Value added scoring is good for evaluating institutions but I would have a problem with using it to grade teachers in my college. I would do well out of it as I often have the groups that do not come to the college with high expectations (statistically). I think though when you know there is a bad teacher it could be used as part of a collection of evidence to encourage them to seek a different career path (as sacking them seems impossible, we spent over 4 years trying to get rid of one incompetent teacher recently).
If performance related pay comes in then it starts to get messier, with teachers competing against each other rather than working together. If I create a good resource why should a colleague benefit because of my hard work? If instead the bonus was a team bonus is encourages me to share the resource with everyone.
Originally posted by deriver69 Value added scoring is good for evaluating institutions but I would have a problem with using it to grade teachers in my college. I would do well out of it as I often have the groups that do not come to the college with high expectations (statistically). I think though when you know there is a bad teacher it could be used as part of a collection of evidenc ...[text shortened]... ork? If instead the bonus was a team bonus is encourages me to share the resource with everyone.
as I said - it would have to properly implemented.
a big problem is that for an individual teacher, the "sample size" is probably going to be too small to rule out random flucuations -- its main usefulness might be in figuring out the couple of teachers in the school who are the very very best and the ones are truly incompetent.
the best way of using this system might be as a way of evaluating new experimental approaches to teaching -- providing hard data regarding whether or not they actually work any better (or perhaps do much worse) than the traditional approaches.
Originally posted by Melanerpes as I said - it would have to properly implemented.
a big problem is that for an individual teacher, the "sample size" is probably going to be too small to rule out random flucuations -- its main usefulness might be in figuring out the couple of teachers in the school who are the very very best and the ones are truly incompetent.
the best way of usin ...[text shortened]... not they actually work any better (or perhaps do much worse) than the traditional approaches.
I read the article and I think it is really interesting. I am all for reqarding those who are best but whenever we deal with actual humans it is really difficult to create the necessary flexibility for an educational system to be effective and have equal groups.
Students are not always randomly selected for a class (a math class that is given the same time as a physics class will have weaker students than a section given at a different time), students first period always do worse than other times of day (lateness). Students even in the same class are not fungible commodities (some students are special ed, others have failed this course previously or even have failed or not taken prerequisites). Especially in urban schools (like where I taught) it is common for 50% of students to fail an ordinary class. Difference in student composition can outweigh performance.
There also is a real cost with teachers trying to stuff their class with students that they feel they can improve, only teaching things that will translate on their standarized exam. Teachers should not be punished because a prior teacher was incompetent and students do not have the background needed to effectively teach the next level.
Originally posted by zeeblebot http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/education/01teacher.html?src=me&ref=general
In value-added modeling, researchers use students’ scores on state tests administered at the end of third grade, for instance, to predict how they are likely to score on state tests at the end of fourth grade.
A student whose third-grade scores were higher than 60 percent of peers statewide is predicted to score higher than 60 percent of fourth graders a year later.
If, when actually taking the state tests at the end of fourth grade, the student scores higher than 70 percent of fourth graders, the leap in achievement represents the value the fourth-grade teacher added.
what a load of crap. There about 200 things wrong with that system.
Originally posted by KazetNagorra In general I am in favour of paying according to performance, but I'm not sure how accurately one can measure the ability of a teacher.
Even the greatest teacher in the world cannot force a student to do well.
It's high time the focus gets puts on the student to achieve. It'll never happen though when the idiot parents all think their kids are all geniuses even though they keep getting C's and D's. Yup, must be the teachers fault!
Originally posted by uzless Even the greatest teacher in the world cannot force a student to do well.
It's high time the focus gets puts on the student to achieve. It'll never happen though when the idiot parents all think their kids are all geniuses even though they keep getting C's and D's. Yup, must be the teachers fault!
😞
if a teacher consistently has students who perform poorly in the teachers class but perform well in other teachers' classes, before and after the teacher in question, what then?
Originally posted by uzless Even the greatest teacher in the world cannot force a student to do well.
It's high time the focus gets puts on the student to achieve. It'll never happen though when the idiot parents all think their kids are all geniuses even though they keep getting C's and D's. Yup, must be the teachers fault!
😞
we can argue about the best way to implement this...
but the idea is to have some empirical system in place for figuring out which teachers are the very best, and which teachers need to make drastic improvements if they want to continue teaching.
and to have some system in place for figuring out whether some new teaching method actually works better than the existing methods.
and finally - to have some system for figuring out how much blame we can pin on the teacher and how much blame goes to the student and-or the parents when a student doesn't do well.
If you want to test out which methods work you need lots of time -- probably at least 15 years. Three years to implement it and 12 years to see if it make changes from beginning to high school graduation. Realistically no one will give anything that much time because the world changes so fast. (15 years ago Sosa's highest home run total was 33 in a single season.) Sure, if you implement it right it will be great. But you think people will let a school system try something that might not be working or might not be popular for a decade and a half to get real data on it? Even so there are always uncontrollable factor like layoffs, crack ecademics, neighborhood changes or even positive changes like computer or smart boards which could have significant effects on data.
Originally posted by quackquack If you want to test out which methods work you need lots of time -- probably at least 15 years. Three years to implement it and 12 years to see if it make changes from beginning to high school graduation. Realistically no one will give anything that much time because the world changes so fast. (15 years ago Sosa's highest home run total was 33 in a sing ...[text shortened]... en positive changes like computer or smart boards which could have significant effects on data.
But you think people will let a school system try something that might not be working or might not be popular for a decade and a half to get real data on it?
you're right -- only out-of-touch elites care about nerdy stuff like data -- much better to go with the idea du jour even though no one has any clue about whether or not it will work but some politician has promised that it will work so it couldn't possibly go wrong.
There are pros and cons, of course. A problem in my school is that teachers who are friends with the principals get "better" kids than those who are on the poop list. If you're on the poop list, you get the kids who have behavior problems, victims of social promotion, and kids who can't be tested for learning disabilities because they're not anglos (since in the past, many kids who are Hispanic or African-American were apparently inappropriately labeled -- which means now kids who would be qualified can't be tested until they're much older and have "lost" a lot of time in which they could have been receiving services). It's also frustrating because I had a bunch of kids enter my class after Christmas last year with minimal skills (at least 1-2 years behind), but their scores "counted" and so I looked like an ineffective teacher because students I hadn't spent much time with couldn't pass the tests.
On the other hand, I do like that a child is compared to his or her own score the year before.
There are no individual bonuses at my school. There's a collective bonus (either for making AYP or for meeting our 501 goals) that's received by each teacher who was there the previous year to help in that achievement.
Value-added teaching
01 Sep '10 19:48
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