The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has assembled a panel of leading technical experts to work toward a consensus on what is and is not known about value-added measures for teacher evaluation. The Foundation selected individuals who have expertise in statistics and economics, without vested interests in particular value-added modeling strategies, and whose previous research, taken together, represents a range of views on this topic.
The goal of the Carnegie Knowledge Network is to synthesize emerging knowledge on the rapidly changing landscape of teacher evaluation policy and practice in the United States and to provide an environment for conversation around the toughest challenges.
The website’s initial content includes a first set of knowledge briefs in the What We Know Series on Value-Added Methods and Applications. The site now includes the following briefs:
- Stephen W. Raudenbush writes on how educators can interpret value-added estimates.
- Daniel F. McCaffrey analyzes the research on how well valued-added models can level the playing field – how successfully they can isolate the contributions of individual teachers from student background characteristics, such as poverty or English language proficiency.
- Susanna Loeb takes on the matter of consistency – or lack of it – in value-added scores.
- Dan Goldhaber compares the consistency among different models for translating student achievement growth into a measure of teacher performance.
- Douglas N. Harris addresses the question of how value-added measures compare to other gauges of teacher effectiveness.
These authors will monitor commentary and update their briefs periodically to reflect the most current research. In addition, each author will host a moderated webinar to provide an opportunity for interaction around the topics. The first webinar is “How Do Teacher Value-Added Measures Compare to Other Measures of Teacher Effectiveness?” with Douglas Harris on October 31, 2012 at 1 pm Eastern Time.
Visit the Carnegie Knowledge Network at www.carnegieknowledgenetwork.org.
Register for the webinar here.
