Comment on Release of Value-Added Estimates for Individual Teachers in the LA Unified School District

The Los Angeles Times has published a series of articles and developed a database that include value-added statistical estimates of the effectiveness of individual teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District based on analyses of student test scores. Although the Times has sought to be clear on this point, some readers of the coverage have inferred that the RAND Corporation did these analyses. That inference is wrong; RAND was not involved in the Times' analysis or reporting.

RAND has done and will continue to do groundbreaking research on value-added methods. As a research institution, we uphold ethical standards for research involving human participants, and we do not disclose to the public the identities of individual participants in our studies without their express permission.

Topics

• Los Angeles
• Teachers and Teaching
• Value-Added Modeling in Education