Teachers and school leaders frequently express a disconnect in the purpose and importance of teacher evaluation, particularly as it relates to educator growth. At the same time, some schools are beginning to communicate student growth through a standards-based grading philosophy. One way schools might "walk the talk" of their grading…

The process of setting and evaluating student learning objectives (SLOs) has become increasingly popular as an example where classroom assessment is intended to fulfill the dual purpose use of informing instruction and holding teachers accountable. A concern is that the high-stakes purpose may lead to distortions in the inferences about students…

We analyzed teacher supervision and evaluation policy systems in 30 states since the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 in the United States (US). This qualitative study of state ESSA policy documents and legislation examined how teacher supervision and evaluation systems (TSES) models have been developed under ESSA,…

While states are no longer required to set up teacher evaluation systems based in significant part on student test scores, quite a few continue to use value-added (VAMs) or student growth percentile (SGP) models for that purpose. In this study, we analyzed three years of teacher data to illustrate the performance of teachers' median growth…

In current teacher evaluation systems, the two main purposes of evaluation--accountability/goal accomplishment (summative) and professional growth/improvement (formative)--are often at odds with one another. However, they are not only compatible, but linking them within a unified teacher evaluation system may, in fact, be desirable. The challenge…

In 2016, the federal government proposed and adopted the Every Student Succeeds Act, which retracted the federal government's prior control over states' teacher evaluation systems, permitting more local control. Kevin Close, Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, and Clarin Collins collected information from states to determine the degree to which states were…

Student learning objectives (SLOs) have become an increasingly popular tool for teacher evaluations as an alternative to Value-added Models (VAMs). However, the use of SLOs faces two major challenges. First, the target setting is mostly subjective and arbitrary. Second, there is little evidence on the reliability and validity of the tool. In this…

New York State has used the Growth Model for Educator Evaluation ratings since the 2011-2012 school year. Since that time, student growth percentiles have been used as the basis for teacher and principal ratings. While a great deal has been written about the use of student test scores to measures educator effectiveness, less attention has been…

John Dewey is known as the father of American experiential education. His views on building understanding in children through experiences in a correlated curriculum continue to influence educational practice to this day. His writings and experiments with experiential education also influenced music and arts education, most recently through the…

Student Growth Percentiles (SGP, Betebenner, 2009) are used to locate a student's current score in a conditional distribution based on the student's past scores. Currently, following Betebenner (2009), quantile regression is most often used operationally to estimate the SGPs. Alternatively, multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) may also be…

With the help of teachers and leaders throughout the state, the Indiana Department of Education has developed an optional model teacher evaluation system named RISE. Whether corporations choose to adopt RISE or a model of their own, the department's goal is to assist corporations in developing or adopting models that both comply with IC 20-28-11.5…

Results from a sample of 1,013 Georgia principals who rated 12,617 teachers are used to compare holistic and analytic principal judgments with indicators of student growth central to the state's teacher evaluation system. Holistic principal judgments were compared to mean student growth percentiles (MGPs) and analytic judgments from a formal…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify the most influential elements of teacher evaluation as perceived by K-8 teachers and administrators, determined through their lived experiences related to this topic. The researcher utilized a phenomenological approach in this study, engaging in semi-structured interviews of 11 K-8 teachers and…

This publication summarizes the key discussion from experts in the field of measuring student growth during a convening held February 2015. Experts heard about two emerging approaches to measuring growth: Portfolios of student work samples and unit value-added models that provide teachers with timely and actionable feedback that they can use to…

This study, undertaken at the request of the Nevada Department of Education, examined the stability over years of teacher-level growth scores from the Student Growth Percentile (SGP) model, which many states and districts have selected as a measure of effectiveness in their teacher evaluation systems. The authors conducted a generalizability study…