A primary focus of recent educational policymaking has been on improving measures of teaching effectiveness, attributable in part to recent federal policies such as the Race to the Top initiative and Investing in Innovation. To date, neither researchers nor practitioners have arrived at a consensus on the best methods for evaluating special…

After decades of disinterest, evaluation of the performance of elementary and secondary teachers in the United States has become an important educational policy issue. As U.S. states and districts have tried to upgrade their evaluation processes, one of the models that has been increasingly used is the Framework for Teaching. This paper summarizes…

Performance-based assessment of teachers includes a class of measurement methods designed to assess the quality of teacher performance on one or two important aspects of teaching. It may include portfolios, structured observations, video records of practice, and teacher work samples. Performance-based assessment can be contrasted with assessments…