Teacher Evaluation Recommendations Endorsed by the Educational Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association (APA)
Recently, the Educational Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association (APA) endorsed a set of recommendations, captured withing a research brief for policymakers, pertaining to best practices when evaluating teachers. The brief, that can be accessed here, was authored by Alyson Lavigne, Assistant Professor at Utah State, and Tom Good, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona.
In general, they recommend that states’/districts teacher evaluation efforts emphasize improving teaching in informed and formative ways verses categorizing and stratifying teachers in terms of their effectiveness in outcome-based and summative ways. As per recent evidence (see, for example, here), post the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2016, it seems states and districts are already heading in this direction.
Otherwise, they note that prior emphases on using teachers’ students’ test scores via, for example, the use of value-added models (VAMs) to hold teachers accountable for their effects on student achievement and simultaneously using observational systems (the two most common teacher evaluation measures of teacher evaluation’s recent past) is “problematic and [has] not improved student achievement” as a result of states’ and districts’ past efforts in these regards. Both teacher evaluation measures “fail to recognize the complexity of teaching or how to measure it.”
More specifically in terms of VAMs: (1) VAM scores do not adequately compare teachers given the varying contexts in which teachers teach and the varying factors that influence teaching and student learning; (2) Teacher effectiveness often varies over time making it difficult to achieve appropriate reliability (i.e., consistency) to justify VAM use, especially for high-stakes decision-making purposes; (3) VAMs can only attempt to CONTINUE READING: Teacher Evaluation Recommendations Endorsed by the Educational Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association (APA) | VAMboozled!