Mercedes Schneider prepared a paper explaining value-added modeling, now widely promoted for evaluating teachers. She wrote it for legislators in Louisiana, who have been passing laws mandating VAM without understanding how inaccurate it is. This paper could be used to brief legislators in every state. Also policymakers at your State Education Department, also the U.S. Department of Education.
She introduces the paper as follows:
“Dear Lousiana Senators:
I have written a paper explaining value added modeling (VAM) issues based upon an examination of the Noell and Gleason VAM study presented to the Louisiana legislature in February 2011. I based my paper in part on a detailed Power Point presentation I gave as guest speaker at the Louisiana Association of Parish Textbook Administrators (LAPTA) conference in November 2012. In this current writing, I have removed some of the technical language in order to provide a smoother read.
VAM is highly problematic. I thank you for your time in reading the attached paper. Please contact me if I can offer any additional clarification.
Thank you.
–Mercedes K. Schneider, Ph.D.
Applied Statistics and Research Methods”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
listen to our chat with her here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/chalkface/2013/01/13/at-the-chalk-face-progressive-edreform-talk
A bit off topic, sorry…
But I thought you all might be interested in the Daily Howler today.
He is commenting on how the Washington Post continues to peddle and pimp Rhee.
Good stuff:
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2013/01/peddling-rhee-post-wont-stop.html
Value added modeling seems conceptually similar to the way Value Added Tax is calculated in countries that use that instead of a sales tax. The idea is that each step in the production and delivery of a product or service is taxed according to amount of value increased at that stage.
In other words, in VAM is based on a very basic conceptual fallacy. Students are conflated with products and services such as soup, cheeseburgers, lightbulbs, restaurant meals, and insurance policies and concurrently learning is commodified.
The same basic fallacy that led in the early 20th Century to the industrial model school is now being employed today changed only by a post-industrial economy.
Lies, Damned Lies, and VAM …
Value added measurement reminds me of the industrial engineers of days gone by. I worked for three years in textile manufacturing. The company had an industrial engineering department, a dumping ground for educated people who couldn’t cut it in management. They would spend their time with stop watches, following machine operators around and breaking down and timing their movements. Then they would go back to their office and make up these formulas. The system was not accurate by the fact that they were constantly adjusting the formulas. Non-union machine operators with at best 8th grade educations never said anything.
To call these guys “engineers” was kind of a joke. These were the “efficiency experts” made famous by the novel Cheaper by the Dozen.
Factory machine operators were paid “piece work” which meant they got a base pay and then made more by how much they produced. At the end of every shift, the machine fixers in each department would read the “hank clocks” at the end of every machine frame using huge clip boards. Then the IE department would tally the numbers up before each payday. Needless to say, there were all sorts of ways to rig the system. It also made it to where machine operators (still called “hands”) didn’t care at all about quality. It was about quantity.
Right before I bailed out of the business world as a shift supervisor, the VP was going to get me trained as a quality control/systems engineer. This was because they were getting rid of shift supervisors and going into Deming style teams. Little did anyone know that the president was already planning on shipping everything to China or getting rid of entire product lines. My mill made high speed feedbag twine (the string you pull on your kitty litter and dog food bag). This was the early 90’s.
After working in consumer finance (talk about Glen Gary Glen Ross), I followed my dream and became a teacher in 1994.
None of those mills are in operation today. Hickory, North Carolina must be a ghost town.
I have a knack for picking the wrong profession.
This isn’t really on point, but your post made me reflect on the crappy jobs I’ve had over the years. The two worst were: (1) piece-work assembly and (2) telemarketing. Both used a quantity-based evaluation system. That system absolutely crushes the mind, body, and spirit. Telemarketing was by far the worse of the two. At least assembly work (assuming it’s the type that doesn’t take place in a deafening environment) allows workers to talk to each other while working. Telemarketing doesn’t even permit that kind of multitasking. Not to mention that probably no workers are more hated by their customers than telemarketers.
As a Value Added Leader (VAL) in the state of Ohio, I can tell you that value added is a good metric which, when used in conjunction with OTHER metrics, can yield useful information to help me improve teaching and learning. The quality of the VA data is directly proportional to the quality of the assessments, however. This overuse of once a year standardized paper and pencil tests has skewed the focus of instruction across the nation. Adding growth data to the mix is not a healthier choice, but exacerbates the problem. Value added data was NEVER intended to be a measure of teacher effectiveness for high stakes decisions. It should NOT be used to evaluate any individual, whether a teacher or a student or a principal. Teacher evaluations should NOT be based AT ALL EVER on student scores. Period. With all of our emphasis on using research-based strategies, how did we let this inappropriate, invalid use of data get this far???
I think your title as a “value added leader” must cause you some problems given the current push to “evaluate” teachers using student scores.
As a “value added leader,” do you use your position to advocate against the use of VAM as a supposed teacher evaluation tool?
Mercedes,
Have you read Wilson’s work that I have mentioned above (I think it will end up above this comment, if not then down-ha ha)? If so, what are your thoughts on it? And/or do you know of any rebuttal by anyone?
Thanks,
Duane
“I can tell you that value added is a good metric”.
Your personal belief doesn’t make VAM a good metric (and even the concept of “metrics” when it comes to the teaching and learning process is a false one).
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
Says it all about your opinion.
If you would like to understand why standards, damn data driven decision making, standardized testing and grading students in general is fraught with error leaving any conclusions invalid and “vain and illusory” as Wilson says, see his : “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
“A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” found at:
http://www.edrev.info/essays/v10n5index.html
Click to access v10n5.pdf
I’d love to have a PDF of this paper.
Deb, if your will email me at deutsch29@aol.com, I will send you a pdf file of the document.
This may just be a coincidence, but much of the data for school performance has disappeared from the State of Louisiana website. This includes much of the data you needed to do this report. The state launched a new website on Friday. I had been compiling information about school performance correlated to free/reduced lunch ratios and other data. I was also looking at the Recovery School District and charter school data. This seems to be gone as well. I am referring to major information needed to compare public schools to charter schools and charter operators. Does this mean we have to do a release of information request to get it now?
Do you have a link to specific pages?
I will see if I can find an archive copy …
There is an archive “library” but it does not contain this data that was formally included.
http://www.louisianabelieves.com or http://www.louisianaschools.net
The first one is too new to have made it into the Internet Archive.
Here is the archive page for the second link you gave —
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.louisianaschools.net/
Click on a blue disc that comes on or just after the date you need.
seabee, I have the spreadsheet of the 2012 La. school performance data released in October. If you need this, please email me at deutsch29@aol.com, and I will send it your way.
losing these positions, closing community mental health for children and all the changes to education seem to me to indicate Jindal HATES children.
All this seems to be in preparation for the Course Choice and all the schools he wants to take over. He will be able to hire anyone, none of the online or reformed schools will have to worry about accreditation and since he is trying to get school districts to pay us a flat salary no matter what credentials we have, we will be hired based on personality or who goes to church with the administration and they won’t have to hide that anymore.
As a general rule, whenever you run across a page of vital data on the web that you think might be at risk for being “disappeared” by the (ir)responsible authorities, it’s a good idea to use the WebCite® archiving service to preserve your own linkable copy of it.
• http://www.webcitation.org/
There is also bookmarklet that you can use to archive any page you are viewing in your browser.