Hare's some recent info on Arizona's move to value-added assessment.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/12/13/20091213edazlearns1213.htmlThe way Arizona decides if a school is performing or failing is likely to change dramatically by 2011.
The new method would be more precise than any used previously and measure how successfully a school pushes its students - average or gifted, rich or poor - to learn more from year to year, state officials said...
The new measurement is most commonly referred to as the "value-added" method and here's how it works:
� A student's AIMS score is measured on a scale of 200 at the bottom for Grade 3 and 900 at the top for the high-school exam.
� The state already has the ability to determine improvement in each student's AIMS scale score over previous years' scores. The new measurement allows the state to determine if a student's year-to-year progress matches progress made by other Arizona students who had similar scores last year and the year before.
� On a micro level, this new method can help teachers and parents determine if a student's learning is keeping pace or outpacing their true academic peers, whether the student is scoring in the 300s or in the 700s. On a macro level, it can determine if students in a classroom, a school or a district are outpacing similar students, keeping pace with them or falling behind.
