Brookings Institute Paper on VAMs and Their More Important Observational Counterparts
A paper recently released by the Brookings Institute (click here to read the paper in full) has “added” some “value” to our thinking about the use of observations in the teacher evaluation systems of topic here, and most all educational policy circles these days.
Researchers, as situated in the federal context surrounding these systems (including more than $4 billion now released to 19 states via Race to the Top and now 43 NCLB waivers also granted), examined the observational systems, rather than the VAMs themselves, as these observational systems typically accompany the VAM components in these (oft-high-stakes) systems.
Researchers found that the observational components of these systems certainly “add” more “value” than their VAM counterparts. This is true largely because, as researchers found in their analyses, only 22% of teachers were VAM-eligible (which is significantly lower than others’ estimates that usually hang around 30%). In this case, observational systems were the only real “hard data” available for the other 78% of teachers across school sites. In addition, researchers found (although we have known this prior) that “classroom observations have the potential of providing formative feedback to teachers that [theoretically] helps them improve their practice [more than VAMs]…[because] feedback from [VAMs]…is often too delayed and vague to produce improvement in teaching.”
Researchers do note, however, that “improvements are needed” if such observational systems are to carry the weight for which they are currently being tasked, again provided the above and their findings below:
- Observational biases also exist, as per their research, whereas teachers who are non-randomly assigned students who enter their classrooms with higher levels of prior achievement tend to get higher observational scores than teachers non-Brookings Institute Paper on VAMs and Their More Important Observational Counterparts |:
