As states, districts, and schools transition toward more rigorous educator evaluation systems, they are placing additional weight on judgments about educator practice. Since teacher and principal observation ratings inherently rely on evaluators' professional judgment, there is always a question of how much the ratings depend on the particular…

An approach is presented to the definition of minimal competence for judges to use in standard setting. Panelists in standard setting must receive training to ensure that differences in rating result from differences in perceptions of item difficulty, not in differences of opinion about the definition of minimal competence. (SLD)

Issues concerning the selection of judges for standard setting are discussed. Determining the consistency of judges' recommendations, or their congruity with other expert recommendations, would help in selection. Enough judges must be chosen to allow estimation of recommendations by an entire population of judges. (SLD)

Criteria for the selection of judges (evaluators) for setting item-based standards involved in tests for which cutting scores must be established are investigated. Focus is on cases in which test standards are based on specialists' judgments concerning the difficulty of test items in tests used to determine who will be awarded a diploma, admitted…