Recommendations to Undergo Policy Change on Integrating Value-Added Measures (VAM)

memo
Gary Chalmers – The superintendent of Springfield Public Schools (SPS)

From:

Derrick Mason – Data Analyst of Springfield Public Schools (SPS)

CC:

Recipient names

Date:

December 5, 2022

Re:

Recommendations to Undergo Policy Change on Integrating Value-added Measures (VAM) in Teacher Evaluation

SPS Current Teacher Evaluation Method and Reasons VAM would be Useful
SPS currently uses teacher evaluation comprising yearly principal observations and teacher attendance; generally, almost all educators are rated as satisfactory or higher. This assessment method outcome in all educators is getting similar ratings and does not differ significantly among teaching effectiveness levels. Thus, this calls for the need for SPS to integrate an educator evaluation framework that comprises a spread of provable and comparable educator appraisals that distinguish educator efficiency. VAM is an approach for measuring educator effectiveness that seeks to separate how much an educator contributes to a learner’s achievement from any confounding elements outside the educator’s control. In addition, Koedel and Rockoff (2015) assert that VAM, which estimates educators’ effectiveness premised on learner score achievements, are authentically engaging since they try to demonstrate how much educators are contributing to their learner’s progress.
How VAM Promotes Teacher Effectiveness
Teacher effectiveness refers to the instructor’s capacity to foster student learning outcomes based on the learner gains on standard attainment tests. Although this constitutes a vital aspect of instructional abilities, it is not robust and comprehensive in evaluating teacher effectiveness. Value-added models prove increasingly useful in providing a detailed score of the key factors contributing to student attainment growth. Teachers use value-added archetypes to make informed decisions related to their tenure. Educator value-added constitutes one aspect of educators’ overall assessments, and these assessments could be leveraged as central to compensation decisions. In addition, the value-added teacher data is channeled to the school principal without tying high stakes directly within the effectively-aligned institution-level accountability structure (Armour‐Garb, 2009). The institution-level accountability should also emphasize school value-added, although it would pressure principals to demonstrate improvement, offering them the impetus to utilize educator value-added data productively.
The teacher’s evaluation based on their contribution to the students learning, termed as value-added, is a gradually prevalent education reform policy. In addition, the Every Student Succeeds law mandates that states implement and embrace thought-provoking academic content and attainment standards. Thus, these new paradigms are meant to boost the bar from having each learner earn a secondary school diploma to much more determined targets of having each learner be a successful target in life, career, and college. The assessment accompanying VAM deviates from the traditional, much less costly, multiple-choice method tests and shifts to assessments with constructed replies.
Factors Contributing to How Reliable and Valid VAM Are
Policy considerations concerning the application of value-added to evaluate instructor effectiveness to achieve professional authenticity must be tailored at addresses key fundamental issues. First, they must establish the relationship between statistical reliability and validity and the cost of educator value-added with the alternative measures, including principal credentials and evaluations. Second, it is necessary to establish the different approaches the instructor value-added as well as other policy measures that could be leveraged to support effective school instruction. As we implement VAM, we should use the criteria of validity and reliability that ascertain if a specific test is appropriate for a particular purpose (Harris, 2009).
I propose measuring the performance of SPS educators; we should utilize test scores and other data in a statistical model intended to capture the attainment of learners attributable to a specific educator likened to the student’s progress with the average educator (Koretz, 2008) and identified as VAM since it seeks to separate the educator’s contribution for other elements. VAM has been created and implemented by various researchers, and various measures have been utilized...