The purpose of this paper is to inform the community about teacher appraisal methods in the School District of Philadelphia, outline the difficulties of the current system, and suggest approaches that would strengthen the teacher appraisal process. The authors gathered their information over three months in mid-2009 from multiple sources: interviews with 7 principals and 13 teachers in the city, interviews with 5 education advocates, observations of community meetings; official documents on state, district, and charter school policies; news articles; and pertinent academic and policy publications. (Contains 2 tables and 7 footnotes.) [Funding for this report was also provided by the Samuel S. Fels Fund.]