Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Briefly Revisiting the Central Problem with SGPs (in the creator’s own words) | School Finance 101

Briefly Revisiting the Central Problem with SGPs (in the creator’s own words) | School Finance 101:


Briefly Revisiting the Central Problem with SGPs (in the creator’s own words)

When I first criticized the use of SGPs for teacher evaluation in New Jersey, the creator of the Colorado Growth Model responded with the following statement:
Unfortunately Professor Baker conflates the data (i.e. the measure) with the use. A primary purpose in the development of the Colorado Growth Model (Student Growth Percentiles/SGPs) was to distinguish the measure from the use: To separate the description of student progress (the SGP) from the attribution of responsibility for that progress.
http://www.ednewscolorado.org/voices/student-growth-percentiles-and-shoe-leather
I responded here.
Let’s parse this statement one more time. The goal, of the SGP approach, as applied in the Colorado Growth Model and subsequently in other states is to:
…separate the description of student progress (the SGP) from the attribution of responsibility for that progress.
To evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher on influencing student progress, one must certainly be able to attribute