Using One Legal Case to Help Cultivate More Reliable, Valid, and Unbiased Teacher Evaluation Systems

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Impact of Accountability Systems on Teachers and Teaching

Abstract

Until recently, legal challenges to using value-added models (VAMs) for high-stakes teacher evaluative decisions (e.g., merit pay, tenure, termination) were unsuccessful, especially in the state of Florida. Prior and still, as such, multiple teachers throughout Florida have been terminated or transferred from their teaching positions. One Florida teacher’s case is of particular interest, though, in that this teacher continues to fight to be re-positioned into this teacher’s post, arguing that the VAM estimates used against him/her were reliable, albeit invalid and biased. The purpose of this case study, accordingly, was to explore this unique and complicated case, to help the Court determine whether this termination decision was empirically and legally justified, with implications for Florida’s and others’ teacher evaluation systems.

Author

• Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, Arizona State University