In recent months, policymakers and policy wonks alike have been singing the praises of value-added analysis, which focuses on the achievement gains that a school or teacher elicits rather than just looking at how high the students score, since high or low scores of students in a school may reflect the socioeconomic makeup of the student body (and other "input" variables) rather than the quality or effectiveness of the teaching staff. But those who look to value-added assessment as the solution to the problem of educational accountability are likely to be disappointed, as there are too many uncertainties and inequities, argues University of Massachusetts economist Dale Ballou in an article appearing in the Summer 2002 issue of Education Next. Ballou outlines three problems with today's value-added assessment techniques: current methods of testing don't measure gains very accurately; some of the gains may be attributable to factors other than the quality of a given school or teacher; and we lack a firm basis for comparing gains of students of different levels of ability.
In response to Ballou's article, Anita Summers (professor emeritus at Wharton (and mother of Harvard President Lawrence Summers)) writes that the findings of value-added analysis are robust in practice and can be used in many ways that respect the margin of error of the statistical techniques. In another response, the Manhattan Institute's Jay Greene argues that any flaws in the technique do not automatically lead to the conclusion that value-added analysis shouldn't be used to hold educators accountable since the alternative-failing to reward productivity at all-is so much worse. In yet another article, Don McAdams, a 12-year veteran of the school board in Houston, describes how important test data-imperfect as it is-has been to that district's improvement efforts.
The summer issue of Education Next magazine also includes articles on what the Supreme Court's decision in Zelman will mean for the voucher debate, on how the media has falsely given the impression that school violence is on the rise, on how peers influence student achievement, and other topics. All articles are available online at http://www.educationnext.org/20022/.
"Sizing Up Test Scores," by Dale Ballou, Education Next, Summer 2002
"Expert Measures," by Anita Summers, Education Next, Summer 2002
"The Business Model," by Jay Greene, Education Next, Summer 2002
"Enemy of the Good," by Don McAdams, Education Next, Summer 2002