Rubinstein: The Problem with Value-Added Measurement

Rubinstein, Gary (2012) "The Problem with Value-Added Measurement," Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk: Vol. 3: Iss. 2, Article 20.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/childrenatrisk/vol3/iss2/20 

The modern “accountability movement” of school reform requires schools and teachers to be constantly rated and compared. Though schools and teachers have always been evaluated—teachers by their supervisors, and schools by higher-level administrators—reformers have declared these evaluations broken. Their rationale is that many students are not passing their standardized tests. The teachers and the schools responsible for this clear case of educational neglect, they say, have never been punished appropriately. Schools, up until recently, have not been closed down for poor performance. Under-performing teachers have been spared the pink slips they so deserve.

The reason that “failing” schools and “ineffective” teachers have managed to get satisfactory ratings, they continue, is that evaluations have been based solely on measuring somewhat subjective inputs, like what the teacher and school can be observed doing, rather than objective outputs, which are the result of those teacher and school inputs—the amount of student learning that occurs.

This suggests that there is some percentage of teachers in this country that, despite great effort, is not really accomplishing anything. What percent this is, is never defined, but some reformers quote the work of Stanford’s Eric Hanushek, who says that schools are wise to follow the philosophy of G.E.’s Jack Welch and annually fire the bottom 5% of workers each year, as defined by these outcomes.1,2 In certain cities, mayors seem to believe that annually closing the bottom 5% of schools also will lead to higher outcomes.3

There are certainly professions where the outcomes are easy to measure. A fisherman, for example, either catches a lot of fish or he doesn’t. If he catches no fish despite having the appropriate inputs (he gets to the spot early, has the proper bait, spends all day on the boat), he is not going to get any money when it is time to sell the evidence of his daily work. Perhaps he came very close to catching many fish, but nobody wants to buy a can of “almost-tunafish.” He’s not getting it done and needs to find a new line of work.

The dream is that we can accurately measure ...

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