Devaluing value-added assessments

Jay Matthews:

I don't spend much time debunking our most powerful educational fad: value-added assessments to rate teachers. My colleague Valerie Strauss eviscerates value-added several times a week on her Answer Sheet blog with the verve of a samurai, so who needs me?

Unfortunately, value-added is still growing in every corner of our nation, including D.C. schools, despite all that torn flesh and missing pieces. It's like those monsters lumbering through this year's action films. We've got to stop them! Let me fling my small, aged body in their way with the best argument against value-added I have seen in some time.

It comes from education analyst and teacher trainer Grant Wiggins and his "Granted, but . . ." blog. He starts with the reasons many people, including him and me, like the idea of value-added. Why not rate teachers by how much their students improve over time? In theory, this allows us to judge teachers in low- and high-income schools fairly, instead of declaring, as we tend to do, that the teachers in rich neighborhoods are better than those in poor neighborhoods because their students' test scores are higher.

Much more on "value added assessment", here.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 14, 2012 3:02 AM
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