Another Scholarly Take on Teacher Value-Added
Value-added estimates, as one component of teacher evaluations, offer important information for teachers and administrators, and their reliability is roughly on par with performance estimates used in other fields, a bunch of high-powered scholars assert in a report released today by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
While an imperfect measure of teacher effectiveness, the correlation of year-to-year value-added estimates of teacher effectiveness is similar to predictive measures for informing high-stakes decisions in other fields, the report states. Examples include using SAT scores to determine college entrance, mortality rates and patient volume as quality measures for surgeons and hospitals, and batting averages as a gauge for selecting baseball talent.
Statistical predictions in those fields are imprecise, too, but they're able to predict larger differences across providers than other measures and so are used, the authors write.
The report is notable for standing in contrast with several others issued recently, such as this one from the