Teacher effects on student achievement and height: a cautionary tale
6 months ago
- #education
- #value-added models
- #teacher performance
- Teacher value-added measures are widely used to assess teacher performance based on student learning outcomes.
- The study tests the validity of value-added models by applying them to an outcome teachers cannot influence: student height.
- Findings show that teacher effects on height are nearly as variable as those on math and reading achievement, suggesting spurious variation.
- The results indicate that much of the variation in teacher effect estimates is noise rather than actual bias from unobserved factors.
- The paper warns against the practical use of value-added models due to challenges in distinguishing signal from noise in teacher effect estimates.