Value-Added Scores for Teachers in High Need Schools

• In Event: 435 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 09. The Role and Influence of Teachers

Abstract

Despite sociological evidence that differences in achievement are much more closely related to differences across homes than differences across schools and teachers, federal efforts to reduce disparities in achievement emphasize the contributions of teachers. Schools across the nation increasingly use value-added methodologies to evaluate and score teachers on the basis of their students’ achievement. This methodology ostensibly isolates the effect of the teacher from all other factors that influence student achievement, such as student background, peer effects, and the nonrandom sorting of students into classrooms. With teachers’ salary sizes, status, and job stability sometimes dependent on their value-added-scores, the possibilities that these scores are not accurate and that educational disparities are not rooted in differences in teacher quality are troubling. This study uses data on a census of an urban district’s core teachers of grades 3-8 from 2007-08 through 2012-13, and data on their students and schools, to investigate the degree to which value-added scores appear to be consistent and reliable, as well as the degree to which they narrow in on the real causes of educational disparities.

Author

• Dara Renee Shifrer, Rice University