2. What is the true meaning of Value Added? The term “value-added” refers to the contributions teachers and schools make to student achievement. Value-added methods provide a way to measure this contribution.
3. Value-Added in Simpler Terms…. Simply put, the term “value added” benefits teachers, administrators, parents, and most importantly students. It shows how much students have grown academically in their subjects and in their learning as a whole. It shows teachers how each of their students have improved from the beginning of the school year to the end. It also is very informative to teachers in guiding their instruction at the beginning of the academic year, so that they will know the areas of improvement that each student needs to make in order for effective academic growth to occur.
4. Value-Added in Simpler Terms…. Value-Added is and should be used for teachers and school leaders means of acknowledging the teachers’ areas of growth in meeting diversified learners’ needs. In carefully analyzing their areas, appropriate professional developments should be selected, so that in return teachers can implement what they have learned into their own instruction effectively.
5. Value Added Analysis Value-added analysis of student growth also provides fairer measures of school performance than measuring the numbers of students that score at the proficient level. Value-added data provides useful information to help educators tailor their instruction to meet different student needs. It has contributed to the development of more effective strategies for educating students by identifying effective teachers and teaching techniques.
6. Value Added Analysis Value-added analysis provides a powerful means to identify and acknowledge teachers by taking into account the amount of achievement growth they are able to make with their students, regardless of how low- or high-achieving the students were in the beginning of the school year. Value-added analysis is valuable because of the quality and the information it provides for educators to improve their instruction. This analysis gives a better understanding of the influences of the school and teacher on student achievement.
7. How to Measure Value-Added Performance Value-Added analysis is a statistical method used to measure schools' and districts' impact on the rate of student progress from year to year. It is a growth measurement that will enable schools and districts to better determine the impact of their curriculum and instructional practices on student achievement.
8. Dr. Sanders’ Value-Added Model Dr. Sanders was a governor of the state of Tennessee. He developed a Value-Added Model that examines longitudinal sustained academic growth of each child. His Three Conditions for Value-Added Model 1. Scales of measure highly correlated to specific curriculum 2. Sufficient stretch in the assessment instrument 3. Appropriate reliabilities of measurement
9. Dr. Sanders Value-Added Model cont’d He collected testing data dating back to 1991 and it represents the largest database of student achievement data in the U.S. 1. Shed patterns-these are some of the most harmful situations that exist in today’s schools. These patterns occur when the lowest achievers make the greatest gains and the highest achievers are held back. 2. Tee-Pee patterns- These patterns take place when teachers focus their classroom instruction on the average students more than the rest of the students in the class. Therefore, average students, in turn, make the greatest gains, while the others (high and low students) result in less gain.
10. Dr. Sanders Value-Added Model cont’d 3. Percent Cumulative Norm Gain-This is a technique that answers the question of “How much progress can I expect my students to make during his/her years in a school building?” 4. Variability of Teacher Effectiveness-this is when one uses shrinkage estimation to avoid false negative findings, one can measure big differences in teacher effectiveness. (As one moves up the grade levels in a school, the variability of teacher effectiveness increases.)
11. Dr. Sanders Value-Added Model cont’d Dr. Sanders conducted two additional studies: 1st study: He separates teachers by their effectiveness in quintiles and observes the impact of cumulative effect on student achievement. (Students assigned to top quintile for three consecutive years scored at the 96th percentile.) 2nd study: He studied teachers’ effectiveness over a period of time, and found that teachers have growing effectiveness during the first ten to twelve yrs., then they have their highest level of effectiveness for the next ten to twelve yrs., following a decline during the last third of the careers.
12. Dr. Sanders Value-Added Model cont’d His conclusions: -The Value-Added Research says that differences in teacher effectiveness is the single largest factor affecting academic growth. -Highly effective teachers ensure that all children are achieving, teach students from where they currently are in their academic learning, differentiate instruction and focus on each student, and make excellent gains across the previous achievement spectrum. -Highly effective schools link teachers over grade levels and focus on gains in achievement by each grade level.
13. Dallas School System Issue: Because Dallas schools were ranked lower by the NCLB’s rating system than they were with their own rating system, Dallas came up with their value-added method. For example, under NCLB’s rating: their schools were ranked 94th, 77th, 83rd, and 107th in the Texas NCLB. But, under the city’s rating system, they were 2nd, 5th, 8yh, and 16th. This has presented numerous problems for their educators in the low ranking schools under Texas NCLB ratings. Many have left to teach at suburban, wealthy schools where they felt their achievements would be more fairly recognized. “Keeping good teachers is always a struggle for inner city schools, and in many cases, NCLB has made things worse.” Staff members at Marcus Elementary School
14. Dallas School System Dallas public school system uses the value added method of identifying student growth on an individual performance basis annually. Teachers in low socioeconomic communities argue that NCLB’s criteria for school success do not sufficiently take into account of how far behind many of their students are when they start school. On the other hand, teachers and parents in affluent communities complain that the NCLB accountability system is leading to a “dumbing down” of their schools’ curricula. Many testing experts emphasize that NCLB encourages states to set their academic standards low to reduce the number of their schools “failing” label under the law.
15. Dallas School System ratings vs. NCLB ratings Dallas’ ratings NCLB ratings Texas measures school performance based on a system, AYP (adequate yearly progress). It calculates the percentage of various student populations that annually meet or exceed the state’s academic standards. Measures individual student progress from a relative starting point. It compares a student’s current test scores with his/her scores from the previous year. The effect of this rating system is to factor out the disadvantages/advantages that students bring to school because of the quality of prior instruction or their family backgrounds. It measures only the amount of knowledge that the school itself and teacher is responsible for.
16. Tennessee’s Value-Added Method The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) determines the effectiveness of school systems, schools, and teachers based on student academic growth over time. An integral part of TVAAS is a great, longitudinally merged database linking students and student outcomes to the schools and systems in which they are enrolled and to the teachers to whom they are assigned as they transition from grade to grade. Research conducted utilizing data from the TVAAS database has shown that race, socioeconomic level, class size, and classroom heterogeneity are poor predictors of student academic growth. Rather, the effectiveness of the teacher is the major determinant of student academic progress.
17. Tennessee’s Value-Added Method The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System is a statistical method of determining the effectiveness of school systems, schools, and teachers. TVAAS uses statistical mixed model theory and methodology to enable a multivariate, longitudinal analysis of student achievement data. The primary purpose TVAAS serves in the EIA is to provide information for summative evaluation regarding how effective a school, system, or teacher has been in leading students to achieve normal academic gain over a three-year period.
18. Tennessee’s Value-Added Method Schools, systems, and teachers receive reports detailing their effectiveness with students of different achievement levels so that they may more effectively plan their curricula, pedagogy, and special programs. This information was found to be invaluable by many teachers and school administrators involved in curricular planning, program evaluation, and developing strategies to meet the needs of students with differing academic attributes and abilities. The reports allow school systems to pinpoint grade and subject problems and successes and to direct efforts and resources accordingly.
19. Tennessee’s Value-Added Method In a 1997 study, Wright, Horn, and Sanders (1997, p. 63) investigated simultaneously the effects of teachers, intraclassroomhomogeneity, and class size on achievement gain. The analyses revealed that the two most important factors impacting student gain are differences in classroom teacher effectiveness and the prior achievement level of the student.
20. Tennessee’s Value-Added Method TVAAS data have shown that some schools and, indeed, some school systems have been successful in addressing the needs of students at all levels of achievement as evidenced by their ability to consistently show normal-and sometimes, exceptional-academic progress for students of all academic abilities. However, there is evidence that, aggregated statewide, students at the highest levels of achievement show somewhat less academic growth from year to year than their lower-achieving peers.
21. Tennessee’s Value-Added Method Regarding the factor of prior achievement level of the student, Wright et al. (1997, pp. 65-66) note that out of the twenty-six analyses in which achievement level was significant, the largest gains occurred in the lowest achievement group twelve times, in one of the two middle groups eight times, and in the highest group six times. Similarly, the smallest gains occurred in the highest achievement group fifteen times, in one of the two middle groups six times, and in the lowest group five times. In a discussion of their findings, Wright et al. (1997) consider explanations for this shed pattern," so called because academic gains drop off as achievement level rises, creating a downward slope like a shed roof. The "shed" patterns were much more significantly related to the teachers’ effectiveness. Differences in teacher effectiveness were found to be the dominant factor affecting student academic gain.
22. Sanders and Wright’s Study on Teacher Effectiveness Another study conducted by Sanders and Wright pertained to effective and ineffective teachers in students’ academic growth. It was found that ineffective teachers were ineffective with all students, regardless of the prior level of achievement. As the level of teacher effectiveness increased, students of lower achievement were the first to benefit, and only teachers of the highest effectiveness were generally effective with all students. Although an effective teacher can facilitate excellent academic gain in students during the years in which they are assigned to them, the study found that "the residual effects of relatively ineffective teachers from prior years can be measured in subsequent student achievement scores" (Sanders & Rivers, 1996, p. 4; see also Jordan, Mendro & Weersinghe, 1997). Solution: It is only when educational practitioners-teachers as well as school and school system administrators-have a clear understanding of how they affect their students in the classroom that they can make informed decisions about what to change and what to maintain.
23. To Sum It Up: Value-added is important because it allows for greater sophistication in measuring and analyzing key educational outcomes, as in student learning and teacher and school effectiveness, in addition to because of how this analysis can be used to improve the education system. Value-added results do not just have an impact on how teachers and schools are evaluated and the means of support and professional development educators have access to, but most importantly, they are empowering teachers to improve their instruction to better meet the needs of all of their students.
