Dive Brief:
- A Virginia judge, who ruled last week that Loudoun County Public Schools must release Student Growth Percentiles attached to teachers, is denying requests by various teacher advocate groups wanting to intervene in the case.
- While The Virginia Education Association and the Loudoun Education Association argue that the release of the data could unfairly hurt teachers on the grounds that it is incomplete and faulty, the judge says they don't have enough standing to enter the case.
- The parent requesting the data, which has been collected by teachers and schools since 2011, believes its release will help the public identify who is an effective teacher.
Dive Insight:
The district's assistant superintendent told school board members in February that she'd "rather use data that doesn’t have so many disclaimers around it." Some of the issues with SGP data (which is not unlike that derived from the value-added method of teacher evaluation) is that it only tracks math and reading, so teachers in other subjects are wrongly held to growth in areas that they didn't necessarily teach.
Then, of course, there are all of the other issues that come with VAM. Last April, researchers with the American Statistical Association (ASA) released a report that found VAM to be unreliable. According to the report, the focus relies too heavily on test scores, which give an incomplete picture of a teacher's actual value. The SGP in question in Virginia only relies on test scores, not even teacher evaluations and other factors, which is why so many educators and their allies are troubled by what could happen if the growth data is released.