4 ms·

Think about it this way, using your own claim: if VAM is measuring the amount of value a teacher adds to student test performance based on an average student of

by j2kun 12y ago

Think about it this way, using your own claim: if VAM is measuring the amount of value a teacher adds to student test performance based on an average student of similar background, and the average student in a wealthy neighborhood does well regardless of the teacher, then every teacher in every wealthy neighborhood adds no value! Does that justify firing/docking the pay of all your teachers? Obviously not. It says that the kind of value a teacher adds necessarily depends on the community. It's a qualitative difference, not a quantitative one.

nickff 12y ago
>"if VAM is measuring the amount of value a teacher adds to student test performance based on an average student of similar background, and the average student in a wealthy neighborhood does well regardless of the teacher, then every teacher in every wealthy neighborhood adds no value" If you are going to make arguments against VAM, please come up with some stronger ones. Applying statistical controls for student test results in situations like these is trivial, and teachers do make a big difference. If the teachers really made no difference, why not just hire the cheapest labor available, and spend the rest of the money on extra-curricular programs?
- AceJohnny2 12y ago
  But is it done?
- j2kun 12y ago
  How is that? In some communities the difference could be between learning to read and finding an appreciation for modernist poetry. Or more drastically, the difference between instilling a sense of civic duty and keeping kids out of prison. We do expect teachers to have a part in all of these things.
  - nickff 12y ago
    Speaking as someone who reads a book per week, and has spent all their life in affluent communities with highly rated educational institutions; I can confidently say that for the overwhelming majority of public schools (even those in rich suburbs), achieving functional literacy with some comprehension and analytic ability for the majority of students is a lofty goal. I do not know of any public school where the difference between a good teacher and a bad one is "between learning to read and finding an appreciation for modernist poetry"; maybe this will be a problem in the future, but it is not something we should be grappling with now. I am not under the impression that what "keep[s] kids out of prison" is "a sense of civic duty". Good career prospects keep people out of prison; high conscientiousness may be correlated with low rates of imprisonment, but conscientiousness is also a luxury the desperate can ill afford to indulge in.
gabemart 12y ago
> if VAM is measuring the amount of value a teacher adds to student test performance based on an average student of similar background, and the average student in a wealthy neighborhood does well regardless of the teacher, then every teacher in every wealthy neighborhood adds no value! I'm no statistician, but I don't think this is actually true. We would expect students who are likely to do well on standardized tests under a Hypothetical Average Teacher (HAT) to benefit relatively less from a good teacher than students who are likely to do poorly on standardized tests under a HAT - at least when we use standardized test results as the metric. But presumably, any sophisticated statistical model will take this into account. You would simply adjust the model such than a unit increase in actual score vs. predicted score is "worth more" in terms of indicated teacher performance as predicted score increases. It's just a case of diminishing marginal returns, and not unique to teaching or education. It might be harder to distinguish signal from noise as the predicted test score increases. But it still seems a better system than "the students have done well, therefore the teacher has done well".
- j2kun 12y ago
  My point is that as wealth and average test scores increase, certain kinds of value become more important in distinguishing teachers. Values which VAM does not even attempt to measure.

by j2kun 12y ago

nickff 12y ago

>"if VAM is measuring the amount of value a teacher adds to student test performance based on an average student of similar background, and the average student in a wealthy neighborhood does well regardless of the teacher, then every teacher in every wealthy neighborhood adds no value" If you are going to make arguments against VAM, please come up with some stronger ones. Applying statistical controls for student test results in situations like these is trivial, and teachers do make a big difference. If the teachers really made no difference, why not just hire the cheapest labor available, and spend the rest of the money on extra-curricular programs?

AceJohnny2 12y ago
But is it done?
j2kun 12y ago
How is that? In some communities the difference could be between learning to read and finding an appreciation for modernist poetry. Or more drastically, the difference between instilling a sense of civic duty and keeping kids out of prison. We do expect teachers to have a part in all of these things.
- nickff 12y ago
  Speaking as someone who reads a book per week, and has spent all their life in affluent communities with highly rated educational institutions; I can confidently say that for the overwhelming majority of public schools (even those in rich suburbs), achieving functional literacy with some comprehension and analytic ability for the majority of students is a lofty goal. I do not know of any public school where the difference between a good teacher and a bad one is "between learning to read and finding an appreciation for modernist poetry"; maybe this will be a problem in the future, but it is not something we should be grappling with now. I am not under the impression that what "keep[s] kids out of prison" is "a sense of civic duty". Good career prospects keep people out of prison; high conscientiousness may be correlated with low rates of imprisonment, but conscientiousness is also a luxury the desperate can ill afford to indulge in.

gabemart 12y ago

> if VAM is measuring the amount of value a teacher adds to student test performance based on an average student of similar background, and the average student in a wealthy neighborhood does well regardless of the teacher, then every teacher in every wealthy neighborhood adds no value! I'm no statistician, but I don't think this is actually true. We would expect students who are likely to do well on standardized tests under a Hypothetical Average Teacher (HAT) to benefit relatively less from a good teacher than students who are likely to do poorly on standardized tests under a HAT - at least when we use standardized test results as the metric. But presumably, any sophisticated statistical model will take this into account. You would simply adjust the model such than a unit increase in actual score vs. predicted score is "worth more" in terms of indicated teacher performance as predicted score increases. It's just a case of diminishing marginal returns, and not unique to teaching or education. It might be harder to distinguish signal from noise as the predicted test score increases. But it still seems a better system than "the students have done well, therefore the teacher has done well".

j2kun 12y ago
My point is that as wealth and average test scores increase, certain kinds of value become more important in distinguishing teachers. Values which VAM does not even attempt to measure.