What non-educators often just don’t get is that schools with low scores begin to go further down hill the day the rankings come out. The high achieving families leave but the remaining families demand that the school stay open sincce it is a neighbourhood school.

The whole premise of ranking is based on the idea that the school is at fault rather than the class system.

Much fairer for all.

“Value-added looks at the individual child over time to see whether he or she is moving forward. It works no matter where the student starts the year - on grade, below grade, or above grade level. And because demographic and socio-economic factors remain largely the same over time, value-added is fair regardless of a child’s background. This is extremely important, since it means that schools and educators will be treated fairly regardless of the students they serve.

Value-added is a complex statistical system but the idea behind it is quite simple. In concept, value-added uses all of a student’s prior test scores to create a projected score for the student in her current grade, and then compares that score to her actual score. If the two scores are similar, we can say that she has achieved one year’s worth of growth over the course of that year relative to the rest of the students in the state.”
http://www.cgp.upenn.edu/ope_new_system.html

The emphasis than becomes the education practices of the school. I suspect it would bring about timely intervention for students, instead of passing the gaps in knowledge to the next set of teachers in the higher grades. As well as decreasing the number of students being socially promoted to the next grade.

Educators get it too folks. Doug speaks only for himself.
What parents get is the excuses they will not longer accept that comes from some educators as to who they feel is entitled to an education based on a “class system”.

Very sad indeed.

Google the “Value Added System” Daniel Willington has a looong proof that it is worthless.

Same teachers come out wildly different in different years.

The whole merit pay mentality is discredited by the Vanderbilt study.

A paper on the Tennessee Value-added Assessment model.

“Conclusion

While no assessment system is without limitations, Tennessee’s value-added assessment model stands head and shoulders above others with regard to its focus on the effectiveness of schools, its ability to remove the biasing effects of social and economic influences, and its usefulness in answering critical questions about student progress and educational quality. It has been validated by independent reviewers and proven to be a useful tool for policymakers. Today, TVAAS is a model for several states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina are adopting similar systems) and is under consideration as a national model by the U.S. Department of Education. As the availability of value-added data increases, the Education Consumers Foundation will expand its efforts to increase the public visibility of demonstrably effective schools. “

http://www.education-consumers.org/tnproject/abouttvaas.htm

From what I could determined quickly, the Tennessee model is touted as the best, to determine education accountability, on all sides including the political. It is fair.

Here’s what Doug is presumably referring to. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/daniel-willingham/willingham-the-huge-problem-wi.html

Dr. Willingham in fact endorses school-based value added assessments. Here is the relevant passage.

“Value added models work well when you’re trying to evaluate a school. They work much less well when you’re trying to evaluate an individual class.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uONqxysWEk8

Yes, Doug, Dr. Willingham says that value-added assessment doesn’t work well when it comes to comparing teachers. He also says that value-added assessment does work well when it comes to comparing schools and, by extension, school districts - which is what I was talking about in my original post. You are shooting at a target that I never put up.