Tennessees’ TVAAS (now EVAAS) Developer W. L. Sanders on his VAM
The model I know best, as I have been researching this one for now almost a decade, is the TVAAS (which is now more popularly known as the EVAAS) which, as mentioned numerous times on this blog, has its strong roots in Tennessee. It is in Tennessee that William L. Sanders, a then (in the 1980s/90s) Adjunct Professor of Agriculture at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, developed the TVAAS.
Contrary to what was written in an article released today in The Tennessean, however, he did not invent “value-added.” This has been a mainly econometric approach that can be found in economics literature since the 1970s. Regardless, it is worth a read of this articleto understand this model’s history, the model in education from which much of the current education system’s value-added “craze” (or as they call it “vogue” trend) came, as this article was written in response to the many lawsuits coming to fruition in Tennessee (see posts forthcoming this week), largely in the model’s defense.
Interesting points to point out:
- The state of Tennessee pays $1.7 million annually to SAS to calculate their TVAAS scores, and to also put them online. This is certainly a nice chunk of taxpayer funds per year, also considering that the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina use the EVAAS statewide as well.
- “Sanders dismisses claims of volatility,” when the research evidence coming from the EVAAS system continues to warrant the counter claims; that is, that this model is about as volatile as the rest of the models that are currently available and operational.
- Sanders claims that the model’s “formula adjusts for one-offs,” again contrary to what continues to emerge in the research. The statistics, unfortunately, do not work