Combining Multiple Measures
State legislation and federal initiatives have motivated states and school districts to create or revamp educator evaluation systems. These systems typically use a "multiple measures" approach to generate an educator's overall rating - combining observations of educator practice with measures of student growth. These measures often include:
- student achievement growth, such as value-added,
- teacher observations, or
- student or parent surveys.
While each measure can be informative on its own, many policy decisions including human capital management and professional development require a combined, single measure of educator effectiveness.
VARC has extensive experience helping states and districts combine their measures of educator effectiveness into a single, summative rating while:
- supporting policymakers' goals,
- balancing various, often competing priorities,
- gaining stakeholder buy-in, and
- following statistical best practices.
In this way, we help our partners design systems that are fair and transparent for educators and provide incentives for continued improvement.