The board of directors of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) will deliberate during its February 2015 meeting the final adoption of its official position statement on the use of Value-Added Measures (VAM) in teacher evaluations. The decision whether a teacher should be rated proficient or not, or should be retained or not based on student test scores using VAM has been a controversial and polarizing topic in the field of education and in the national political arena. NASSP has asked its members and all interested parties to share their opinions on this topic from November 7, 2014 to January 7, 2015 – a period of 60 days.

After a intentional, deliberate and thorough analysis of various research reports on VAM, NASSP made the following recommendation about the use of VAM to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers: “VAMs should not to be used to make key personnel decisions about individual teachers.”

NASSP made further recommendations about how VAM should be used:

“VAMs should be used by principals to measure school improvement and to determine the effectiveness of programs and instructional methods. VAMs should be used by principals to target professional development initiatives. States and Districts should provide ongoing training for Principals in the appropriate use student data and VAMs. States and Districts should make student data and VAMs available to principals at a time when decisions about school programs are being made. States and Districts should provide resources and time principals need in order to make the best use of data.

If you would like NASSP to consider your comment before its position statement is finalized, do so by January 7, 2015 via e-mail to karhusea@nassp.org.