New Practicality: Value-Added Measures and the Idea of What Goes On in the Classroom

• In Event: 46.061 - Litigation Trends in K–12 Education Relating to Employees and Traditionally Underserved Students

Abstract

As a key arbiter of what numbers are allowed to carry the weight of law, legal decisions represent an important site of contestation over new forms of quantification. Recognizing this judicial role, this paper examines the recent judicial rulings concerning the status of value-added scores as the newest form of classroom knowledge. I argue that despite the considerable theoretical assumptions of value-added models and the considerable amount of subjectivity in specifying the appropriate model, courts have classified value-added scores as representing a fundamentally different kind of knowledge about the classroom than that possessed by teachers or represented by other modes of teacher evaluation. While not definitive, these decisions represent an important challenge to the traditional meaning of practical education knowledge.

Author

• Ethan L Hutt, University of Maryland - College Park