Historically, teacher evaluation systems have identified few teachers as low-performing and needing improvement. In 2012, at the beginning of a national reform movement, Chicago Public Schools implemented its overhauled evaluation system, which incorporated multiple measures of teaching practice and dismissal plans for low-rated teachers. We find…

In this study, we estimated the relationship between two popular measures of teacher effectiveness--teachers' value-added model (VAM) estimates, represented in this study via median growth percentiles (MGPs), and teachers' observational scores, derived from the TAP System for Teacher and Student Advancement. We examined the relationship between…

What should university discipline be used to do and what should it not be used to do? In this article, the author argues that the only proper goal a university could have in seeking to discipline a professor is to put an end to that professor's bad behavior--and only after informal means have failed. He also argues that penalties should be applied…

Until recently, legal challenges to using value-added models (VAMs) throughout the United States (US) for high-stakes teacher evaluative decisions (e.g., merit pay, tenure, and termination) were unsuccessful, especially in the state of Florida. Hence, prior and still, multiple teachers throughout Florida have been terminated or involuntarily…

Most teachers have tenure protections that constrain dismissal. Some argue that tenure improves recruitment and retention by mitigating the risk of monopsony employment and substituting job security for lower salaries. Others argue that tenure reduces performance incentives making it difficult to dismiss ineffective teachers. We examine…

The available frameworks of instructional leadership do not include functions aimed to ensure that teachers are suited for their position, such as hiring appropriate teachers, placing teachers effectively, and firing ineffective teachers. This study explored how principals link their responsibility of ensuring that existing teachers are the right…

This research examines media accounts of teachers in Canada and the United States who were fired or forced from their Catholic schools because they identified as lesbian, highlighting the reality of discrimination in Catholic schools, particularly egregious in their contradiction of non-discrimination legislation. Caught between the religious…

Research provides an undeniable connection between teacher quality and student outcomes. This quantitative study investigated reasons that principals recommend non-renewal of a teacher's contract and the barriers that challenge their ability to address ineffective teachers. Data were gathered using a survey that was completed by over 3,200…

Recently, numerous news stories have detailed the ways teachers across the country have been disciplined for addressing issues of oppression and justice in their schools. This paper engages poststructural discourse analysis to consider data from a year-long study of recent graduates of a justice-oriented teacher education program during their…

After 40 years as a hardworking and productive academic, here I was on a Zoom call fronting two senior colleagues telling me I no longer appeared on the new 'organisational chart'. In short, I was being made redundant. It was no surprise really, as another 40,000 professional and academic staff were to suffer the same fate. And really by then I…

This study aims to examine in detail the ethical dilemmas faced by private school teachers. The study employed a phenomenological research design. The study group comprised 15 teachers working at private schools in a province located in the southeastern region of Turkey in the 2020-2021 academic year, who were determined by the maximum variation…

Until recently, legal challenges to the use of value-added models (VAMs) in evaluation and teacher employment decisions in federal court had been unsuccessful. However, in May 2017 a federal court in Texas ruled that plaintiff-teachers established a viable federal constitutional claim to challenge the use of VAMs as a means for their termination…

Ten years ago, many policy makers viewed the reform of teacher evaluation as a highly promising mechanism to improve teacher effectiveness and student achievement. Recently, that enthusiasm has dimmed as the available evidence suggests the subsequent reforms had a mixed record of implementation and efficacy. Even in districts where there was…

The present article is dedicated to the hyper-hierarchization of small-scale organizational spaces (and the most immediate ones for most academics)--university departments. By using the anarchist critique of hierarchies to deconstruct the architecture of an undisclosed department located at one of the South African universities, the author…

In January 2016, 2212 academics have signed a petition to criticise human rights violations in Kurdish cities, and faced grave consequences as a result. By presenting the experiences of six dismissed signatory academics, this article aims to show the effects of authoritarian neoliberal policies on higher education institutions. After demonstrating…