$30K per student; 40% graduation rate; 2% of teachers denied tenure...can we talk?

Some amazing statistics and an interesting story-- from the editorialists of the WSJ-- reporting on a story in the LA Times...

The fight for teacher accountability is gaining traction around the country, and the latest evidence is that the unions are objecting to a newspaper bold enough to report . . . the news. That's the story out of Los Angeles, where...the Los Angeles Times published evaluations of some 6,000 city school teachers based on how well their students performed on standardized tests.

The paper is defending its publication of the database as a public service amid union boycott threats, and rightly so. Since 1990, K-12 education spending has grown by 191% and now consumes more than 40% of the state budget. The Cato Institute reports that L.A. spends almost $30,000 per pupil, including capital costs for school buildings, yet the high school graduation rate is 40.6%, the second worst among large school districts in the U.S....

The database generated 230,000 page views within hours of being published on the paper's website, so the public would appear to want this information.

The Times rated teachers using a "value added" analysis that has been popular in education research for years. To account for the fact that children in the same class often start the school year with different abilities, the value-added approach looks at individual student progress from year to year. An instructor is credited or faulted based on how much progress the student makes under that instructor....

Currently, less than 2% of teachers are denied tenure in L.A., and teacher evaluations don't take into account whether students are learning....