Using Test Scores From Students With Disabilities in Teacher Evaluation

Abstract

Much of the recent focus of educational policymakers has been on improving the measurement of teacher effectiveness. Linking student growth to teacher effects has been a large part of reform efforts. To date, neither researchers nor practitioners have arrived at a consensus on how to treat test scores from students with disabilities in growth‐based teacher effectiveness indicators, despite the fact that these students make up approximately 13% of the K‐12 student population. In this study, we leverage longitudinal data from the population of teachers in one state to explore practical questions related to including general assessment scores from students with disabilities in teacher evaluation. Findings suggest that including test scores from students with disabilities allows more teachers to be evaluated and does not substantially affect teachers’ scores. Moreover, including disability‐related covariates can allow for fairer evaluations for teachers with many students with disabilities in their class.