Since the early 2000s, accountability and evaluation have been regarded by policymakers as key mechanisms for "fixing" teacher education and by many teacher education leaders as vehicles for elevating the status of the profession and uniting a fragmented field. Although educational inequity has been an enduring and endemic problem during…

The Indiana University Kokomo (IUK) School of Education (SOE) collaborates with 38 school districts in the North Central Indiana region in the Clinical Educational Partnership (CEP). The purpose of the CEP is to allow P-12 administrators and teachers to give input on the SOE's program development initiatives. Education students engage in practicum…

When classroom observations are grounded in curiosity, they're more likely to give teachers the feedback they need--and want, write Sean Conner and Jennifer Froehle. Thoughtful questioning (over telling and directing) prompts teachers to construct their own understanding of strengths, needs, and next steps.

We evaluated the score stability of the Framework for Teaching (FFT), a prominent observation instrument used for teacher evaluation. Three raters each scored 200 reading and mathematics lessons taught by 20 kindergarten teachers. Using Generalizability theory analyses, we decomposed the FFT's Classroom Environment, Instruction, and Total scores…

We used multilevel analysis to examine the predictive validity of scores from the Framework for Teaching (FFT), the observation measure used most often to evaluate teachers' instruction. We investigated how well 81 kindergarten teachers' FFT scores for eight reading and eight mathematics lessons observed throughout the year predicted students'…

This study investigated teacher evaluation practices used in Indiana as the state was implementing a mandated teacher evaluation system (Public Law 90) and early reporting of subsequent teacher effectiveness results by the Indiana Department of Education. The study surveyed public school administrators: (a) superintendents, (b) special education…

Just a few years ago, tenure appeared low on the reform list for state policy makers and district administrators, viewed as too hot an issue politically to challenge. But it was front and center in the 2014 landmark "Vergara v. California" lawsuit, which challenged teacher tenure and related policies. Yet whether to grant tenure or not…

Redesigning teacher and leader evaluation systems has the potential to transform the teaching profession by ensuring that the highest quality of instruction is occurring in every classroom. However, as states and districts have rolled out new models of educator evaluation, questions have emerged concerning how best to fairly include all school…

This study aggregated supervisor's ratings of teachers trained at The Renaissance Group (TRG) and the Teacher Education Council of State Colleges and Universities (TECSCU) institutions. Fourteen studies conducted by 12 universities or states were gathered, and 12 that met inclusion criteria were included in this analysis. The total number of…

Evaluating teacher effectiveness is not new in the United States. Stakeholders both in and outside education, ranging from the federal government to local school districts, have been exploring ways to increase teacher quality and quantify teacher effectiveness for years. The current trend, however, has increasingly included value-added data…

In 2011, Indiana lawmakers established a system to evaluate teachers using existing standardized assessments as an indicator of student learning. In this study we examined one component of Indiana's evaluation system to determine whether student knowledge of the test's consequences is predictive of test performance. Using an experimental design,…

Many layers of education governance press upon U.S. schools, so we separated state actors into those internal to and those external to the system. In the process, we unpacked the traditional state-local dichotomy. Using interview data (n = 45) from six case-study states, we analyzed local leaders', state-internal actors', and state-external…

In this article, we explain how overly prescriptive, rigid state statutory and regulatory policy frameworks regarding teacher evaluation, tenure and employment decisions outstrip the statistical reliability and validity of proposed measures of teaching effectiveness. We begin with a discussion of the emergence of highly prescriptive state…

This quantitative study investigated the relationship between teacher dispositions, subject content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and reasons that school principals recommend non-renewal of teachers' contracts. Nearly 2,000 school principals in 13 states completed an emailed survey. In deciding whether to non-renew a teacher contract,…

Amid the cacophony of special interests fighting to be heard in statehouses and on Capitol Hill, a cadre of current and former chief state school officers is elbowing its way into the nation's education debate at a time when states are taking more control of K-12 education. A little more than a year old, Chiefs for Change is an invitation-only…