our district because we recognize that we do need a new evaluation system. No one's arguing that. But what we're saying is that value-added is a flawed system. Even Diane Ravich (ph) and Linda Darling-Hammond (ph), two very, very prominent and well-respected educators, feel the same way. We believe that teachers should be evaluated using multiple measures.</s>VELSHI: OK, fair enough, Duffy, I hear that.</s>VELSHI: But why is it wrong -- you said McCarthyism. It's absolutely not McCarthyism. It's not going after somebody for something that they're doing that they're hiding or keeping in their private lives. This is just a compilation of information that should be public anyway.</s>DUFFY: It should be public between the teacher and the administration and the parent and the student at the school. Absolutely, we have no problem with that. As a matter of fact, we do that right now. But to make it public to millions and millions of people and draw the inference that because of a standardized test score, which is a one shot snapshot, drive-by evaluation of a teacher when in fact the standardized test scores in California only test 15 percent of what a teacher teaches, that's wrong. And publicly now millions of people are looking at a couple of teachers who, as I said, by some standards, multiple measures are excellent teachers --</s>VELSHI: Duffy, let me ask you, the reason this is such an interesting conversation is because this is something we see repeated across the country. The idea that teachers are saying it is unfair to judge us, to judge our tenure, to judge our income on test scores alone. So would you be happy if the "L.A. Times" went ahead with this but somehow incorporated other measures? And very specifically, what would those other measures be that would be fair to publicly rate teachers on?</s>DUFFY: I believe that standardized test scores as well as periodic assessments and work that students do in the classroom should be shared with students and parents and administrators. I do not believe that they should be made public. I think that clearly we do have to change the evaluation system. But where is the student accountability? Where is the parent accountability? And where is the accountability of the system to set up an environment at any given school with proper supports for teachers? Where is that accountability? Are we simply going to use a standardized test score to determine whether somebody is good or bad in the classroom and we're not going to address any of the other issues?</s>VELSHI: So you would support --</s>DUFFY: In California, we are the eighth largest economy in the world and we are 47th in per-pupil spending. That is a tragedy.</s>VELSHI: Just to be clear, I'm going to be speaking with the --</s>DUFFY: -- I don't know what to say.</s>VELSHI: Duffy, it's hard because we're on Skype, so you're not necessarily hearing me. But I'm going to be talking to the "L.A. Times" in a minute about this. Would you -- because I think the public wants accountability and I think you hit the nail on the head, whether it's students or parents or the administration or the system, and teachers who are probably the single largest part of the whole thing. Would you support -- teachers are public employees -- I don't know why every public employee shouldn't be reviewed and that shouldn't be out in the public when taxpayers pay for it. But would you support a very comprehensive public rating system that encompasses everything that you just said?</s>DUFFY: Look, when you start naming names publicly and using one flawed methodology of determining the quality of that teacher, then you are doing that human being a disservice. Yes, there should be accountability. And if you look at the API, the Academic Performance Index of Los Angeles schools, which is based on the standardized test, it keeps going up year after year after year. That's public information. Our test scores keep going up year after year. That's public information. Our graduation rates are going up dramatically, our dropout rates are going down dramatically. That should be public. But to brand a teacher as not good because of a snapshot standardized test and then publish their name in the newspaper and make the inference that they are a bad teacher is a terrible thing. We are for accountability, absolutely. But this is a witch hunt and it doesn't serve the kids and it doesn't serve to help public education. If we want to help the kids, we have to change public education from top to bottom from the moment somebody goes into an education program in college to the moment they go into a classroom and the supports that we give them to help them be better, that's what they need.</s>VELSHI: I want to get the other side of this conversation in. Thanks for joining us. A.J. Duffy is the president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles. Coming up next, I'm going to talk live with one of the "L.A. Times" reporters who's covering the story. He says some of the teachers welcome this public database of how teachers perform.