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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.

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

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

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
Periodical

Periodical

Distinctive Teacher Evaluation Programs Could Provide Lessons for Others

Judging teachers' performance by that of their students is fraught with the potential for error and unintended consequences, but several states and districts have been striving to incorporate student performance data in ways that are accurate and fair.

Feb 5, 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 Website

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
Brochure

Value-Added Modeling 101

Value-added models attempt to measure a teacher's impact on student achievement while controlling for other factors that affect achievement, such as individual ability, family environment, past schooling, and the influence of peers.

Sep 28, 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

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

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
Journal Article

Journal Article

A Model for Teacher Effects from Longitudinal Data Without Assuming Vertical Scaling

The authors developed a "generalized persistence" (GP) model, a Bayesian multivariate model for estimating teacher effects that accommodates longitudinal data that are not vertically scaled by allowing less than perfect correlation of a teacher's effects across test administrations.

Jan 6, 2011
Report

Using Student Achievement to Evaluate Teacher Performance

Teacher effectiveness is multifaceted. Policymakers need to consider many factors—not just annual test scores—in assessing teachers' contributions to student learning.

Nov 19, 2010
Journal Article

Journal Article

Value-added: Assessing Teachers' Contributions to Student Achievement

Addresses complex issues related to teacher assessment and teacher quality.

Jan 1, 2010

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RAND Topic:
Value-Added Modeling in Education

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RAND Education