Little attention has been given to better understanding how to effectively evaluate the work of instructional coaches. This study by Evthokia Stephanie Saclarides and Sarah Theule Lubienski illustrates how a new evaluation system for coaches was implemented in one mid-size, urban district. They describe two ways in which the Evaluation Tool…

Student engagement is an important consideration for teachers and administrators because it is explicitly associated with achievement. What the authors call the ABC's of engagement they outline as: Affective engagement, Behavioral engagement, and Cognitive engagement. They also present "Three Things Every Teacher Needs to Know about…

The tests we use to evaluate student achievement may well be sound measures of what students know, but they are faulty indicators at best of how well they have been taught. A remedy to this this situation of judging teachers by the performance of their students on high-stakes tests may be in hand already. We should look to the methods successfully…

If developed thoughtfully and implemented carefully, value-added models can serve as key components in improved teacher evaluation systems by providing important information on the extent to which classroom teachers have fostered learning gains in math, language, reading, and other tested subjects. For many teachers, particularly those in English…

Given the primary role of teachers in affecting student achievement, U.S. policy makers and reformers have increasingly focused on monitoring and evaluating teacher effectiveness by emphasizing the links to student learning outcomes. Large-scale international assessments are frequently used as base examples to justify reform. But, relatively…

The authors detail their summer long pointed discussion with the Obama Administration--via an exchange of letters and telephone conversations--over initiatives in New York and other states that tie the evaluations of teachers and principals to student performance on standardized tests. The authors assert such initiatives should await further…

Failure is inevitable and can be conducive to great learning and discovery. However, some failures exact too high a human cost to justify. All of this may sound like a contradiction: freedom to fail and avoidance of human cost at the same time. However, the crux of the matter is coming to understand how leadership supports failures in order to…

Describes the Staff Performance Improvement and Appraisal Program at Newport-Mesa, California (Author)

A Newport Beach, California, teacher evaluates that district's Staff Performance Improvement and Appraisal Program. (JF)

Assessment literates know how to meet specific standards of quality. Sound assessments arise from and serve clear purposes, reflect clear and appropriate achievement targets, rely on proper methods, sample student achievement appropriately, and control for sources of bias and distortion. Barriers include fear of assessment, insufficient time, and…

Gerald Bracey has been dismayed at the uncritical acceptance of international comparisons in this country. It seems to him that otherwise competent researchers and psychometricians abandon all critical facilities when dealing with data from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement--the TIMSS studies and PIRLS--or…

Student learning must be touchstone by which teachers and teacher educators are gauged. Unfortunately articles in November 1996 "Kappan" on "Quality Teaching for the 21st Century" don't support this statement. In contrast to three national certification initiatives, Oregon's teacher licensure system (Oregon Work Sampling…

In this article, the author offers a new vision of assessment that has the potential of bringing about remarkable gains in student achievement. The time has come to take advantage of the new understanding of the potential of assessment and to fundamentally rethink the relationship between assessment practices and effective schools in the United…

In this article, the authors describe a collaborative effort involving 30 school districts in California's Silicon Valley that are seeking to overcome the ill effects of mandatory high-stakes standardized testing in mathematics. These districts administer, score, and analyze a common set of performance assessments in mathematics in a way that…