Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: An Archaeological Dig for VAM

Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: An Archaeological Dig for VAM

An Archaeological Dig for VAM

The following is an edited log of an asynchronous online discussion of the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System (TVAAS) for assessing teachers. This discussion took place in late 1994 and early 1995 on an internet LISTSERV known as EDPOLYAN, which was housed at the Arizona State University College of Education.

The TVAAS was one of the first techniques proposed for measuring the value that teachers added to students' learning, namely, VAM systems. "Value," in this context was taken to mean pre-test to post-test gains in class averages on standardized tests. TVAAS was developed by an agricultural statistician at the University of Tennessee, William L. Sanders, and first published in a little known journal in 1994, just months before this discussion took place. Sanders occasionally participated in the discussion that follows, but it will soon become apparent that he was not happy with the direction the discussion took. He died in 2010.

The log of the discussion was edited in an attempt to add clarity and reduce redundancy. Each participant in the discussion was given the opportunity to review the edited log and make corrections.

The reader may want to know that TVAAS and VAM more generally became the object of a great deal of attention from the political world and from academics studying statistics and teacher evaluation. VAM made appearances in the accountability plans of several states during the Obama administration -- largely because it had won the approval of Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan. Post-Obama, VAM made a few appearances in court, where decisions largely enjoined its use. Suffice it to say, by 2020 VAM is little used and has few friends.

Anyone with a continuing interest in VAM will learn much from Audrey Amrein-Beardsley's blog Vamboozled.

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Date: Fri, 9 Sep 1994 12:57:52 EDT
From: Scriven@AOL.COM

"Do you really want to see teaching become an even higher-turnover CONTINUE READING: Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: An Archaeological Dig for VAM