Local education agencies (LEAs) continue to use value-added models (VAMs) for teacher evaluation policies and purposes, often with consequences attached. Although the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides more flexibility to LEAs, few have discontinued VAM use, suggesting they interpret VAMs as a valid measure of teacher effectiveness. In…

Nations, states, and districts must choose among an array of different approaches to measuring school effectiveness in implementing their accountability policies, and the choice can be difficult because different approaches yield different results. This study compares two approaches to computing school effectiveness: a "beating the odds"…

In "Houston Federation of Teachers (Plaintiff) v. Houston Independent School District (Defendant)," plaintiffs contested how teachers were being evaluated using a value-added model (VAM) as part of the districts' teacher accountability system. The VAM at issue was the Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS), with potential…

Districts nationwide have increased the frequency of teacher evaluations. Yet, we know little about the role of evaluator feedback for teacher improvement. Using unique classroom observation-level data, we use evaluator ratings and teacher self-assessments of teacher performance to rigorously examine (positive and negative) feedback valence from…

A critical issue in educational evaluation is whether evaluations should focus on standardized (summative, often quantitative) or contextualized (formative or often qualitative) evidence. The author of this article advises readers to beware of false dichotomies. The big issue is not whether evaluations should be "standardized" or…

Systemic efforts to strengthen teacher preparation in Louisiana led to the first statewide value-added assessment (VAA) of teacher preparation programs (TPPs). Subsequently, a number of states have adopted VAA of TPPs. The authors describe challenges that were confronted around the deployment of Louisiana's VAA of TPPs. The discussion is organized…

In recent decades, school performance ranking (or 'league table') have become a common feature of many education systems in the world. The ranking is usually published by government and news agencies in an attempt to measure and compare the relative performance of individual schools against a number of criteria, including academic performance.…

Education is the infrastructure of future state competitiveness and cohesiveness. Educational Evaluation Programs (EEPs) have an ongoing effect on educational outcomes. Thus, EEPs are affecting the future state competitive ability and social cohesiveness. This paper develops a conceptual framework for the evaluation of educational improvement. We…

Many states only recently incorporated indicators of student achievement into teacher evaluation systems for Non-Tested Subjects and Grades (NTSG). This study examines how practices related to the inclusion of student achievement measures vary across states as to the discretion left to districts in defining and implementing evaluation systems for…

Training school leaders in the key areas of policy and state laws, basic statistical literacy, assessment types and purposes, and value-added models is particularly important because ideas shaping teacher performance evaluation are being considered at the national, state, and local levels. The authors argue that providing school leaders with this…

A key question facing teacher evaluation systems is how to combine multiple measures of complex constructs into composite indicators of performance. We use data from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study to investigate the measurement properties of composite indicators obtained under various conjunctive, disjunctive (or complementary),…

Teacher preparation programs (TPPs) are where prospective teachers gain a foundation of knowledge about pedagogy and subject matter, as well as early exposure to practical classroom experience. Although competence in teaching, as in all professions, is shaped significantly by on-the-job experiences and continuous learning, the programs that…