Linking Student Achievement to Teacher Preparation: Emergent Challenges in Implementing Value Added Assessment

Abstract

Systemic efforts to strengthen teacher preparation in Louisiana led to the first statewide value-added assessment (VAA) of teacher preparation programs (TPPs). Subsequently, a number of states have adopted VAA of TPPs. The authors describe challenges that were confronted around the deployment of Louisiana’s VAA of TPPs. The discussion is organized around the challenges emerging from calculation, communication, and change. The discussion provides information that policy makers and teacher education leaders, rather than analysts, might find useful, and focuses on the types of challenges that a state or university system can expect to encounter in developing a VAA. We describe decisions made in response to specific challenges that appear to have been successful and some that in retrospect appear to have been mistakes. In addition, consideration is given to some unintended consequences of policy choices as well as the continuously changing policy landscape for the assessment of teacher preparation.