Thursday, January 10, 2013

NY Post Calls This Teacher A Hero - But What Are His VAM Scores?

From tonight's Post website:

A California high school teacher with nerves of steel talked an armed teenager into surrendering moments after he blasted a fellow classmate in front of horrified students today, officials said.

The 16-year-old shooter walked into the first-period science class at Taft High School and shot another 16-year-old with a 12-gauge shotgun before firing at another student and missing, Kern County authorities said.

That’s when the heroic teacher -- identified by family as Ryan Heber -- prevented a potential school massacre when he “engaged” the shooter in conversation, officials said.

By talking to the student, that bought time for terrified students to escape and for a campus supervisor to join the tense talks, authorities said.

...

Taft police chief Ed Whiting said the teacher and campus supervisor put the students’ welfare ahead of their own safety.

“ We really want to really commend the teacher and campus supervisor for all they did to bring this to a very quick resolution,” Whiting said.

“They did a great job in protecting the kids and we can’t thank them enough for what they did today.”

Every day we get stories and editorials from the Post and other corporate media outlets that suggest the only good teachers are the ones who "add value" to their students' test scores.

How can they call this teacher a hero when they don't know if he's added value to his students' test scores?

A teacher can only be truly called a "hero" when he or she adds value to student test scores as judged by value added measurements.

Come on, Post hacking criminals - be consistent in your treatment of teachers.

Remember the rule - always treat with contempt unless said teacher is a member of TFA, works at a charter school or is a member of the Asshats4Educators and is crying out to be evaluated via VAM.

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