To measure "treatment" effects, social science researchers typically rely on nonexperimental data. In education, school and teacher effects on students are often measured through value-added models (VAMs) that are not fully understood. We propose a framework that relates to the education production function in its most flexible form and…

In this study, we estimated the relationship between two popular measures of teacher effectiveness--teachers' value-added model (VAM) estimates, represented in this study via median growth percentiles (MGPs), and teachers' observational scores, derived from the TAP System for Teacher and Student Advancement. We examined the relationship between…

In the context of Bayesian factor analysis, it is possible to compute plausible values, which might be used as covariates or predictors or to provide individual scores for the Bayesian latent variables. Previous simulation studies ascertained the validity of mean plausible values by the mean squared difference of the mean plausible values and the…

School accountability systems increasingly hold schools to account for their performances using value-added models purporting to measure the effects of schools on student learning. The most common approach is to fit a linear regression of student current achievement on student prior achievement, where the school effects are the school means of the…

The success of many students with disabilities (SWDs) depends on access to high-quality general education teachers. Yet, most measures of teacher value-added measures (VAM) fail to distinguish between a teacher's effectiveness in educating students with and without disabilities. We create two VAM measures: one focusing on teachers' effectiveness…

This paper examines how different measures of teacher quality are related to students' long-run educational trajectories. We estimate teachers' "test-based" and "nontest" value-added (the latter based on contributions to student absences, suspensions, grade progression, and grades) and assess how these predict various student…

This study compares the estimated grammar school effect in different regression models, and explains why previous evidence of the effectiveness of grammar school is mixed. Like most studies of school effectiveness evaluation, previous research on grammar school effect usually applies regression to control for confounding between-school factors and…

The purpose of the study is to close the gap in the literature regarding the Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model (MTEM) that lacks large scale empirical investigations to assess the predictability of the model. The study thoroughly reviews the extant literature from all teacher evaluation frameworks, particularly focusing on the large body of…

In 2012, New Jersey implemented a broad change to the teacher evaluation system with the Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey (TEACHNJ) Act which identified the Marzano Causal Teacher evaluation system as one of the prescribe models for districts to adopt. This system provides a more differentiated teacher…

In large urban districts, schools enrolling more white students tend to have higher school performance ratings. We use an instrumental variables strategy leveraging centralized school assignment to identify the drivers of the correlation between racial make-up and ratings. Estimates from Denver and New York City suggest the relationship between…

The value-added method of Haberman is arguably one of the most popular methods to evaluate the quality of subscores. The method is based on the classical test theory and deems a subscore to be of added value if the subscore predicts the corresponding true subscore better than does the total score. Sinharay provided an interpretation of the added…

Short-cycle higher education programs (SCPs), lasting two or three years, capture about a quarter of higher education enrollment in the world and can play a key role enhancing workforce skills. In this paper, we estimate the program-level contribution of SCPs to student academic and labor market outcomes, and study how and why these contributions…

Recently, interest in test subscore reporting for diagnosis purposes has been growing rapidly. The two simulation studies here examined factors (sample size, number of subscales, correlation between subscales, and three factors affecting subscore reliability: number of items per subscale, item parameter distribution, and data generating model)…

Prior research has not investigated perceived added education value in courses. Using a sample of 165 graduating business students, two business administration (BA) scales were created from six required BA core courses as part of students' Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree. Students were asked if each required course "added…

While states are no longer required to set up teacher evaluation systems based in significant part on student test scores, quite a few continue to use value-added (VAMs) or student growth percentile (SGP) models for that purpose. In this study, we analyzed three years of teacher data to illustrate the performance of teachers' median growth…