Doug Harris Crunches Critics in Value-Added Smackdown
by Frederick M. Hess • Feb 14, 2012 at 8:06 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
 Print |  Send |  RSS |
ShareThe University of Wisconsin's Doug Harris has torched a couple of would-be critics for their inane, inept, and unfair review of his book Value-Added Measures in Education (Harvard Education Press 2011). For those who appreciate such things, his response is a classic dismemberment of the Education Review take penned byArizona State University's Clarin Collins and Audrey Amrein-Beardsley. For everyone else, it's important because it sheds light on why it's so damn hard to sensibly discuss issues like value-added accountability. (Collins and Amrein-Beardsley also penned a re-rebuttal, which is fun primarily because it reads like a note from the kid you caught spray-painting your Prius who tells you, "It wasn't me, it wasn't spray paint, I was actually washing your car, and I was only trying to help hide that dent.")
I've long argued that the worthwhile debate over value-added accountability is not whether it's "good" or "bad" but how to do it smart. Harris tries to write a book on just that question, full of useful insights and caveats. His reward for his efforts is to get bludgeoned by Collins and Amrein-Beardsley, who label him a value-added enthusiast for failing to reflexively reject value-added systems. This is the kind of crazed reaction that
