Conduct an Analysis of Teacher Effectiveness Using Student Growth Measures

Client: 

Northwest Georgia Regional Educational Service Agency

The Challenge: 

It is necessary to provide feedback to teachers regarding performance beyond that which can be provided through classroom observation. One method for providing additional performance information is to evaluate the amount of student growth shown for each teacher compared to a benchmark. Challenges in data management across districts often prohibit the ability to generate these types of analyses in a timely and cost effective manner.

The Solution: 

SEG provided data management, analysis, and reporting services to produce teacher effectiveness data for all teachers in the Northwest Georgia RESA. First, SEG provided data management services to use scheduling records to identify the core reading, language arts, and mathematics teachers for each student throughout the school year. Second, SEG provided data management services to create data sets including all students who have pre (prior Spring) and post (current Spring) CRCT test scores in one or more of reading, language arts, or mathematics. Then, SEG combined this schedule and performance information and conducted Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) for each grade and subject using teacher as a random factor and pretest score as the covariate. Using ANCOVA allows for the data to be analyzed as if all of the students started at the same point. This provides a more fair comparison of student growth across teachers. Reports were provided for teachers in grades 3 through 8 in reading, language arts, and mathematics for each district and school. In addition, a report interpretation guide including cautions and limitations was provided.