Strong teacher and principal evaluation systems have the potential to help teachers and principals improve their practice, to exit teachers who are perennially ineffective, to retain teachers who are effective and learn from them, and to increase the overall quality of a district's teacher workforce. As states respond to widespread concerns (both…

Tennessee was one of the first states to win Race to the Top funds in 2010, partly based on new state policy which tied student achievement measures to teacher and principal evaluations. Nearly half of state legislatures in the United States have passed similar legislation in the past two years. This article examines recent state legislative…

The country is at a crossroads in implementing measures of educator effectiveness in K-12 classrooms. While the vast majority of states require student growth and achievement to be factored into teacher and principal evaluations, most states and school districts are now grappling with the practical realities of implementing these policies. In this…