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

Milwaukee Classroom Value-Added Initiative

Over the past decade WCER (supported by the Joyce Foundation) has forged a strong partnership with Milwaukee Public School (MPS) that has led to the creation of a sophisticated system for measuring, tracking, and reporting the value-added productivity of MPS classrooms and schools. This system is now the core of the district’s school report card and accountability system and continues the success of the relationship by undertaking these three focused tasks:

Developing and utilizing value-added models for quarterly benchmark assessments

Building and implementing a value-added professional development system for all teachers and principals and

Evaluating the effects of the MPS classroom value-added initiative using a randomized experiment

These tasks are part of a concerted strategy to provide teachers and principals the information and decision tools needed to improve teaching and learning within the classroom.

Contact

Ernie Morgan
Phone: (608) 263-3452
Office: 768 Ed Sciences
ernestmorgan@wisc.edu