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School officials differ over 'value added'
(by Sue Hoffman - September 03, 2008)
School officials differ over 'value added'
By SUE HOFFMAN
Some school districts in the Chagrin Valley indicated that they are pleased with the new "value-added" measure on the state report card. Other local school officials said the state is not providing enough information on how those values are calculated and question their effect on the final designations.
On the report cards for 2007-2008 released by the Ohio Department of Education last week, the Solon School District had the highest performance index in Northeast Ohio and the second highest in the state. The Chagrin Falls School District was the second highest in Northeast Ohio and the fifth highest in the state.
Solon and Chagrin Falls, as well as the West Geauga School District, were among 74 districts in Ohio achieving "excellent with distinction" ratings. The designation was based not only on performance index, which reflected student outcomes on state achievement tests, but also the "value-added" measure. School districts have to have a positive value-added score for two consecutive years to be named "excellent with distinction."
The Orange and Kenston school districts achieved the "excellent" designation. The Orange district had a positive value-added score for the 2007-2008 school year but a negative one the previous year. Kenston had a positive score the previous year but a negative score in 2007-2008.
Orange and Kenston, which both met all 30 state standards, had performance indices that were higher than a dozen districts in the "excellence with distinction" category.
Standards include passage rates for achievement and Ohio graduation tests, along with attendance and graduation rates. The performance index reflects how students performed on the exams, based on numbers that scored at the limited, basic, proficient, accelerated and advanced levels.
More significantly, Kenston Superintendent Robert A. Lee pointed out, the Springfield School District in Summit County met only 23 standards, compared with all 30 achieved by Kenston and Orange. The Springfield district was bumped up from "effective" to "excellent" by having a positive value-added score for two consecutive years. Likewise, districts which met 11 to 28 standards are in the same "effective" category because of the value-added measure.
Beginning in 2008-2009, districts and schools that show below expected growth for three consecutive years will get a reduction in their ratings.
"It's a surprise to us that they've given that much weight to this factor," Dr. Lee said. He said the value-added formula "is now more important than passing the exams. That is a little puzzling."
He said it's also difficult to understand just how the value-added score is calculated. School administrators have attended training programs of the Ohio Department of Education on the subject, but they still find it perplexing, he said. "It's a formula with a mystery."
Timmons Elementary School in the Kenston District had a performance index of 110 out of 120, and Kenston Intermediate School had an index of 105 out of 120. Neither met the value-added measure.
"It's another factor coming in to overemphasize testing," Dr. Lee said. "I don't know if parents want this much emphasis placed on a snapshot exam."
In value-added reports, school districts are given data on how individual students, classes, grade levels and categories of students scored on reading and mathematics, compared with state-calculated expectations, school officials said.
However, when trying to determine just how the district was graded on student progress, "it's all speculation," Dr. Lee said. There's also the assumption that all children are growing at the same rate, he said.
Solon School Superintendent Joseph V. Regano, while praising his district's students and staff for their achievement, agreed that the formula can be frustrating to school districts that receive a negative value-added score.
Mr. Regano said he believes the state should report achievement test scores, value-added scores and adequate yearly progress scores as three separate entities.
"Adequate yearly progress" indicates the extent to which each student group is meeting benchmarks for proficiency. The measures show whether districts and schools have gaps in achievement between groups of students.
Combining value-added scores with test scores is the issue, Mr. Regano said. He said it's like a person getting a clean bill of health after passing a series of medical tests and then being told he's not healthy, because he has a certain color hair or drives a certain car. "How are they related?" he asked. "It brings unreliability into the system."
At the same time, he said, the value-added score has boosted the ratings of some school districts that are having a tougher time meeting test standards.
While he can understand the frustration experienced by some districts, value-added is "a great addition," Chagrin Falls Superintendent Stephen Thompson said. "It's going to measure the type of growth each student achieves. It gives great data on individual students," he said.
"It is still very unclear" how it is calculated, he said. Nevertheless, his district was able to improve many of the initial value-added scores two years ago, he said. "We knew we had work to do." He said the district targeted age groups and subjects that needed improvement.
The Orange School District also worked hard to achieve its positive value-added score on the new report card, according to Matthew Deevers, director of educational programs. The district met or exceeded all progress expectations for the five grade levels' reading and mathematics scores.
"The tide has turned," he said. "In every accountability measure, the Orange City School District has met the challenge." Last year, the district had three areas in which students on the average weren't meeting expected growth goals, he said. That is achieved "when you focus on the growth of all students. That's the secret," he said.
Mr. Deevers said that, unlike achievement tests, which are scored by passage rates, the value-added measure is based on normal-curve-equivalent test scores. "It is a very, very precise prediction of where an individual student achievement should be on a normal curve equivalent," he said. For example, if a student gets a 62 score the first year, he might be expected to achieve a 63 the next year and a 65 the third year. If he achieves a 67 the third year, the value-added score is 2. If he scores a 61, his score is minus 4.
The West Geauga School District was the only one in Geauga County to achieve the "excellent with distinction" rating. West Geauga Superintendent Anthony Podojil saidthe value-added concept "is a good addition to the tools we have" to improve student learning. "It helps us fine tune and focus on a particular nuance in the group of kids as they progress over time," he said.
In the past, data compared one fourth-grade class to the former year's fourth-grade class, he said. The value-added measure, which reflects the value a school and teacher have added to a student's learning tracks the progress of the same group of students from year to year.
While his district achieved the highest designation, Dr. Podojil said, "There are plenty of areas to work on once we're deep in the data. It's never a finished product."
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