Value Added

Today, in the middle of a staff development session that I was leading, we got the email that we dreaded and feared: the EVAAS numbers were out.  What the hell does that mean, you may ask? It means that teachers across North Carolina got to see their "value-added summary"--the measure of how we affected our students over the course of the last school year.  Supposedly, what a teachers give to their students can be figured mathematically.  If you've ever had a good teacher--or a bad one, for that matter--you know ridiculous that is.

According to EVAAS, my students met expected growth.  This pretty much means that, on the whole, they did exactly what the mathematical formulas said that they would do.  I didn't actively harm them, but I didn't help them to do better than they were predicted to do, either.  Based on these results, I am an average, middle-of-the-road, mediocre teacher.  The results, of course, are based on test scores, which in my opinion are the least interesting thing about any of my students.  Fortunately, I don't take these things too seriously.  I care deeply about how I affect my students, but I just can't put that much stock in one test.


Still, I was curious. I looked at my students' individual scores and saw that one student scored eleven points higher than his predicted score, while another scored ten less than hers.  They were in the same class.  If I accept credit for his gains, then I must accept blame for her losses.  Am I a good teacher because I added value (I hate that phrase, by the way) for him, or am I bad teacher because I did whatever the opposite of adding value is for her?  According to the data, it's both.

I refuse to believe that a teacher's impact, or any impact one human has on another, can be measured numerically.

When a student tells me that I made her want to become a teacher, I know that I have added value.

When a former student contacts me on Facebook to thank me for teaching her to write a research paper and to tell me that her college professors praise her work, I know that I have added value.

When a student I taught five years ago comes to see me after school because, as he put it, he needed advice from his teacher, I know that I have added value.

When a student tells me how much she loved the book we read in class, and that it's the first book she's read cover-to-cover since seventh grade, I know that I have added value.

According to an excellent training session I attended today, only six percent of student achievement can be traced to teachers' lesson planning, but sixty-eight percent can be traced to quality relationships in a school.  Good luck assigning a number to that.