| Description: |
Value-added methodology (VAM), especially as exemplified by the Tennessee
Value-added Assessment System (TVAAS) by William Sanders, has emerged over the
past several years as an attractive alternative for evaluating the effectiveness of school
systems and school personnel. Its attractiveness stems principally from its purported
ability to minimize or altogether obviate a notorious problem in the evaluation of
educational data, the complex interactions between student characteristics, community
characteristics, school policies, and teacher effects that together contribute to student
success or failure. These complex interactions inevitably cast doubt on the results of
simpler estimation methods, because it is very difficult to control for all of the relevant
variables known to have some effect on student outcomes. |
