In my most recent post, about it being “Time to Organize in Florida” (see here), I wrote about how in Florida teachers were (two or so weeks after the start of the school year) being removed from teaching in Florida schools if their state-calculated, teacher-level VAM scores deemed them as teachers who “needed improvement” or were “unsatisfactory.” Yes – they were being removed from teaching in low performing schools IF their VAM scores, and VAM scores alone, deemed them as not adding value.
A reporter from the Tampa Bay Times with whom I spoke on this story just published his article all about this, titled “Florida’s ‘VAM Score’ for Rating Teachers is Still Around, and Still Hated” (see the full article here, and see the article’s full reference below). This piece captures the situation in Florida better than my prior post; hence, please give it a read.
Again, click here to read.
Full citation: Solochek, J. S. (2019). Florida’s ‘VAM score’ for rating teachers is still around, and still hated. Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved from https://www.tampabay.com/news/gradebook/2019/09/23/floridas-vam-score-for-rating-teachers-is-still-around-and-still-hated/
Thanks for the link and for making yourself visible as person able to assist teachers who have been VAM-ed. The idea that you can fire teachers based on these scores is outrageous, but i think it was floated a long time ago by some economists or CEOs. In any case, good to see you are still keeping the website. Too bad it has to exist.