Strong words about LAT and teachers from a research expert *

I don't have any idea who's right in the controversy over using "value-added" measures to evaluate teachers, as the L.A. Times did to some notoriety last year. But I can't help but notice the detail of the criticism leveled at the paper's methods. Most notable was last week's University of Colorado report saying the Times got a lot of things wrong, and the paper's subsequent dubious story insisting the report mostly confirmed its work, and the subsequent back-and-forth with the Colorado researchers accusing the Times of lying and the paper defending its credibility with a jab at the credibility of its critics.

Now comes UCLA education professor Mike Rose, a specialist in social research methodology, to add his own pointed criticism of LAT methods. He posted it as a comment on the LAT website.

I grew up with The Times, know and admire people on the paper, and have been fortunate to contribute to its opinion page. But I have to ask: What is happening at The Times? With each article in Value-Added methods it gets deeper and deeper into a mess of its own making and displays further hubris or ignorance.

Rose goes on to point out the weakness of the paper's attack on the Colorado researchers' credibility — coming from Times staffers and a newspaper now heavily invested in asserting that "value-added" is legit — and he concludes that "the big, big question for me is how is it that this newspaper moved so strongly toward advocating a particular technology in school reform? The Times is not just editorializing that we need reform, but within its news department is taking a side on a technique. The paper is no longer reporting the news, but creating it and spinning it."

* More testy exchange: Times editor Russ Stanton emails the lead Colorado researcher that "many of your arguments are, at best, intellectually dishonest.” Witness LA has the blow-by-blow.