The Pittsburgh VAMs incorporate course-specific assessments, attendance, and course completion alongside state assessments¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · designr1·q1
Currency · newest study 2012 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2015: tool and model accuracy changes quickly
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q1 i? Pittsburgh's value-added models draw on multiple outcome measures — state assessments, course-specific assessments, student attendance, and course completion rates — rather than state assessments alone. → Matthew Johnson 2012
Evidence¶
Matthew Johnson 2012¶
Matthew Johnson, Stephen Lipscomb, Brian Gill, Kevin Booker, Julie Bruch. (2012). Value-Added Models for the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Cambridge, MA: Mathematica Policy Research. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/valueadded-models-for-the-pittsburgh-public-schools
q1 · i? · design · r1
Descriptive statement from the report's abstract about the design of the Pittsburgh VAMs. The article states the models "use not only state assessments but also course-specific assessments, student attendance, and course completion rates"; no empirical results are reported in the available text.
"Pittsburgh's VAMs use not only state assessments but also course-specific assessments, student attendance, and course completion rates, aiming to produce estimates of the contributions of teachers and schools that are fair, valid, reliable, and robust."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Professional practice ratings, student surveys, and value-added measures each have the potential to differentiate teacher performance in Pittsburgh Public Schools — related
- Value-added models were developed to estimate teachers' and schools' contributions to student achievement in Pittsburgh Public Schools — related
- Pittsburgh Public Schools used value-added models to assess educational quality as of the 2014-15 school year — related
- The choice of which assessment to use as the outcome measure matters more for value-added estimates than any student or peer control-variable specification choice — related
- Mathematica developed and estimated VAMs for use in Phase 1 of the Pennsylvania evaluation pilot — a broader claim this one bears on
- Teacher value-added estimates are highly correlated across model specifications that differ in student and peer control variables — related
- Organizing performance measures into outcomes, impacts, and processes provides rich, fair, and diagnostically useful information — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
pittsburgh-vams-use-multiple-outcome-measures |
title |
The Pittsburgh VAMs incorporate course-specific assessments, attendance, and course completion alongside state assessments |
description |
The Pittsburgh VAMs incorporate course-specific assessments, attendance, and course completion alongside state assessments |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
weak |
newest_evidence |
2012 |
source_checked |
2026-10-20 |
recheck_by |
2015 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-08 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — matthew-johnson-2012 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.