The Houston Chronicle, also on the TVAAS in Tennessee
The Houston Chronicle also recently published an article on the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) and what is happening and still ongoing in Tennessee. This is certainly interesting and worth a read, particularly because the Houston Independent School District is using essentially the same value-added model (i.e., the EVAAS) critiqued in this piece about Tennessee.
From the top of the article: “When Tennessee was competing for a half-billion dollars in federal education money, teachers agreed to allow the state to ramp up its use of student test scores for evaluating educators. But since winning the $500 million Race to the Top competition in 2010, teachers say the state has gone too far in using student test scores to assess their performance. They are now calling for legislation to place a moratorium on the use of so-called TVA[A]S scores until a special committee can review them.”
Maybe what is being argued and debated in Tennessee will have some carry over effects in Houston as well. We shall see.
What is also interesting to point out, though, is another interesting trend. As explained by a teacher in the article: “She said she’s actually benefited from changes to the teacher evaluation system, such as more constructive feedback because of the increased number of observations.” Almost always it is the case when a counterpoint is needed for an article