Green Light?

On June 16, Stanton hosted an hour-long meeting in his office with AME Lauter, Data Analysis Editor Smith, Special Projects Editor Marquis,

and Education Editor Shuster. The purpose was to decide whether the paper would run the story or not. So first, the team updated Stanton

and made the case for going ahead.

But Smith wanted to make sure there were no unexpected surprises, either for the Times or for its editor. So, with Lauter’s approval, he presented the case against doing the project, laying out all the potential pitfalls. The team fully expected the series to cause a lot of controversy. Smith listed the drawbacks. For instance, he said it was inevitable that with a database this large, some teachers would be rated incorrectly—some to their advantage and others to their disadvantage. He noted that while he and Buddin had done everything possible to minimize errors, it would be impossible to eliminate them all.

Stanton grilled the staff about the methodology of the value-added analysis, as well as the final results. After some back and forth, Stanton declared himself satisfied. He judged both the methodology and the teacher ratings valid and defensible.

But what about the most sensitive question? When Lauter asked Stanton whether they should publish the teachers’ names, there was a very long pause. Then Stanton, a father himself, gave his decision—name the teachers. “I went into parent mode. If I was a parent, I would be mad at the LA Times if they did all this stuff and said here’s all these things, but we can’t tell you who they are because we want to respect their privacy or what have you,” comments Stanton. [12] The project was a go.



[12] Author’s interview with Russ Stanton on March 31, 2011, in Los Angeles. All further quotes from Stanton, unless otherwise attributed, are from this interview