Jason Felch
Singled-out LA Unified Teacher Shares Skills With Colleagues (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-broadous-teachers-20110403,0,4961288.story?page=1)
LA Times
March 18th, 2011
Summary: More or less a carefully constructed propaganda piece by the LA Times meant to provide proof of the value of the value-added analysis (which they created). The highlights: This guy is a good teacher (probably true), the other teachers were jealous and hated him for "winning" at the test taking teaching (probably true), and, see because of these stupid unions and what they have done to our budget, this teacher is going to be fired.
Key Points: 1) A defense of the value-added analysis, 2) The test creates issues between colleagues, 3) The budgets are messed up, 4) Good teachers collaborate.
Intended Audience: Those who hate on the value-added analysis
Relevance: This is a very interesting take on the divide between unions, teachers, and testing, and what problems said divide creates in the working environment.
Jeff, great find on this article. My favorite part was where the administration saw that something extrordinary was going on and wanted to replicate it. Then the results were improved for the whole school. Also, the 'less effective' teacher was able to incorporate those skills into his arsenal. It makes me think not to get too judgemental on those 'ineffective' teachers. Maybe their skills just don't match up to their students 'learning community'. The teacher might be just fine in a different environment but in this example, they collaborate to execute what is working for these students. One might even call it 'Action Research'.
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