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Summary: schools are rewarding teachers based on "value-added measures" that try to measure the effect of the teacher on the student's educational progress. Th

by jefftk 7y ago

Summary: schools are rewarding teachers based on "value-added measures" that try to measure the effect of the teacher on the student's educational progress. The paper shows that these models are mostly picking up unrelated differences between student populations, by showing that the same approach would reward teachers for having taller students.

Accujack 7y ago
Oddly, most school basketball programs DO get rewarded for having taller students.
klipt 7y ago
Our society has decided that taller is better, so naturally the best (tallest) students should get the best (tallest) teachers!
- Spooky23 7y ago
  My son’s teacher is 4’11”. I’m filing a complaint immediately.
wtvanhest 7y ago
Could be a landmark paper. At a minimum, it shows that all evaluation methods should completely negate teacher's impact on height. It seriously calls in to question a ton of research that I would have assumed to have been good. Excellent work by those that wrote the paper.
- datashow 7y ago
  It appears to be an important research study, but in the sense of implication to educational policy, not so much. The reason is, for one, the use of value-added measurement does not have a significant role as many would think. There is not a signle state in the U.S. use VAM as a single measure of teacher performance, nor a determinant factor in teacher firing or promotion. It is always mixed with other quantitative and / or qualitative measures (which usually are no better than VAM). The second reason is, the research community has not find a better replacement yet. We always know we cannot directly use student achievement, now we know we cannot trust a more complicated measure such as VAM which takes into account of student history and other factors.
  - wtvanhest 7y ago
    The world is moving toward multifactor models like VAM. This paper introduces a crucial test to determine whether a VAM is applicable or not.
pergadad 7y ago
The paper puts in question the value added of individual teacher on a specific class - which is not really a very surprising finding, given that the incentive payments in the US are known to push "good" teachers to take "good" classes if they can get them (not sure if this applies in NY but it's a common critique of the incentive systems - the worst students get even worse services and outcomes as pre- and post-intervention results are really difficult to measure and compare if the only data are really badly done central exams). At system level however the data is very robust: in a developed education system the best you can do is to give autonomy to schools and teachers, assure some kind of accountability (not necessarily exams, but eg European-style 'supportive' inspection) and strengthening teachers through training and support is the most effective education intervention, except maybe for free school meals.
mam2 7y ago
Thats not what show the article. Please read the abstract better.
- jefftk 7y ago
  Where do you think my summary is off?

by jefftk 7y ago

Accujack 7y ago

Oddly, most school basketball programs DO get rewarded for having taller students.

klipt 7y ago

Our society has decided that taller is better, so naturally the best (tallest) students should get the best (tallest) teachers!

Spooky23 7y ago
My son’s teacher is 4’11”. I’m filing a complaint immediately.

wtvanhest 7y ago

Could be a landmark paper. At a minimum, it shows that all evaluation methods should completely negate teacher's impact on height. It seriously calls in to question a ton of research that I would have assumed to have been good. Excellent work by those that wrote the paper.

datashow 7y ago
It appears to be an important research study, but in the sense of implication to educational policy, not so much. The reason is, for one, the use of value-added measurement does not have a significant role as many would think. There is not a signle state in the U.S. use VAM as a single measure of teacher performance, nor a determinant factor in teacher firing or promotion. It is always mixed with other quantitative and / or qualitative measures (which usually are no better than VAM). The second reason is, the research community has not find a better replacement yet. We always know we cannot directly use student achievement, now we know we cannot trust a more complicated measure such as VAM which takes into account of student history and other factors.
- wtvanhest 7y ago
  The world is moving toward multifactor models like VAM. This paper introduces a crucial test to determine whether a VAM is applicable or not.

pergadad 7y ago

The paper puts in question the value added of individual teacher on a specific class - which is not really a very surprising finding, given that the incentive payments in the US are known to push "good" teachers to take "good" classes if they can get them (not sure if this applies in NY but it's a common critique of the incentive systems - the worst students get even worse services and outcomes as pre- and post-intervention results are really difficult to measure and compare if the only data are really badly done central exams). At system level however the data is very robust: in a developed education system the best you can do is to give autonomy to schools and teachers, assure some kind of accountability (not necessarily exams, but eg European-style 'supportive' inspection) and strengthening teachers through training and support is the most effective education intervention, except maybe for free school meals.

mam2 7y ago

Thats not what show the article. Please read the abstract better.

jefftk 7y ago
Where do you think my summary is off?