Teacher evaluation has been closely tied to professional development. In special education, professional development experiences are meant to promote special educator learning and implementation of high leverage practices. Yet, the connection between teacher evaluation outcomes and professional development decisions of special educators is largely…

This study investigates an understudied but crucial issue in education in rural China: teacher mobility. Using school- and teacher-level data from primary and middle schools in Gansu province in western China, this study examines how school and teacher characteristics relate to teacher mobility. The school-level analysis shows that school location…

The federal Race to the Top initiative signified a shift in American education policy whereby accountability efforts moved from the school to the teacher level. Using administrative data from Tennessee, we explore whether evaluation reforms differentially influenced mobility patterns for teachers of varying effectiveness. We find that the rollout…

Education reformers are calling for increased accountability for the nation's public schools. Teacher evaluation has experienced a shift in focus from what teachers do to accomplish the task of teaching to student growth as a result of what teachers do in the classroom (Achieve, Inc., 2007). Additionally, a connection between teacher job…

Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs) increasingly are being used in the United States for inferences about student achievement growth and educator effectiveness. Emerging research has indicated that SGPs estimated from observed test scores have large measurement errors. As such, little is known about "true" SGPs, which are defined in terms…

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of teacher evaluation scores that are derived from an observation tool, adapted from Danielson's Framework for Teaching, designed to assess 22 teaching components from four teaching domains. The study analyzed principals' observations of 713 elementary, middle, and high school teachers in…

Teacher value-added models (VAMs) must isolate teachers' contributions to student achievement to be valid. Well-known VAMs use different specifications, however, leaving policymakers with little clear guidance for constructing a valid model. We examine the sensitivity of teacher value-added estimates under different models based on whether they…

Inquiry-based teaching promotes students' engagement in problem-solving and investigation as they learn science concepts. Current practice in science teacher education promotes the use of inquiry in the teaching of science. However, the literature suggests that many science teachers hold incomplete or incorrect conceptions of inquiry.…

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 middle grades are a critical transition period in students' mathematics trajectories, as students move from arithmetic to the more complex and abstract concepts of algebra. Teachers' and parents' judgments of students' math abilities in these years are important to instructional planning and decision making for teachers, and can advise parents…

Despite policy efforts to encourage multiple measures of performance in newly developing teacher evaluation systems, practical constraints often result in evaluations based predominantly on formal classroom observations. Yet there is limited knowledge of how these observational measures relate to student achievement. This article leverages the…

A critical next step in advancing our understanding of teacher practices that can equitably engage and support learning in diverse classrooms is determining the effectiveness of culturally responsive interventions. Yet, quantitative measurement indicators of the effectiveness of culturally responsive teaching interventions are scarce. Most…

This paper investigates the validity of a national, standards-based teacher evaluation programme by examining the relationship between teachers' evaluation results and their students' learning progress. We used census achievement data that assessed the same cohort of students at the end of 8th and 10th grade. We applied multilevel modelling and…

Drawing on national and state assessment datasets in reading and math, this study tested "external" versus "internal" standards-based education models. The goal was to understand whether and how student performance standards work in multilayered school systems under No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Under the…

Classroom observation is an important component of teacher evaluation systems. Most states are implementing systems that assign a composite score to each teacher based on weights assigned to several different measures. Policy discussions often address this weighting, with many states adopting formulas with high weights for the summative scores…