AFT's Weingarten Backtracks on Using Value-Added Measures for Teacher Evaluations

Stephen Sawchuk:

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has announced that she'll call for the end of using "value added" measures as a component in teacher-evaluation systems.

Politico first reported that the AFT is beginning a campaign to discredit the measures, beginning with the catchy (if not totally original) slogan "VAM is a sham." We don't yet know exactly what this campaign will encompass, but it will apparently include an appeal to the U.S. Department of Education, generally a proponent of VAM.

Value-added methods use statistical algorithms to figure out how much each teacher contributes to his or her students' learning, holding constant factors like student demographics.

In all, though, Weingarten's announcement is less major policy news than it is something of a retreat to a former position.

When I first interviewed Weingarten about the use of test scores in evaluation systems, in 2008, she said that educators have "a moral, statistical, and educational reason not to use these things for teacher evaluation."

Much more on "value added assessment", here.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 12, 2014 12:31 AM
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