Thanks for reading! The post actually leans on an input- certification. But the test-based value-added measure isn’t just raw achievement of students. It compares how much a teacher’s students grew against similar students across Texas. And if a kid can’t read or do math, that’s a problem. When teacher quality gets measured other ways, like calibrated classroom observations, those measures tend to line up with the same teachers anyway.
The late higher ed Commissioner Reymund Paredes had a point that often rankled the teacher groups: Texas needed to attract more top high school students to the teaching profession. I rejected that idea initially, but I do ponder it a lot. (And I was a top high school student who chose teaching.) My mom, who was co-valedictorian of her high school class, chose teaching because it was one of the (fewer) options open to her in the 1960s. She joined a bunch of teachers at my high school with similar backgrounds. And those teachers -- who had success with a mostly-white student population -- later were (somewhat and better than expected) successful with low-income kids, too. There are a lot of factors in there -- higher success in high school, admin support, strong district leadership, early successful teaching -- that I think all contributed to better outcomes.
Have you considered measuring teacher performance on input metrics rather than output metrics?
Sometimes the scoreboard (student test scores) at the end of a game doesn’t tell the whole story.
Thanks for reading! The post actually leans on an input- certification. But the test-based value-added measure isn’t just raw achievement of students. It compares how much a teacher’s students grew against similar students across Texas. And if a kid can’t read or do math, that’s a problem. When teacher quality gets measured other ways, like calibrated classroom observations, those measures tend to line up with the same teachers anyway.
The late higher ed Commissioner Reymund Paredes had a point that often rankled the teacher groups: Texas needed to attract more top high school students to the teaching profession. I rejected that idea initially, but I do ponder it a lot. (And I was a top high school student who chose teaching.) My mom, who was co-valedictorian of her high school class, chose teaching because it was one of the (fewer) options open to her in the 1960s. She joined a bunch of teachers at my high school with similar backgrounds. And those teachers -- who had success with a mostly-white student population -- later were (somewhat and better than expected) successful with low-income kids, too. There are a lot of factors in there -- higher success in high school, admin support, strong district leadership, early successful teaching -- that I think all contributed to better outcomes.