Wednesday, January 15, 2014

From Teachers College Record: Tough Issue on Flaws in VAM and Other Accountability Measures

Diane Ravitch's blog gave the link to this important issue from the Teachers College Record:


Featured Articles
by Alyson Lavigne, Thomas Good & Ronald Marx

by Thomas Good
In this article, the author describes the history of classroom research and notes that, despite potential for present day application, many of those who currently develop observational systems for evaluating teachers appear to be unaware of this literature. The author describes what we know about effective teaching, the limits of using this information, and the need for identifying new important outcomes of schooling that can be used in teacher evaluation.

by Spyros Konstantopoulos
This paper reviews the literature on teacher effects and focuses on value-added measures and their use in evaluating teachers. Suggestions about the use of value-added measures and about the future of teacher effects research are provided.

by Clarin Collins & Audrey Amrein-Beardsley
In this study, the researchers surveyed all 50 states and the District of Columbia to provide an inclusive national growth and value-added model overview.

by Corinne Herlihy, Ezra Karger, Cynthia Pollard, Heather Hill, Matthew Kraft, Megan Williams & Sarah Howard
This paper explores how state education officials and their district and local partners plan to implement and evaluate their teacher evaluation systems, focusing in particular on states’ efforts to investigate the reliability and validity of scores emerging from the observational component of these systems.

by David Berliner
Teacher assessment using value-added models of teacher efficacy suffer from a fatal flaw, namely, that a myriad of exogenous (unaccounted for) variables affect student test score growth and result in unstable estimates of teacher competency from class to class and year to year.

by Alyson Lavigne
This article discusses the intended and unintended consequences of high-stakes teacher evaluation. The potential for high-stakes teacher evaluation to meet the intended outcome of a better teacher workforce and improved student achievement is assessed, and the costs of doing so.

by Rick Ginsberg & Neal Kingston
This study examines accountability in teacher education in an era of testing. It compares how multiple professions evaluate program outcomes and identifies concerns with overemphasis on value-added models as the basis for assessing the impact of teacher preparation program graduates. Suggestions are offered for possible alternative paths.

by Ronald Marx
This article discusses the papers in the special issue of Teachers College Record addressing broad themes of reliability and validity that raise cautions regarding the usefulness of recent approaches to high-stakes evaluation of educators. Implications are drawn for the long-term health of the teacher labor market.

by Diane Ravitch
Foreword to the special issue on High-Stakes Teacher Evaluation.

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