Article archive / March 1, 2013
Originally published: . Volume 4, No. 7. Source pages: 7.
The value added assessment portion of Louisiana’s teacher evaluation system developed by school psychologist and LSU professor, Dr. George Noell and colleagues, is taking full effect across Louisiana this year. The program, derived from the earlier Value-Added Teacher Preparation Program Assessment Model, began in 2003 when Noell and colleagues created a complex, nested, multivariate evaluation design. The purpose was to examine how teacher performance as indexed by student academic gains was related to teacher preparation.
According to Dr. Noell, the biggest development to date for the project is the implementation of Act 54, a state law mandating that Value-Added data be used in teacher evaluations. Act 54 was implemented around the state starting in the 2012-2013 school year. Under Act 54, 50 percent of teacher evaluation information will come from the assessment of the growth and learning displayed by the individual students of that particular teacher as well as other inputs such as principal observation.
Recently several districts participated in a pilot program for the Value-Added program around the state, including Ascension, DeSoto, East and West Baton Rouge, Iberville, Jefferson, St. James and St. John parishes.
The researchers have tracked data related to teacher preparation institutions, including Louisiana State University, McNeese State University, Northwestern Louisiana University, Southeastern Louisiana University, University of Louisiana–Lafayette, and University of Louisiana–Monroe.
Dr. Noell’s findings have helped to focus program development and improvement efforts for some programs that have obtained weaker results. For some this has led to gains on the value added metric.
This expansion of the project, as required by Act 54, is designed to make the degree of student progress more transparent to teachers and educational leaders. This way they can more effectively target development efforts. And also, it will allow educators and leaders to assess the degree of educational progress that students made relative to similar students and act on this information.
In addition to teachers, the value-added program data is also provided to the teacher preparation institutions around the state that trained the teachers. This information has helped point to some surprising gaps in student results for some programs. These findings have motivated program improvement efforts in a number of cases.
Dr. Noell commented that currently there are “… two instances where institutions made changes and got improved results based on the data.” So, universities in the state are implementing changes in their preparation programs. And those changes are resulting in improved student standardized test scores when subsequent waves of teachers get into the workforce.
Dr. Noell said that the project is helping provide “… a degree of visibility in schools that [we] never had before,” regarding what is being taught and learned.
Noell and the Board of Regents have experienced success with the value- added teacher preparation program assessment model, and have received national attention and acclaim from others around the country. These have included Secretary Duncan with the Federal Department of Education. Additionally, several states around the nation, including Tennessee, Texas, Florida, New York, and North Carolina, are also starting or have in place their own programs examining teacher preparation thorough value added assessment.
Dr. Noell told the Times that he is pleased that the program has provided teacher educators with feedback on their impact on student learning gains. He explained that he is excited to see the subsequent changes those institutions are enacting to make improvements in the education of future teachers.
Even with his work of crafting strategic initiatives to address policy and evaluation issues in education, Dr. Noell still finds his greatest enjoyment in helping children. In a previous report he explained to the Times (see PT, Vol 2 No 5) he recalled the feelings of working in the clinical setting. “There is nothing more rewarding than going home that day knowing you have helped a kid, a mom, or a teacher,” he said. “You could really see it, feel it, it was right there–that you made a difference in someone’s life.”
“There is nothing more rewarding than working on behalf of children and adolescents,” he said.
For more information about Act 54 and the assessment programs, go to http://www.act54.org
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.