Evaluation

This overview provides information about teacher evaluation as it relates to collecting information about teacher practice and using it to improve student outcomes. The history of teacher evaluation and current research findings and implications are included.

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about the role of formal teacher evaluation, the research that examines the practice, and its impact on student outcomes.

This overview examines the current understanding of research on performance feedback as a way to improve teacher performance and student outcomes. 

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about informal evaluation as a practice in schools, and the current understanding of research related to informal teacher evaluation to improve teacher performance and student outcomes.

This study presents a reanalysis of a large randomized controlled trial of school-based mentoring and examines the estimated effect of mentoring as a function of mentee-reported relationship quality using a novel statistical approach.

The CJAA funded the nation’s first statewide experiment concerning research-based programs for juvenile justice. The question here was whether they work when applied statewide in a “real world” setting. This report indicates that the answer to this question is yes— when the programs are competently delivered. 

This paper examines how to measure teacher performance and the practices necessary for increasing teacher trust in systems designed to effectively measure performance.

This study developed a zero-to-five index of the strength of accountability in 50 states based on the use of high-stakes testing to sanction and reward schools, and analyzed whether that index is related to student gains on the NAEP mathematics test in 1996–2000.

This overview provides information about teacher evaluation as it relates to collecting information about teacher practice and using it to improve student outcomes. The history of teacher evaluation and current research findings and implications are included.

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about the role of formal teacher evaluation, the research that examines the practice, and its impact on student outcomes.

This overview examines the current understanding of research on performance feedback as a way to improve teacher performance and student outcomes. 

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about informal evaluation as a practice in schools, and the current understanding of research related to informal teacher evaluation to improve teacher performance and student outcomes.

This brief explores research that points to the opportunities and the challenges that evaluating teacher preparation programs differently presents.

This article presents a conceptual framework for examining the design and implementation of teacher evaluation processes in school organizations. 

A growing number of researchers are studying whether value-added measures can do a good job of measuring the contribution of teachers to test score growth. Here I summarize a handful of analyses that shed light on two questions.

Principals are in a paradoxical position. On one hand, they're called on to use research-based strategies to improve student achievement. On the other, they're increasingly required to micromanage teachers by observing in classrooms and engaging in intensive evaluation. The authors point out that these two positions are at odds with each other.

C-SAIL was established in July 2015 as a resource on the implementation and effects of college and career readiness standards. The Center is funded through a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.

Research strongly suggests that feedback obtained through direct observations of performance can be a powerful tool for improving teacher’s skills. This study examines a peer teacher observation method used in England. The study found no evidence that Teacher Observation improved student language and math scores.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) returns decision making for our nation’s education back where it belongs – in the hands of local educators, families, and communities – while keeping the focus on students most in need.

This book shows how principals and other school leaders can develop the skills necessary for teachers to deliver high quality instruction by introducing principals to a five-part model of effective instruction.

This article describes a school-based randomized trial in over 200 New York City public schools designed to better understand the impact of teacher incentives. 

This research synthesis examines how teacher effectiveness is currently measured (i.e., formative vs. summative evaluation).

This guide is a tool designed to assist states and districts in constructing high-quality teacher evaluation systems in an effort to improve teaching and learning.

This paper report on work estimating the stability of value-added estimates of teacher effects, an important area of investigation given that new workforce policies implicitly assume that effectiveness is a stable attribute within teachers.

This paper provide some recommendations to increase the pool of potential teachers, make it tougher to award tenure to those who perform least well, and reward effective teachers who are willing to work in schools serving large numbers of low-income, disadvantaged children. 

Is dismissing poorly performing teachers truly feasible in America today? After all the political capital (and real capital) spent on reforming teacher evaluation, can districts actually terminate ineffective teachers who have tenure or have achieved veteran status?

The major objective of this data analysis was to estimate the relationship between variables which can be controlled by public policy and educational output. 

This discussion provides a quantitative statement of one approach to achieving the governors’ (and the nation’s) goals – teacher deselection.

This paper reports on the analysis of state statutes and department of education regulations in fifty states for changes in teacher evaluation in use since the passage of No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

This article discusses the current focus on using teacher observation instruments as part of new teacher evaluation systems being considered and implemented by states and districts. 

NSDC opens the door to professional learning that ensures great teaching for every student every day

Standardized testing has increasingly been used to hold educators accountable. Incentives are often offered as a way to improve student test performance. This study examines the impact incentives for students, parents and tutors on standardized test results. The researchers provided incentives on specially designed tests that measure the same skills as the official state standardized tests; however, performance on the official tests was not incentivized. This study finds substantial improvement for performance when there were incentives on the results did not generalize to the official test. This calls into question how to effectively use incentives so they will actually produce desired outcomes.

This study used a random-assignment experiment in Los Angeles Unified School District to evaluate various non-experimental methods for estimating teacher effects on student test scores. Having estimated teacher effects during a pre-experimental period, the authors used these estimates to predict student achievement following random assignment of teachers to classrooms.

This report presents an in-depth discussion of the analytical methods and findings from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project’s analysis of classroom observations.1 A nontechnical companion report describes implications for policymakers and practitioners.

This paper combines information from classroom-based observations and measures of teachers' ability to improve student achievement as a step toward addressing these challenges. The results point to the promise of teacher evaluation systems that would use information from both classroom observations and student test scores to identify effective teachers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of teacher evaluation scores that are derived from an observation tool, adapted from Danielson's Framework for Teaching, designed to assess 22 teaching components from four teaching domains.

the present study was designed to learn more about how to strengthen the integrity of the problem-solving process

The authors show school and district-level administrators how to set the priorities and support the practices that will help all teachers become expert teachers. Their five-part framework is based on what research tells us about how expertise develops. 

Building on the analysis that was first reported in School Leadership That Works, the authors of Balanced Leadership identify the 21 responsibilities associated with effective leadership and show how they relate to three overarching responsibilities: 

This review addresses two different proposals for reforming teacher training, neither of which is grounded in research. The authors report three weak correlations between the performance of program participants and TNTP’s certification evaluation rubric. The report concludes with three self-evident aphorisms: practice improves teaching, teachers who master teaching skills do better, and inadequate performers should be weeded out. 

In December 2016, Bellwether Education Partners and The Thomas B. Fordham Institute independently released two reports centered on teacher evaluation and its consequences. Both reports offer a glimpse into ongoing challenges and opportunities with teacher evaluation reform, but they have very different analyses. 

This report describes how the seven Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Central states (Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) evaluate their teacher preparation programs and the changes they are making to improve their approaches to evaluation.

This paper summarizes validity evidence pertaining to several different implementations of the Framework. It is based primarily on reviewing the published and unpublished studies that have looked at the relationship between teacher evaluation ratings made using systems based on the Framework and value-added measures of teacher effectiveness.

This report is concerned with only one of the many causes and dimensions of the problem, but it is the one that undergirds American prosperity, security, and civility.

This study examines the impact of 2 forms of professional development on prekindergarten teachers' early language and literacy practice: coursework and coaching. 

The goal of the study was to examine the effects of coaching or professional development coursework on teacher knowledge and teacher practice.

As states and districts consider potential changes to their teacher evaluation systems and policies, this paper seeks to inform those efforts by reviewing the evolution of the teacher evaluation policy movement over the last several years, identifying positive outcomes of new systems and negative consequences, and describing risks that should be considered. 

This handbook advocates a new approach to teacher evaluation as a cooperative effort undertaken by a group of professionals.

In this provocative and persuasive new book, the author asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Research using student scores on standardized tests confirms the common perception that some teachers are more effective than others. It also reveals that being taught by an effective teacher has important consequences for student achievement. The best way to assess a teacher's effectiveness is to look at his or her on-the-job performance.

In order to provide accurate estimates of how much teachers affect the achievement of their students, this study used panel data covering over a decade of elementary student test scores and teacher assignment in two contiguous New Jersey school districts.

This research considers relationships between student achievement (knowledge and cognitive skill), teacher efficacy (Gibson & Dembo, 1984), and interactions with assigned coaches (self-report measures) in a sample of 18 grade 7 and 8 history teachers in 36 classes implementing a specific innovation with the help of 6 coaches.

The author develop falsification tests for three widely used VAM specifications, based on the idea that future teachers cannot influence students' past achievement. 

Teacher evaluations matter a lot—both to teachers and to those holding them accountable. But how can schools measure the performance of all teachers fairly? And what should they do with the results?

This book is organized around four dominant interrelated core issues: professional standards, a guide to applying the Joint Committee's Standards, ten alternative models for the evaluation of teacher performance, and an analysis of these selected models. 

 The Digest of Education Statistics 2015 was just released by The Institute for Education Sciences (IES) National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).  This annual publication provides a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of education from prekindergarten through graduate school. Topics include: the number of schools and colleges; teachers; enrollments; graduates; educational attainment; finances; federal funds for education; employment and income of graduates; libraries; technology; and international comparisons. It has been published annually since 1962, providing over 50 years of data with which to benchmark education performance at the system level in this country.

This paper presents the results of a rigorous experiment examining the impact of pay for performance on student achievement and instructional practice.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative. The initiative's goal is dramatic gains in student achievement, graduation rates, and college-going, especially for LIM students. 

This paper offers evidence that evaluation can shift the teacher effectiveness distribution through a different mechanism: by improving teacher skill, effort, or both in ways that persist long-run.

In the research reported here, the authors study one approach to teacher evaluation: practice-based assessment that relies on multiple, highly structured classroom observations conducted by experienced peer teachers and administrators. 

This report proposes six design standards that any rigorous and fair teacher evaluation system should meet. It offers a blueprint for better evaluations that can help every teacher succeed in the classroom—and give every student the best chance at success. 

The authors examine the causes and consequences of the status of teacher evaluation and its implications for the current national debate about performance pay for teachers. The report also examines a number of national, state, and local evaluation systems that offer potential alternatives to current practice.

This report examines the pervasive and longstanding failure to recognize and respond to variations in the effectiveness of teachers. 

The National Council on Teacher Quality works to achieve fundamental changes in the policy and practices of teacher preparation programs, school districts, state governments, and teachers unions.