Over at the UFT, Leo Casey accuses us of various rhetorical sins involves caricatures, straw men, etc, in recent comments about the NYC value-added project. Their grievances lie with the methodology, says Leo, and it's wrong to say otherwise. Okay, very well. Two questions:
1) What are the basic elements of a UFT-approved methodologically appropriate method for estimating individual teacher effectiveness using value-added measures based on standardized test scores? For example, if the school system were to find a way to fix every problem that Leo mentions--multiple teachers between tests, small numbers of students per teacher, etc.--would that be sufficient to assuage their concerns?
2) Given a UFT-approved value-added methodology, what uses of value-added data would the UFT endorse? Could the results be released to the public? Could they be used as one factor in making tenure decisions or providing performance bonuses? Anything else?
If Leo provides a straight answer to those questions, and if the answer to the second questions is something other than "None," I'll officially apologize for saying that the UFT's reaction to the value-added reflects a principled opposition to evaluating teachers using student test scores.
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