Why we should use 0% VAM on teacher evaluations

@ The Chalk Face lists a number of reasons why Value Added Measures (VAM) should not be used to evaluate educators

  • A fundamental premise in statistics is do not use a metric for some purpose other than the one for which it was designed. Student tests are not designed to measure teacher quality.
  • An ethical problem with VAM is holding one person (teacher) accountable for another person’s (student’s) performance.
  • Campbell’s Law.
  • What is tested is what is taught—the high-stakes accountability era has taught us that the more we focus on testing, the less we ask from teachers and students.
  • The only fair way to implement VAM is to pre- and post-test every student in every class throughout the U.S. This is not justifiable in its cost in either time or money for the outcomes.
  • Using VAM in any way incentivizes each teacher to use her/his students against the outcomes of other teachers’ students, possibly the most ethically damning aspect of VAM.

In Ohio, where available, VAM accounts for 50% of a teachers evaluation, even if students in their class are chronically truant.