VAM

I teach undergrads about teaching. While doing so, I try to balance the curriculum with real world experiences, the nitty-gritty of what the educator life is all about.

Last week I had students explore various aspects of the teaching profession: school reform; public schools vs. charter schools; accountability (AYP); school grade; and teacher evaluations. To ensure a good dose of reality, I assigned one group the Value Added Model or VAM. 

It wasn’t long until the VAM group approached me before class one day, the leader of the group saying, “We found the meaning of VAM – Value Added Model or what value a teacher brings to the classroom – but we can’t figure out what it actually is.”

I looked at the 5 of them, smiled to myself, and thought, this is good; they are seeing the absurdity of this model. Then, I replied to them, “If you’re totally confused, you’re on the right track!”

They stared blankly back at me, blinking their eyes, confused. I am quite certain they were silently cursing their leader for pulling this topic from the hat.

I continued, “VAM was designed to be completely ambiguous and mystifying. That way, teachers are so perplexed and frustrated, they give up on even trying to understand it and eventually stop asking questions.”

More confusion.

I couldn’t stop myself from throwing my head back and laughing, maybe a little too diabolically.  Poor kids just wanted to complete the assignment and I was laughing at them in their time of need.   

I asked them to tell me what they found so far and they began to rattle off their basic understanding regarding VAM:

1. It stands for Value Added Model.
2. It is a calculation that predicts how students should do on high stakes assessments.
3. That predication and whether students met that prediction is turned it into a score used to represent a teacher’s value.
4. 50% of a teacher’s evaluation depends on their VAM score (the other 50% comes from classroom observations).
5. It is part of the “rigorous” evaluation requirements districts and states had to implement to receive Race to the Top grant money.

So I said, “Although you’re off to a great start, there is a lot more to VAM, and most of the particulars are hidden. You see, to receive the 700 million dollars of RTTT money, which was financed through the Recovery Act from President Obama, states had to implement “rigorous” evaluation models. In true educational leadership fashion, district and state administrators decided to make this as complicated as possible.”

In fact, teachers used to be treated as professionals, but now they are considered a bunch of inept, Barbarians who can’t be trusted to do their jobs. The teaching profession has been high jacked by a bunch of testing lobbyist who love VAM because it ensures more tests, which ensures more money.”

VAM is a way to keep everyone, especially teachers, confused. In addition, complacency is the VAM’s bedfellow. Below is the algorithm for VAM. You will see it is very complicated so even the most savvy mathematician would have a difficult time figuring this out.

All teachers are told from the most part is that this model is a predictive one.  It predicts how your students should do on the test.  And if students do not perform as predicted, a teacher’s VAM score goes down and subsequently so does her pay. 

However, VAM doesn’t predict if a student will face hardship at home because of divorce, neglect, abuse, a death in the family, or anything else that causes emotional turmoil. It will not predict if a student has become frustrated from being over-assessed that she decides to Christmas tree the test (a term used for randomly picking answers on a test score sheet rather than actually working out the problems).

The VAM algorithm cannot possibly predict a student’s unique, individual experiences that may or may not affect him or her on test day. Therein lies one major flaw.

More importantly, the people, who put this all in place, knew it would be too complex for legislators to question. In fact, I challenge any of our readers to ask a legislator to explain VAM. I am willing to bet what’s in my savings account; lawmakers don’t know what VAM is or how it works. 

If you follow the money, you will see VAM is nothing but a guise for more testing. Here are some things to consider:

• Before VAM there was ONE state test used for accountability purposes in schools.
• Now, on top of high-stakes tests for students, there are tests for every subject area and grade level (even kindergarten). These tests are administered to students solely for the purposes of generating a VAM score. Pearson is making a killing off of this VAM model.

Furthermore, Florida Teacher’s Unions should be outraged at the use of VAM, because the measure is flawed. Yet, unions do nothing.

Right before I quit being a slave for the district and state as a high school assistant principal, teachers would line up outside my office door, desperate for answers regarding their VAM scores. So I sent out this email: 

To: All Faculty

CC: Administration

Subject: Still confused regarding VAM?

Teachers,

Many of you have stopped by my office asking very legitimate questions regarding your VAM scores. Some of you were shocked to discover your VAM scores were much lower than you expected. Some of you are simply confused by this new way of determining the value you bring to the classroom.

Put simply by Recommendations of the Florida Student Growth Implementation Committee: Background and Summar 

The teacher’s value-added score reflects the average amount of learning growth of the teacher’s students above or below the expected learning growth of similar students in the state, using the variables accounted for in the model.

The only thing I can say to you is that this calculation was designed to be confusing. It was designed to keep teachers and administrators in the dark regarding this predictive model. Below is the algorithm used to calculate VAM. This will probably confuse you more. But rather than be confused you should be angry. And then you should do something.

Regards,

Kathleen Jasper

But no one said a word – no outrage, no pushback.

Educators, both teachers and administrators, should ask, “Does VAM calculate the hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars we spend of our own money towards our classrooms to make sure all students get the right education, while our district spends education funds on testing and other ineffective measures?” and, “Can an algorithm really measure the relationship between a teacher and her students?”

So at this point, I am encouraging my undergrads to channel their confusion into outrage. Teachers, and future teachers, get pissed and say something. Or you could just ask your legislator to explain VAM. That would be a great start, because once everyone realizes how ridiculous this all is, maybe changes will occur.