Comments on: Value-Added League Tables

By: JennyD

JennyD — Sat, 29 Jan 2005 15:05:14 +0000

Value-added is a terrific way to evaluate schools. I have had educators in the richest schools tell me that they do absolutely nothing to add to kid’s education—that it all happens at home. To which I say, then why are you taking in $10,000 per kid in tax dollars…for babysitting? In disadvantaged schools, with challenged populations, value-added removes the ugly broad hurdle of AYP as a simple standard, and allows the improvement to be measured against the starting point.

By: JK

JK — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 10:17:38 +0000

Obviously we need different measures for different purposes. I do worry that there is potential here to disguise inequality. If schools in poorer areas are adding just as much “value” we shouldn’t kid ourselves that the pupils are getting just as good an education.

By: Xavier

Xavier — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:49:47 +0000

I would think that student mobility would actually be helpful in evaluating schools. Say you have a group of students that all attend the same elementary school and then all attend the same middle school. When they get to middle school their test scores begin to drop. That suggests that the middle school isn’t as good as the elementary school, but it doesn’t tell us anything about how those two schools relate to any other schools. You might have a decent middle school and an excellent elementary school or a decent elementary school and a terrible middle school. The measurement procedures might be a little more complicated when students move around a lot, but I think the end result would be more informative. This might be indicative of a bigger problem. If students in one school on average do no better or worse than in their previous school, does the algorithm take that to mean that the new school is just as good as the old school or does it mean that the new school is of average quality? It should be the former, but from what I’ve read I think it’s the latter. That would be a big problem. If a district has consistently good schools K-12, it will look like the district has good elementary schools, but only average middle and high schools.

By: JRoth

JRoth — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:47:02 +0000

All of you in school districts with gibbon-led English departments really need to consider relocating….

By: Brad DeLong

Brad DeLong — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 19:52:04 +0000

Curiously enough, it is my son’s writing and reading (and science) skills [that] will develop fine if he is taught English by gibbons (in fact, in the sixth grade he was); it is his math skills that need teaching by a good teacher…

By: harry

harry — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:54:31 +0000

Darren, I know James’s work well, and have written a thorough response to the ideas in that piece, published in the most recent issue of Journal Of Philosophy of Education. I can, in fact, email you a PDF file if you’re interested, and will summarise the part of it that responds specifically to his comments on India and Geeta Kingdon’s findings in a future post. Thanks for the idea!!

By: Darren

Darren — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:49:29 +0000

The article skirts the issue of state vs private schools. For background reading try Tooley. With articles such as "Private education: the poor’s best chance?", I'm sure the readers of this blog will be enthralled but not necessarily educated.