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增值能为教师评价增值吗?
增值能为教师评价增值吗?
增值能为教师评价增值吗?
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Linda Darling-Hammond
Stanford University
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COMMENTARIES
Keywords: accountability; descriptive analysis; education policy; teacher assessment; teacher evaluation
T
he five thoughtful papers included in this issue of learning conditions and traits of the group of students
Educational Researcher (ER) raise new questions about the assigned to one teacher do not vary substantially from
use of value-added methods (VAMs) to estimate teachers’ those assigned to another; and
contributions to students’ learning as part of personnel evalua- •• individual teachers are the only contributors to students’
tion. The papers address both technical and implementation learning over the period of time used for measuring gains.
concerns, considering potential effects on teachers’ behavior and
on the resulting quality of teaching. In this response, I reflect on Of course, none of these assumptions holds, and the degree
articles’ findings in light of other work in this field, and I offer of error in measuring learning gains and attributing them to a
my own thoughts about whether and how VAMs may add value specific teacher depends on the extent to which they are violated,
to teacher evaluation. as well as the extent to which statistical methods can remedy
these problems.
Value Added in Theory Unfortunately, in the United States, at this moment in his-
tory, the violations of these assumptions are considerable. With
The notion of using VAMs to evaluate educators and schools is respect to assessment, standardized tests in the United States are
intuitively appealing. The quality of teaching, most would agree, criticized for their narrowness and focus on lower level skills;
is signaled by how well students are learning. Like many other evidence has shown that high-stakes incentives to focus on these
researchers who have used VAMs in studies of program and tests have reduced time spent teaching other important content
policy effects, I was initially enthusiastic about its possibilities. and skills (Darling-Hammond & Adamson, 2014). Furthermore,
From my research, I am also well-aware of the historical short- because the No Child Left Behind Act mandated that state tests
comings of many districts’ teacher evaluation practices (Darling- measure grade-level standards only, the tests do not include
Hammond, 2013). These have stimulated federal incentives to items that assess content or skills from earlier or later grade lev-
transform evaluation through systematic classroom observations els. As a result, these tests cannot measure the actual achieve-
coupled with student learning evidence. ment level—or the learning gains—of the large share of students
The question of whether value-added ratings will ultimately who are above or below grade level in their knowledge and skills.
improve or undermine teacher evaluation depends in large mea- As Ed Haertel (2013), chair of the National Research
sure on whether VAM metrics can accurately identify individual Council’s Board on Testing and Assessment, has noted, this
teachers’ contributions to student learning and hence offer a feature of test design “translates into bias against those teachers
credible measure of teacher “effectiveness.” In theory, VAMs working with the lowest-performing or the highest-performing
could do so under a set of ideal conditions, if: classes” (p. 8). This bias is indicated in many studies that find
that VAM measures appear particularly inaccurate for teachers
•• student learning is well-measured by tests that reflect valu- whose students who achieve below or above grade level, who
able learning and the actual achievement of individual stu- are new English learners, or who have special needs (Haertel,
dents along a vertical scale representing the full range of 2013; Newton, Darling-Hammond, Haertel, & Thomas,
possible achievement measured in equal interval units;
•• students are randomly assigned to teachers within
and across schools—or, conceptualized another way, the 1
Stanford University, Stanford, CA