Non-Value Added Evaluations

Policymakers and school administrators have embraced value-added models of teacher effectiveness as tools for educational improvement. Value-added is a means to measure how much a teacher has contributed to a student’s improvement in test scores. Many validity questions arise from this premise: are the results stable year to year with different tests and different students? Is this the only indicator of teacher effectiveness or are their broader and more appropriate measures of a teaching quality? How is the data being interpreted and utilized; to improve learning or debase teachers with public displays of rankings?

In his article, Reliability and Validity of Inferences About Teachers Based on Student Test Scores  Edward Haertel at Stanford University, explores the meaning of test scores and their positive and negative effects especially in relation to high stakes decisions.