The advanced placement opportunity gap in Arizona: access, participation, and success

Participation in Advanced Placement (AP) classes and AP test-taking are widely viewed as indicators of students’ college readiness. We analyzed enrollment in AP courses and AP test outcomes in Arizona to document disparities in students’ access to rigorous curricula in high school and outline some implications of these patterns for education stakeholders. Findings suggest that although 80% of high schools in Arizona offered at least one AP course, the total number of AP courses offered varied considerably across schools. Small schools and schools that served higher percentages of minority students were less likely to offer a wide range of AP courses than large schools and schools with majority White student populations. Although Hispanic students were underrepresented in AP courses, they had the highest test-taking rate. Only a third of the Hispanic students who took AP courses passed the AP test

Validating “value added” in the primary grades: one district’s attempts to increase fairness and inclusivity in its teacher evaluation system

One urban district in the state of Arizona sought to use an alternative achievement test (i.e., the Northwest Evaluation Association’s (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress for Primary Grades (MAP)) to include more value-added ineligible teachers in the districts’ growth and merit pay system. The goal was to allow for its K-2 teachers to be more fairly and inclusively eligible for individual, teacher-level value-added scores and the differential merit pay bonuses that were to come along with growth. At the request of district administrators, researchers examined whether the different tests to be used, along with their growth estimates, yielded similar output (i.e., concurrent-related evidence of validity). Researchers found results to be (disappointingly for the district) chaotic, without underlying trend or order. Using the K-2 test for increased fairness and inclusivity was therefore deemed inappropriate. Research findings might be used to inform other districts’ examinations, particularly in terms of this early childhood test

Everything is bigger (and badder) in Texas: Houston’s teacher value-added system

In this commentary, authors discuss the Houston Independent School District\u27s (HISD) highest-stakes use of its contracted value-added system (i.e., the Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS)) to reform and improve student learning and achievement throughout the district\u27s schools. Authors situate their discussion within a related report on the recent release of Houston Superintendent\u27s own evaluation scores. Authors also situate their discussion within the evidence, as per the recent release of the state\u27s large-scale standardized test scores. Authors assert that, perhaps, attaching high-stakes consequences to teachers\u27 value-added output in Houston is not working as intended

Rational Observational Systems of Educational Accountability and Reform

There is something incalculable about teacher expertise and whether it can be observed, detected, quantified, and as per current educational policies, used as an accountability tool to hold America's public school teachers accountable for that which they do (or do not do well). In this commentary, authors (all of whom are former public school teachers) argue that rubric-based teacher observational systems, developed to assess the extent to which teachers adapt and follow sets of rubric-based rules, might actually constrain teacher expertise. Moreover, authors frame their comments using the Dreyfus Model (1980, 1986) to illustrate how observational systems and the rational conceptions on which they are based might be stifling educational progress and reform