Teacher perceptions after 5 years of implementing evaluation protocols that were initiated under Race to the Top revealed attitudes about the evaluation instrument used and the nature of their relationship with the evaluator. This study surveyed middle and high school teachers in nine Eastern Tennessee school districts. Data indicated unintended…

The federal Race to the Top initiative signified a shift in American education policy whereby accountability efforts moved from the school to the teacher level. Using administrative data from Tennessee, we explore whether evaluation reforms differentially influenced mobility patterns for teachers of varying effectiveness. We find that the rollout…

Over the past 2 years, educational policy makers have focused much of their attention on issues related to teacher effectiveness. The Obama Administration has made teacher evaluation and teacher quality a central feature of many of its educational policies, including Race to the Top (RTTT), Investing in Innovation (i3), and the Teacher Incentive…

The criteria for determining the student outcomes that define a school as having "turned around" are not well defined, and the definition of turnaround performance varies across studies. Although current policy initiatives offer guidelines for identifying CLP schools, there is no standard definition or methodology in common usage. This…

The focus article "Road Maps for Learning: A Guide to the Navigation of Learning Progressions" by Black, Wilson, and Yao (this issue) is a veritable tour-de-force, covering a great deal of education ground while spanning the heights from models of the interplay among curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment to interpretations of student…