Grading Teachers, Grading Schools

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Jason Millman, a Cornell University professor of education and an expert on standardized testing methods, died Feb. 22 in Lake Oswego, Ore., where he was visiting family. He died from complications arising from Shy-Drager Syndrome. He was 64. Millman spent a large part of his career studying standardized testing of high school and college students, developing evaluation guidelines for teachers and trying to find accurate ways to measure human performance in an academic setting. In 1992, Millman was commissioned by the New York State Court of Appeals to study whether the New York Bar examination was biased. In his study, released in May 1993, Millman concluded that although passing rates differed across groups, the bar examination was not biased. Later, in a 1994 study on testing accommodations, he developed a methodology for investigating whether the completion of tasks within a prescribed amount of time is an important lawyering skill. Millman also studied the appropriate use of the Scholastic Aptitude Test and was critical of states that compared schools to each other through a "pervasive, simplistic, misleading and dangerous" use of scores. The SAT, he claimed, is taken by motivated, college-bound students and is designed to predict how individual students will perform in college, not to measure schools' effectiveness. In addition to evaluating the performance of students and teachers on standardized tests, Millman and his colleagues also published a 1983 study in the journal Research in Higher Education, indicating that grade inflation was threatening the reliability and validity of grade-point averages. Millman served as co-editor, with Linda Darling-Hammond, of The New Handbook for Teacher Evaluation: Assessing Elementary and Secondary School Teachers (1990), a popular book in the education field. His other books included Grading Teachers, Grading Schools: Is Student Achievement a Valid Evaluation Measure? (1997) and How to Take Tests (1969). He also served as editor of two professional journals, Education Researcher (1964-68) and Journal of Education Measurement (1968-71). Millman grew up in Albany, N.Y., and graduated from Albany High School in 1951. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics education in 1955 and a doctorate in psychometrics in 1960, both from the University of Michigan. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1960 as an assistant professor, teaching educational research methodology. He was named a professor in 1969. He served as president of the National Council on Measurement in Education (1978-81) and president of the Educational Research Association of New York State (1963-64). He held elective offices with the Measurement and Research Methodology Division, American Research Association. He served a four-year term as an executive committee member of the National Assessment Governing Board. In 1996 he was awarded the National Council on Measurement in Education Career Award. In addition to his academic accomplishments, he was active in the Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service in Tompkins County, N.Y. He was a writer of the handbook Talking With the Callers: Guidelines for Crisis Line and Other Volunteer Counselors (1998). Millman lived in Ithaca and is survived by his wife, Meredith; sons Jeffrey of San Francisco, Almar of Oswego Lake, Ore., and David of Ithaca; five grandchildren; a brother, Russell Millman of Cincinnati; and a sister, Miriam Biglow of Palm Harbor, Fla.

PART ONE: ORIGINS AND UNDERPINNINGS Beginnings and Introduction - Jason Millman and H Del Schalock PART TWO: THE OREGON WORK SAMPLE METHODOLOGY Oregon's Teacher Effectiveness Work Sample Methodology - Bill Cowart and David Myton Rationale and Background Oregon's Teacher Effectiveness Work Sample as Used at Western Oregon State College - H Del Schalock, Mark Schalock and Gerald Girod Oregon's Teacher Effectiveness Work Sample Methodology - Peter W Airasian Potential and Problems Oregon's Teacher Effectiveness Work Sample Methodology - Daniel L Stufflebeam Educational Policy Review Reflections on Comments by Professors Airasian and Stufflebeam - H Del Schalock, Mark Schalock and Gerald Girod PART THREE: THE DALLAS VALUE-ADDED ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM In the Beginning - Luvern L Cunningham The Dallas Value-Added Accountability System - William J Webster and Robert L Mendro Value-Added Productivity Indicators - Yeow Meng Thum and Anthony S Bryk The Dallas System On Trial - Gary Sykes The Dallas Value Added Accountability System Little Practical Difference and Pie in the Sky - William J Webster et al A Response to Thum and Bryk and a Rejoinder to Sykes PART FOUR: THE TENNESSEE VALUE-ADDED ASSESSMENT SYSTEM The Impetus for Tennessee's Value-Added Assessment System - Patricia E Ceperley and Kip Reel The Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System - William L Sanders, Arnold M Saxton and Sandra P Horn A Quantitative Outcomes-Based Approach to Educational Assessment TVAAS - Richard B Darlington A Challenge to Familiar Assessment Methods Response to the Reviewers - William L Sanders et al PART FIVE: THE KENTUCKY INSTRUCTIONAL RESULTS INFORMATIONS SYSTEM Historical Background - Doris Redfield and Roger Pankratz The Kentucky School Accountability Index Ronald K Hambleton - Neal Kingston and Ed Reidy Measurement Quality of the Kentucky Instructional Results Information System, 1991-1994 Overview and Assessment of the Kentucky Instructional Results Informations System - Daniel L Stufflebeam KIRIS Meets the Critics - Neal Kingston and Ed Reidy A Little Light and Much Heat PART SIX: SYNTHESIS AND PERSPECTIVES How Do I Judge Thee? Let Me Count the Ways - Jason Millman Toward What End? - Linda Darling-Hammond The Evaluation of Student Learning for the Improvement of Teaching The Moth and the Flame - W James Popham Student Learning as a Criterion of Instructional Competence