UW-Madison lab works with controversial data for Chicago schools

Todd Finkelmeyer:

Nearly 30,000 public school teachers and support staff went on strike in Chicago this past week in a move that left some 350,000 students without classes to attend.

And while this contentious battle between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union blew up due to a range of issues -- including compensation, health care benefits and job security concerns -- one of the key sticking points reportedly was over the implementation of a new teacher evaluation system.

That's noteworthy locally because researchers with UW-Madison's Value Added Research Center (VARC) have been collaborating with the Chicago Public Schools for more than five years now in an effort to develop a comprehensive program to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of schools and teachers in that district.

But Rob Meyer, the director of VARC, says his center has stayed above the fray in this showdown between the Chicago teachers and the district, which appears close to being resolved.

"The controversy isn't really about the merits of value-added and what we do," says Meyer. "So we've simply tried to provide all the stakeholders in this discussion the best scientific information we can so everybody knows what they're talking about."

Much more on "value added assessment", here.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 16, 2012 1:57 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas