Research Brief: Access to “Effective Teaching” as per VAMs
Researchers of a brief released from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the primary research arm of the United States Department of Education (USDOE), recently set out to “shed light on the extent to which disadvantaged students have access to effective teaching, based on value-added measures [VAMs]” as per three recent IES studies that have since been published in peer-reviewed journals and that include in their analyses 17 total states.
Researchers found, overall, that: (1) disadvantaged students receive less-effective teaching and have less access to effective teachers on average, that’s worth about a four-week lack of achievement in reading and about a two-week lack of achievement in mathematics as per VAM-based estimates, and (2) students’ access to effective teaching varies across districts.
On point (1), this is something we have known for years, contrary to what the authors of this brief write (i.e., “there has been limited research on the extent to which disadvantaged students receive less effective teaching than other students.” They simply dismiss a
