'Value Added' Models Gain in Popularity

Editorial Projects in Education. 6935 Arlington Road Suite 100, Bethesda, MD 20814-5233. Tel: 800-346-1834; Tel: 301-280-3100; e-mail: customercare@epe.org; Web site: http://www.edweek.org/info/about/

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Teacher Effectiveness; Achievement; Accountability; Outcomes of Education; School Effectiveness; Models; Measurement Techniques; Evaluation Methods

0277-4232

This article reports how "value-added" measures that track the "value" that schools add to individual students' learning over time are increasingly popular with educators and policymakers. Some view the methods as an antidote to accountability systems that focus solely on getting children to a specified achievement level on a state test, regardless of where they start. Others view them as a way to isolate the effects of teachers and schools on learning, separate from such background characteristics as race and poverty. One of the big attractions for educators is that value-added methods could provide a fairer way to measure school and teacher effectiveness than existing accountability systems. Such methods also can provide schools with diagnostic information about the rate at which individual children are learning in particular subjects and classrooms, making it possible to target assistance to students or teachers or areas of the curriculum that need help. However, as policymakers and practitioners rush to take up value-added methods, researchers continue to debate their merits and how the existing models can be improved.

ERIC

2007

EJ755789