Appropriate measures of effectiveness: Teacher evaluations and value-added measures in North Carolina.

摘要

The increased use of value-added measures is a result of policymakers viewing traditional measures of teacher effectiveness as obsolete and unrelated to student achievement. Additionally, literature lacks substantial findings examining the relationship between principal observation ratings and a teacher's value-added scores based on the achievement of their students and various school demographics. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between principal observation ratings, school demographics, alternative measures of teacher and principal quality, and a school's overall testing performance on the proportion of teachers with effective value-added ratings. A quantitative study was conducted using the state of North Carolina's archival school performance, educator effectiveness, and free and reduced lunch archival data for the 2013--2014 school year. Sample data comprised the state's top three urban emergent school districts and three rural school districts. These findings indicate that student performance throughout the school is the largest predictor of the proportion of teachers with effective value-added ratings. As a result, school personnel should focus on improvements to student achievement outcomes across the school using collaboratively methods rather than solely employing a content specific approach.