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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Shanker Blog » Value-Added As A Screening Device: Part II

Shanker Blog » Value-Added As A Screening Device: Part II:


Value-Added As A Screening Device: Part II

Our guest author today is Douglas N. Harris, associate professor of economics and University Endowed Chair in Public Education at Tulane University in New Orleans. His latest bookValue-Added Measures in Education, provides an accessible review of the technical and practical issues surrounding these models. 
This past November, I wrote a post for this blog about shifting course in the teacher evaluation movement and using value-added as a “screening device.”  This means that the measures would be used: (1) to help identify teachers who might be struggling and for whom additional classroom observations (and perhaps other information) should be gathered; and (2) to identify classroom observers who might not be doing an effective job.
Screening takes advantage of the low cost of value-added and the fact that the estimates are more accurate in