What You Need to Know About the PLSEE Reviewer PDF 227: Tips and Strategies

The most acceptable statistical method to address the problems arising from the non-random sorting of students across schools is to include indicator variables (so-called school fixed effects) for every school in the data set. This approach, however, limits the usefulness of the results because teachers can then be compared only to other teachers in the same school and not to other teachers throughout the district. For example, a teacher in a school with exceptionally talented teachers may not appear to add as much value to her students as others in the school, but if compared to all the teachers in the district, she might fall well above average. In any event, teacher effectiveness measures continue to be highly unstable, whether or not they are estimated using school fixed effects.23

philippine law school entrance exam reviewer pdf 227

First, it is less expensive to grade exams that include only, or primarily, multiple-choice questions, because such questions can be graded by machine inexpensively, without employing trained professional scorers. Machine grading is also faster, an increasingly necessary requirement if results are to be delivered in time to categorize schools for sanctions and interventions, make instructional changes, and notify families entitled to transfer out under the rules created by No Child Left Behind. And scores are also needed quickly if test results are to be used for timely teacher evaluation. (If teachers are found wanting, administrators should know this before designing staff development programs or renewing teacher contracts for the following school year.)

Such test preparation has become conventional in American education and is reported without embarrassment by educators. A recent New York Times report, for example, described how teachers prepare students for state high school history exams: