The L.A. Times tries some value-added assessment

The online education community is abuzz over today's L.A. Times article which attempts, per the subtitle, "Grading the Teachers."
Using the LAUSD's testing data, they in essence tracked which kids did better from the beginning of the year to the end, by teacher. (I'm with those, incidentally, who think that a front page photo of a so-called "bad teacher" was a fairly lousy example of reporting.) Teaching Now pulls out the gist, including what is different than expected. Susan Ohanian gives a rundown on what doesn't work about this (starting with yes, these are standardized test scores we're talking about here, something which is not dealt with in the article nearly enough). The Quick and Ed wonders what direction this will send things in (what, parents lobby? Only the engaged ones...whose kids are probably better set to succeed, anyway).

UPDATE: I'm reminded that one must include Gerald Bracey for a good understanding of what value-added assessment can and cannot do.