Be prepared: the LA Times is looking for dirt on Ruelas so they can exonerate themselves.

[Hannah Bell]

One key finding of the L.A. Times series is that there are many teachers and schools that seem effective and that are well-liked and sought after by parents, but, it turns out, aren't actually very effective in the classroom.

There's an important strain of the education reform movement that seeks to help these well-meaning teachers become more effective using fairly simple techniques that many teachers simply haven't been exposed to.

The L.A. Times released a statement of condolence but has held off making any reportorial judgment on the suicide, other than a quick blog post.

They're probably doing some shoe-leather reporting the radio and TV stations aren't likely to be doing. Thank God for print media...Again, just because a bunch of people think someone is a great teacher doesn't make it so...

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/education/rigoberto-ruelas-suicide-at-la/


Of course, the judgements of "a bunch of people" who actually know the person & see their work are meaningless.

Only opaque ratings systems financed by Bill Gates behind the scenes & devised by the RAND (Defense) Corporation "make it so", according to these death-dealing witchhunters.

LA Times = hack shills

[Luminous Animal]

1. Very effective by what measure? Test scores? Hahahahahaha!

Essentially, they are saying that parents and students are stupid and are unable to assess their own experiences.

[Hannah Bell]

2. Not only test scores. If the times had just published the test scores, transparently, it would

have been better than what they did.

what they published was an opaque "statistical analysis" *based* on test scores -- and other things -- and statistically adjusted -- and rendered into rankings -- such that no one reading the Times hit piece could examine the data for themselves or have any clue what said "rankings" were actually based on.

Ratings system devised by RAND Corp, funded under the table by the Gates Foundation.

Green Dot Schools funded by ELI BROAD waiting in the wings to take over the "ineffective" schools thus rated. After Broad took the mayor to the woodshed & twisted his arm a few times.

fascists.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. HB: What was Mr. Ruelas' actual ranking? nt

[chimpymustgo]

29. That link did not work for me: Not found.

[sabrina 1]

3. So I guess they've been reading the testimonials of

his students. So far, all of those who have spoken about him say he was a great teacher, some saying he was 'the best teacher' they ever had.

From the article posted earlier here:

Mourning for teacher found dead in forest

Ruelas' death stunned students and teachers at Miramonte Elementary School in South L.A., where he was described as a popular and energetic teacher. Parents, students, fellow teachers and others placed flowers and cards in front of the school. Crisis counselors were on campus to help students or teachers who sought help.

"You were an example for each one of your students and a friend for all," a hand-painted banner said in Spanish. "R.I.P. Mr. Ruelas."

The school principal, and officials of the Los Angeles Unified School District and the teachers union officials held a meeting with teachers and staff early Monday, and about 100 parents turned out for an emotional meeting with school officials after that.

"We are doing our best to come together as a school, as a family, to support our children, who are deeply affected by this, and also the teachers," said Principal Martin Sandoval.

"We would like to express our personal condolences to the family of Mr. Rigaberto Ruelas," LAUSD Supt. Ramon Cortines said in a statement. "Mr. Ruelas was a passionate and caring teacher, who put his students first. He made a difference in the lives of so many in his classroom, and by staying after the bell rang to tutor students. He encouraged his students to do better and aim higher, that they too could go to college. In addition, during his 14 years of teaching, Mr. Ruelas had nearly perfect attendance. We need more teachers like him."

Some of his former students posted in the comments attached to the article and if they are an example of his work, the L.A. Times will have a hard time justifying what they did to this man.

But I'm sure, after reading what the family said, they are worried about a lawsuit. I hope they are more worried about a boycott.

I for one will never buy that paper again and will encourage everyone I know to do boycott them also.

[Hannah Bell]

4. well, as the blogger for the times said, just because the students & his peers thought he was a

decent teacher, doesn't make it so.

to *really* know if he's a good teacher, bill gates has to pay for a data analysis.

only the prep school boys can assess *quality*.

the plebes can't be trusted with that kind of thing; their standards are so low, you know.

[sabrina 1]

7. Yes, just like Bush and his business buddies who

were the initiators of all this. A man who had trouble putting two sentences together, proud to be a 'C' student, was suddenly the 'education president'.

Those prep school teachers responsible for his education should be listed somewhere in some major publication and shamed for their part in the destruction of this country.

I'm sure they'll find a few 'students' who, with enough 'encouragement' will be willing to say he was not a good teacher. They'll wait a while until people 'get over' his death I'm sure, sensitive creatures that they are. But right now I am certain the search has already begun.

I hope the family will sue the L.A. Times. For one thing it would force a revelation of the methodology used to 'evaluate' teachers and then WE could evaluate their methods.

It is important to get a look at their methodology which I have no doubt once it is revealed, like BP's 'safety plans', will be easily discredited. And that alone would help slow down this trainwreck for a while and put THEM on the defensive for a change.

[Hannah Bell]

11. How the LA Times Got the Teacher Ratings Wrong: The worst teacher in Los Angeles

Last month the Los Angeles Times decided to publish their own "ranking" of teacher "effectiveness" in the LA Unified School District, based entirely on test scores....Today, however, comes a story that proves just how flawed and misleading the LA Times teacher ratings really were. It's a story of a recently retired LAUSD teacher who was ranked as "the worst" by the LA Times - a ranking that came as a huge surprise to her former students...

http://www.calitics.com/diary/12545/how-the-la-times-got-the-teacher-ratings-wrong


What happened was, she got a class with only five English-speaking students. "Ireland knew that if they landed in ESL programs in middle school, they would have few chances to take challenging academic classes." So she focused on English skills instead of test prep -- even though other teachers warned her her test scores would suffer.

And by the end of the year, all her students were fluent in English.

****

In other words, she could have done what the state and the LA Times wanted - teach to the test - or she could have actually paid attention to her students, understood their actual educational needs, and made sure those needs were met so that they can thrive in their later years of schooling.

She did the latter, and that's what makes a truly great teacher. By any standard her work would be seen as a huge success, and she would be held up as a model educator. That is, under any standard except the one the LA Times used to brand her as the "least effective" in the entire LAUSD.

http://www.calitics.com/diary/12545/how-the-la-times-got-the-teacher-ratings-wrong


What a horrible teacher:

There was a red binder crammed with letters that former students sent over the years; a stack of printouts from her Facebook page, where students and parents are rallying to her defense; and a video of her retirement dinner, featuring a student from the fifth-grade class of 1976, now a college professor with a PhD, who came back from Indiana to thank her: "I didn't have any extraordinary talent," Helen Neville told the crowd. "But she believed I could do extraordinary things if I applied myself. And she gave me the tools to do that."

Some, like this one that arrived last January, are from students she barely recalls: "I don't really know what you saw in me to inspire the type of kindnesses you bestowed upon me, but I want to thank you for them because I never forgot how they made me feel."

Those kindnesses? Ireland appointed the girl to clean the faculty lounge, a "privilege" that went to one student each year and paid 10 cents every day. She let the girl help file classmates' work in the cabinet next to the teacher's desk. She gave the girl a ride to school some mornings, when she passed the girl walking alone.

"These may seem like small simple things, but as I write this letter to you, 30 years later, my eyes are filling up with tears. You must have known that I needed to feel special and you took the time and made the effort to help me in ways that have lasted for my lifetime."

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-banks-20100914,0,6236087,full.column

[sabrina 1]

24. I think the Union should sue the perpetrators of these 'evaluations'

which would force the exposure of their flawed method for one thing.

This sounds like the kind of teacher who is badly needed. Someone who understands how children learn and what is important.

She should have been rewarded for her work. What a disgrace this is. No one is a better judge of how good a teacher is than the parents and students they have worked with.

[dkf]

6. The link doesn't work for me...

[sabrina 1]

8. Interesting, it seems to be gone, as I found it on google but

it didn't work there either anymore.

Try this:

http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=http%3a%2f%2fblogs.laweekly.com%2finformer%2feducation%2frigoberto-ruelas-suicide-at-la&d=865417563232&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=f0fa660c,f5832214

Seems to be working. Found it in the cache ...

[Hannah Bell]

9. wonder if they scrapped it because it was calling the dead teacher ineffective.

thanks for finding it.

& i note i said it was a blogger at the times; it's actually a blogger for the la weekly.

[sabrina 1]

10. It was very disrespectful and snide, very defensive also.

I wouldn't be surprised if they got some complaints and decided to make it disappear. Someone should get a screen shot of it, might be useful later. I didn't realize it was an L.A. Times blogger.

[Hannah Bell]

12. i agree, & it would be my guess they got complaints too, but i don't know how to do screen shots,

[sabrina 1]

13. I don't know either. Maybe I'll just copy and paste it and put it in a

file. At least the content would be still be available.

I hope they got complaints and I hope they get a lot more. I also hope they rethink sliming this teacher even more than they have already as I don't think that will help them very much.

The Union has called for them to remove the ratings from their website. I doubt they will as that would be an admission that it had something to do with the death.

I also hope other teachers named by them decide to sue.

[sabrina 1]

14. Just thought of something.

They might have received complaints from the Police Dept. Cops don't particularly like being made fun of or smeared. They generally don't have much of a sense of humor about such things.

In the blog post, the blogger really went after the police officer who knew the teacher and praised him as an excellent and beloved teacher. He apparently also indicated that the L.A. Times publishing of the ratings may have had something to do with his death.

And whose theory are KNX and KCAL and other radio and TV stations so heavily relying upon?


There's some unnamed family members. Then there's a South Gate Police Department spokesman named Tony Mendez, who told the local CBS affiliate KCAL, "He was stressed out because of the teacher ranking in the L.A. Times because it wasn't a direct reflection of his performance.

"He was an outstanding teacher," Mendez went on. "His coworkers have praised him for the outstanding work he does at work. His students always speak very highly of him. And parents also. So he's very well liked. And he takes his job very seriously. He's very dedicated to his job. He was stressed out."

If Officer Mendez is a psychiatrist, he's not identified as such by KCAL, and let's stipulate that he's not.

S/he then goes on to further insult the cop:

Dr., er, Officer Mendez offers no clues to any of these questions.


Although in addition to his vast knowledge of psychiatry, Mendez is apparently also an education expert and knows the teaching abilities of Ruelas.


Except that, you know, more than likely, this officer hasn't a clue what he's talking about. But he's a local cop, so, hey, that's good enough for local media.

Not very smart 'reporting'. I have a feeling they heard from 'Dr., er, Officer Mendez who I'm sure didn't appreciate the snide comments made about him.

I would not blame the cop for being angry if he was one of those who complained. His heartfelt comments were made about someone he knew, and someone who just died a tragic death. To see them used this way would definitely make someone already mourning, very angry.

This blogger does not even know what relationship they had. The cop may have had a child in his class eg. which would make him a very good judge of what kind of teacher he was.

But then, what could you expect from anyone connected to the L.A. Times. They're not big on doing any actual research before they publish their material it seems.

[Wednesdays]

17. Wha...? You need to be a licensed psychologist

to notice someone is "stressed out?" To regard someone as an "outstanding teacher?" :wtf:

I mean, talk about desperation and grasping for straws!

[blondeatlast]

23. Wow, that blogger sounds defensive as hell. He knoews he messed up. nt

[Fumesucker]

19. Your link was to a Google cache, not the original article..

The cache should stick around even if the original article is deleted.

[sabrina 1]

21. Yes, I know. The article seemed to disappear

so I checked the cache and found it there. Can't they remove it from the Cache also though?

[Hannah Bell]

28. here's the hit piece that replaced it. but look at the comments: the public's not buying it.

A.J. Duffy should resign in wake of Ruelas suicide: UTLA chief, not the L.A. Times, is the rot in Southern California school wars

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/education/aj-duffy-should-resign-suicide/

[sabrina 1]

30. Wow, she's a female Andrew Breitbart!

Is she on the payroll of the L.A. Times? That is the worst piece of writing I have ever seen related to a real tragedy, other than Breitbart's vicious Tweet after the death of Ted Kennedy.

I noticed one comment btw, which was the exact same one posted to the other article. A copy and paste:

Reuben says:

OK lets be realistic...this man had emotional problems that went far beyond his rating as a teacher. I received a poor performance review once at work and I was hardly suicidal. The teachers union (those thieves) needs to stop trying to make him a martyr. I HATE UNIONS!!!

Mmm, I was going to post the one he copied from the other article, but the comments seem to be gone. Maybe it's me? Some of those comments were wonderful, many from former students of the teacher.

I copied and pasted the article, which was written by a different blogger, but forgot about the comments.




I guess this time they decided to attack the Union instead of the friends and family and police who expressed their shock at the death of this wonderful teacher.

I hope parents and teachers and students both former and present, hold a huge protest march outside the offices of the L.A. Times.

[Wednesdays]

16. Screen shots are easy

I don't know how it's done on a Mac, but in Windows:

1. Press the "Print Screen" button, which will capture how your screen looks at that moment.
2. Open up any paint program. Windows comes with "Paint" and that will do. Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Paint.
3. Paste the screencap into the Paint program (Control-V), and save.

[sabrina 1]

22. Thank you, I'll try that ~

[sabrina 1]

15. I see the unrec'ing crew has arrived. Possibly the blogger

from the L.A. Weekly maybe? Or friends of Bill and Arne. Sad that anyone would be so into their politics that they would try to suppress a story like this.

[Panaconda]

18. K&R n/t

[Fumesucker]

20. K&R, thanks for posting..

[EFerrari]

25. They're doing it for the children.

:sarcasm:

[blondeatlast]

26. Which SHOULD lessen their credibility even more. Maggots. nt

[blondeatlast]

27. His family isdevastated, as are his students--but goddamnit, the LA Times

has got to print the schmooze that matters.

Did I metion that the LAT are maggots? Just in case I didn't--the LA Times are maggots.

[Starry Messenger]

31. What dicks.

x( They need to own their irresponsible shit.

[maryf]

32. k&r

:(