How Effective are the Teachers in Your School District?

In Tennessee and several other states, teacher effectiveness can be assessed on the basis of annual student achievement gains.  Although there are exceptions like the reports that were undertaken by the Los Angeles Times, value added data by levels of teacher performance within school districts is rarely available to the public.  That said, even district averages are of value in assessing the quality of teacher hiring, retention, and oversight  As can be seen in the charts below, there are substantial differences between … Read More

Effective and Ineffective New Teachers

How Effective are Tennessee’s Teacher Preparation Programs? Tennessee’s Value Added Assessment System has been in place since 1995. It enables users to estimate the success of teachers, schools, and districts in lifting student achievement and it does so in a way that permits statistically fair comparisons. Since 2007, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission has published a report card that uses the TVAAS data to estimate success of Tennessee’s teacher preparation programs in graduating “highly effective” new teachers. Highly … Read More

ECF on Teacher Quality: 2013 and Earlier

Teaching is a highly trained and regulated profession; yet despite all of its rules, standards, enforcement agencies and oversight bodies, the performance of many practicing teachers is so poor as to be detrimental to students.  The reason is that the evaluative process is largely controlled by the profession to suit its own standards—not those of the parents and taxpayers that it serves.  One effect of this self-regulated process is that the public’s priorities are not necessarily those of … Read More

FAQ’s About the Value-Added Achievement Awards Program

FAQ’s   What is the Value-Added Achievement Awards program? The Value-Added Achievement Awards are annual awards program that recognize Tennessee’s most effective middle and elementary school principals. These are the leaders whose schools have excelled at raising the academic performance of their students. The program is part of the Education Consumers Foundation’s efforts to make education data clear and understandable to education’s consumers. What is value-added assessment? Value-added assessment is a term taken from economics. It refers not … Read More

Value-Added Achievement Awards Initiative

The Value-Added Achievement Awards and School Performance Charts   Introduction Every citizen has a stake in school quality, especially parents. The purpose of these awards is to make school quality visible to all and to give those who are responsible for producing it the recognition they deserve. All states collect, analyze, and report mountains of school performance data. However, most of this information is not easily accessed or understood by non-educators. Our aim is to strengthen the public’s … Read More

Sample Opinion 3

Teacher Training and Texas Education Reform: A Study in Contradiction Public Education Reform in Texas, December 7, 2000, The Driskill Hotel, Austin, TX. Abstract Parents, policymakers, and taxpayers want schooling that equips students with the knowledge and skills that are vital to subsequent learning and adult success. Most professors who train teachers do not agree. They believe teachers should employ an ideal form of teaching called learner-centered instruction (LC) -an approach that works best with ideal students. The … Read More

Sample Opinion 2

Value-Added Accountability and Public Confidence in Education J. E. Stone, Ed. D. House of Representatives Testimony to the Select Committee on House Resolution 495 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Tuesday, September 19, 2000 Introduction Good morning. My name is John Stone. I am a licensed educational psychologist and licensed school psychologist, and I have taught prospective teachers for the past 30 or so years. I am a graduate of the University of Florida and currently a professor in the College of … Read More

Sample Opinion 1

A “Second Opinion” Regarding Implementation of the Nebraska Partnership for Quality Education Project September 9, 1999 George K. Cunningham, Ph.D. College of Education University of Louisville J.E. Stone, Ed.D. College of Education East Tennessee State University Martin Kozloff, Ph.D. Watson School of Education University of North Carolina – Wilmington all of the Education Consumers Consultant Network At the request of Ann Mactier–member of the Nebraska Board of Education–the Nebraska Partnership for Quality Education proposal was examined by the … Read More

Teaching Skill Under Scrutiny

(click here for full article) (Click here to download the PDF of this article) By W. James Popham, Past President, American Educational Research Association; Founding Editor, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis; Professor Emeritus, UCLA. Phi Delta Kappan, 53(1), 1971, 599-602.   Briefing It has been an unquestioned article of faith among education professors that teachers who complete a lengthy menu of pedagogical courses are more effective in the classroom. A 2001 report by Kate Walsh of the Baltimore-based … Read More

For Media

About the Education Consumers Foundation The Education Consumers Foundation (ECF) is a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation chartered in Tennessee. It is a spin-off of the Education Consumers ClearingHouse (ECC)—an online consumer organization founded in 1995.  ECF is dedicated to representing the interests of parents. taxpayers, and their elected representatives.  Its mission is to improve public education outcomes through the use of research and policy analysis.  ECF is like Consumer Reports but focused primarily on education policy, practice, and outcomes.   … Read More

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