THE VALUE OF VALUE ADDED METHODOLOGY

By Sidonye WilliamsAED 6335 School EvaluationSummer 2010

VALUE ADDED METHODOLOGY IN EDUCATION

It measures actual growth in student learning.

It can provide educators with valuable diagnostic information about students.

It can measure teachers effectiveness in the classroom.

Overall it can lead to better informed decisions that benefit everyone with stake in improving teaching and learning!

STUDENT GROWTH

Students should be tested in each grade and each subject every year.

We can then focus on the students’ gains, instead of on raw scores.

Students’ performance will be compared to his or her own past performance

USING VALUE ADDED DATA

Helps target individual interventions by analyzing students’ learning trajectories

Assessing the fairness and efficiency of advanced course placements

A better chance of meeting the needs of all students

SINGLE STANDARDIZED TEST CAUSE “SHED PATTERNS”

Williams Sanders created the term “Shed Patterns”. If you graph the gains described it creates a downward sloping line from left to right. Creating a picture similar to the shape of a tool shed.

Students with the lowest past performance make the greatest gains, but those who start with higher scores make little gains.

To much focus on the low performance students means we are holding back the other students.

William Sanders stated that

THE GOAL OF EDUCATORS AND THE SCHOOL SYSTEM IS THAT EACH CHILD SHOULD GAIN APPROXIMATELY THE SAME AMOUNT, ANYTHING ELSE IS UNETHICAL

TEACHER’S EFFECTIVENESS

Teacher’s effectiveness is the single largest factor affecting academic growth of populations of students.

The Tennessee Value Added Assessment System that uses statistical mixed model methodology has been demonstrated to produce estimates of school and teacher effects that are free of soioeconomic confoundings.

SANDER’S RESEARCH SHOWS

The effects of a bad teacher, or two consecutive bad teachers can stick with a child for years.

Highly effective teachers can push students to make significant gains regardless of their school’s location.

CLASSROOM CONTEXTUAL VARIABLES Effects of classroom size and classroom

hetrogeneity should be viewed as inhibitors to the appropriate use of student outcome data in teacher assessment.

A major component of a teacher’s evaluation should include a reliable and valid measure of a teacher’s effect on student academic growth over time.

TEACHERS DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Teachers who are effective with low achieving students teach those students.

Teachers that are effective with middle achieving students teach those students

Only low performing students make the greatest gains.

Only middle performing students make the greatest gains.

CONCLUSION

Principals should use value added data to make assignment decisions by matching teacher strength to student need.

Every state has the capacity to provide educators with value added data

Value Added data is helping educators find ways to improve their schools.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The information provide in this presentation was based on the following researches:

Value-Added Assessment from Student Achievement Data: Opportunities and Hurdles by William L. Sanders, July 2000

Teacher and Classroom context Effects on Student Achievement: Implications for Teacher Evaluation by S. Paul Wright, Sandra P. Horn, and William L. Sanders,

ADDITIONAL WEBSITES OF INFORMATION ARE LISTED ON THE HANDOUT. THANK YOU