Teacher Beat: UPDATED: Some Academics Push Back on Teacher-Student Link in 'Race to the Top':
"I've been making my way through the thousands of Race to the Top comments, and there are a handful from some academics who argue that there isn't a strong enough research base to support the use of 'value added' data for decisions involving teachers.
The inclusion of such measures in the Race to the Top guidelines appears to fly in the face of the Obama administration's promises to fund research-based approaches in the Race to the Top, these scholars contend.
Helen Ladd, a scholar at Duke University, argues that the proposed criteria would lead teachers to focus even more heavily on standardized tests, and that the value-added measures themselves are not reliable."
"I've been making my way through the thousands of Race to the Top comments, and there are a handful from some academics who argue that there isn't a strong enough research base to support the use of 'value added' data for decisions involving teachers.
The inclusion of such measures in the Race to the Top guidelines appears to fly in the face of the Obama administration's promises to fund research-based approaches in the Race to the Top, these scholars contend.
Helen Ladd, a scholar at Duke University, argues that the proposed criteria would lead teachers to focus even more heavily on standardized tests, and that the value-added measures themselves are not reliable."
