Can Value Added Add Value to Teacher Evaluation?

The notion of using value-added methods (VAMs) to evaluate educators and schools is appealing to policymakers. The question of whether they will ultimately improve or undermine teacher evaluation depends largely on whether VAM metrics can accurately identify individual teachers’ contributions to student learning and offer a credible measure of teacher "effectiveness."

In "Can Value Added Add Value to Teacher Evaluation," Linda Darling-Hammond debates the benefits and difficulties of using value-added methods. Darling-Hammond responds to five Educational Researcher papers that raise new questions about VAMs.