State Testing Is Over. Let's Review. - SchoolBook Hi Jack. I'm with Diami. I'm not diametrically opposed to the idea of looking at test scores to determine a value-added score of a teacher. Making a positive difference in student achievement is one of our main charges and should be measured. As you can see from all of the posts, one thing teachers do want to make sure of is that they are making a difference in their students' lives. Of course, how we make a difference is multifaceted and varied and that can not be captured through student test scores alone. Therefore, I was glad to see that the new teacher evaluation system would take this measure into account, but would not outweigh other measures of teacher effectiveness. I think you're right. Many of us don't understand how the value-added score is calculated. Therefore, it can be frustrating and downright scary to be measured by something that you don't understand and therefore fear that you will not have a clear recourse for what to do in order to improve. We will need to rely partly on the help of experts, like statisticians, to help break down the calculations and help us understand what they really mean. That being said, the NYC DOE isn't really offering any support of that nature. In addition, they are trying to publish these scores to the general public before we've had any practice understanding the scores or using the information to improve our instruction. This seems punitive in nature and beneficial to no one, and unfortunately, it damages the value-added model getting a fair trial run. I noticed that you had mentioned in another post that you are a statistician with a number of years of higher education. Perhaps you could answer a few questions that I and my colleagues have about this measure? I think some of the concerns they are raising are good ones that may be hard to discern through some of the more vitriolic language used in phrasing them. Can a value-added score be valid if it is derived from a test that was designed to measure student achievement and not teacher achievement? I know that the two types of achievement have some correlation, but I'm still confused about how using tests designed to measure one thing can be used to measure another. You've made clear that the student is only being compared with him or herself in terms of achievement from one year to the next. However, I think one of the concerns that my colleagues are expressing is that we are not sure that the value-added model can account for things like students being placed in foster care or becoming homeless, or facing some other drastic, life-altering circumstance. Surely a student who did well the year before when they were in a more stable environment would most probably slip in performance the following year if he or she was faced with one of these life-altering circumstances, no? And unfortunately, those of us who work in high needs schools do not see this happen occasionally to one student in our classroom but routinely, each new school year, to around three to five students in one classroom. How does this get factored into our value-added score? Does the value-added model account for the factor of the other students' influence on the classroom environment in a given classroom? As mentioned above, when you have a significant number of students each year dealing with some very adult problems that they are not emotionally equipped to handle (nor am I professionally licensed to handle, but I do try), they tend to act out in class. Again, if it were only one student in a given classroom with this circumstance, it would be reasonable to assume that the teacher could keep control of the classroom and student motivation high. However, it is very daunting to try to do this with three to five students facing those circumstances in a classroom. Would this type of environment not have a negative effect on other students' ability to learn and therefore their standardized test scores? And if it does, does the value-added model account for this in my score? Does the value-added model account for student burn-out on tests? I know that for the post-test for reading achievement that I administer at the end of the year a number of the students throw the test because they are sick of taking tests. I don't care how bad of a teacher you are, there is no way that a child's reading level can slip 3 grade levels in one year. This has happened to me, and when I've confronted the child about it, she sheepishly smiled and said that she was just sick of taking standardized tests. Lastly, why is there such a large margin of error in the scores themselves? This is evidenced in this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/education/07winerip.html?pagewanted=all. As you can see from the article, this one score with such a large margin of error had a significant impact on this teacher's career. If you could address any of these concerns for me in layman's terms, I would be most appreciative.