Purpose: This article informs school leaders and staffs about existing research findings on the use of data-driven decision-making in creating class rosters. Given that teachers are the most important school-based educational resource, decisions regarding the assignment of students to particular classes and teachers are highly impactful for…

Better teacher evaluation should lead to better instruction and improved outcomes for students, but more accurate classification of teachers requires better information than is now available. Because existing measures of performance are incomplete and imperfect, measured performance does not always reflect true performance. Teachers who are truly…

Teacher evaluation has emerged as a major focus for reform at the highest levels of education policymaking, and for good reason. Most evaluations are based on scant evidence of actual effectiveness, produce inflated ratings, and provide teachers with little useful feedback. This paper offers policymakers and practitioners important "lessons…

This study used phenomenological methodology to explore how 4 Deaf employees described quality of camaraderie of participation in work-related tasks and relationships. Three invariant themes echoed through the data. The first theme was hitting the ceiling quickly and choosing to stay; employees remained in the secondary job market for years…

The work preferences of four adults with severe handicaps were assessed, and three choice-related situations were presented. The study found that clients attended to work tasks almost twice as much when they chose their tasks and when assigned to work on preferred tasks, versus when assigned to work on nonpreferred tasks. (Author/JDD)

Job evaluations offer the opportunity to improve employee ratings and advance career growth. Suggestions for understanding a formal performance appraisal (intent, function, and process) are given along with general performance measurements. Guidelines are offered to help make wise use of the process for career growth. (DH)

Supervisors who evaluate staff members' performances often do not have first hand information concerning those performances. Consequently, the staff member is sometimes not aware of what caused a person's success or failure. In order to give constructive feedback to an employee, a supervisor or another colleague could observe the staff member at…

This one-page abstract summarizes the final report of a federally funded project titled, "Maintaining the Work Rate of Youth with Severe Handicaps." The study evaluated the effects of two self-management techniques, self-monitoring and self-solicitation of feedback with seven 18- to 20-year-old severely and moderately retarded youth over…

Description of a process for solving human performance problems focuses on the analysis phase, which examines information to determine causes and develops recommendations for solving the problems. Techniques used for gathering data are described, criteria for evaluating ideas are listed, and weighted scores for performance improvement ideas are…

Offers guidelines for selecting and using criteria to evaluate community college administrators, focusing on the accomplishment of job responsibilities and previously agreed upon objectives; performance as a manager; the methods used and results achieved; qualitative and quantitative measures; flexibility; and the weighting of criteria. (DMM)

Avoid the one-shot approach to evaluating administrators by designing a continuous system that focuses on improved performance. The four parts of this school district's evaluation system--philosophy, procedures, instruments, and training--are described, and a sidebar lists the specific job duties used in evaluating administrative performance. (DCS)

If competitiors of the United States are making superior products and distributing them more effectively throughout the world, it may be because they are educating workers and managers in ways that create superior skills and discipline. Some U.S. educators agree with businessmen who point to Japan as a model that the United States should strive to…

Using the Delphi technique, a nationwide panel of experts identified 33 competencies that volunteer administrators (VAs) will need during the next decade and categorized them into these five constructs: organizational leadership; systems leadership; organizational culture; personal skills; and management skills. Twelve barriers to acquiring the…

A study assessed the applicability of the American Institutes for Research (AIR) procedures' Performance-Against-Standard form for use in personnel evaluation by the Ohio Cooperative Extension Service. The study also compared relevant test construction approaches identified in the literature to those used in the AIR study in attempting to confirm…

Ethnographic research at 2 work activity centers for mentally retarded clients revealed that 16 production supervisors and 9 adult basic education teachers differed in their connotations of the term "functioning." Teachers defined functioning in narrowly academic terms, whereas supervisors defined it as a set of mental, physical, and moral traits…