Letter: ‘Ineffective’ label inaccurate, unfair

Shame on state Superintendent of Education John White for claiming that teachers who left the profession in the past three years were “more likely to be ineffective” (The Advocate, Jan. 29). There is no basis in fact for that assertion.

White says that he has data for the past three years showing that more “highly effective” teachers are staying in the profession and more “ineffective” ones leaving. Those ratings are based on the state’s new COMPASS evaluation system.

The problem with his analysis is that no teachers have yet been given final evaluations under COMPASS. It was approved by the Legislature in 2010, and piloted in a handful of school districts over the past two years.

Teachers will be given their first COMPASS scores this spring, and until then, no teacher has received an official performance label.

I cannot speculate on why Superintendent White issued such a report. But as one whose job it is to evaluate teachers under COMPASS, I can say that it is both misleading and inaccurate.

Deborah S. Landon

educator

Baton Rouge

Comments

1) Comment by LAteacher - 08/02/2013

White's own numbers in the footnote of his press release on the LouisianaBelieves website show that 12 percent of the teachers who left were labelled "ineffective". So 88 percent of the teachers who left WERE effective. (The quota set by the teacher evaluation system is 10 percent of teachers total to be ineffective). That data was a sample probably of the schools that piloted the teacher evaluation program. Furthermore, his data department got the numbers wrong on the number of "highly-effective" teachers who left. What was quoted in the Advocate article is mathematically possible. For more info about that follow this link: http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20130203/OPINION03/3020 20325/White-s-math-doesn-t-add-up

2) Comment by phil - 08/02/2013

Look up IRS 990 form and salaries of top people for Teach for America. Just a thought.

3) Comment by SuzanneMS - 08/02/2013

Well, then, read it again, tradewinns. It is a FACT that "no teachers have yet been given final evaluations under COMPASS... Teachers will be given their first COMPASS scores this spring." And given the FACT that no teacher has yet been rated "highly effective," "effective" or "ineffective," White is lying through his teeth when he claims that jhe has data for the past three years. There is no data on their evaluations -- because the evaluations have not been done. What White is counting on, as crazycajun says, is that most of Louisiana will not question the statements of their boy Bobby's puppet. It's the same as his distorted claim that teacher's aren't leaving in droves because the attrition rate is the same -- the attrition rate refers to the number of positions lost when people leave, not the number of people who leave. The attrition rate is the same because experienced teachers are being replaced with inexperienced new graduates and Teach for America greenies.

4) Comment by phil - 08/02/2013

As an outsider (not a teacher) I think maybe the teachers who left were just tired of dealing with this mess. What about the teachers who leave the public schools system to go to work for a private school? Are they effective or are they ineffective?

5) Comment by tradewinns - 08/02/2013

i don't KNOW if either side is correct, but, if white doesn't have any "facts" neither do you have any for your assertions that his statements about ineffectual teachers leaving are incorrect.

6) Comment by crazycajun - 08/02/2013

L'il booby and his gang exist in a parallel universe called, "because I say it is". They are well aware of the low information voter's inability to understand what's really happening.