The Promise and Potential Pitfalls of Value-Added Assessment

Arguments for Using VAM For PayPurposes• VAM may draw different people into teaching addressing thelong-term downward trend in the academic skills of the U.S.teacher workforce• If the desire is to reward teachers who produce high valueaddedthen employing a credentials-based strategy will leadto significant errors (experience, degrees, NBCTs)• Few examples of long-standing programs, but recentempirical work shows that pay for performance increasesstudent achievement (e.g. Figlio and Kenny, 2006; Lavy,2002, 2004)14