Did An L.A. Educator Kill Himself Over Teacher Ratings?

A few miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, Miramonte Elementary School sits in a poor neighborhood where gangs are an everyday reality and college sounds like a pipe dream. Less than half of its students are native English speakers. This is where Rigoberto Ruelas, a popular fifth grade teacher, visited his students' homes and tutored them on the weekends.

On Sunday, law enforcement officials found Ruelas' body in the Angeles National Forest. Ruelas, 39, appears to have taken his own life. Now, the local teachers union is blaming the Los Angeles Times for Ruelas' death, saying that the Times' recent evaluation of local teachers drove Ruelas to suicide.

Did it?

In August 2010, the Times published a database of 6,000 elementary school teachers in the district as part of a larger investigation. The Times rated teachers based on how well they've been able to bring up their students' standardized test scores.

Ruelas was ranked as "average" and "less effective" in the database. He wasn't alone. School-wide, only five of Miramonte's 35 teachers got as high as "average" scores and the school itself was ranked as "least effective."

Although the Times published a lengthy disclaimer that its ratings of teacher success don't tell parents everything they need to know about a teacher or a school, some union leaders argue that the ratings were dangerously misleading, implying that teacher quality can be judged by test results.

Ruelas did not leave a suicide note. But his family members told reporters that he was upset by the low scores.

His grief is understandable. Being listed, in a public database, as "less effective" after 14 years of giving your all to the country's most at-risk students could feel discouraging and humiliating to a man who saw teaching as a calling, not just a job.

But demanding the demise of the teacher database in response to Ruelas' death -- as teachers union United Teachers Los Angeles is doing -- is the wrong response.

The death of Rigoberto Ruelas is a tragedy. However, blaming the Times for Ruelas' suicide sends the insulting message that teachers can't handle evaluation of their work, and that parents shouldn't be able to find out how their child's teachers compare to others in the area.

Standardized test scores should never be the be-all, end-all measure of how good a teacher is. Even fans of teacher ratings say student scores should account for half, or less, of a teacher's overall evaluation.

But they are still a way to evaluate success. If there is a ratings-related takeaway from Ruelas' death, it is that we need more information, not less, about what works in the classroom. How will we know which teachers need more support and training if we don't look at how their students are scoring?

The Times' teacher ratings have nudged the Los Angeles school district into making some positive changes. The district recently announced that it will start issuing confidential evaluations to employees based on the test scores of their students, and start scoring schools in publicly-available report cards.

L.A.'s deputy superintendent, John Deasy, has also said that most of a teacher's evaluation should come from observation in the classroom. This observation must be of not only the teacher but the students - at school and at home. No matter how talented a teacher is, there are myriad other influences at play in a child's education.

Rest in peace, Mr. Ruelas. "You were an example for each one of your students and a friend for all," a banner said in Spanish this week in front of Miramonte Elementary. "R.I.P. Mr. Ruelas."

Photo credit: James Sarmiento