The Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) system in New York State (NYS) has been called into question by educators since its adoption nearly 10 years ago, yet it remains the mandated evaluation system in NYS schools today. Much of the concern has been over changes such as assigning teachers final evaluation scores, as well as for the…

College students use online sources to obtain information about their institution's professors when preparing their schedules for the upcoming semester. While there is some disagreement among educators as to the validity of these student evaluations, students appear to find them to be quite useful. Might these evaluations, however, prove to be…

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…

The time between the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and its replacement, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, marked a period of unprecedented policy-driven education reform. Unfortunately, the major objectives of the policy were not achieved, and the very problems it sought to fix still exist. One reason for this was an…

The present study investigated the concurrent validity of the Classroom Strategies Scale-Teacher Form (CSS-T), a multidimensional teacher formative assessment of instructional and behavioral management practices. The CSS-T is compared with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), a well-known teacher assessment of overall classroom…

The Every Student Succeeds Act prohibits the federal government from requiring the use of student achievement data for teacher accountability purposes. As states grapple with what to do about teacher accountability, it is critical to examine policy influences on a) the equitable distribution of effective teachers; and b) how teacher accountability…

While research on high stakes testing continues to expand, little is known about how the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers is affecting physical education (PE). A proportionate, stratified random sample of physical educators in New York State was drawn (n = 489) to survey them about their district's practices and their attitudes…

"Gulino v. New York State Department of Education" is a class action lawsuit that involves a teacher certification examination in New York. The case spanned over two decades and three iterations of the exam. The case is unique as the plaintiffs were already teaching in classrooms when they were required to sit for a new certification…

This NEPC Policy Memo presents the text of a letter from Drs. Burris and Welner to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The letter was invited by Secretary Duncan during a phone conversation with Dr. Burris. It offers concrete guiding principles for evaluation of educators and suggestions for a way forward. (Contains 11 notes.)

This article reflects a qualitative exploratory inquiry into the lived experiences of faculty members working within a system of urban schools of education as they supported diverse teacher candidates in completing the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA) during its first semesters of high-stakes implementation. Drawing upon…

Districts are increasingly making personnel decisions based on teachers' impact on student-achievement gains and classroom observations. In some schools, however, a teacher's practices and their students' achievement may reflect not just individual but collaborative efforts. In other settings, teachers' instruction benefits less from the insights…

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…

The Broad Foundation Superintendents Academy is the most prominent and most controversial training institute for school chiefs. The Academy is the flagship program of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the smallest of a triumvirate of corporate foundations that are at the heart of the billionaire campaign to remake public education in the image…

In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation's major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that…

"Value-added" measures of teacher effectiveness are the centerpiece of a national movement to evaluate, promote, compensate, and dismiss teachers based in part on their students' test results. Federal, state, and local policy-makers have embraced these measures in recent years as a means to objectively quantify teacher quality and to…