Does college cost too much... or not enough? Making better teachers: the fight over "value-added" evaluations.
Should a college education cost more not less?
Cal State University trustees recently approved a 15% hike in undergraduate fees. Critics of this decision argue that in order for California to have a world class education system, school should cost less, not more, and that the state should increase education subsidies. But Shirley Svorny, a professor of economics at Cal State Northridge, attacks this notion in an op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times. Svorny contends that “the state’s prosperity rests on public policies that encourage economic activity, not on heavy subsidies to higher education.” She also says that low fees attract some underachieving students. What do you think? Should college cost more or less? Would higher tuition attract more committed students? Or should we keep tuition down and increase education subsidies for the public good?
Guests:
Shirley Svorny, Ph.D., Professor of Economics, California State University Northridge
Professor Michael Hout, Professor and Chair, Department of Demography University of California, Berkeley; author of forthcoming book: Rationing Opportunity (which is about the admissions squeeze)
Making better teachers: the fight over "value-added" evaluations
When it comes to trying to improve student performance in public schools, many factors come together. One of the major issues is teacher performance and how best to judge teacher effectiveness. The “value-added” approach attempts statistically to show how an individual teacher can make a difference - positively or negatively - in how students do, regardless of class size or background.
Recent articles in the Los Angeles Times about this controversial method have sparked a nationwide debate, which has pitted President Obama’s Secretary of Education against teacher unions and many academics. The Los Angeles Unified School District is in the midst of asking for outside proposals to determine the most reliable way of judging teacher success. The district has gone on record that one of the components they want to include is “value-added” analysis.
Is this the best way to grade teachers? Does the public have a right to see the results? What role should subjective evaluations and student performance play?
Check out KPCC's interactive on educators' responses to teacher evaluations.
Guests:
Eric Hanushek, senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution whose analysis measuring teacher quality through student achievement forms the basis of the “value-added” method of evaluating teachers and schools; chair of the National Board for Education Sciences; chairman of the Executive Committee for Texas Schools Project at the University of Texas; author of "There Is No ‘War on Teachers,'" an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal
Richard Rothstein, research associate at the Economic Policy Institute; national education columnist at The New York Times (from 1999 to 2002); author of Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right and Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap (Teachers College Press); co-author of Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers