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Value-Added Modeling in Education

Student performance reflects many factors beyond their teacher's effectiveness, yet teacher evaluations often reflect how well their students do on standardized tests. RAND researchers are nationally recognized for their work using value-added modeling to distinguish a teacher's impact from factors such as individual ability, family environment, past schooling, and peer influence.

Journal Article
The Consistency of Composite Ratings of Teacher Effectiveness: Evidence From New Mexico
We estimate the consistency of composite ratings of teacher quality from New Mexico's teacher evaluation system from 2015 to 2016.
Feb 17, 2021
Report
Using Data to Support the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching Initiative: Data Collection, Metric and Dashboard Creation, and Lessons Learned
The Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative was a multiyear effort to improve student outcomes by increasing access to effective teaching. The authors discuss challenges in measuring effectiveness and how the team addressed them.
Mar 5, 2020
Report
Value-Added Modeling 101: Using Student Test Scores to Help Measure Teaching Effectiveness
The author discusses the use of value-added models (VAMs) to estimate teacher contribution to student progress, account for students' prior characteristics, and enable relative judgments, as well as the limitations of VAMs.
Dec 4, 2019
Research Brief
Considerations for Implementing the TNTP Core Rubric
RAND researchers assessed whether the TNTP Core Teaching Rubric produces scores that are representative of teachers' overall instructional practices and whether raters' content expertise influences scores on TNTP Core.
Nov 7, 2018
Report
Validation Study of the TNTP Core Teaching Rubric
RAND researchers assess whether the TNTP Core Teaching Rubric produces scores that are representative of teachers' overall instructional practices and whether raters' content expertise influences scores on TNTP Core.
Nov 7, 2018
Blog
The Challenges of Measuring Effective Teaching
While educators, policymakers, and parents may agree on the need for more effective teachers, they often use different criteria to judge whether schools are doing their job. Parents have varied priorities for what they want in teachers and in schools.
Nov 16, 2016
Journal Article
A Value-Added Study of Teacher Spillover Effects Across Four Core Subjects in Middle Schools
This study examined the existence, magnitude, and impact of teacher spillover effects (TSEs) across teachers of four subject areas in student achievement in each of the four subjects at the middle school level.
Apr 24, 2015
Commentary
Reauthorizing ESEA: Four Recommendations to Improve Teaching Effectiveness
Policies aimed at boosting teaching effectiveness are a key component of a strong ESEA reauthorization. Addressing discrepancies in teacher quality helps teachers improve, retains effective teachers, and makes the teaching profession an attractive option for those contemplating careers.
Feb 3, 2015
Journal Article
Is It Possible to Distinguish Good Teaching from Classroom Composition?
Measuring disadvantaged students' access to effective teachers requires examining the relationship between teachers' value-added estimates and the characteristics of their students. Research simulations investigate this relationship and may also help inform analysts' choices for the appropriate value-added models.
Jan 19, 2015
Journal Article
Measuring Value-Added in Higher Education: Possibilities and Limitations in the Use of Administrative Data
This paper develops a general methodology for measuring the value added of institutions of higher education using commonly available administrative data.
Aug 25, 2014
Commentary
Flexibility Is Key in Administration's Call for Teacher Equity Plans
Thirteen years of research have clarified that metrics like teacher experience and licensure reveal little about teachers' impact on student learning. The focus should be on disadvantaged students' access to effective teachers.
Aug 22, 2014
Commentary
A Better Method for Estimating Teacher Performance
Structured observation protocols for assessing how teachers provide lessons to their students offer the opportunity to provide teachers with valuable feedback on how their practices could be improved, writes Terrance Dean Savitsky.
Feb 19, 2013
Commentary
States Tackle Education's Holy Grail: Measuring a Teacher's Effectiveness
An accurate combined measure of teacher effectiveness would be the gold standard to capture and communicate information about the quality of educators. While the challenges to building such a measure are significant, research can help guide the way.
Jan 11, 2013
Blog
How Should We Measure Teacher Effectiveness?
Some of the most urgent and contentious debates taking hold in states and school districts around the country revolve around the question of how to accurately measure a teacher's effectiveness. A new RAND Education website provides objective, nonpartisan insights that can help inform the discussion.
Oct 3, 2012
Project
Measuring Teacher Effectiveness
Research suggests that, among school-related factors, teachers matter most to students' academic performance. What's less clear is how to measure an individual teacher's effectiveness. RAND's reports, fact sheets, blog posts, and research briefs provide clarity on this important issue.
Oct 1, 2012
Content
Value-Added Modeling 101
Value-added models, or VAMs, attempt to measure a teacher's impact on student achievement apart from other factors, such as individual ability, family environment, past schooling, and the influence of peers.
Oct 1, 2012
Journal Article
Measuring Value-Added in Higher Education: A Practical Guide for Policymakers
An rapidly developing outcomes-based culture among policymakers in the higher education sector recognizes the need for measures of value-added to capture the effect of institutions on their students—and the power these measures can have in incentivizing better performance.
Sep 1, 2012
Journal Article
An Argument Approach to Observation Protocol Validity
This article develops a validity argument approach for use on observation protocols currently used to assess teacher quality for high-stakes personnel and professional development decisions.
Apr 1, 2012
Journal Article
Simultaneous One-Sided Tests with Application to Education Evaluation Systems
In this article, we discuss controlling simultaneous errors in classification of teachers or schools by a decision-theoretic approach.
Feb 1, 2012
Report
Missing Data in Value-Added Modeling of Teacher Effects
The extensive numbers of students with incomplete records and the tendency for those students to be lower-achieving presents a challenge for stakeholders attempting to develop or use value-added models in education.
Sep 6, 2011

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RAND Topic:
Value-Added Modeling in Education

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RAND Education and Labor

Researcher Spotlight

Kata Mihaly

Senior Economist

Kata Mihaly is a senior economist at the RAND Corporation. She is also a professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research is focused on evaluations of education programs using rigorous methods, including randomized control trials, regression discontinuity, propensity…
Christine Mulhern

Associate Policy Researcher

Christine Mulhern is an associate policy researcher at the RAND Corporation who focuses on the economics of education and labor economics. Her research studies how students and workers navigate education and career pathways, including whether and where to enroll in postsecondary education and…

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