This study is part of the core research agenda of the five-year, Goal 3 grant funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, U. S. Department of Education "Improving the Teaching and Learning of English Language Learners: The Instructional Conversation Model." In video review of teaching, bias in evaluation or rating is evident in many…

Prior research has shown that the agreement between teacher and student ratings of instructional quality is, at best, moderate, and the associations between measures of instructional quality and outcomes such as standardized achievement are typically small and somewhat mixed across both perspectives. One explanation for these low-to-moderate…

"TAP"™: "The System for Teacher and Student Advancement (TAP™)" is an educator effectiveness program that aims to improve student achievement through supports and incentives for teachers. Based on the research, "TAP"™ teachers were found to have no discernible effects on student achievement in science, English…

Teacher preparation programs face great challenges in ensuring their graduates are prepared for the demands of today's classrooms. The authors explore how teacher accountability has evolved based upon federal legislation leading to adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Recognizing that future teachers will be held accountable for…

The quality of education and the teachers' effectiveness impact students' lives beyond classroom performance (Chetty, Friedman, & Rockoff, 2012) and achievement on standardized tests. However, some claim there is a prevalent failure to recognize teacher's effectiveness, to effectively document poor teacher performance and to provide teachers…

In 2010, district leaders of Douglas County Public Schools, Douglasville, Georgia, launched an ambitious initiative to ensure that teachers set goals that focus on increasing their effectiveness and show student growth. To achieve this goal, the district leadership team focused on common district assessments to establish common learning…

High-quality measures of instructional practice are essential for research and evaluation of innovative instructional policies and programs, as well as for providing feedback to teachers and administrators. In this study, the authors examined whether using anchoring vignettes in web-based surveys improved the validity of teachers' self-assessments…

Teacher evaluation is currently a major policy issue at all levels of the K-12 system driven in large part by current US Department of Education requirements. The main objective of this study is to explore the patterns of relationship between observational scores and value-added measures of teacher performance in math classrooms and the variation…

In 2010, the federal government increased accountability expectations by placing more emphasis on monitoring teacher performance. Using a model that focuses on the New York State teacher evaluation system, that is comprised of a rubric for observation, local student assessment scores, and student state assessment scores, this…

Teams of educators conducted lesson study independently, supported by a resource kit that included mathematical tasks, curriculum materials, lesson videos and plans, and research articles, as well as protocols to support lesson study. The mathematical resources focused on linear measurement interpretation of fractions. This report examines the…

Traditional measures of teachers' competency have been widely criticized for their lack of authenticity and predictive validity. There is little evidence regarding the technical soundness of traditional teacher licensure tests and little research documenting the validity of such tests for identifying competent teachers or effective teaching.…

This study explored the relationships among the components of the Arizona Department of Education's new teacher evaluation model, with a particular focus on the extent to which ratings from the state model's teacher observation instrument differentiated higher and lower performance. The study used teacher-level evaluation data collected by the…

This study investigated the technical features of six potential progress-monitoring measures in mathematics appropriate for use at the middle school level, including two commercially available measures for sixth-grade mathematics, two measures used in previous middle school studies, and two new measures of numeracy concepts. Five hundred…

The purpose of my study was to determine if there are any differences in performance measures of student teachers with varying levels of participation in professional development schools. The population in my study was the 2002 through the spring of 2006 kindergarten through 6th-grade student teachers from a small, private postsecondary…

Across OECD countries, governments are seeking policies to make education more effective while searching for additional resources to meet the increasing demand for education. The 2009 edition of "Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators" enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries' performance. It provides a rich,…