When asked publicly or privately about high stakes assessments for teachers and schools, we always say the same thing: don’t go there. Using value-added models based of student test scores to reward or punish teachers misdiagnoses educator motivation, guides educators away from good assessment practices, and unnecessarily exposes them to technical and human testing uncertainties….
Our clients are by and large genuine change-makers, motivated to measure and achieve the positive outcomes they seek. And one of our most important jobs is helping them develop and use appropriate data to enhance discovery, analysis, insight and direction. But client commitment and our professional responsibility don’t always avoid some common data collection pitfalls….
To celebrate the re-opening of our blog, I am republishing our most popular piece, originally published in 2005 – long before the movie version. Enjoy! Asked at a conference what I thought was the best book on education research I’d read recently, I was quick to answer, “Moneyball.” Moneyball? But that’s a baseball book! Well,…