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…

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…

The 2009 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" provided a comprehensive review of states' policies that impact the teaching profession. As a companion to last year's comprehensive state-by-state analysis, the 2010 edition provides each state with an individualized "Blueprint for Change," building off last year's "Yearbook"…

A study of four teacher-evaluation programs--in Tennessee, Texas, Oregon, and Colorado--finds that measures of student learning can be an important source of feedback on the effectiveness of schools, administrators, and teachers. Includes extended description of Tennessee's accountability system that uses test scores in the evaluation of teachers.…

This book discusses four approaches to incorporating student achievement in teacher evaluation. Seven chapters discuss: (1) "Teacher Evaluation and Student Achievement: An Introduction to the Issues"; (2) "What is the Relationship between Teaching and Learning?" (e.g., whether teachers are responsible for student learning and…

For five years running, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has tracked states' teacher policies, preparing a detailed and thorough compendium of teacher policy in the United States on topics related to teacher preparation, licensure, evaluation, career advancement, tenure, compensation, pensions and dismissal. The 2011 State Teacher…

Issues in the use of teacher productivity as an aspect of teacher evaluation are discussed, focusing on defining and measuring productivity. The underlying belief is that the central question driving education and teacher evaluation should focus on what teachers and schools can accomplish with students. (SLD)

In 1987, Oregon moved to an outcome-based approach to teacher preparation and licensure, insisting on evidence of learning gains by students taught as one of the accomplishments that teachers need to demonstrate. Oregon's program and its implications for teacher education and educational improvement are discussed. (SLD)

The Oregon edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) 2009 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the third annual look at state policies impacting the teaching profession. It is hoped that this report will help focus attention on areas where state policymakers can make changes that will have a positive impact on teacher…

The articles of this special issue represent a compilation and extension of reports concerning work in Oregon for nearly two decades, providing the first extended treatment of that work in one publication. They establish the importance of looking at what teachers and schools accomplish, rather than what they do. (SLD)

A teacher incentive/reward program is presented based on the view that teachers should be assessed in part with regard to their success in fostering learning in the students taught. The major issue in teacher evaluation must be the outcomes achieved. The case study of an Oregon high school illustrates such a system. (SLD)

The "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" examines what is arguably the single most powerful authority over the teaching profession: state government. This Oregon edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the first of what will be an annual look at the status of state policies…