Naive To Print Teachers' Scores, Says TFA Founder

Alexander Russo:

Just a day after a New York court found that value-added ratings for public school teachers should be revealed and reported publicly -- something that Joel Klein's DOE succeeded in encouraging the press corps to ask for -- TFA founder Wendy Kopp shot back at the notion that her organization should reveal the value-added ratings for its teachers -- and in particular the charge of being "hilariously hypocritical" in Steve Brill's book. Brill claimed that, because it promotes accountability so fiercely, TFA should reveal its teachers' performance ratings. Kopp claims to have been outraged at the LA Times' decision to name names last year and she writes, "Is it really naive to think that we should not be printing the names of teachers and the results they get on standardized tests in newspapers? Or is the naivete the notion that this might be a good path forward?" I wish Kopp had been so clear back a year ago when this was all first being debated -- it would have been brave and right of her -- and I love to poke TFA in the eye for, well, whatever I can think of (it's not hard to find things). But she's right that publishing the names and ratings is dumb, that the LA Times shouldn't have done it, that there's nothing necessarily hypocritical about TFA's decision to use the scores internally, and that Brill was amusing but incorrect to slam TFA in his book. Full Kopp statement below.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 29, 2011 2:04 AM
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