Name the Teachers?

For months, there had been intermittent discussions about whether to name the teachers. The team did consider other options. For instance, the Times could just report the number of teachers in various categories at individual schools—highly effective, average, highly ineffective—without naming names. In effect, rate the schools. But Special Projects Editor Marquis, for one, saw no point in that. She elaborates:

Then what are you telling people? OK, people, 20 percent of the teachers in this district are really bad at raising students’ test scores, and we know who they are. But we’re not going to tell you, because you might misunderstand it? I mean, that’s what I don’t get.

Reporter Song started out more wary but came to agree with Marquis that the Times couldn’t publish a story saying it had identified good and bad teachers, and then not provide readers with the underlying data. As a journalist, he believed that, in general, reliable information about public employees should be disclosed. Education Editor Shuster also favored naming the teachers. As a mother, she knew that parents usually found out about teachers through “gossip in the parking lot.” In a perfect world, she felt that LAUSD should have provided parents with solid teacher evaluations instead of leaving them to rely on rumors. Now the Times could do what the school district had not. AME Lauter initially was more skeptical, although in time he came to see naming teachers as a public service. He explains:

My grandparents were public school teachers in New York. My parents are college professors. So I’d kind of grown up around teachers. My initial reaction was, well, I don’t know whether I’m comfortable doing this.

In fact, many involved with the project had teachers in their families. Editor Stanton’s oldest daughter was a public school teacher, and his mother had been one as well. Reporter Felch had been a teacher himself before he became a journalist. Felch fully understood that some teachers would be embarrassed, and their reputations damaged, if the Times rated them low. But he believed that the greater good to the community outweighed this concern.

A lingering skeptic was Data Analysis Editor Smith. Smith did a lot of soul searching about posting teachers’ names. He was a 40-year veteran at the Times and had become the dean of computer-assisted reporting. He knew firsthand the power and the limits of data. All data, he knew, were “dirty” (misleading or incorrect) to one extent or another and, if not handled properly, flawed data could give unreliable results. But after the lengthy period of processing the data, and matching value-added results against classroom reality, Smith came around. He favored publishing the names.

But it was not Smith’s call. AME Lauter decided it was time to meet again with Editor Stanton.