skills

How Do Value-Added Indicators Compare to Other Measures of Teacher Effectiveness?

Via

Highlights

  • Value-added measures are positively related to almost all other commonly accepted measures of teacher performance such as principal evaluations and classroom observations.
  • While policymakers should consider the validity and reliability of all their measures, we know more about value-added than others.
  • The correlations appear fairly weak, but this is due primarily to lack of reliability in essentially all measures.
  • The measures should yield different performance results because they are trying to measure different aspects of teaching, but they differ also because all have problems with validity and reliability.
  • Using multiple measures can increase reliability; validity is also improved so long as the additional measures capture aspects of teaching we value.
  • Once we have two or three performance measures, the costs of more measures for accountability may not be justified. But additional formative assessments of teachers may still be worthwhile to help these teachers improve.

Introduction

In the recent drive to revamp teacher evaluation and accountability, measures of a teacher’s value added have played the starring role. But the star of the show is not always the best actor, nor can the star succeed without a strong supporting cast. In assessing teacher performance, observations of classroom practice, portfolios of teachers’ work, student learning objectives, and surveys of students are all possible additions to the mix.

All these measures vary in what aspect of teacher performance they measure. While teaching is broadly intended to help students live fulfilling lives, we must be more specific about the elements of performance that contribute to that goal – differentiating contributions to academic skills, for instance, from those that develop social skills. Once we have established what aspect of teaching we intend to capture, the measures differ in how valid and reliable they are in capturing that aspect.

Although there are big holes in what we know about how evaluation measures stack up on these two criteria, we can draw some important conclusions from the evidence collected so far. In this brief, we will show how existing research can help district and state leaders who are thinking about using multiple measures of teacher performance to guide them in hiring, development, and retention.

[readon2 url="http://www.carnegieknowledgenetwork.org/briefs/value-added/value-added-other-measures/"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

DNC Convention Day 3 - The President Speaks

Day 3, the final day of the DNC convention closed with a speech from President Obama. On education he had this to say

... You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

For the first time in a generation, nearly every state has answered our call to raise their standards for teaching and learning. Some of the worst schools in the country have made real gains in math and reading. Millions of students are paying less for college today because we finally took on a system that wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on banks and lenders.

And now you have a choice – we can gut education, or we can decide that in the United States of America, no child should have her dreams deferred because of a crowded classroom or a crumbling school. No family should have to set aside a college acceptance letter because they don’t have the money. No company should have to look for workers in China because they couldn’t find any with the right skills here at home.

Government has a role in this. But teachers must inspire; principals must lead; parents must instill a thirst for learning, and students, you’ve got to do the work. And together, I promise you – we can out-educate and out-compete any country on Earth. Help me recruit 100,000 math and science teachers in the next ten years, and improve early childhood education. Help give two million workers the chance to learn skills at their community college that will lead directly to a job. Help us work with colleges and universities to cut in half the growth of tuition costs over the next ten years. We can meet that goal together. You can choose that future for America....

Here's what the word cloud of his entire speech looks like

Education News for 08-20-2012

State Education News

  • Scandal may delay report cards (Columbus Dispatch)
  • Ohio should delay the release of this year’s school-district report cards, the president of the State Board of Education says...Read more...

  • Schools asked to self-report data scrubbing (Columbus Dispatch)
  • State Auditor Dave Yost urged Ohio schools this week to voluntarily disclose whether they’re falsifying their student-attendance data...Read more...

  • School year starts with career/college push (Marion Star)
  • Educators are identifying communication and attendance as skills in need as students head back into the classrooms...Read more...

  • Grading scales not level at area schools (Middletown Journal)
  • When it comes to grading scales, the “playing field” isn’t the same for students at area school districts...Read more...

  • Cities, schools try new investment program (New Philadelphia Times)
  • More than 60 Ohio school districts, cities and local governments are taking part in a new state program that can triple the yield on their taxpayer investments...Read more...

  • Schools combat hunger through free and reduced lunch programs (New Philadelphia Times)
  • There are 4,325 children living in poverty in Tuscarawas County, enough to fill the Performing Arts Center at Kent State TuscarawasRead more...

  • Former Ohio superintendent dined with testing VIP (New Philadelphia Times)
  • Stan Heffner celebrated his new $180,000 private sector job over $10 cocktails, escargot, and oysters at San Antonio’s swanky Tost Bistro Bar in the spring of 2011...Read more...

  • Schools work to meet reading guarantee (Springfield News-Sun)
  • A new law that requires some students to repeat the third grade if they are not reading on target will force local schools to communicate more with parents...Read more...

Local Education News

  • New leaders discuss plans for five area school districts (Canton Repository )
  • Four local school districts have brand new superintendents this school year, along with Canton City’s Chris Smith, who is beginning...Read more...

  • Harris aims criticism at wrong target (Columbus Dispatch)
  • Gene Harris met with her principals about 10 days ago to get them ready for the start of school. “It’s been a tough summer,” the superintendent began...Read more...

  • Columbus City Schools: Deleted absences 7% of all records (Columbus Dispatch)
  • Columbus Superintendent Gene Harris has said her school district’s attendance-cheating scandal needs context...Read more...

  • Columbus schools to pay $6 million to suburban districts over tax-sharing errors (Columbus Dispatch)
  • The Columbus school district plans to pay a group of suburban schools almost $6 million over three years to make up for billing errors the district made in the Win-Win agreement...Read more...

  • Training in soft skills starts early (Marion Star)
  • As industries and educators push soft skills, elementary educators are starting the discussion as early as kindergarten with a program called The Leader in Me...Read more...

  • School lunches will be healthier this year (New Philadelphia Times)
  • School cafeterias and menus in Tuscarawas County are getting a makeover in a strong step to combat childhood obesity. When school opens this week in most local districts...Read more...

  • Clevelanders say NO to school levy (WEWS)
  • Just say no. Just say no," was what Kimberly Brown and several others chanted together...Read more...

Editorial

  • Valedictorian, you're retired (Chicago Tribune)
  • Quick: Do you remember your high school valedictorian? Chances are, you actually do. You also may recall the long, rambling speech at graduation...Read more...

  • Image makeover (Columbus Dispatch)
  • The Columbus Board of Education is right to be worried about how the public views the school district, but its first step to make the district look better should be investigating and fixing its serious problems...Read more...

Republicans oppose critical thinking

The 2012 Texas Republican Party Platform opposes the teaching of critical thinking skills. We had to read that twice too.

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

They appear to oppose critical thinking being taught so that it doesn't undermine propaganda being instilled in them, to wit...

Early Childhood Development – We believe that parents are best suited to train their children in their early development and oppose mandatory pre-school and Kindergarten. We urge Congress to repeal government sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development.

Early childhood education is crucial to the future success of students, to ppose pre-school and kindergarten is extreme to say the least.

Is Texas an anomoly, or leading the way in rightward education thinking?

you decide, their platform document is below, with the education pieces starting on page 11

2012Platform Final

Education News for 05-08-2012

Statewide Education News

  • Kasich school plan may change (Dispatch)
  • Republican leaders in the Senate plan to slow down Gov. John Kasich’s initiatives for holding back third-graders who aren’t proficient in reading and for a tougher report-card rating system for schools and districts. Under the Senate plan, new report cards would be issued by Sept. 1, 2013, for the 2012-13 school year, not this summer for the current school year. And the so-called reading guarantee would start in the 2013-14 school year, instead of this fall. Read More…

Local Issues

  • School bus drivers test skills on safety course (WLIO-Lima)
  • They drive our kids to school every day. Rarely do parents second guess the skills of school bus drivers. For the drivers, the safety of the children is of the up-most importance. To help improve their safe driving skills, bus drivers took to the course as part of the regional school bus safety Road-E-O Saturday. Driving a car through an obstacle course of cones may be difficult for some people, but imagine doing it in a 30 to 40 foot school bus. That is exactly what area bus drivers did Saturday morning, helping to sharpen their driving skills. Read More…

  • Animals on loose not considered ‘calamity’ for closed schools (Dispatch)
  • Unsure whether lions, tigers and bears remained loose near Zanesville, three Muskingum County school districts canceled classes the day after Terry Thompson released his menagerie of exotic pets and shot himself in the head. A calamity? Read More…

  • Effort Underway To Repeal Westerville School Levy (NBC-4, Columbus)
  • The levy controversy in Westerville just won't go away. Even though voters approved a 6.71-mill emergency operating levy in March, voters may soon see a levy issue on their November ballot as well. However, the new issue would be to repeal the levy. Monday, the group Taxpayers for Westerville Schools began collecting signatures in an effort to repeal the levy. Read More…

  • Official: Public can fight school privatization (Vindicator)
  • To stop privatization of public education, citizens need to become active. “Go to hearings, send 10 million emails to the governor and the legislators,” William L. Phillis, executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, told about 200 people at Boardman High School Monday. Phillis was a speaker at a public forum sponsored by township schools and the Mahoning County Educational Service Center, Read More…

  • Salem bus drivers treated to breakfast on their ‘day’ (Salem News)
  • SALEM - City school bus drivers received a pat on the back Monday as part of School Bus Driver Appreciation Day in Ohio. "They do an awesome job of keeping our kids safe," Salem City Schools Transportation Supervisor Tom Mather said about his drivers. As for the kids, he said "they're safer in a school bus than any other form of transportation." Read More…

  • Eastmoor neighbors concerned about Africentric relocation plan (Dispatch)
  • Residents of the northern end of Eastmoor say they have a lot of questions about Columbus City Schools’ plans to move Columbus Africentric Early College to a former apartment complex near them. In the meantime, Bexley-area officials remain interested in using the old Woodland Meadows property even after the campus is built. They met with Columbus school-district officials yesterday, Columbus schools spokesman Jeff Warner said. Read More…

  • State dept. of education recognizes local teacher (Chillicothe Gazette)
  • A Ross County educator recently was recognized by the Ohio Department of Education for her local leadership as an advocate for families and young children. Maryjo Flamm-Miller, program specialist for Ross County Job & Family Services, received the 2012 Irene Bandy-Heddon Community Leadership Award from ODE's Office of Early Learning and School Readiness. The Community Leadership award was one of several awarded during a conference April 21 in Columbus. Read More…

Education News for 04-30-2012

Statewide Education News

  • It's simple: preschool works, but it costs (Enquirer)
  • Every year 500 families are wait-listed for a preschool spot in Cincinnati Public Schools. Unfortunately, when a 3-year-old’s brain is ready to learn, it really can’t wait. You can’t hold it in abeyance, even if you’re Ohio, the state that has slashed $13.3 million from preschool education over the last three years and now ranks dead last of 39 states that offer state pre-K support. Read More…

  • Blue-ribbon mentor (Dispatch)
  • Lynn Elfner, CEO of the Ohio Academy of Science, will retire at the end of this year. By late Saturday afternoon, more than 1,200 students will have packed up their experiments, folded their poster boards, gathered their ribbons and trophies if they won them and headed back to all points across Ohio. Another year, another Ohio State Science Day. Read More…

  • A big payout? (Dispatch)
  • Work continues on Columbus’ casino, expected to open later this year and generate millions in state and local revenue. Ohio will reap hundreds of millions of dollars a year after casinos start opening in May. Even more will pour in if horse-racing tracks withstand a court challenge and open lottery-run slots parlors in coming years. Read More…

  • Legislature considers teachers' benefits (Mansfield News Journal)
  • Teachers may have to work longer and pay more into their pension system if a proposal to the Ohio Legislature is accepted. The Legislature is moving on public pension reform, and three of the funds have updated their proposals. The most significant updates are in the State Teachers Retirement System, or STRS. Read More…

  • More teachers retiring earlier (Dispatch)
  • Groveport Madison High School teacher Jack Wills plays a small blues concert on his guitar for students each year before final exams. Wills, who teaches Chinese, will perform his last show this year. He decided last month to retire at the end of the school year, joining the larger-than-anticipated number of educators heading to the exits. Read More…

Local Issues

  • Tech prep aims for job skills (Marion Star)
  • Tech prep partners are working to make sure students can get skills needed in the workforce. Funding cuts have forced those helping in this effort to consolidate and streamline services. The cuts come as schools face increased requirements. The end game remains the same: making sure high school tech prep programs meet state requirements and giving students an opportunity to continue their education beyond high school. Read More…

  • New 'Green Ribbon' honors Loveland High's recycling work (Enquirer)
  • Environmental sciences teacher Tracy Burge remembered the first time she tried getting her Loveland High students interested in recycling two years ago. As she dug in cafeteria trash bins, “up to my elbows in spaghetti,” pulling out soda cans and other materials, “they all stood back and watched me,” she said Monday. “Then as I continued to do it, one or two brave souls joined me.” Read More…

  • Some charter school supporters urge opposition to Cleveland schools reform legislation (Plain Dealer)
  • Some charter school backers say the Cleveland school reform legislation would unfairly limit school choice options in the city and are taking their concerns directly to state lawmakers. The plan would allow Mayor Frank Jackson to appoint a Transformation Alliance panel that could block future charter schools from opening in the city unless they meet a set of academic criteria the panel would later develop. Read More…

  • Educators, businesses partner to bring math, science to students (News Herald)
  • Area educators will spend their summer brainstorming how to adjust their teaching style to improve student engagement. Teachers from Lake County schools as well as officials from area colleges and local businesses will work together, specifically in the area of math and science, to construct a teaching model that gets students thinking and incorporates necessary skills from the working world. Read More…

  • Berkshire, Mayfield school districts honored for 'green' efforts (News Herald)
  • Energy efficiency, zero waste programs in their food service operations and community eco-friendly gardens that support local charities are all features that describe Ohio's Green Ribbon School state awardees. These include Berkshire Schools in Geauga County and Mayfield Schools in Cuyahoga County, which received honorable mention in the recognition program. Read More…

  • Breakthrough charter schools play central role in Cleveland school district's plans (Plain Dealer)
  • Charter schools were once the bad guys in the minds of school district officials, who considered them a horde of profiteers out to pillage students and dollars from traditional public schools. Not anymore. At least not when it comes to the Cleveland school district and its chosen charter partner, Breakthrough Schools. Read More…

  • Fairmont teacher case costs district $70,000 (Dayton Daily News)
  • The legal fees incurred trying to terminate the contract of a Kettering Fairmont High School English teacher have cost the school district more than $70,000 in the last year. And, according to Michael Togliatti’s lawyer, John Doll, the case is “far from over.” Read More…

  • Catholic schools report $15M deficit (Enquirer)
  • Two-thirds of the elementary schools in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati operated at a deficit last year, spending $1.15 for every $1 they raised, the archdiocese reported in its first-ever financial study. At least 61 of 80 reporting grade schools had operating losses averaging about $239,000 each. The total shortfall for all 80 schools was $15 million. (Ten elementary schools and the 23 high schools were not in the report.) Read More…

  • Schools react with anti-bullying programs (Chillicothe Gazette)
  • Most students today are too young to remember the killing spree in Littleton, Colo., that changed the way the American education system looks at violence in schools. The attitude of "it can't happen here" disappeared April 20, 1999, when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris walked into Columbine High School and took the lives of 12 students and a teacher, wounded 24 others and then took their own lives. Read More…

  • Boardman questions allocation of Local Govt. funds (Vindicator)
  • “The more things change, the more they stay the same” is the popular government maxim. It’s especially true of the Local Government Fund — a chunk of state tax funds given to counties, cities, townships and villages throughout Ohio — and how it’s divvied up once it gets to Mahoning County. Read More…

  • Bioscience employers need workers (Springfield News Sun)
  • Bioscience companies are coming to Ohio expecting to find qualified workers, and industry advocates are working to keep pace with their growing demand. From 2004 to 2010, more than 400 biology, medicine or science-related companies began operations in the Buckeye State. Read More…

  • Speaker helps students prepare for standardized tests (Mansfield News Journal)
  • Burt Lancaster won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Elmer Gantry, the con man-turned-evangelist whose fiery oration whipped tent crowds into a frenzy. He could have taken a few pointers from Cheryl Carter, director of the North Central State College Urban Center in Mansfield. Carter had more than 700 Malabar Intermediate School students on their feet Friday morning, cheering, applauding and shouting a pledge to bring their "A game" to three days of Ohio Achievement Assessment testing next week. Read More…

  • 2 Dublin high schools pit skills in global test (Dispatch)
  • Students in two Dublin high schools will take a test next month to compare their math, reading and science skills with those of students in other countries. Dublin Jerome and Scioto high schools were selected among 100 high schools in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada to take an early version of the PISA-based Test for Schools. The test is made by the same group that created the Programme for International Student Assessment, a test given every three years to a sample of schools around the world to compare scores among nations. Read More…

  • Chardon students focusing on something positive as Rock and Roll Hall of Fame prom nears (News Herald)
  • Chardon High School students will be rockin’ out in style at their prom May 5 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Not only was the school voted the winner of a contest for a $5,000 prom package, but numerous additional donors have come forward, ramping up the value to about $150,000, according to Matt Radicelli, founder and owner of Rock the House Entertainment Group. Read More…

  • Closing of Columbus schools has upside (Dispatch)
  • Yes, their school buildings are closing. But for the kids at Moler Elementary, and some from Heyl Elementary, there are perks, too. Because they’re being moved this fall to a middle-school building — Southmoor, which is being closed as a middle school — they’ll enjoy a gymnasium. They’ll have a separate cafeteria, music and art rooms and an auditorium with a nice, big stage. Columbus’ elementary buildings typically have combination gyms/lunchrooms/auditoriums. Read More…

Editorial & Opinion

  • But it’s good for you (Dispatch)
  • The concerted push on the part of politicians, school officials and some parents to get students to eat more-healthful meals has run into resistance: It turns out that some kids just don’t want what they’re selling. Like other school districts around the country, several suburban districts in central Ohio have seen lunch sales fall after instituting lower-fat and reduced-calorie menus. Read More…