The quality, fairness, and reliability of
teacher effectiveness measures will make or break any policy aimed at identifying and rewarding highly effective teachers, exiting low performers, and preparing and supporting new teachers or those struggling somewhere in the middle.
The study, «Principal Use of
Teacher Effectiveness Measures for Talent Management Decisions,» was conducted by a team of Vanderbilt University researchers.
It is first worth noting that the inclusion of
the teacher effectiveness measures does little to change the estimated effects of the teacher, school, and district characteristics discussed above.
Any time I look at statistics on student growth or
teacher effectiveness measured against student grades and test scores, I try to remember this.
Not exact matches
A few years ago, a young economist at Northwestern University named Kirabo Jackson decided he wanted to investigate the ways we
measure the
effectiveness of
teachers.
Jackson's proxy
measure then allowed him to do some intriguing analysis of
teachers»
effectiveness.
I do remind folks that NCLB had its origins in legislation passed in Texas during the 1980s (under then - Gov Mark White) where, in exchange for
teacher raises / bonuses, standardized tests were instituted to «
measure»
teacher «
effectiveness».
One is that we should be thinking about value - added in a different way, and that there's maybe an innovative way to
measure more broadly the
effectiveness of
teachers.
Research indicates that any Value Added
Measure (VAM) that utilizes one measurement to an inordinate level such as the 50 % suggested by the Governor is ineffective in correlating a
teacher's
effectiveness as it relates to student learning.
The American Statistical Association and other research groups have issued serious cautions about using test scores to
measure teacher effectiveness, with some concluding it is junk science.»
Following a three - year study that involved about 3,000
teachers, analysts said the most accurate
measure of a
teacher's
effectiveness was a combination of classroom observations by at least two evaluators, along with student scores counting for between 33 percent and 50 percent of the overall evaluation.
Their implementation came at the same time a new
teacher evaluation system went into effect across New York state, using some of the test results from the new curriculum as a
measure of a
teacher's
effectiveness and ultimately job security.
«New York City's results prove that Governor Cuomo's evaluation system
measures teacher effectiveness when implemented in good faith — making it a critical tool to improve schools for kids.
«We are relying more than ever on state exams — to
measure student achievement, to evaluate
teacher and principal
effectiveness, and to hold schools and districts accountable for their performance,» Regents Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch said.
«It doesn't accurately
measure student achievement or
teacher effectiveness.»
Using what the city calls a «new framework for
measuring teacher effectiveness» instituted in December, principals approved fewer
teachers for tenure this year — 58 percent of 5,209
teachers as opposed to 97 percent of those eligible in 2006 - 7.
Whatever the parties negotiate or King decides, the evaluation system will be based 20 percent on standardized test scores when applicable, 20 percent on other evidence of student learning and 60 percent on classroom observation and other
measures of
teacher effectiveness, in keeping with the 2010 state law on
teacher evaluation.
The report tracked
teacher retention patterns alongside
effectiveness levels from 2011 - 13, when the state first implemented its multiple
measures evaluation system, the Tennessee Evaluator Acceleration Model (TEAM).
It would seem that the ongoing discussions about «
teacher effectiveness» and the creation of evaluation systems focused on
measuring a
teacher's capacity (increasingly based on test scores) often do very little to actually develop that capacity.
And the evidence on the importance of
teacher academic proficiency generally suggests that
effectiveness in raising student test scores is associated with strong cognitive skills as
measured by SAT or licensure test scores, or the competitiveness of the college from which
teachers graduate.
A strong emphasis on
teacher evaluation and
measuring effectiveness has led to increasing skepticism about American
teachers and a lack of trust.
But, as numerous studies have shown, having a master's degree is generally not correlated with
measures of
teacher effectiveness, based on student test scores.
Additional research that validates these
measures of
teacher effectiveness on non-tested outcomes would have important implications not only for
teacher recruitment, assessment, and placement, but also for improving overall life trajectories of students.
The reports nearly always present a rosier picture of the student's progress (and by implication of the
teacher's
effectiveness) than other
measures might reveal.
Congress should also provide incentives to states where standards are really low to raise the standards, and provide incentives to states to develop meaningful
measures of
teacher effectiveness.
A composite
measure on
teacher effectiveness drawing on all three of those
measures, and tested through a random - assignment experiment, closely predicted how much a high - performing group of teachers would successfully boost their students» standardized - test scores, concludes the series of new papers, part of the massive Measures of Effective Teaching study launched more than three ye
measures, and tested through a random - assignment experiment, closely predicted how much a high - performing group of
teachers would successfully boost their students» standardized - test scores, concludes the series of new papers, part of the massive
Measures of Effective Teaching study launched more than three ye
Measures of Effective Teaching study launched more than three years ago.
How long did it take for us to realize that a standardized test score isn't the best way to
measure teacher effectiveness?
In exchange, states have promised to adopt college - and career - readiness standards,
measure teacher effectiveness in...
The authors address three criticisms of value - added (VA)
measures of
teacher effectiveness that Stanford University education professor Linda Darling - Hammond and her colleagues present in a recent article: that VA estimates are inconsistent because they fluctuate over time; that
teachers» value - added performance is skewed by student assignment, which is non-random; and that value - added ratings can't disentangle the many influences on student progress.
But now some 20 states are overhauling their evaluation systems, and many policymakers involved in those efforts have been asking the Gates Foundation for suggestions on what
measures of
teacher effectiveness to use, said Vicki L. Phillips, a director of education at the foundation.
As importantly, it appears that existing survey - based
measures of non-cognitive skills, although perhaps useful for making comparisons among students within the same educational environment, are inadequate to gauge the
effectiveness of schools,
teachers, or interventions in cultivating the development of those skills.
The Gates Foundation is funding a $ 45 million project to improve
measures of
teacher effectiveness.
And the better our
measures of
teacher effectiveness become, the better a merit - pay system would work.
Finally, we ran our analysis including value - added
measures of
teacher effectiveness for the subset of
teachers we are able to link to individual students.
It is in their uses as
measures of individual
teacher effectiveness and quality that such
measures are particularly inappropriate.»
On the basis of these survey results, we created three
measures: (1) the principal's overall assessment of the
teacher's
effectiveness, which is a single item from the survey; (2) the
teacher's ability to improve student academic performance, which is a simple average of the organization, classroom management, reading achievement, and math achievement survey items; and (3) the
teacher's ability to increase student satisfaction, which is a simple average of the role model and student satisfaction survey items.
The
measures of
effectiveness seem to be wholly untethered to
teachers» self - assessments.
•
Measuring effectiveness and attaching rewards / consequences for administrators and
teachers.
By way of comparison, the authors note that the impact of being assigned to a
teacher in the top - quartile rather than one in the bottom quartile in terms of their total effect on student achievement as
measured by student - test - based
measures of
teacher effectiveness is seven percentile points in reading and six points in math.
But if the scores are flawed, biased, or incomplete
measures of learning or
teacher effectiveness, the models won't pick that up.
He concedes, however, that his own research shows that race, gender, and socioeconomic status have little effect on value - added
measures of
teacher effectiveness.
In Table 1 of the technical report (on which Jay bases his critique), the MET team uses evaluation
measures from 2009 - 10 to test their ability to «post-dict»
teachers»
effectiveness the previous year.
On the third point, Hess explains that value - added
measures of
teacher effectiveness are too imprecise and unreliable when just a few years of data are used to judge individual
teachers.
Moreover, even small differences in
measured effectiveness can have practical consequences for schools and
teachers, depending on how these assessments are used.
You won't find much about union support, but you will learn more about how officials and average citizens are coming to see that
teacher and school
effectiveness can be
measured and improved.
Some districts and states already are using students» achievement in an attempt to
measure teacher effectiveness.
While
measures of
teachers» general academic skills, such as SAT scores and college selectivity, are often statistically significant predictors of
teachers»
effectiveness in raising student achievement, their effects are modest in size.
Ultimately, the administration hopes states will improve their approach to professional development and create ways of
measuring teacher effectiveness.
All performance reviews are vulnerable to this kind of disconnect, but when it comes to classroom observations as a
measure of
teacher effectiveness, the stakes can feel particularly high.
A lot of work has been done since 2000 in the policy area of
measuring teacher effectiveness.