As the COVID-19 pandemic shook the very foundation of our educational systems, Connecticut created adjustments through the 2020-2021 Teacher Evaluation Flexibility Plan. Using a qualitative phenomenological research design, three research questions were explored through the theoretical lenses of Knowles' (1978) adult learning theory and Weick's…

Background: Race to the Top era teacher evaluation reforms sought to improve teacher effectiveness and, ultimately, student achievement through either accountability or developmental mechanisms (Donaldson, 2021). Quasi-experimental teacher evaluation studies find mixed results in urban and large-scale settings (Dee & Wyckoff, 2015; Steinberg…

The purpose of this study was to explore teacher and administrator perceptions of teacher evaluation system modeled after "Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching" (Danielson, 2007). It is universally agreed that teachers are the most significant variable to student educational outcomes. Extensive research has been…

Teacher evaluation has evolved from a task used for administrative decisions to an activity whose main goal is the enhancement of student learning and well-being through the improvement of instruction. The actual implementation of teacher evaluation by school principals will determine greatly the extent to which it can achieve this goal. An…

Recent teacher supervision and evaluation system (TSES) reform efforts have resulted in wide adoption of policies targeting improvements in teaching quality and student outcomes; however, impact of these policies has been inconsistent (Hazi, 2019; Stecher et al., 2018). Failure of TSES efforts to realize their intended outcomes is the result of…

Nationally, teachers have experienced major changes in how their performance is evaluated. Teacher satisfaction with the evaluation system likely influences whether they will use the evaluation data to make instructional improvements, yet we know little about teachers' perceptions of their evaluations. Using survey data from Chicago Public…

The study explores the implementation of teacher evaluation models and federal education policies, particularly AchieveNJ, in an urban public school district in New Jersey. It focuses on principals' experiences and perceptions, uncovering their challenges and thoughts on the policy's effectiveness in enhancing teacher performance and student…

Understanding Consequential Assessment Systems for Teachers (UCAST) studied a large urban school district in the United States as it adopted a new teacher evaluation system. This project studied 1,000 principals as they were trained to use this new system, and followed them into their first three years of implementation. This article features a…

Beginning in 2009, the United States (US) federal government spearheaded a nationwide teacher evaluation reform effort, encouraging states to change their process of evaluating teachers. School principals, the primary evaluators of teacher performance, act as middle leaders in the sense they must attempt to balance messages from federal, state,…

Despite the considerable resources dedicated to teacher evaluation reform, there is currently little evidence on the mechanisms by which evaluation translates into improvements in teachers' instructional practice. To address this need, this study was a two-pronged approach to examine the use of evaluation data for improvement within the Chicago…

Focus on improving teacher quality and student achievement led many state departments of education to implement research-based teacher effectiveness systems. The Teacher Professional Growth and Effectiveness System (TPGES) was implemented as the Kentucky teacher effectiveness system. This study examined teachers' and principals' viewpoints…

Despite major changes to teacher evaluation since 2009, scant research examines how principals enact these policies. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 44 principals in 13 Connecticut districts, we use structure-agency theory to characterize how principals improvised when implementing the state evaluation model. We find that principals' use of…

Recent innovations in teacher evaluation include the development of standards-based frameworks for observational evaluations of teacher practice and development of test-based measures of teacher effectiveness. These tools raise questions about how best to identify good teaching, about the roles of both evaluations and principals in improving…

Driven by Race to the Top funding and quickly designed and deployed in 2010-2011, a new teacher evaluation policy in Tennessee altered principals' supervisory practices regarding their use of time for observation and reporting, their interaction with teachers, and the methods for giving teachers performance ratings. In addition, student test score…

We collected artifacts from 42 teachers participating in a statewide educator effectiveness system to examine the fidelity with which the formative components of the system were implemented. Specifically, we collected written feedback from principals to teachers and teacher professional growth goals. We developed indicators of quality for each and…