Teacher certification is an important topic in the history of teaching in American education. Policymakers have recognized that for students to meet high standards, their teachers must also be of high quality (Goldhaber, Perry & Anthony, 2004; McCaffrey, Lockwood, Koretz, & Hamilton, 2003). The National Board for Professional Teaching…

Value-added assessment methods have been criticized by researchers and policy makers for a number of reasons. One issue includes the sensitivity of model results across different outcome measures. This study examined the utility of incorporating multivariate latent variable approaches within a traditional value-added framework. We evaluated the…

The use of student achievement data to evaluate an individual teacher's effectiveness has become a new focus in educational policy. This article focuses on the underresearched teacher perception of this new policy measure. Drawing on ethnographic research procedures, this article explores how first-grade teachers in one state navigated a new…

In recent years, states have significantly expanded access to prekindergarten (pre-K), and federal policy makers have proposed funding near-universal access across the country. However, researchers know relatively little about the role of subsequent experiences in prolonging or truncating the persistence of benefits for participants. This study…

Over the last several years, Tennessee has rapidly expanded the use of student growth portfolio models for the purpose of teacher evaluation. Participation, both in the number of districts and teachers, has increased steadily since portfolios were first introduced during the 2011-12 school year, and we expect that participation will continue to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the TVAAS growth score given by the Tennessee Department of Education and the overall Tennessee Educator Assessment Model (TEAM) observation rating for teachers in grades 3 through 8. The participating county public school system for this study is located in Northeast Tennessee.…

The early childhood faculty at the University of Memphis developed the Early Childhood Education Behaviors & Dispositions Checklist for four main purposes: (1) The faculty needed a way to clearly communicate to students the expectations for their dispositions and the means of assessment; (2) It is a professional obligation in preservice…