The CONNTAC program marks an attempt to develop an integrative performance assessment process that will measure knowledge, skills, and instructional repertoire of beginning teachers. The development of assessment center exercises and the critical role that scoring plays in exercise development are described. (SLD)

Implications of using alternative assessments for accountability in a high-stakes testing environment (using tests to make impact decisions for students, schools, or teachers) are examined. The psychometric properties of standardized alternative assessments are discussed, and the consequences of their use are considered. (SLD)

Japanese school management should consider more broad-based, active participation in school board policymaking and should democratize school board-school relationships by adopting the lay-control principle. Both U.S. and Japanese schools should improve the exercise of appropriate administrator leadership. Japanese schools are evaluated on a…

This paper argues that evaluation of advanced skills in teaching should be based on pedagogical content knowledge that good teachers should have but nonteachers in the discipline might not. Several schemes used in Victoria (Australia) for appraisal of advanced teaching skills are examined, and an alternative to competency-based approaches is…

Teacher assessment programs of four Florida school systems that have attempted to link teacher assessment, development, and school improvement are described and their efforts evaluated. Common components are identified, with collaboration, professional development, and accountability being among the most important. Each system addressed school…

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)

State documents relating to assisting and assessing teachers were analyzed to determine the major areas and the levels of state control represented in these areas. A review of documents from all 50 states highlights the rapid growth in state mandates regarding teacher evaluation over the last 10 years. (SLD)

Reasons for a national shift from traditional to alternative assessment practices are examined, and the philosophical beliefs and theoretical assumptions of traditional and alternative assessment are examined. Classroom implications of this paradigm shift for instructional strategies, formative and summative evaluation, development of rubrics used…

Discusses how recent court decisions and the move toward performance assessment may affect the adverse impact, reliability, validity, and pass-fail standards of teacher-certification tests. Recommendations are made for tests that combine multiple-choice items with open-ended tasks. (SLD)

Purpose: To provide a best practice framework for peer review via teaching observation as a method of appraising teaching performance within UK higher education (HE) institutions. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses secondary data analysis via the current literature on peer review and peer appraisal, as well as use of primary data obtained…

This paper addresses the concept of student participation in learning processes within the health promoting schools approach. A model is used as a broad analytical framework to discuss selected aspects of the evaluation data on the Internet-based collaborative project titled "Virtual Classroom--ICT, Learning and Changes", recently…

The "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" examines what is arguably the single most powerful authority over the teaching profession: state government. This California 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…

The "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" examines what is arguably the single most powerful authority over the teaching profession: state government. This Arkansas 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…

The "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" examines what is arguably the single most powerful authority over the teaching profession: state government. This Arizona 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…

This paper provides a summary of the authors' attempts to uncover links between their measures, classroom mathematics instruction, and student learning. This paper also provides evidence regarding one central critique of their measures: that multiple-choice assessments cannot validly represent the knowledge, skills, and judgment involved in actual…