Should Journalists Rate the Teachers?

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES recently examined every third through fifth grade teacher in LA schools and measured them for effectiveness using a controversial method.

Then they created a searchable database and published it online.

The teachers freaked out.

"It is the height of journalistic irresponsibility to make public these deeply flawed judgments about a teacher's effectiveness," the LA teachers' union wrote in a statement. "The database will cause chaos at school sites, as parents scramble to get their children into classes taught by teachers labeled as 'effective' by a newspaper."

Is it the role of the newspaper (or the media in general) to do such research? Should they have made the results public?

Have the teachers rights been violated?