The Use of Value-Added Scores in Teacher Retention/Tenure Decisions

Economics of Education Policy Debate: The Use of Value-Added Scores in Teacher Retention/Tenure Decisions
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Economics of Education Policy Debate: The Use of Value-Added Scores in Teacher Retention/Tenure Decisions
Introduction
The United States (US) has made significant efforts in not only providing education for all students through public education but also in improving the quality of education. Often, the quality of education is based on students' achievement, and over the years, students' achievement has been tied to teacher quality and performance. From an economic perspective, teacher performance and quality are measured based on teachers' ability to improve students’ educational outcomes (Lovenheim & Turner, 2018). Consequently, there has been a shift toward tying teachers' performance to students' achievement in recent years. According to Backes et al. (2018), value-added measures of teacher performance have become quite common in the US and play a significant role in measuring the effect of a teacher on students’ achievement. This approach appeals to economists because it is data-driven and quantifiable. However, it also creates inequalities in the distribution of teacher quality, a fact that can be detrimental to access to quality education (Bates, 2019). While the appeal for value-added measures is understandable, its benefit in the high-stake personnel decision-making process, such as tenure and retention, is unclear. It is important to establish whether the benefits of using value-added scores in teacher retention and tenure should take precedence over the inequality they create.
Economic Arguments for Teacher Value-Added Scores
At their core, value-added models/scores create a direct connection between teachers' input and valued outcomes. According to Backes et al. (2018), the education sector values the use of data-driven, outcome-based performance measures. Value-added scores have become a preferable means of measuring teacher performance. They have been instrumental in promoting teachers/school accountability by qualifying their performance in increasing or decreasing students’ achievement (Everson, 2017). They look at individual teachers' effect on students' performance over time. For instance, an increase in a student's average grade score indicates that the teacher's instruction or content has contributed to the growth of the student’s academic knowledge. Theoretically, tying tenure or retention decisions to the value-added scores can ensure the school district only retains teachers with the best performance. The teacher quality will be high, and the input of teachers will contribute to students’ test score growth. The rising demand from parents for higher teacher/school accountability is a source of competitive pressure in schools (Lovenheim & Turner, 2018) that can no longer be ignored. Value-added models effectively ensure that the school district has the most competitive teachers on tenure, thus increasing the quality of education and the district’s competitiveness in the market.
In addition, value-added scores can increase allocative efficiency in the tea...