VAM - Post Webinar Reflections

On Monday evening, I had the opportunity to participate in a webinar on Value-Added Measure. We looked at what value-added models can tell us about teacher effectiveness and what they cannot. Dr. Heather Hill of Harvard University led our webinar and shared her research. She has found critical evidence that VAMs are not appropriate for informing high-statkes decisions related to compensation. The dialogue between participants was thought provoking and some interesting points were made. Here are my take-aways:

1. How to best measure teacher effectiveness is a difficult question to answer. Certainly we will need multiple measures over time to determine our most effective teachers.

2. Why does VAM have to focus solely on an individual teacher? Why can we not look at VAM on a school wide level? This would help foster collaboration and encourage us to work together to improve our school and our profession. The general consensus is that policy makers may not be interested in this idea, but honestly I think it is our best approach!

3. RttT will continue to further the dialogue around VAM and how to measure teacher effectiveness. Many districts use VAM, but they do not all use the data in the same way. Some districts use VAM as a part of the teacher's evaluation. Other districts share the VAM data with the teacher(s) in order to help the teacher know and understand where he/she is and where improvements can be made.

4. A whole year's worth of work and it comes down to one test? That is the question that is usually asked about VAM and teacher effectiveness. Yes, we expect our students to grow each year. In addition, we expect them to meet or exceed performance at grade level. However, we must look at some of the test we use as a measure. Are these test aligned with the curriculum taught? Are these test a good measure of the skills and knowledge we want our students to have learned? So many test are simply becoming high stakes trivia pursuit games that test factual recall and do not foster the higher order thinking skills we want for our students.

5. I still have a ton of research ahead of me. I have read numerous articles, talked with a variety of experts and participated in numerous sessions centered around VAM; however, with each I learn that I have more to learn. The measure of a good webinar is whether you leave with new thoughts to ponder. That, I did. My take-aways only scratch the surface of the insight and knowledge I gained during the webinar.

If you would like more info on future webinars with the Center for Teaching Quality or if you would like the link to view the webinar, please email me.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions!