The State of Maine benefits from WCER's Value-Added Research Center (Maine Public Broadcasting, 22 January).

Chris Thorn, Associate Director of VARC, discusses the Pittsburgh merit pay plan (Post-Gazette, 13 December), and how the Bush Foundation is partnering with VARC to evaluate teachers in Minnesota, and North and South Dakota, based on student performance (Pioneer Press, 3 December).

Rob Meyer talks with Todd Finkelmeyer of The Capital Times about value-added models and the "race to the top" (11/10/09).

On November 9, 2009, Wisconsin Public Radio featured the story Metrics system strives to provide comparisons that are "apples-to-apples," about value-added measures and the Value-Added Research Center.

The VARC project is helping NYC schools manage their data (NY Times, 8 September).

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Introduction to the MPS Value-Added System
Dr. Robert H. Meyer
November 29th, 2002

Work conducted in partnership with:

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Click on the headings below to start a video of the segement. Before starting a video, be sure to download and print the relevant PDF attachments.

Introduction (5:53 minutes)

• Attachment #1 (Value-Added Indicators)
• Attachment #2 (A Value-Added System for MPS)
  

Testing Students (4:12 minutes)

• Attachment #3 (Testing Elementary, Middle and High School)
• Attachment #4 (The Average and Range of Test Score, in 7th and 8th Grade)
  

Comparing Two Schools (6:39 minutes)

• Attachment #5 (Figure 1a: A Graph of Student Achievement Data for Two Schools)
• Attachment #6 (Figure 1b: A Graph of Student Achievement Data for Two Schools)
• Attachment #7 (Figure 1c: A Graph of Student Achievement Data for Two Schools)
  

Comparing Many Schools (5:18 minutes)

• Attachment #7 (Figure 1c: A Graph of Student Achievement Data for Two Schools)
• Attachment #8 (The Range of High School Performance in Reading - South Division and Rufus King High Schools)
• Attachment #9 (The Range of High School Performance in Reading - Parkview and Kilbourn High Schools)
  

Accuracy (4:39 minutes)

• Attachment #10 (The Range of Middle School Perfomance in Reading - Beat the Average)
• Attachment #11 (The Range of Middle School Perfomance in Reading - Tier)
  

Tiers/Reports (7:29 minutes)

• Attachment #11 (The Range of Middle School Perfomance in Reading - Tier)
• Attachment #12 (School Performance Report - Morse Middle School)
• Attachment #13 (School Performance Report - Global Learning Center)
  

How We Do Value-Added (2:29 minutes)

• Attachment #14 (Features of Value-Added Models and Indicators Used to Measure Perfomance in Milwaukee Schools)
  

What Does it Mean (8:23 miniutes)

• Attachment #14 (Features of Value-Added Models and Indicators Used to Measure Perfomance in Milwaukee Schools)
• Attachment #15 (School Performance by Average Prior Achievement)
• Attachment #16 (Comparison of Indicators: Average 8th Grade Mathematics Achievement vs. Value-Added School Performance)
• Attachment #17 (Explanation of Difference between School Performance and Attainment: Average 8th Grade Math Achievement, 2000)
• Attachment #18 (Explanation of Difference between School Performance and Attainment: Average 8th Grade Math Achievement, 2000)
• Attachment #19 (Explanation of Difference between School Performance and Attainment: Average 8th Grade Math Achievement, 2000)
  

Quesitons & Answers (19:36 minutes)

• Attachment #9 (The Range of High School Performance in Reading - Parkview and Kilbourn High Schools)
• Attachment #11 (The Range of Middle School Perfomance in Reading - Tier)