The use of value-added modeling (VAM) in school accountability is expanding. However, trying to decide how to embrace VAM can be rather nettlesome. Some experts claim it is "too unreliable," causes "more harm than good," and has "a big margin for error," while other experts assert VAM is "imperfect, but useful" and provides "valuable feedback." This article attempts to parse these statements by exploring the underlying statistical assumptions of VAM, the reliability of VAM's estimates, and the validity of the inferences commonly made based on the estimates of VAM. It then goes on to discuss the perverse incentives, unintended consequences, and gaming that might accompany the misuse of VAM. The article concludes that while, in many cases, VAM may be preferable to other commonly used measurement modes, it should never be used as the sole indicator of teacher effectiveness. Rather, it should just be a piece of a larger accountability system.

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Policy discussions on how to improve educational outcomes have traditionally focused on schools and teachers. While schools and teachers have measurable effects on educational outcomes, reforms aimed at only improving schools and teachers have failed to eliminate persistent achievement gaps. Thus, some scholars have argued for a broader, bolder approach to education. These scholars have investigated the effect of nonschool factors, such as health and early childhood care, on educational outcomes. The present study is intended to add to this growing body of literature. Two analyses that were conducted to examine the effect of student mobility on achievement are discussed. The first uses a multi-level analysis to investigate the relationship between student mobility and reading achievement of students. The second analysis uses aggregate school-level data to investigate if student mobility mediates the relationship between a school's socioeconomic status and its academic achievement levels. The results suggest that student mobility is indeed a predictor of academic struggles—at the individual student level as well as the school level—and should be included in the increasing number of conversations aimed at changing social policies to improve student outcomes.

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Much ink has been spilled debating the role of the intellectual. William Tierney’s article “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Role of the Intellectual in Eliminating Poverty” in the August/September 2013 issue of Educational Researcher adds to this literature. In his article, Tierney presents recommendations to the education community on how we might help our students in poverty. While Tierney’s recommendations are compelling, he frames his essay in a way that makes it difficult to understand why traditional education reform has failed to reach its ambitious goals. In this brief response to Tierney, I encourage our community to view the effects of poverty as two-dimensional when trying to craft and conduct educational reform.