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This cloak-and-dagger headline from Sunday’s Columbus Dispatch appears above an unexpectedly tame--though heartening--story about innovative teacher professional development in Ohio.

Apparently, some Ohio districts are using “value-added analysis” of student achievement data to guide school improvement and professional development efforts. The data allow teachers to estimate their impact on students’ academic progress from one year to the next. Teachers and principals can use these data to improve individual teachers’ practice.

The scores are “secret,” because neither the state nor Battelle for Kids, the private non-profit that supplies the teacher-specific data, are authorized to make them public. Administrators may not use the data to fire teachers. They do use them, however, to determine what teachers can do to improve their instruction.

You can’t blame the Columbus Dispatch for choosing a racy (if misleading) headline for its story. Improbable though it may seem, test scores and value-added data have become the stuff of drama as celebrity superintendents, unions, and think tanks battle over teacher pay-for-performance plans.

Still, it’s refreshing to see a news story that portrays state assessment as something more than postmortem analysis. Used well, state tests can become an important part of a teacher's instructional toolkit.

You can learn more about Battelle for Kids’ value-added assessment initiatives here.