New Uses Explored for ‘Value Added’ Data

Washington

With “value added” methods of measuring student-learning gains continuing to grow in popularity, policymakers and researchers met here last week to explore possible new ways of using the sometimes controversial approaches and to debate their pluses and pitfalls.

The May 23 conference at the Urban Institute, a think tank based here in the nation’s capital, examined the policy implications for value-added statistical designs , which typically measure students’ learning gains from one year to the next. Such methods have been spreading since the early 1990s.

While value-added designs are still imperfect technically, various speakers at the gathering said, they can provide new information to help identify ineffective teaching and the impact of certain programs and practices, for example. The data they provide can help educators reflect on their own practices, give administrators grounds for denying tenure to poorly performing teachers, or be used by states to calculate whether districts are making adequate yearly progress under the federal No...