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Monday, June 10, 2013

Jersey Jazzman: Jonah Rockoff Testifies at NJBOE: Part II

Jersey Jazzman: Jonah Rockoff Testifies at NJBOE: Part II:

Jonah Rockoff Testifies at NJBOE: Part II

Here's Part I of this series: Rockoff talks teachers and baseball.

Let's get back to Jonah Rockoff's testimony at the NJ State Board of Education.

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Rockoff's most famous piece of research is a paper he coauthored with Raj Chetty and John Friedman that was released last year: "THE LONG-TERM IMPACTS OF TEACHERS: TEACHER VALUE-ADDED AND STUDENT OUTCOMES IN ADULTHOOD" It is admittedly a fascinating piece of work, and I certainly wouldn't argue with its conclusions: teaching quality does matter and yields small but real and (somewhat) lasting effects in a student's life.

No, the problem with Chetty, Friedman, Rockoff isn't the paper itself; it's how the paper's conclusions were abused. As both Matt DiCarlo and Bruce Baker pointed out at the time - and as the paper itself cautioned - there was no reason, based on this study, for policy makers to start firing teachers based on their value-added scores.