ERIC Number: ED671069
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Dec
Pages: 52
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Teacher Effects on Student Achievement and Height: A Cautionary Tale. EdWorkingPaper No. 19-172
Marianne Bitler; Sean Corcoran; Thurston Domina; Emily Penner
Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
Estimates of teacher "value-added" suggest teachers vary substantially in their ability to promote student learning. Prompted by this finding, many states and school districts have adopted value-added measures as indicators of teacher job performance. In this paper, we conduct a new test of the validity of value-added models. Using administrative student data from New York City, we apply commonly estimated value-added models to an outcome teachers cannot plausibly affect: student height. We find the standard deviation of teacher effects on height is nearly as large as that for math and reading achievement, raising obvious questions about validity. Subsequent analysis finds these "effects" are largely spurious variation (noise), rather than bias resulting from sorting on unobserved factors related to achievement. Given the difficulty of differentiating signal from noise in real-world teacher effect estimates, this paper serves as a cautionary tale for their use in practice.
Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, Value Added Models, Teacher Influence, Teacher Effectiveness, Bias, Validity, Longitudinal Studies, Surveys, Children, Public Schools, Grade 4, Grade 5, Elementary School Students, Language Arts, Body Height, Reading Instruction, Mathematics Instruction, Elementary School Mathematics, Reading Achievement, Mathematics Achievement, Correlation, Student Characteristics, Age Differences, Racial Differences, Ethnic Groups, Gender Differences, Interaction, Databases
Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. Brown University Box 1985, Providence, RI 02912. Tel: 401-863-7990; Fax: 401-863-1290; e-mail: annenberg@brown.edu; Web site: https://annenberg.brown.edu/
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Grade 4; Intermediate Grades; Grade 5; Middle Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (DHHS/NIH)
Authoring Institution: Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
Identifiers - Location: New York (New York)
Grant or Contract Numbers: P01HD065704
Author Affiliations: N/A