VARC staff are participating in a series of webinars sponsored by the department of education to provide support for districts considering implementing performance incentive systems as part of Race to the Top, Teacher Incentive Fund, or local initiatives. Michael Christian will be presenting in the session on Structuring Your Alternative Compensation Program: Challenges and Opportunities (to register click here). Chris Thorn and Peter Witham are the hosts of a session on Anticipating the Data Quality Challenges in TIF: Delivering Student-Teacher Linkages and Managing and Presenting Complex Data (to register click here). Recorded webinars will also be available after the fact on the CECR web site.

Amy McIntosh, New York City Department of Education Chief Talant Officer, discusses VARC’s contribution to the district’s teacher data initiative (New York City Department of Education website).

The Racine [WI] Unified School Board on Monday approved a new partnership with the [Value-Added Research Center at the] University of Wisconsin-Madison that will allow the district to identify which specific schools and teachers advance student achievement (Racine Journal Times, 16 March, 2010).

VARC Job Candidate Talks

Bush Foundation Teacher Effectiveness Initiative

Over the next 10 years, at least half of the 50,000 teachers in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota will retire or leave. In the next decade, the Bush Foundation will focus its resources on producing 25,000 new effective teachers for Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The Value-Added Research Center (VARC) at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research has been asked to help to reach this goal.

VARC will convert currently available data into information that can be used to develop strong measures of teacher effectiveness. We will also provide every new teacher the needed tools and information necessary to assess changes in his or her students’ achievement (and thus measure his or her own teaching effectiveness).

The Bush Foundation has selected proposals from fourteen education institutions in the three states (MN, ND, and SD) to re-develop their admissions, curriculum, and subsequent post-graduation tracking of their teacher education students. VARC's work in this large scale project will be focused on working with teacher education institutions, school districts, and state agencies to create databases that link PK-12 students to their teachers by grade and subject taught.

The Value-Added Research Center will also be providing direct professional development to all participating institutions on the calculation and use of value-added metrics. We will also be working with teacher preparation institutions to include value-added assessment in their pre-service programs. Assessment literacy is a key component of this work since the value-added metrics will be pervasive in the program.

News

Minnesota Public Radio discussed the Teacher Effectiveness Initiative on January 14, 2010. Listen to the show here.

Contact

Chris Thorn
Phone: (608) 263-2709
Office: 370G Ed Sciences
cathorn@wisc.edu