School districts and states across the Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic Region and the country as a whole have been modifying their teacher evaluation systems to identify more effective and less effective teachers and provide better feedback to improve instructional practice. The new systems typically include components related to…

Online charter schools--also known as virtual charters or cyber charters--are publicly funded schools of choice that eschew physical school buildings and use technology to deliver education to students in their own homes. These schools typically provide students with computers, software, and network-based resources, while also providing access to…

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania plans to develop a new statewide evaluation system for teachers and principals in its public schools by school year 2013-2014. To inform the development of this evaluation system, the Team Pennsylvania Foundation (Team PA) undertook the first phase of the Pennsylvania Teacher and Principal Evaluation…

At the request of Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) and the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers (PFT), Mathematica has developed value-added models (VAMs) that aim to estimate the contributions of individual teachers, teams of teachers, and schools to the achievement growth of their students. The authors' work in estimating value-added in Pittsburgh…

This report summarizes research findings and implementation practices for teacher and principal value-added models (VAMs), as a first step in the Team Pennsylvania Foundation's (Team PA) pilot project to inform the development of a full, statewide model evaluation system. We have selected 21 studies that represent key issues and findings in the…