The current study explores how principals (n = 568) experience a new teacher evaluation model under Race to the Top. Findings suggest that principals felt the least confident in their ability to identify teacher behaviors associated with student achievement gains and placed the least value on student achievement data. Evaluation experience…

Recent federal investments in early childhood assessment systems are the result of a national need for developmentally appropriate, psychometrically sound instruments to monitor young children and evaluate the effectiveness of their learning programs. In this paper, we examined the association between teachers' perceptions of their students at the…

In the present study, hierarchical linear modeling with random intercept models was used to estimate the impact school and teacher-level factors had on K-12 teachers' perceptions of school influence, curricular and pedagogical autonomy, and job satisfaction in the early years of the Race to the Top Era. The main predictors investigated were…

This chapter summarizes a set of research studies that focus on high school course offerings, takings, and effects. Improving high school experiences and having students graduate from high school ready for college are national priorities under President Obama's Race to the Top initiative. Doing so by expanding access to advanced courses dates back…

The use of standardized test results to drive school administrator evaluations pervades education policymaking in more than 40 states. However, the results of state standardized tests are strongly influenced by non-school factors. The models of best fit (n = 18) from this correlational, explanatory, longitudinal study predicted accurately the…

Today, with states' near-universal adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the political system has achieved that which was not possible less than 2 decades ago. Just why this is so remains unanswered. Some observers have attributed states' embrace of the standards to the substantial financial incentives that the federal government embedded…

The Race to the Top (RTTT) program, announced by the Obama Administration in 2009, represented the largest competitive grant in the history of U.S. education. Despite the amount of money available and the dire condition of most state budgets in that year, however, some states chose not to apply for funding and the remainder submitted applications…