Sara Stevenson, librarian at O. Henry Middle School in Austin, published an article in the Austin American-Statesman, written as a warning to Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams. The article appeared on April 11, amd it is behind a paywall is I have no link.
Stevenson did an excellent job of reviewing the research literature on value-added measurement and warned Commissioner Williams that VAM is neither accurate nor stable. Further it is very demoralizing to teachers to be publicly shamed by these ratings. She mentions the suicide of Roberto Riguelas, a teacher in Los Angeles who committed suicide only days after his rating was published by the Los Angeles Times.
She writes:
“Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams is tasked with crafting a plan to tie teacher evaluations to STAAR test scores. The Obama administration requires states receiving waivers from this year’s impossible 100 percent passing rate on Bush’s No Child Left Behind law to incorporate student test scores as part of the state teacher evaluation formula. Williams should just say no.
“First of all, value-added measurement, or VAM, is junk science. It has been debunked in multiple studies. Researchers with the RAND Corp. concluded that there were so many cases of error and bias in the formulations that they reject using VAM for high-stakes decisions. Stanford professor Edward Haertel also warns against using these unstable measures for high-stakes purposes. Furthermore, a Vanderbilt study concludes that tying teacher evaluations to VAM undermined professionalism and demoralized teachers.”
And she concludes:
“Student success in school is multi-determined. For instance, the most important factor is socioeconomic status. This is not to say poor kids can’t learn. It’s just something researchers have proven over and over again. Therefore, you could, theoretically, take the worst teacher at Hill Country Middle School in the Eanes school district, where 2 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and her students would score higher than students of the most dedicated, selfless teacher at Pearce Middle School in East Austin, a school made up of more than 95 percent of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch.
“Considering both research and common sense, it would be harmful for Texas to tie teacher evaluation to student test scores. Imposing these criteria on Texas teachers will force the best to flee and find other means of employment. Who will risk his career to teach our neediest students? This trend will not bode well for our youngest citizens, who will determine our future.
“Texas legislators need to say no to the VAM bandwagon.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think we should look at history and information that informs. I have always been struck by this finding from James Coleman.
From:
“An Economic Model of Locus of Control and the Human Capital Investment Decision”
Margo Coleman, Thomas DeLeire from August 2002
Click to access colemandeleire.pdf
Re: The 1966 James Coleman report:
“…related to academic performance and was a more important determinant of achievement than any other factor in a student’s background or school (Coleman 1966).”
I think there is an important connection here with student engagement. I think when we fail to keep in mind student engagement a la Peter Johnston’s work in Opening Minds and Choice Words, which will help that locus of control development, all the high pressure tactics to improve student achievement and LIVES is not going to truly work.
Scripted lessons, robotic teaching, all sorts of strong disciplinary control measures that exist in some schools will in all likelihood fail to reach or neediest children.
We should also look to the work of Albert Bandura:
“In 1986 he published Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory, a book in which he offered a social cognitive theory of human functioning that accords a central role to cognitive, vicarious, self-regulatory and self-reflective processes in human adaptation and change. This theory has its roots in an agentic perspective that views people as self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting and self-regulating, not just as reactive organisms shaped by environmental forces or driven by inner impulses. His book, Self-efficacy: The exercise of control was published in 1997.” From Wikipedia
And lastly William Glasser’s Choice Theory (formerly Control Theory) and Lev Vygotsky’s theory of learning!
We do not want to fail our children. As professionals we should not have our locus of control taken away either. There are teachers who have made a difference and schools and principals. What have they done in regard to helping these factors thrive in their students? Let’s look at more than a test score on a questionable test whose scores we cannot really know since the tests are guarded and teachers are forced to sign confidentiality statements. IE Gag Orders.
Here is the link:
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/stevenson-why-vam-is-a-sham/nfX79/
No paywall
Thank you, Diane. The editor had to cut a couple of paragraphs for space limit, but here they are:
Many factors contribute to student achievement: parental and family dynamics, parenting styles, attendance, switching schools, the school environment, student effort, individual characteristics, prior schooling, study habits…. the list continues. According to researchers, Jim Alexander and Dan Goldhaber, an individual teacher’s effect on any student’s achievement in any given year is 9%. Total school factors account for only 21% of learning.
And what of all the teachers whose students are not tested in their areas by STAAR? What about the Spanish and music teachers, the first and second grade teachers? Close to 50% of secondary teachers do not teach a STAAR-tested subject. What about the teachers of Gifted and Talented and Advanced Placement children who are already performing at the highest levels and whose rate of growth hits a ceiling?
Truthfully, if Williams defies the VAM requirement, it will not be because he understands the fallacies of the system. Despite the unreasonable expectations of STAAR and the dismal scores it has produced, Williams has been consistent in his “we measure what we treasure” even as the measuring tool proves to the a very poor one.