Public institutions in the United States face a policy challenge to adapt to accountability expectations among a variety of stakeholders (Bogue & Hall, 2012; Thelin, 2004; Richardson & Martinez, 2009). Among the major stakeholders are state legislators who hold fiscal and policy influence over public institutions, but these leaders have…

In this article, we explain how overly prescriptive, rigid state statutory and regulatory policy frameworks regarding teacher evaluation, tenure and employment decisions outstrip the statistical reliability and validity of proposed measures of teaching effectiveness. We begin with a discussion of the emergence of highly prescriptive state…

The Stull Act (after its principal sponsor, Assemblyman John Stull) requires all school districts in California to adopt a uniform set of guidelines for use in evaluating the professional competence of their certificated personnel. The act went into effect on September 1, 1972. In the spring of 1972, it became apparent from newspaper articles that…