Measuring and Improving the Effectiveness of High School Teachers

While many may have an opinion of what effective teaching should look like, actually measuring teacher effectiveness has inherent challenges, especially at the high school level. However, as policy practices such as merit based pay continue to hold more traction, finding fair and accurate ways to define and measure teacher effectiveness continues to increase in importance.

The brief, Measuring and Improving the Effectiveness of High School Teachers recently released by the Alliance for Excellent Education, suggests defining effective high school teaching by gains in student achievement and explores the use of value-added systems. These complex, statistical, value-added methods factor in background details like income level, prior achievement, and school characteristics and estimate the amount of growth a student makes over time as determined by multiple assessments. Yet, in the high school environment, it is not a simple task to determine the impact of one individual teacher on student achievement. High schools must administer standardized end-of-course exams, analyze students' prior level of achievement, and translate the results into a user friendly document that can be used by principals and teachers.

Value added assessments have benefits and challenges. They objectively isolate teacher effectiveness and connect teacher improvement to data on student outcomes. However, value added measures cannot identify which teaching practices lead to student achievement. Many high schools do not institute yearly, aligned tests and typically students at the high school level aren't randomly assigned to their classes (which is often a concern for teachers who work with students who aren't already high achieving). However, research shows that when value added is done well and supplemented with other measures, it can help teachers improve their ability to impact student learning.

Beyond value added systems, other methods can be used measure student learning which provide more frequent and richer data than annual tests. These include:

• Pre and post tests administered at the beginning and end of a unit or course
• Interim assessments/benchmark exams aligned with state accountability tests
• Formative assessments

The brief also discusses supplementing measures of teacher effectiveness through sets of measures of teachers' knowledge and skills linked to student achievement .

These measures can be used to target and strengthen teacher accountability and enhance teacher education programs. Additionally, the brief suggests that career ladders are natural companions to evaluations and effectiveness data, providing a way to recognize effective teaching and creating incentives for teachers to improve over time.

To read the brief in full, click on the following link: http://cstp.c.topica.com/maakLGlabF8RnbnlaALb/