Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Atlanta explains how it calculates value-added scores. Using scores for “improvement, not accountability.” | Get Schooled

Atlanta explains how it calculates value-added scores. Using scores for “improvement, not accountability.” | Get Schooled:


Atlanta explains how it calculates value-added scores. Using scores for “improvement, not accountability.”

I ran a letter a few days ago from the principal of an Atlanta charter school expressing concerns about the value-added scores assigned to his school.
Atlanta is looking at both teacher and school-level value-added as part of its Effective Teacher in Every Classroom initiative. Using test scores, researchers are calculating how much “learning” Atlanta students gain in the standard school year. This sort of calculation is being made for school districts and teachers nationwide and will ultimately be done for every school system in Georgia  as we move to accountability models that measure student progress over time.
There is great debate over whether any value-added system — and Atlanta has hired some of the nation’s top