Does "value-added" have any value?
Sent to the Los Angeles Daily News, August 25, 2010
Ramon Cortines and Arne Duncan are convinced that using increases in standardized test scores for evaluating teachers is a good idea ("Cortines: LAUSD's success depends on continued embracing of reforms," August 25).
But these "value-added" evaluations are unstable. Teachers' ratings based on previous years are weak predictors of test scores at the end of a year with new students; a teacher who succeeds in boosting scores with one group will not necessarily succeed with others. Also, different tests result in different value-added scores for the same teacher.
In addition, there are ways of pumping up test scores without student learning, including teaching test-taking strategies and making sure weak students don't take the test.
We all want accountability. Value-added ratings are not the way to get it.
Stephen Krashen
Sources:
Not stable: Kane, T. and Staiger, D. 2009. Estimating Teacher Impacts on Student Achievement: An Experimental Evaluation. NBER Working Paper No. 14607 http://www.nber.org/papers/w14607
Different tests result in different value-added scores: Papay, J. 2010. Different tests, different answers: The stability of teacher value-added estimates across outcome measures. American Educational Research Journal 47,2.
Cortines: LAUSD's success depends on continued embracing of reforms
Los Angeles Daily News, August 25.
An emotional Ramon Cortines delivered his last "back to school" address as head of Los Angeles Unified on Wednesday, urging principals, parents and district officials to embrace reforms as the district faces increasing outside pressure to improve schools.
In a 30-minute speech at Hollywood High School, Cortines celebrated gains made by local students in the last few years and outlined programs he plans to launch in his final months at LAUSD, including the use of student test data in teacher evaluations.
Cortines plans to step down in the spring. Deputy Superintendent John Deasy is expected to replace him.
Cortines spoke hours before U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan chided LAUSD for failing to give teachers and parents more data on student achievement exam scores.
However, Cortines stressed his need to support employees as district officials work to negotiate controversial changes to labor contracts with union leaders.
"This is a time of transition ... but we all have much to be proud of and we must continue working together to continue improvements on behalf of our children," Cortines said.
"Thank you for the opportunity to work for you ... and with you," a teary Cortines added.
Cortines said he plans to include the controversial value-added analysis of exam scores, but only as one of several elements in district teacher evaluations.
Value-added, which compares a student's test score with his or her performance on previous tests, has received increased attention this month in the wake of stories published by the Los Angeles Times, which used the method of analyzing test scores to rate the effectiveness of some 6,000 elementary teachers.
A database of the teachers and a ranking of their effectiveness using the value-added method is expected to be released later this month by the newspaper.
Cortines said the district is developing a plan to use these scores as one of several pieces of a re-vamped teacher evaluation system. Parents can also expect "value-added" scores for all LAUSD schools in the next few months, including charter schools.
On Wednesday, though, Duncan criticized LAUSD for taking too long to release data and urged school officials across the country not to make the same mistakes.
"Los Angeles illustrates the problem. Like school systems throughout our nation, the L.A. Unified School District has years of data on its students, yet most administrators never shared that information with teachers in a useful way," Duncan said.
"Every state and district should be collecting and sharing information about teacher effectiveness with teachers and – in the context of other important measures – with parents."
Cortines and other LAUSD leaders have said that they believe teacher effectiveness information should remain, largely, a personnel issue that should not be public.
On Wednesday school board member Steve Zimmer said he thinks the data could be used in evaluations, but should not be public.
Board member Richard Vladovic, on the other hand, said "to deny accountability is to deny you make a difference."
Vladovic said while parents should have access to the information, reporters and other members of the public should not.
Board President Monica Garcia said she will push for the board to move quickly on the issue.
"I think we are all in agreement that we have an evaluation system that is flawed," Garcia said.
"But I am interested in being effective here."
As an LAUSD teacher on the verge of being dismissed by LAUSD for having reported the fraudulent graduation of 79 students from my school based on fixed STAR Reading Exam assessments, I wonder if I am living in the same reality as Howard Blume, Jason Song, Mitchell Landsberg and other L.A. Times reporters who surely know as much as I do about LAUSD's fraudulent practices and yet seem loathe to report it. Value added assumes that students have grade-level standards to begin with, which the majority do not. This is not acknowledged at any level of the assessment process. There is no pragmatic approach to catching them up based on acknowledging where they are really at. 4 weeks ago it came out tha NYC schools were fixing the assessments of Black and Latino students for the last 7 years, who it now appears are even worse off than they were 7 years ago. Why do LAUSD teachers have the answers to assessments that they are not supposed to grade, when their jobs depend on how well the students do? Might they fix assessments like has transpired in NYC? Will we have to wait 7 years like in NYC to find out about these fraudulent practice? At www.perdaily.com we do not obfuscate the truth.
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