Summary of "Using Student Growth to Evaluate Educators of Students with Disabilities: Issues, Challenges, and Next Steps": A Forum of State Special Education and Teacher Effectiveness Experts and Researchers. Forum Summary

With the current emphasis in educational policy on improving teacher effectiveness, states and school districts are quickly developing and implementing new models of teacher evaluation. However, few models address the unique challenges in accurately measuring achievement growth of students with disabilities (including those participating in general assessments or alternate assessments) and connecting that growth to teacher effects. To improve teacher practices and academic outcomes for students with disabilities, it is critical that we design evaluation systems that account for diverse teacher roles, student learning goals and trajectories, and assessment means (e.g., standardized, alternative, and formative). Unfortunately, little is known--in terms of research and practice--about whether student growth can be adequately measured for students with disabilities and appropriately attributed to teachers for the purpose of teacher evaluation. Therefore, it is crucial that the field come together to develop a strategic agenda that can be used to guide the development and/or the use of measures to assess student growth while also collecting research to validate state and school district efforts. In an effort to inform state and district practices, the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (TQ Center), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Assessing Special Education Students State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards (ASES SCASS), and ETS collaboratively convened a two-day forum (September 26-27, 2011) for select stakeholders to discuss the challenges and help inform policy, practice, and research regarding the use of the growth of students with disabilities for measuring teacher effectiveness. The specific topics discussed included individual and school-level value-added models, student learning objectives (SLOs), classroom-based measures, and alternate assessments (descriptions are included later in the report). For each topic, this brief outlines the benefits, the challenges, state and district considerations, implementation implications, and needed research. Also included are the results of a survey conducted prior to the forum on state efforts and the available research. Appended are: (1) Participants; (2) Agenda; and (3) Available Research.