The aim of the current study is to assess school leaders' perceptions and practices in the context of a new policy that emphasizes teacher evaluation. The study draws from survey data of 606 K-12 school leaders in the USA in a state implementing a new teacher evaluation model under Race to the Top. Findings illustrate that school leaders spent…

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…

Across the country, school district superintendents are transforming into community school leaders. Responsible for systems of learning that also include school nutrition, bussing, safety, finances, community engagement, and so much more, superintendents recognize that they need a different strategy to effectively address the learning needs of the…

The portfolio management models (PMM) has emerged as an important idea in educational governance over the last decade. In PMM systems, a district or other form of authorizer oversees a collection of independent organizations that operate schools according to their particular philosophy and strategic orientation. Yet underlying the design of PMMs…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) changed federal teacher policy in a number of important ways. This article uses No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Race to the Top, NCLB waivers, and ESSA to detail these shifts. Since ESSA is in the early phase of implementation, we analyze the policy through the lens of previous empirical work as a way of…

In this special issue exploring parents' responses to neoliberal policy changes, especially shifting notions of risk and responsibility, this article provides a historical account of local and national policy initiatives in the contemporary United States that have increased risk and placed responsibility for this risk on the shoulders of parents…

The federal government's Race to the Top competition has promoted the adoption of test-based value-added measures (VAMs) of performance as a component of teacher evaluations throughout many states, but the validity of these measures has been controversial among researchers and widely contested by teachers' unions. A key concern is the extent to…

The current study explores how principals (n = 568) experience a new teacher evaluation model under Race to the Top. Findings suggest that principals felt the least confident in their ability to identify teacher behaviors associated with student achievement gains and placed the least value on student achievement data. Evaluation experience…

As an early Common Core booster, Michael Petrilli had hoped that by now--10 years after most states adopted the standards--the nation's schools would have logged tangible improvements in teaching and learning that resulted in higher student achievement. In this article, Petrilli reviews what Common Core is and discusses the work ahead that is…

Teacher preparation programmes (TPPs) find many ways to shape the development of their teacher candidates while bridging the research to practice gap in university and school partnerships. Recently, accountability models built on high-stakes standardised student assessments (Value-Added Models [VAM]) have been mandated as a way to evaluate the…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) began to take form when dozens of educators from across the country were led by governors and chief state school officers in gathering and reviewing the academic standards of states that had the best outcomes. Their goal was to determine what the current best academic standards were in the country and then…

In almost any conversation about accountability for private schools, accountability for public schools is assumed. This is a dangerous myth. By assuming that the edifice that states and the federal government have created over the past several decades actually holds schools accountable, school choice advocates immediately find themselves in an…

This article presents both sides of the debate as to whether urban teachers need structure or freedom, and then takes a stand on urban teaching in the current high-stakes assessment climate. First, we trace the 30-year development of American educational policy in the area of structuring teaching. Then, we present research from proponents of…

Education standards do not flop spectacularly. Their failure gives rise to nothing like the black-and-white films of early aeronautical experiments: no missiles exploding on launch pads or planes tumbling from the sky. But 10 years after 46 of the 50 states adopted the Common Core standards, the lack of evidence that they have improved student…

This is the second in a series of policy notes and related publications exploring prospects for developing indicators of teaching quality. The first examined federal databases that include information about teachers, demonstrating that almost none of the measures in these datasets provides indication of teaching quality. This policy note takes the…