We reviewed and synthesized 35 peer-reviewed empirical studies published between 2014-2018 that investigated district leaders', principals', and/or teachers' interpretations of and experiences with Race to the Top teacher evaluation systems. We analyzed evidence of how educators' prior experiences, beliefs, values, organizational contexts, and…

Classroom teacher leadership has encompassed both formal and informal leadership roles--from organizational roles, such as department head, to instructional roles, such as literacy coach or facilitating a book study group. In an era of Race to the Top and challenging economic times, states like Washington have revised their teacher evaluation…

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…

Since the inception of NCLB Laws and "Race to the Top," researchers have documented the continued decline and disappearance of social studies curriculum and instruction in elementary classrooms as schools focus on language arts and math, the subjects that are the focus of standardized testing. This qualitative study's goal is to examine…

The focus of the study, a replicative meta-analysis, was to provide educators and policymakers with an analysis of extant data collected from current research, 1996 to pre-"Race to the Top" (RttP) and "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" of 2009 (ARRA), concerning the question of whether or not a positive or negative effect…

A mainstay in NCLB and the Obama administration education plan is turning around low-performing schools. This study utilized surveys and interviews with school leaders from four turnaround urban high schools in Texas to understand student outcomes before and after school restructuring and reconstitution. Although some organizational changes were…

Responding to federal policy and recent research, states and districts have developed and begun implementing multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems. These systems generally include observational and/or student survey measures of instructional quality alongside measures of teachers' contributions to student learning (e.g., value-added models…

The teaching brain is a dynamic system that is in constant interaction with the learning brain. If we fail to explore the teaching brain we will continue to design educational reform policies that ignore the most important lens in the classroom: the teachers'. Master teachers recognize their perspective and leverage their teaching brains to embody…

To meet the demands of living and working in the 21st century, it is critical that every P-12 student in every classroom have an effective teacher. Yet, each year, thousands of new teachers enter the field unprepared to meet the challenges of today's classroom. Recent federal policies such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top have made…

This article reports the initial evaluation results of a new accelerated, job-embedded principal preparation program funded by a Race to the Top Grant (U.S. Department of Education, 2012a) in Florida. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, and chi-square analyses were used to describe the characteristics of a group of potential applicants nominated to…