VAMs and the “Dummies In Charge:” A Clever “Must Read”
Peter Greene wrote a very clever, poignant, and to the point article about VAMs, titled “VAMs for Dummies” in The Blog of The Huffington Post. While I already tweeted, facebooked, shared, and else short of printing this one out for my files, I thought it imperative I also share it out with you. Also – Greene gave us at VAMboozled a wonderful shout out directing readers here to find out more. So Peter — even though I’ve never met you — thanks for the kudos and keep it coming. This is a fabulous piece!
Click here to read his piece in full. I’ve also pasted it below, mainly because this one is a keeper. See also a link to a “nifty” 3-minute video on VAMs below.
If you don’t spend every day with your head stuck in the reform toilet, receiving the never-ending education swirly that is school reformy stuff, there are terms that may not be entirely clear to you. One is VAM — Value-Added Measure.
VAM is a concept borrowed from manufacturing. If I take one dollar’s worth of sheet metal and turn it into a lovely planter that I can sell for ten dollars, I’ve added nine dollars of value to the metal.
It’s a useful concept in manufacturing management. For instance, if my accounting tells me that it costs me ten dollars in labor to add five dollars of value to an object, I should plan my going-out-of-business sale today.
And a few years back, when we were all staring down the NCLB law requiring that 100 VAMs and the “Dummies In Charge:” A Clever “Must Read” |: