UTLA says ranking was a contributing factor in teacher's suicide

[proud2BlibKansan]

<skip>

The motive for Ruelas taking his own life is far from clear. But officials with the United Teachers Los Angeles union said he had been upset since August, when the Los Angeles Times published his district ranking as a "less effective" teacher based on his students' standardized English and math test scores.
Ruelas scored "average" in getting his students up to acceptable levels in English, but "less effective" in math, and "less effective" overall. The school itself ranked as "least effective" in raising test scores, and only five of Miramonte's 35 teachers were ranked as average.

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Although other factors may have been at play in Ruelas' death, Mathew Taylor, chair of UTLA South Area, said Monday he believed the ranking was a contributing factor based on conversations with teachers at the school.
"He was a very well-respected teacher," Taylor said. "He took the pressure being applied to him to heart."

<skip>

By all accounts, he was a dedicated teacher who cared deeply about the children at Miramonte. Parents and students said he often stayed after school to tutor struggling kids and offer counseling so they stayed on the straight and narrow.

"He took the worse students and tried to change their lives," said Delgado, the former student. "I had friends who wanted to be gangsters, but he talked them out of it. He treated you like family."

more . . . http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100927/ap_on_re_us/us_teacher_found_dead

[Brickbat]

1. Has the UTLA planned any action?

The time for statements is just about done.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Just this statement so far:

On Sunday, the union, United Teachers Los Angeles, issued a statement demanding that the paper "take the so-called 'teacher effectiveness' scores off their website and cease and desist from publishing any further scores for individual teachers now or in the future.''
http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/education/rigoberto-ruelas-missing-teach/

[SoxFan]

3. Teacher unions are qualified as forensic psychologists?

:eyes:

Ghouls.

[Wednesdays]

5. You don't care for them much, do you?

:shrug:

[Brickbat]

6. It's possible to offer an opinion on something, which the UTLA director did.

He said he believed the ranking had something to do with it. When a clearly dedicated teacher who mentors people to stay out of gangs goes off and kills himself, it's natural to look for reasons, and natural to talk about the reasons that are staring us all in the face.

[dkf]

8. You would think someone who dealt with issues like gangs and poverty

Would feel they had more purpose in life than a rating.

I don't know what this poor man was thinking but I find it hard to believe a person who was so interested in his students would fixate on something like that. I'm guessing there was a lot more than this and I feel bad that we will probably learn all of them.

RIP.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Teaching was his entire life

I don't find this hard to believe at all.

[Whisp]

17. so you are absolutely sure you know why he killed himself.

sure you do.

good gawd.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. That's exactly what I said

:sarcasm:

good gawd. The failure to comprehend here is just staggering.

[dkf]

21. I don't know if we will ever know the truth.

The sick part is that if he wanted to escape his rating, now everyone knows about it. Where he was once one among many now he will be the rallying cry. Sigh.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Do you care for ANY union? or just teaching unions

are a problem?

[Whisp]

18. well if that is so, then can I play a detective, seeing as anything goes...

what if it wasn't suicide, but a murder, just to get the exact results we see here?

I want to be an astronomer in my next post.

[sabrina 1]

25. They claimed to be forensic psychologists?

Looks like people are getting pretty rattled over this tragedy. How about this. The people who knew him best talked to the Union and reported their own knowledge of what he was going through before he died?

Sometimes it's the simplest explanation that is the truth and most times, family and friends have a far better idea about these things, than strangers on the internet.

I completely agree with the Union's request to remove that fatal list from the L.A. Times website, unless they reveal their methodology so WE can judge just how they came to their conclusiions. Conclusions that contrast drastically with what we are learning about this teacher. Maybe a lawsuit would help them reveal the methods by which these evaluations came about. Maybe the L.A. Times should have found that out BEFORE the published the 'findings' or whatever they were.

But at least in this one case we know that their 'evaluations' have been challenged by the people best in a position to judge this teacher, his students and colleagues. I'll go with them anytime over some think tank funded by big business who never set foot inside any of the classrooms of those teachers.

[msongs]

4. results for LA Times on "newspaper effectiveness survey" = plunging sales nt

[Starry Messenger]

7. k & r

That's what his parents and other family and friends said before he was found dead. They were interviewed in the ABC news segment when they were looking for him. That's why they were worried he might have harmed himself. This whole story is deeply distressing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Public shaming has been used by closed societies to enforce

conformity... so this goes well beyond THIS story.

And yes, reminds me of other periods of world history in other areas of the world.

[Whisp]

12. ''Although other factors may have been at play in Ruelas' death,....'''

those factors will just be ignored and the usage of this poor dead man as a political pinata is quite acceptable for some.
still as disgusting as ever.

*vomits

[Hannah Bell]

13. oh, vomit yourself. check the timing, check what his family is saying.

and check the deform crowd's plans to use the times ratings to force more school closures, layoffs, & conversion to charters.

[Whisp]

15. deform crowd?

the sickness here is putrid.

[Hannah Bell]

16. it certainly is.

[CBR]

22. It is wretched but not surprising -- agenda trumps all. nt

[Brickbat]

27. Looking forward to hearing what those factors "may" be.

I won't even make you do it. I'll sit and wait until I hear from investigators what they are. But I'm not going to hold my breath while they look for them.

[Rex]

14. One more victim in the RWings hatefest for learning.

Proof that the trillion dollar suits are fucking clueless, like NCLB. To bad it is all about money, fucking crying shame.

[Dreamer Tatum]

19. So...is this supposed to be an argument against rating teachers?

If so, what bullshit.

[lillypaddle]

20. Ditto

:thumbsup:

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. Actually I believe it's more an argument against publishing those ratings in the local paper

[sabrina 1]

26. No, actually. Did you read the OP?

Maybe it WILL be an argument against smearing teachers or anyone else by using secret and questionable methods to evaluate people you never met and know nothing about.

Big business is not exactly a reliable source for education evaluations. And it seems they were way wrong about this one teacher.

Those best in a position to rate his work, have now spoken and it seems that the published evaluation was so wrong, it looks like the L.A. Times may have a few lawsuits on their hands.

[LWolf]

28. I knew they'd crawl out of the woodwork at some point.

Does the U.S. want teachers to WANT to take on the hardest to educate? It doesn't seem like it, does it?