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Activity Number: 669
Type: Invited
Date/Time: Thursday, August 4, 2016 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
Sponsor: Statistics and Public Policy
Abstract #318285
Title: Using Student Test Scores for Teacher Evaluations: The Pros and Cons of Student Growth Percentiles
Author(s): J.R. Lockwood* and Katherine E. Castellano and Daniel F. McCaffrey
Companies: Educational Testing Service and Educational Testing Service and Educational Testing Service
Keywords: teacher value-added ; academic growth ; standardized test scores ; measurement error ; education policy
Abstract:

The use of student achievement data to evaluate teachers is being tested or implemented in nearly every state. Possibly the most common approach to creating teacher performance measures from test score data is to aggregate student growth percentiles (SGPs). An SGP equals the rank of a student's current test score among the scores of students who had similar achievement test scores in the past. An aggregate SGP (AGP) used in teacher evaluation equals the average or median SGP of the students taught by the teacher. This presentation will review recent research on sources of both random and systematic errors in SGPs and AGPs. It will discuss how measurement error in standardized test scores creates large errors in SGPs, which can create a source of error in AGPs that is correlated with student prior achievement. It will also present evidence that errors in AGPs can be correlated with student background characteristics even in the absence of test measurement error. It will discuss the implications of the results for the costs and benefits of AGPs relative to alternative ways of computing teacher performance measures from standardized test scores.


Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.

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