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: The Buck Stops Here

Value-Added Has Errors . . . Which Means What?

By Stuart Buck, Esq.

A recent New York Times article profiled a dedicated and well-reviewed middle school teacher who may not get tenure thanks to the New York City value-added model that places her at the 7th percentile (judging by how much growth her students showed on tests). Assuming that the article is correct, and that the value-added model here is being unfairly applied for any number of reasons, that means that value-added models can make Type II errors (false negatives). OK, so we should ditch value-added models and keep on with the "last in, first out" system in which the newest teachers get laid off first (in the case of layoffs). No messing around with incomprehensible math that could be wrong. But wait, the "last in, first out" model can make Type II errors too...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Buck Stops Here on March 12, 2011 (boomark / email).