Evaluating the Tennessee Higher Education Commission's Report Card on the value-added estimates of teacher preparation programs

Abstract

Evaluations of teacher preparation programs (TPPs) based in part on the performance of program completers have emerged as an education reform strategy in several states and have become central features of the Race to the Top (RTTT) grant competition. The objective of this policy review is to examine how the state of Tennessee measured and reported the extent to which teacher preparation programs (TPPs) explain the variation of the test score gains for public school students taught by program graduates. This review breaks down the findings by institution and certification pathway, comparing statistically significant outcomes at the state level produced by teachers from each TPP. An analysis of Tennessee's report card reveals considerable variation in the value-added estimates of beginning teachers, depending on the institution where they were

Diagnosing the learning crisis: What can value-added analysis contribute?

“…For precision, researchers generally agree that as sample size increases, the estimates become more precise (Everson, 2017;Gulosino, 2018;McCaffrey et al, 2003;Stacy et al, 2018). Hence, VA estimates may be less precise for teachers or classrooms with small number of pupils.…”

Shadow Elite of Teacher Education Reforms: Intermediary Organizations’ Construction of Accountability Regimes

“…Despite concerns about limited empirical evidence supporting the establishment of accountability regimes (Feuer et al, 2013), a number of initiatives promoting outcomes-based teacher preparation accountability dominated policy conversations in the last 10 years. Tennessee (Gulosino, 2018) and Louisiana (Fleener & Exner, 2011) were among the first states that implemented accountability systems based on value-added measures to identify low-performing teacher education programs and to report publicly these programs' ratings. Subsequently, during the Obama administration, Race to the Top funds were used to get the states to set up accountability systems linking the performance of K-12 students, their teachers, and the programs that prepared those teachers (Lewis & Young, 2013).…”